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Aug 02 2015
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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Dun dun dun da dun dun dun dun…doo da dooo..do da dooo…doo da doooo…da doo doo!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, 3.5 readers, is to read this review.

This review will self destruct in 5 seconds….

Also, SPOILERS

Movieclips Trailers – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

I can’t believe this movie franchise has been going strong for so long, 3.5.  I really can’t.

Want to know how old this franchise is?

Ving Rhames took the role as Hunt’s associate Luther Stickell when he was hot off of playing crime boss Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction.

Time, where oh where did you go?

Cruise, well-preserved, likely due to praying to the alien gods of Scientology (it pays to swear fealty to the Mighty Potentate) is as cool as ever in this one.

To Cruise’s credit, he’s a man who’s lived an extraordinary life, has nothing left to prove and yet, for our viewing pleasure, hooked himself up to the side of a flying plane.

Here’s a CNN article about how Cruise pulled this one off.  It involved special contacts to protect his eyes from flying debris (a piece of dirt flying at high speeds could have blinded him), a safety harness, and so on.

Amazingly, there was all sorts of safety precautions taken, yet the final shot looks as though he was just holding on with nothing but his hands.

Would you strap yourself to a flying plane moving at 185 mph?

I would not.  I would tell the writers they need to rewrite that shit.  Those terrorists need to be foiled on the ground.

So kudos to Tom.  You were married to Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes, and now you’ve literally flown.

So, the setup.  This go around it’s IMF vs. the Syndicate, an evil organization bent on bringing down the world.

To throw a monkey wrench into the works, Hunt has also cheesed off the CIA and MI6.

Fast cars, exotic locales, insane stunts…it’s an action movie that’s got it all.

I don’t know about you, 3.5 readers, but with these types of movies, I just go for the pretty colors and fancy special effects and don’t waste a lot of time getting bogged down by the plot.  There’s so much explanation of how someone is going to break in to some place and blah blah blah, here’s how it’s going to happen and here’s what everyone is going to do.

Perhaps you sit there with your popcorn, trying to parse out all the details, but to me, it’s all just:

ETHAN:  To break in, we’ll need the thing to do the thing and get past the thing.

BENJI:  You’ll need a thing.  But the thing has to be done with the exact thing or the thing will happen to the thing.

LUTHER:  Nope.  No way.  You can’t do that thing with this thing.  You’re going to need that other thing and when that thing happens, you’d better be ready to do that thing.

ETHAN:  So it’s settled.  We’re going to do the thing.

This is a big role for Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa (not Elsa, no one sang, “Let it Go,”), the British agent who works with Hunt.

Sean Harris is exceptionally creepy as the film’s uber villian Solomon Lane while Jeremy Renner and Alec Baldwin get into a bureaucratic turf war over whether the CIA should absorb the IMF’s functions.

Last but not least, Simon Pegg, a nerd after my own heart, returns as Hunt’s tech savvy sidekick Benji.

It’s worth the price of admission with some awesomeness you have to see on the big screen.

I always look forward to these whenever they’re out.  In this nerd’s opinion, when it comes to spy action movies, MI is second only to 007.

And by the way, there’s a great Spectretrailer before this one.  Can’t wait for it.

Interesting side note:  I noticed this movie was backed by the China Movie Channel and Alibaba Films.  (Alibaba being the Chinese version of Amazon).  Will the Chinese become major players in the American film industry?  Eh, it seems new but then again Asia bridging the gap to Hollywood isn’t all that new.  Japanese backed Sony has been around forever.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.

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Jul 31 2015
2 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Case File #004 – Snubbed (Part 5)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1   Part 2   Part 3    Part 4

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

“Daddy!”

Hettie threw herself at her father, his brittle bones barely able to resist the collision, but the smile on his face showed he didn’t mind at all.

“Are you mad?”shutterstock_225997372

“What?  Oh, no no, Hettie May, you know better than that.”

“Hello Jeb,”  Pa said to the new arrival.

“Gus.  I suppose you’ve tried to talk these youngsters out of this expedition already?”

“To no avail.”

“Let me give it a go, then,” Jeb said to Pa and then to Hettie, “I’m gonna’ borrow your beau for a minute, darlin’.'”

The Good Reverend Jebediah Blodgett.  Many a Sunday Hettie dragged me to listen to his sermons and to his credit, he was the liveliest speaker I’d ever seen, able to make you feel good about yourself and yet fearful of eternal hellfire and damnation all at the same time.

That’s a gift.

He didn’t much care for me.  I didn’t take it personally.  Like most fathers, he was convinced there wasn’t a man alive that was good enough for his daughter.

In retrospect, he wasn’t wrong.

Jeb and I walked a few feet down the platform.  He grabbed me by both my shoulders.  For a doddering codger, he had a good grip.

“Son, I’m going to guess this was your damn fool idea, takin’ an old man’s only daughter into the belly of the beast without so much as a how do you do?”

I looked down at my shoes, afraid to look Jeb in the eye.  “Yes.”

He let me go.

“I see,”  he said.  I could tell he was going somewhere with this.

“So then, when I’m all alone on my deathbed, I can thank you for stealing away my last living relative, the only one I’ve got to take care of me?”

“Jeeze,”  I said.  “When you put it like that…”

“How else am I supposed to put it?”

I looked up with renewed vigor.  I had an angle to play.

“Your daughter sings like a songbird from heaven,”  I said.

“I know,”  Jeb said.  “And I know she won’t be happy here neither.”

I felt the sting of a boney finger poking into my chest.

“But YOU’RE the one who decided to drag her off to Los Angeles behind my back.  She’d never try such a dumbfounded notion on her own.  Boy, do you know that city is nothin’ but a steaming cauldron of sex, drugs, prostitution and a bunch of felonious perverts who wouldn’t know what to do with a bible if you threw one at their damn heads?”

“I’ve heard rumors, yes.”

“You gotta’ protect her now, Jake.”

“I will.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

Suddenly, there was a slight, playful slap on my cheek.

“That’s a good boy,”  Jeb said.  “And you know, it ‘aint easy to tell you this but…”

“It’s ok,”  I said.  “I know we’ve got your blessing, Reverend Blodgett.”

Jeb’s face scrunched up like he’d just sucked on a lemon.

“BLESSING?  You think I drove my ass all the way to the train station to give you my blessing to live in sin with my baby girl?”

Boy, was I in for it.

“Son, what I’m tryin’ to tell you is this.  If I EVER catch wind that so much as a hair gets misplaced on my baby’s head so help me, Jake Hatcher, the last thing I will do on God’s green Earth is drive all the way out to LA and turn your face into a pile of raw hamburger with my shotgun.”

He probably didn’t mean it.

“Oh, I mean it, boy,” Jeb said.  “I’m old.  I’ve lived my life.  I’ve done every single last thing I ever wanted to do in this world.  And if I’ve got to spend the last year or two I’ve got left wasting in away in a jail cell to avenge my baby’s honor then so help me, I’ll do it!”

I swallowed a gulp hard.

“Duly noted.”

“All right, then.”

Jeb quickly returned to the sweet old man routine.  He walked back to his truck and returned with a black, leather bound book and a cardboard box.

“Hettie, look at you,”  Jeb said.  “Lookin’ more and more like your mama every day, God rest her soul.  I figure this train ride will be so long that you’ll get hungry so I brought you a peach pie.  I made it the other day with her recipe, but my stomach’s been doing so many backflips I don’t have the gumption to eat it.”

I got a death threat.  Hettie got a pie.  Hardly seemed fair.

The waterworks started, and how.

“Oh Daddy.”

“Now I know it won’t taste half as good as your mama’s but I hope you’ll make one for yourself when you get where you’re goin’ and think about how mama’s smilin’ down on you from Heaven when you do.”

Jeb handed me the book.

“And Jake, this is for you, some reading to keep you busy.”

On the cover?  “Holy Bible.  If lost, return to Ophelia Blodgett.”

“Make sure you see Hettie gets that when you’re done.  It was her mama’s.”

“I will.”

“And make sure you pay close attention to the pages I marked, especially the ones that spell out how fornicating before marriage will earn you a spot at the devil’s side and so on…”

“Daddy!”  Hettie said.

The piercing sound of a train whistle interrupted our goodbyes.  The cross-country express arrived, passengers started boarding, and a portly, bespectacled conductor hopped out to make an announcement.

“Now boarding the six a.m…

“At 7:30,” I thought.

“…train, westward bound with stops to include New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles, end of the line!  ALL ABOARD!”

Copyright Bookshelf Q. Battler.  All Rights Reserved.

Image courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

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Jul 30 2015
5 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Case File #004 – Snubbed (Part 4)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1      Part 2    Part 3

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

June 15th, 1938shutterstock_239019775

Bayonne, New Jersey

Two crazy kids sat on a bench, holding hands and waiting for a train that would whisk them away to a city they’d dreamed about all their young lives.

Fame.  It was an obsession that began brewing in their hearts ten years earlier, when they would swipe their parents’ pocket change and spend all day long at the movie house taking in the likes of Greta Garbo, Eddie Cantor, and the Marx Brothers, just to name a few.

The girl could sing.  The flock at her father’s church who gave her a standing ovation every Sunday was proof positive of that.

The boy thought he could act.  Overly polite townsfolk who gave him a pat on the back after his school plays just because they didn’t want to be rude filled him with a whole lot of undeserved hope.

After years of sitting out under the stars, talking about the lives they’d have one day as a Hollywood power couple – the houses they’d buy, the fancy cars they’d drive, the high class folk they’d hob knob with, they decided to make a go of it as soon as they came of age.

Needless to say, they did so against the advice of all of the adults in their lives.

The girl was Henrietta “Hettie” May Blodgett, though if any of you 3.5 readers happen to be a Jazz fan, you definitely know her by a different name.

The boy was yours truly, Jacob R. Hatcher.  You know me as a private dick for a blog with 3.5 readers.

Hard not to point out that Hettie walked away with the long end of the stick in this plan, but that’s a story for another time.

Perhaps “boy” and “girl” are the wrong words to use.  We were both eighteen.  Legally, I was a man though looking back on it now, I don’t believe I came anywhere close to understanding what that meant back then.

We were in our Sunday best, me in a moth eaten hand me down suit from my father, Hettie in the same black and white polka dotted dress that she wore to church.  Back then, people used to dress up all the time.  It’s not like today where people walk around all day long in their pajamas and nobody cares.  Whether you were going to the movies, the drug store, or clear across the country, people gussied up.

“It’s late,”  Hettie said.

“Sure is,” I said as I checked my pocket watch.  “Should of been here over an hour ago.  That whole ‘We’re Always On Time’ slogan they’ve got is a bunch of malarkey if you ask me.”

“We should have said goodbye,”  Hettie said.

“They’d of just tried to stop us.”

“Can you blame them?”

“I wouldn’t blame your pops, doll,”  I said.  “You’re surely something worth hanging onto.  Me?  I’m doing the old folks a favor.”

“I need to write Daddy a nice long letter as soon as we get there,” Hettie said.

“I left my folks a note,”  I said.  “They’ll clue old Jed in.”

“Yeah,”  Hettie said.  “‘Gone to LA.’  You’re a real poet, Jake.”

“Short.  Sweet.  To the point.  It works,”  I said.  “Hell, had I known our train was going to take a detour to Waikiki, I’d of nixed it.  If it doesn’t get here soon they’re liable to…”

Speak of the devil.  My old man pulled up in his studebaker.  Pa, Ma, and my little brother Roscoe, 5 years my junior.  It was a veritable Hatcher family reunion before there was even a parting of the ways.

Pa was in his oil soaked overalls, stains fresh from the filling station he owned.  He was a serious man with a weary face, one that looked like it’d seen too much and was ready for a rest.

Ma was a bit of a hefty gal, though she had a sweet face and old family photos indicated to me she once was a real head turner until Roscoe and I folded up her insides worse than an origami swan.

Roscoe, that little twerp, he was my spitting image.  One look at him and I saw my former thirteen year old self staring back at me.

Thirteen.  Such a lousy age.  You want to be grownup before the world will let you, but your mind still gravitates sometimes to childish things like toys and comics and all sorts of stuff that adults will remind you you’re too big for.  Utter confusion all around.

“Hettie,”  Pa said.

“Mr. Hatcher.”

“Son,” my father said as he put his arm around me and walked me back to the car.  “Let’s have a word.”

“Nothin’ doin!”  I protested loudly.   What a jerk I was.  “I’m a man, see?  And a man’s gotta’ make his own decisions and this one is mine!”

“I know,”  Pa said.  “We’re not here to talk you out of it.  We’re just here to say goodbye.”

“A family that monologues together stays together.”

That was an expression my father used to say.  I wish it was true.  I wish we had stayed together.  But if there’s one thing I inherited from the Hatcher clan, it’s my penchant for speaking in long, drawn out monologues rife with overly exaggerated similes, metaphors, and other assorted comparisons.

Don’t even get me started on the cliches.

“Son,”  Pa said.  “They say that the grass is greener on the other side but I’ll tell you I saw a lot of this world in the Great War and no matter where I went, it was just as green as ever.  I’ve seen brown grass and less green grass but I’ve never seen grass more beautiful than what’s growing on the ground right here in Bayonne.”

I checked my watch.  This was going to be a long one.

“You love the moving pictures,”  Pa continued.  “Of course you do.  I love them too.  They’re a good distraction from the real world but that’s all they are.  A distraction.  There’s nothing real to them and the people who want to be in them?  Why, there’s nothing real to them either.  Each and every wannabe actor out there will step over you and gut their own mother if it would bring them closer to earning a part in one of those pictures and that, my boy, is what you’re going to be competing with.”

“I can hold my own.”

“I’m sure you can,”  Pa said.  “But for the life of me I don’t understand why you’d want to try.  Jake, I’m no fortune teller.  I don’t have a crystal ball.  I know I’m your father and I don’t wish you any ill will.  When that train comes, if you step on it, I hope it will be the start of a course of events that ends with you starring in the best Hollywood picture there ever was.  You know your mother and I will be there on opening day with our ticket stubs in hand to cheer you on.”

Mother of God.  Is that what I sound like?  You can thank Pa Hatcher for that, 3.5 readers.

“But son, I’m a man of reason.  I’m a careful, calculating man.  I don’t like to play the odds.  ‘Slow and steady wins the race,’ I always say.  And I wouldn’t be much of a father if I didn’t point out to you that the odds aren’t in your favor here.  Yes, I hope the name, ‘Jacob Roscoe Hatcher’ goes down in history as the greatest actor there ever was, but I fear the odds are more likely that the Sodom and Gomorrah of the West Coast better known as ‘Los Angeles’ will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you a bitter, angry, shell of your former self.”

What’s that phrase people say now?  “Spoiler Alert?”

“I can’t talk you out of this,”  Pa said.  “I know that.  If I try to get in the way of your dream, you’ll despise me the rest of your life and always sit around and sulk, wondering what could have been.  Kids are like baby birds and sooner or later they have to be allowed to fly out of the nest and if they fly too soon and land on their head, well, there’s nothing Ma and Pa bird can do but be there to pick the little guy up and dust off his feathers.  And that’s all I want you to take away from this, son.  If this LA foolishness of yours doesn’t work out, you’re always welcome to come straight back home to your mother and I and you’ll never once hear us utter so much as an ‘I told you so.’  We’re your family, no matter what.”

Would that I could hop in a time machine and tell my past self to hug that man.  Instead, I just gave him a paltry handshake.

It was Ma’s turn.

Unlike Pa, Ma didn’t let me go without a hug.  She squeezed the ever loving giblets out of me.

And of course, there was another monologue.  I wonder if all hardboiled private detectives have a family like mine?  Maybe that’s why we all sound the same.

“Son, to tell you life in the big city isn’t easy would be the understatement of the century,”  Ma said.  “Now, I know there are a lot of folks out there who are ignorant.  Pa and I love Hettie.  We think she’s a real sweetheart.  And lord knows we know that life is so short that if you meet someone you love who loves you back then it makes less sense than a three-legged dog on a ferris wheel to not be together just because you’re two different shades of people that God put on this Earth to share and share alike with one another in the first place.”

Ma spit into a handkerchief and wiped a smudge off my face.  I hated when she did that.

She made a motion for Hettie to come over and join us.

“Now, I know Bayonne isn’t some kind of den of forward thinkers, but here, you’ve got your family and friends. There are at least some people who accept you two being together.  True, there’s plenty of not-so-nice folk here that will try to keep you apart but at least you’ve got people here that will stick up for you.  Once you get on that train, it will be you two against the world with no one to rely on but each other.  You need to promise me that you’re going to look out for each other, or else I’ll sleep less than an insomniac squirrel with a coffee addiction.”

I’m just going to confess, right here and right now.  Most of the time, we Hatchers just pull these oddball comparisons out of our backsides.

Hettie and I promised and it all degenerated into a three-way hug/blubber fast.  Not me.  Of course not me. Just the women folk.

It was little Roscoe’s turn for a speech.

“Brother,”  he said.  “I want you to know that what you’re doing here stinks worse than a rotten egg in a skunk farm.”

Ma was none too pleased.

“Roscoe!”

“No, Ma,”  Roscoe said.  “Jake, you and I are brothers and last time I checked, that’s supposed to mean something.  We’re meant to be the bridge that will carry this family into the the future, only now you’re being selfish and leaving me behind.  So now I don’t even have a future.”

Hate to admit, but I hadn’t even considered how Roscoe would fare without me.  I should have.

“You’ve got dreams?”  Roscoe asked.  “Bully for you.  Run off to the land of sun and beauty while you leave me to take care of Ma and Pa all by my lonesome.  They aren’t getting any younger you know.  While you’re out west being a pathetic phony, I’ll be stuck back here filling cars with more gas than a flatulent door to door salesmen and rubbing a pair of old geezers’ bunions until I’m old and gray myself.”

“Roscoe,” I said.  “It’s not going to be all that bad.  As soon as I hit the big time, I’ll send for you and you and Ma and Pa can all live in my mansion.  Why, I’m gonna’ buy the biggest spread around and…”

“Ahh, stuff your dreams in a sack, toss ’em in the river and see if they float,”  Roscoe said.  “Either way, you’re all wet.”

I attempted to shake Roscoe’s hand but he pulled his away, stormed back to the car and slammed the door.

“Roscoe Jacob you get back here right now and apologize to your brother!”  Ma commanded.

“Nothin’ doin’!”

“Roscoe, you don’t want your last words to be unkind…”

“It’s ok, Ma,”  I said.  “He’s stubborn.  Probably gets it from me.”

To clarify, I should explain to you 3.5 readers that Ma’s father was Roscoe, and Pa’s father was Jacob.  Both grandfathers were so revered by my parents that they named both their boys after them.  Twice.  I’m Jacob Roscoe.  My brother’s Roscoe Jacob.

Maybe we Hatchers skimp on creativity when it comes to baby names because we’re saving our imaginations for our monologues instead.

“Mrs. Hatcher,”  Hettie said to my mother.  “Can you tell my father where I am?  I don’t want him to worry.”

With perfect timing, a rickety, rust bucket of a pick-up truck pulled up and an old-timer wearing a pair of suspenders stepped out.

“I already did, dear.”

Copyright (c) Bookshelf Q. Battler 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

Image courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

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Jul 29 2015
4 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Case File #004 – Snubbed (Part 3)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1     Part 2

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

It was time to review the evidence.  The tweets themselves.  I stopped by the library in my fancy new ride and asked Agnes to pull them up for me.

This one from MTV stuck out at me like a sore thumb on the hand of man who’s been scratching himself all day:

“I don’t get it,” I said as I stared at the screen of one of the library’s beep boop machines.  “The media’s made it out like this gal was left out in the cold but here a reputable source like Music Television indicates she WAS nominated.”

“I don’t care, Jake,”  Agnes said.  “Music hasn’t gotten any better since Danny Kaye if you ask me.”

I felt a ba-bump in my heart and grinned like an idiot.

“What’s with that look?”  Agnes asked.

“Don’t ever change, Ag,” I said.  “Hell, if your face didn’t look more worn out than the first baseman’s glove during Game Seven of the World Series, I’d propose right here and now.”

“Whatever,”  Agnes said.  “I just wish the city would do something about all the transients who wander in here all day and make me look up nonsense for them.”

I’m pretty sure she was talking about somebody else.

Moving on, I asked Agnes to look up all of the VMA award nominees.  Here’s what I saw:

BEST FEMALE VIDEO

Nicki Minaj – “Anaconda”

BEST HIP HOP VIDEO

Nicki Minaj – “Anaconda”

BEST COLLABORATION

Jessie J + Ariana Grande + Nicki Minaj – “Bang Bang”

“She was nominated three times,”  I said.  “Agnes, can you believe the snow job the press is trying to pull here?”

“Uh huh,”  Agnes said as she pulled up a website called “Jobs-A-Plenty.”

“Let me see if I kind find something for you.”

“Go back to Tweeter,”  I commanded.

“Here we go,”  Agnes said.  “Dishwasher.  Minimum wage.  Will train.  This has your name written all over it.”

“I’m on the job right now, woman!  Will you put the blasted Tweeter-ma-bob back on already?”

“Ugh,” Agnes said as she complied.  “I swear society just doesn’t do enough to help the mentally unstable.”

“There!”  I said, tapping my finger on the screen.  “Right there!”

“So what?”  Agnes asked.  “What is so important about this that you’re interrupting my coffee break?”

This caper had become what I like to call a “Kaleidoscope Case.”  In other words, with every angle, there’s a new point of view.

Some of the ones I’ve heard so far:

  • Minaj is super rich and ultra famous.  Few people ever sniff that rarified air.  A lot of folks who have seen their dreams go bust would love to be in a music video and you wouldn’t hear them complaining about only getting three nominations.
  • Her biggest video is just a bunch of posteriors flapping in the breeze.  (That reminds me, I need to review it again for research purposes.)  Is it really deserving of any award?
  • But then again, she never said she wasn’t nominated at all.  “Nicki Got Snubbed” is just one more example of press hype.
  • What does “different kind of artist” mean?  Is she talking about race?  That she has a little more junk in the trunk than the skinny waifs that dominate the entertainment industry?  Both?
  • Forgetting about the butt content of her video, is it possible to see her tweet as a springboard to a conversation about racial and body type diversity in the music industry?

So many questions.  So little time.  And at the end of the day, I was only going to get five bucks.

I understand the “she’s too rich to complain” argument.

I even get the “Anaconda is just a bunch of butts wagging around and has no artistic merit” argument. (Though I might have to watch it again just to make sure.)

But as for race and body type diversity – I suppose there’s always a need for that conversation.

3.5 readers, you might think things are hunky dory these days, but it’s always a good idea to talk about the past so that it doesn’t get repeated.

Let me tell you about the racism I witnessed in my day.

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Jul 26 2015
5 Comments
Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Southpaw (2015) – Special Guest Reviewer – Jake Hatcher

By:  Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye

BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: A special treat for you, 3.5 readers.  If you’re following Pop Culture Mysteries, then you know that the Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye, Jake Hatcher, was once a formidable pugilist.  His fists of fury brought down a number of vicious opponents, not to mention the Third Reich.

Thus, I decided to take a powder for this review and allow “The Jersey Jabber” to take over.

Jake Hatcher, Guest Movie Reviewer

Jake Hatcher, Guest Movie Reviewer

Another Saturday night and no dame to while away the hours with.  I was lonelier than an injured dog with one of those safety cones around its neck that renders it unable to lick itself.

To my surprise, I stepped into my office and found an envelope on my desk.  Inside?  A movie ticket for the film Southpaw and the following note:

See a movie on me, Hatcher.  It’s the least I can do for the man who keeps my 3.5 readers entertained with tales of daring-do.

Sincerely,

Bookshelf Q. Battler

Blogger-in-Chief for the Bookshelf Battle Blog

Huh.  Delilah must have dropped it off while I was at the liquor store.

Did I say liquor store?  I meant to say while I was putting in a hard day of sleuthing.

Much appreciated, Mr. Battler.  Though honestly, the least you could have done was pony up the dough for two tickets. Hell, you could have even talked that looker of a lawyer of yours into accompanying me.

Dim lights.  Emotional flick.  Perfect atmosphere to sneak in a little smooch-a-roo but oh well.  Who am I kidding?  I’ve got a better shot at stealing the Queen of England’s crown jewels than I do at stealing a kiss from the delicious dish Delilah K. Donnelly.

You know, 3.5 readers, in my day films were only shown for a limited time.  If you missed it, it was tough titty said the kitty. Thus, if some turkey gobbled up the action that you missed, you’d allow him to give you an earful and you’d thank him for it, because by and large, word of mouth was the only way you’d find out about the story you missed.

Things are different today.  Miss a film in the theater?  Just watch it on your television.  Or your phone.  Or those damn i-Whatevers.  Big phones basically.  Watch a movie on your toaster, your toothbrush, your refrigerator, your cuisinart.  If it’s a beep boop machine, then you can watch a damn movie on it.

And you can watch it whenever you want too.  On the can, in line at the delicatessen, at the dentist’s office while your teeth are getting drilled, while you’re pretending to give two shits about whatever it is your dumb friend is saying, it doesn’t matter.

Bottomline – I’m supposed to warn you that this review has more SPOILERS than Ms. Donnelly has beauty, so if you haven’t taken it in yet, then take a walk, Jack.

Movieclips Trailers – Southpaw

Mr. Battler, all complaints about your cheapness aside, I do thank you for giving me the chance to watch this movie.  It brought the good old days of my boxing career back to me faster than a Maserati with a brick on the accelerator.

So this fella, Jake Gyllenhaal.  I take it he’s the cock of the walk in Tinsel Town these days.  I’m not light in the loafers or nothin’ but I can tell a handsome man when I see one so I imagine the broads go gaga over this galoot.  Guys like that have their choice of roles so it’s to his credit that he chose this one, since it’s not exactly a glamorous one.

Gyllenhaal plays Billy Hope, an ironic name to be sure because this cat becomes utterly hopeless.

At the start of the picture, Hope has it all.  A mansion the Sultan of Brunei would be happy to call home.  A swimming pool you could sail a battleship through.  More friends than he can shake a stick at.  An adorable daughter and a wife who’s hotter than a bowl full of jalapenos.

(I just have to say that to entertain the 3.5 readers, Ms. Donnelly.  You know she’s got nothin’ on you.)

Have you folks taken a gander at this Rachel McAdams broad?  All I can say is I’ll see your “Hubba Hubba” and raise you an “Awooga!”

That gal is easy on the eyes, let me tell you.  For most of the first part of the movie, she runs around in a skimpy dress that really shows off her dynamic derriere.

Not that I want to pay attention to stuff like that, but I am a private detective.  It’s my job to notice these things.

Anyway, you don’t need to listen to me flap my yapper all night, so let me give you the straight skinny.

Hope’s world comes crashing down when Miguel Escobar, a rival for the heavyweight belt, makes an inappropriate comment about Mrs. Hope.  The champ gets madder than a box full of boll weevils, a fist fight ensues, and both fighters’ entourages join in the melee.

A gun is drawn and fired, Mrs. Hope takes a bullet and croaks like a frog on a log and yours truly is left to suffer without McAdams’ keister to gawk at for another hour and a half.

Again, I was just doing my job.

Luckily, there was plenty of other action to make up for the lack of McAdam’s marvelous mangoes.  I won’t rat out the details but the whole mess causes Hope a whole heap of financial and legal problems, see? He loses his house, his money, his kid and hits rock bottom, a place this gumshoe knows only too well.

It’s up to down and out trainer Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker) to give Hope some hope and bring him back from the brink of self-destruction.

Curtis “50-Cent” Jackson plays Hope’s conniving manager Jordan, a real slick type who drops Hope like a bad penny when the going gets tough.

As if there wasn’t enough irony in this film, 50-Cent is the fella that springs the bad news to Hope that he’s got less cash than a check-out register at a discount dime store.  Word on the street is that 50, or “Fiddy” as I hear folks call him, just filed for bankruptcy and his nickname has become more than apt.

Can anyone explain to me what a rapper is?  I woke up a year ago after a 59-year nap and like a kangaroo with a sewn up pouch, I’m confused.  All I can gather is they talk fast in rhyme to a beat.  It’s like being a real smooth Lord Byron I suppose.

Whatever rapping is, the film is accompanied by a soundtrack that rap aficionados will want to check out.  Fiddy is featured on the album, and another fella called Eminem offers up a diddy called, Phenomenal.

It’s catchy.  You should listen to it.  I hummed it for awhile after I got home until Ms. Tsang kicked me out of her kitchen because she couldn’t stand to listen to me anymore.

Can’t say as I blame her.  Sometimes I’m not the best company.  Just ask the three ex-Mrs. Hatchers.

I tip my fedora to Gyllenhaal.  The key to great acting is to transform into someone the audience doesn’t recognize, and Jake does that here.

(Try not to get confused, 3.5 readers.  The star’s name is Jake, but my name is also Jake.  Two Jakes, no waiting.)

Hope is a mumbling, bumbling fella, a punch drunk palooka who’s taken one too many smashes to the cranium.  He’s a powder keg full of rage and ready to see the slightest provocation as the match needed to set him off.  Gyllenhaal plays him to a tee.

Acting isn’t an easy gig.  When I first arrived in LaLaLand, I gave the old thespian routine a go and was laughed at by the entertainment industry power brokers like I was a clown in a pair of polka dot pants.

I try not to think about that though.  Sometimes when you fail, all that really happens is you come that much closer to figuring out what you’re good at.

Me?  I have two skills:

1)  Sleuthing.

2)  Punching dangerous desperados in the face.

Word has it Mr. Battler will even help me regale you 3.5 readers with the tale of how I became so good at the latter.  All I’ll say for now is I wish I’d never allowed that scumbag Mugsy McGillicuddy to force me to take a dive.  It cost me my chance at fame and fortune but even worse, my sweet, sweet Peaches.

If you want my recommendation, this film is worth your time.  It’s a gut wrenching story of loss and redemption.  The moral of the tale?  Appreciate what you’ve got and don’t stoop to the bad guy’s level or else you’ll lose it in an instant.  Sometimes the bigger man is the one who walks away.

Mr. Gyllenhaal, keep at it.  I think this acting thing of yours is going to work out for you.  And again, just because I pointed out that you’re a man of dapper visage doesn’t make me some kind of switch hitter for the Oakland Athletics.

Finally, I’d just like to say if my courtship of Ms. Donnelly doesn’t work out, you’re welcome to stop by Tsang’s Hong Kong Palace and eat my special egg roll, Ms. McAdams.

That’s not some kind of inappropriate innuendo.  Ms. Tsang shared her recipe with me and I make a mean plate of those delicious appetizers.  We could share a meal and shoot the bull was all I was trying to say.

Is it hot in here or is it just me?  Must be this damn trench coat I’m wearing in July.

Jake Hatcher is a hardboiled film noir style detective who fell asleep in 1955, woke up in 2014, and was recruited in June of this year by Bookshelf Battle Blog Lead Counsel Delilah K. Donnelly to solve 100 Pop Culture Mysteries.

If you have a question about movies, music, TV, books, or other forms of entertainment, drop a dime to Bookshelf Q. Battler by tweeting @bookshelfbattle and he’ll put Hatcher on the case.

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Jul 25 2015
2 Comments
Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Pixels (2015)

Hey parents!  Remember all those video games you loved as a kid?

Well, they’re so old that they’ve become quaint!

Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of Adam Sandler’s action movie for kids, Pixels.

Even Pac-Man couldn’t gobble up the oncoming SPOILERS fast enough.

Movie Trailer – Pixels – Sony

Sometimes it’s hard to be Adam Sandler.

He wowed people in the 90’s with hits like Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison.  Those are two films that are still quotable today.

(You’ve never told someone something they just said made no sense and everyone is now dumber for having heard it?)

But then he made a slew of lesser films that fell flat and now he’s the point where everyone expects his movies will suck.

To his credit, this one didn’t.

If you’re looking for highbrow entertainment, then you’ll probably think it does.

If you’re a parent looking for a movie to bring your kids to that won’t bore you to tears, then you’ll enjoy it.

As kids, Sandler (Brenner), Kevin James (Cooper), Josh Gad (Ludlow), and Peter Dinklage (Eddie) once competed in a 1980’s video game tournament.

Back in those days, the lads thought the world would one day be their oyster.  Alas, they find life pretty disappointing as adults.

Brenner, who once dreamed of becoming a tech genius works at a Best Buy-esque home TV installation company.  Ludlow has become a wacky conspiracy theorist who still lives with his grandma and Eddie?  I won’t spoil it for you.

The only one who had life go his way was Cooper, but I won’t spoil that for you either.

Needless to say, the buddies who once believed their video game skills were useless in the real world become the world’s only hope when aliens attack using video game warfare.

Turns out, aliens aren’t that bright.  (Don’t tell Alien Jones).

Footage of the video game tournament was sent to outer space as an example of Earth culture in the hopes that friendly aliens would discover it.  Alas, the aliens take it as a challenge and develop real life versions of 1980’s video games to attack Earth.

Completely silly I know, but you’ll enjoy the special effects as Brenner and friends take on Centipede, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and so on.

There’s plenty of celebrity appearances.  Brian Cox plays a cranky American general and Sean Bean plays his British counterpart.  Michelle Monaghan plays Brenner’s love interest/Army inventor of anti-alien video game technology.

Josh Gad steals the show with his antics until Dinklage steals it from him with his obnoxious, egotistical character.

Q-Bert becomes the Jar Jar Binks of the film but that’s besides the point.

Will you, as once said to Happy Madison, be dumber for watching this movie?  Maybe.  But if you suspend disbelief and silence your inner critic, you’ll be entertained.

But if you can remember a time when arcades were fun and popular, then you might want to skip it because you’ll be left feeling old…unless you’re feeling nostalgic.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.

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Jul 20 2015
3 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: BQB’s Working On It

Hello 3.5 Readers.

WOMAN: I'm scared! OPERATOR: Because there's a man in your house? WOMAN: No because BQB hasn't posted any new Pop Culture Mysteries yet!

WOMAN: I’m scared!
OPERATOR: Because there’s a man in your house?
WOMAN: No because BQB hasn’t posted any new Pop Culture Mysteries yet!

Bookshelf Q. Battler here.

Funny thing about being an aspiring writer.

Literally no one respects the process.

Here’s how my past week has been.

BQB:  Uh, HELLO?!  Can everyone leave me alone?  I’m trying to write a whimsically fun story about a private dick who woke up after a 59 year nap and now solves mysteries related to popular culture!

EVERYONE:  BAH HA HA HA! F*&K YOU AND DO OUR BIDDING, SLAVE!

Here’s hoping there will be more free time in the week ahead.

My problem has never been one of writer’s block.

I have too many ideas.  I just never have enough time.

But I know I have to pick one and this seems like a good one, with a structure that fits my life.  I can post pieces of a mystery, form an ongoing story, and then hopefully manage to produce a book at the end of the season.

Until next time, 3.5.

Photo courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

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Jul 19 2015
10 Comments
Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Ant-Man (2015)

While other heroes might be larger than life, this one’s going small.

Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of Marvel’s latest summer smash hit, Ant-Man.

Be forewarned – the SPOILERS ahead aren’t tiny.

Ant-Man – Marvel – Movieclips Trailers

Try this one on for size (pun intended.)

In a comic book world where one superhero is big, bolder and badder than the next, this guy’s power comes from becoming super miniscule.  Not only that, but he controls a legion of ants who become his buddies.

Sounds epically stupid, right?

And yet, somehow Marvel pulls it off with great gusto in one of its best offerings this year.

Michael Douglas plays Dr. Hank Pym, whose Pym particle allows miniaturization.  The wearer of a suit infused with Pym’s creation allows the wearer:

  • To become tiny
  • And therefore able to infiltrate places held by the enemy undetected
  • To still pack a human sized punch despite being small
  • To become big and small at will, thus further ability to fake out the enemy
  • To control a legion of ant lackeys willing to do your bidding

Years ago, Pym put the kibosh on his creation, refusing to share it with the government out of fear it could fall into the wrong hands and be used for nefarious purposes.

Flash forward to today, where Pym’s protege, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll of House of Cards fame) has managed to recreate Pym’s research to create “Yellowjacket,” a suit that allows the wearer to become small, fly around and shoot lasers.

Cross has evil plans for his creation and that’s where ex-con Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) comes in.

Pym’s too old to don the suit himself, refuses to put his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) at risk by allowing her to wear it, and thus Scott is recruited to become…dun dun dun…ANT-MAN!

This is a heist movie, more or less Marvel’s version of Ocean’s 11, as Scott must infiltrate Cross’ security and make off with the Yellowjacket tech before Cross’ evil plans are unleashed on the world.

I love Avengers, but here’s the thing.  Iron Man has super intellect.  The Hulk has super strength.  Thor has muscles out the wazoo.  Capt. America is the world’s ultimate soldier.

Try as much as you like, but you’ll never get to be like one of these guys.

That’s why Ant-Man is such a relatable character.  When Scott dons the Ant-Man suit, he doesn’t react with great poise and precision.  He gets slapped all over creation, avoiding people trying to step on him and a hungry rat who thinks he looks delicious.

He needs Pym to train him and he needs a lot of work as he makes a lot of mistakes along the way (as most average people would when gaining a special ability for the first time).

There’s cross-over into the Avengers world, though I won’t spoil it with details.  Fans won’t be disappointed.

Paul Rudd, known for his comedic roles, was the perfect choice for the part.  Meanwhile, it was great to see Michael Douglass, whose suffered health problems in recent years, back on the big screen in a major role.  Thanks to some fancy effects, there is a flashback part where he’s youth-i-fied to the point where he looks like he could fight Glenn Close for boiling his bunny (aw come on, you’ve had plenty of time to watch Fatal Attraction.)

It’s been awhile since Hollywood’s attempted a good big person becomes small movie.  Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, is the last one I can remember.

The key to this movie is it takes itself seriously when necessary, but there’s also balance where the goofy premise is poked fun at.  Epic fight scenes are shown on a small scale, where Ant-Man squares off against Yellowjacket in a daring, death defying struggle, but then panned out on a regular human sized scale their fight on a child’s train set looks like a few toys being tossed about.

Scott’s ex-con buddies who back him up also provide much comic relief.

Hollywood’s been at this one for awhile.  Ant-Man was in play for at least a decade before reaching the big screen.  The public had to develop a thirst for super heroes and a great team had to be put together, one that was self-aware that the concept is goofy and could portray that one the screen while also providing the high stakes, do or die situations that comic book fans love.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy

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Jul 18 2015
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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Trainwreck (2015)

A hard partying, traditional lifestyle loathing gal is forced to face her fear of commitment when she meets a man worth committing to.

Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of Amy Schumer’s comedy Trainwreck.

SPOILERS ahead that will totally wreck your good time if you haven’t seen it yet.

Trainwreck – Movieclips Trailers

3.5 Readers, let me start with this:

I LOVE AMY SCHUMER.

Male or Female, I think she’s the funniest comedian out there right now.

Her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer, regularly leaves me in stitches.  In particular, two sketches she put out this season have caused her stock to rise:

  • Last F*&kable Day – Amy has a picnic with Julia Louis Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette and hilariously discuss how the media puts an expiration date of female actresses, leaving them unable to play anything other than frumpy mother types whereas male actors are left to play leading men until a ripe old age.  (“Remember how Sally Field played Tom Hanks’ love interest in Punchline and then five minutes later she was his mom in Forrest Gump?”)
  • Twelve Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer – In a parody of the classic jury deliberation film, twelve men deliberate whether or not Amy is hot enough to be allowed on TV, thus pointing out how women are often judged more on their looks than what actual talents and qualities they have to offer.

But before you rush to label her some kind of radical feminist, keep in mind she’s an equal opportunist when it comes to dishing the dirt, and in this reviewer’s eyes, there’s no better sign of a great comic than pulling no punches.

In other words, while she’s been great at pointing out difficulties women go through, she also gets men have it tough at times as well.  Thus, there’s the sketch where she dons the guise of a karate sensei and educates men on how to verbally spar with their angry girlfriends (“She will be unable to defy the authority of therapy and Oprah”)  or the sketch where women walk through the “Museum of Boyfriend Outfits” and react to various bad outfits worn by boyfriends as if they were some of history’s greatest atrocities. (In other words, sometimes women judge men a bit too harshly as well).

In short, she’s great.  I’m a big fan.  A big, big fan.

That’s why it’s hard for me to say answer this question:

Is this a good movie?

Answer:  It depends.

If you’re going because you love her TV show and were hoping this movie was going to be Amy’s big break to knock it out of the park, then you might be disappointed.

At least I was.

I judge comedies based on one question:

Did it make me laugh?

Answer:  Only a few times, and mostly at characters other than Amy’s.

Laughter is the most honest of emotional reactions.  Either something tickles your funny bone or it doesn’t.

For the most part, this didn’t.

Everyone’s sense of humor is different.  You might disagree and love it.

Colin Quinn doesn’t disappoint as Amy’s dad, Gordon, the womanizing commitment phobe whose bad example sets Amy up for a lifetime of cheap one-night stands and avoidance of any real intimacy.

Surprisingly, NBA superstar LeBron James steals the show.

Often times, sports star cameos in movies are flat.  Athletes aren’t trained in the theatrical arts, after all.  But LeBron, who plays himself as the friend of sports doctor Aaron (Amy’s love interest), turned in a funny performance that left me feeling like he was comfortable in front of a camera.

Hell, if this basketball thing ever stops working for him, he has a second career waiting for him as a thespian.

But while Colin and LeBron provided me with some chuckles, Amy just didn’t razzle my dazzle in this one.

Am I being too hard on her?  Maybe.  Maybe it’s just because her show is so great that I was expecting to roll in the aisles for this movie.  Maybe I built it up too much in my head.

Or maybe gut busting laughter wasn’t what the film was meant to be about, because if your goal in seeing it is to take in a sweet romance (albeit with R rated debauchery mixed in), it does actually deliver.

The theme that ties the movie together?  People today are so interested in petty nonsense that doesn’t matter.  Looks.  Status. Fashion.

Amy works at a stereotypically fluff magazine where she and her co-workers write catty articles that judge people all day.

But as the story points out, if you’re too focused on getting drunk and random hook-ups, then you might let someone who’d bring a lot of joy into your life pass you by.

There’s been a bunch of movies where the man is the one who needs to tone down his playboy lifestyle in order to let a special lady into his heart.  Here, Amy puts a modern twist on that old rom-com trope by being the woman who needs to decide whether meaningless trysts are worth passing up a good life with a wonderful man who’d do anything for her.

For me, the scene that makes the movie work comes when Amy’s nephew asks his aunt whether or not she likes Aaron.  Amy stumbles, says yes, but then starts to go into a longwinded explanation as to why that’s not enough, but the kid just interrupts with a, “Why don’t you invite him over?”

TRANSLATION:  So many potentially great relationships hid the skids when people talk themselves into dumping people they like for silly, superficial reasons.

If two people like each other and get along, they need to hold onto each other for dear life, because those kinds of relationships are hard to find.  If passed up, they rarely, if ever, come along again, at least not anytime soon.

STATUS:  C- Comedy.  B+ Love Story.  Amy and Bill get a chance to display their acting chops.  Not the knockout I hoped it would be, but don’t feel too bad for Amy.  Her mug’s all over the place these days.

Not shelf-worthy but worth a rental.

(But for the record, few people in the entertainment industry have done more to champion the idea that people shouldn’t be judged based on their looks than Amy Schumer, so on that note, A+)

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Jul 16 2015
1 Comment
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Case File #003 – Relationships (Completed Case File)

5 bucks a case?  I need to renegotiate my contract.

Ever the pop culture fanatic, my boss, the exceptionally poindexterish Bookshelf Q. Battler, was a fan of a series of science fiction films about a teenage boy who travels through time with the aid of an elderly mad scientist with crazy hair.

Fine flicks to be sure, but the question on the boss’ mind?

How the hell did these cats know each other?

Most movies give you at least an inkling about how the main characters met, but this secret was tougher to crack than a titanium walnut.

The patented Jake Hatcher finesse was going to be needed for this one. Luckily, it was always in stock.

Part 1 – BQB’s attorney, the dazzling debutante Delilah K. Donnelly might have been the apple of my eye, but I was clearly the gum stuck under her shoe.  I hoped her late night visit was a sign she was hungry for a heaping helping Hatcher of hash browns.

Part 2 – Speaking of relationships, I reveal to the 3.5 readers of this site how my landlady, Ms. Tsang and I met…a long, long time ago.

Part 3 –  Agnes the Librarian does my homework again for me.  I ought to split the five bucks with her but…I’ve got expenses.

Part 4 – Like so much laundry, I hang up the research and figure out what’s dry and what’s all wet.

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