Alas, though we rarely, if ever, get to meet them, Madame Tussaud’s legendary wax figures give us the next best thing.
To my surprise, visitors are encouraged to to touch (I refrained from honking wax celebrity boobs) and to take pictures.
Madame Tussaud’s has definitely embraced the selfie generation as the masses love taking pics with their favorite wax celebs and posting them on social media.
Here are some of BQB’s faves:
“I’m wax Regis and I’m out of control!”
Kim Kardashian – the madam had to use a whole helluvalot of wax to craft that baronka donk.
Scarlett Johansson – I offered to buy this figure, not for perverted reasons, but because sometimes Video Game Rack Fighter goes away on business and I get ever so lonely.
OK so for perverted reasons.
Bleh!
I’m not sure who this man is but he was WAY more into the Scarlett Johansson figure than I was.
Not gonna lie. Teenage me would have sprayed his shorts. Come to think of it, thirties me needs to change his undies.
Moving on…
Work, work, work, work, work. Sigh, Madam T wouldn’t sell me RiRi either.
This is how we do dee doo.
I didn’t offer to buy her. I didn’t think I could handle it.
Jenna Marbles – this one warmed my usually otherwise cold heart, 3.5 readers.
No agents, auditions, or lucky breaks. Jenna hit it big with her YouTube videos.
To the best of my knowledge she’s the first Internet celebrity to be so honored.
Maybe Madam T will put a wax self-publisher on display one day?
Bank robbers. Sadness. Landscapes. Intergenerational poverty.
BQB here with a review of Hell or High Water.
SPOILER ALERT – Be forewarned of spoilers.
Chris Pine and Ben Foster team up as brother bankrobbers Toby and Tanner Howard in a scheme to rob and screw over a Texas bank chain that screwed them.
However, despite Chris and Ben’s performances, the state of Texas is the star. Some great cinematography in this film where you, the viewer, end up feeling as though you’re practically driving through the Lone Star state yourself and able to look around the flat plains and see land for miles and miles in every direction.
We’re also taken into the world of poor southern life and poverty in general, how problems are passed from one generation to the next and it usually takes one generation to do something pretty drastic (bank robbery is definitely too drastic) to change the situation for the family’s future.
I don’t know what a good example of a drastic change would be to change a family’s financial future. Maybe inventing robot underpants or some great new gadget that sells well.
Sorry. That was out of left field. Moving on…
There are a lot of themes in this movie, as well as attempts to get viewers to pay attention to problems they may not be aware of.
For example, we see the blight and decay facing many poor Texan towns, communities that used to thrive around farming and ranching, now falling apart and losing population because there are few, if any, opportunities left due to corporate takeover of many of these industries.
The banking industry is the villain of the film as Toby and Tanner are put through enough crap in their lives that you end up sort of understanding (though not necessarily condoning) why they end up driven to a life of crime.
Hunting the brothers down are Texas rangers Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham.)
I won’t explain this well because I don’t know about how Texas lawmen are ranked but ultimately, Marcus is the head ranger, lamenting his upcoming retirement and Alberto is his second-in-command, slated to replace him as the boss.
They have this great buddy cop, love to pick on each other bromance that in my mind, may go down as one of the top (and most heartwarming) bromances in movie history.
Marcus makes mean, highly politically incorrect jokes about Alberto’s Mexican and Native American heritage. Alberto returns the favor by joking about how he can’t wait for Marcus to croak. There’s definitely love there.
And the thing about good writing is by the end of the movie, you find yourself hoping that some how everyone will win. You want the brothers to get away. You also want the rangers to catch them.
Fear not, I won’t tell you what happens.
Instead, what I will tell you is that some how, some way, and much to my surprise as an ugly rights advocate (note my many columns on the #OscarsSoPretty movement in which I demand that the Academy nominate more visually displeasing actors and actresses), Hollywood suits were prevented from filling up this film with good looking people.
Chris Pine is basically the only one in the film that could win a beauty contest. (I assume there’s a requirement that all movies must have at least one over the top good looking person in them.)
Now, I’m not dumping on the rest of the cast when it comes to looks. Ben Foster, for example, has built his career on playing psychos and true to form, he looks and comes off as one in this movie.
And Jeff Bridges looks good for an old dude and I can only assume he bagged his fair share of chicks when he was in his prime. Hell, for all I know maybe he still is.
I’m talking about the extras. Watch this movie and look at the bars, the casino, all the people who are either in the background or maybe have a line or two – many are ugly (or well, to put it in more PC language, “not traditionally good looking”).
Instead, many of them look haggard, broken down, depressed, like they’ve lived lifetimes of woe and misery as poor Texans and it shows on their faces.
I don’t know how they did it. Maybe they put out a casting call for people who look like all their dreams have failed. Surprised I didn’t get a CC on that memo.
But that’s not all. What really warmed the cockles of my heart was that hot and chubby actress Katy Mixon (you may know her as Mrs. Kenny Powers in Eastbound and Down) is featured as a love interest to Chris Pine. Chris friggin’ Pine.
Just…I mean…holy shit, people. I don’t think you understand how big this is for Hollywood.
A movie was made in which epically handsome stud muffin Chris Pine played a character that fancied a chubby woman.
Sure, they found the hottest chubby woman available but still, this is great progress for Hollywood.
CUE THE RE-ENACTMENT
HOLLYWOOD SUIT #1 – Sir, we need you to approve this film that features Chris Pine taking a romantic interest in a chubby woman.
HOLLYWOOD SUIT #2 – How fat are we talking here? Orca fat or had a little too much on Thanksgiving and could get rid of it with a few months at the gym fat?”
HOLLYWOOD SUIT #1 – The latter.
HOLLYWOOD SUIT #2 – How’s her face?
HOLLYWOOD SUIT #1 – Hot face. Hottest chubby chick we could find.
HOLLYWOOD SUIT #2 – Approved. Ugly rights advocate BQB will literally shit his pants in the theater when he sees this.
And I did. I feel bad for the movie theater clean up crew. Those aren’t milk duds.
It is now only a matter of time before they cast a hideous gargoyle like me as a love interest for Charlize Theron.
Eh…ok. We’re not quite there yet. Baby steps, Hollywood. Baby steps.
Be optimistic, ugly and/or chubby people. We will see ugly and or/chubby people doing it with good looking people on screen by the year 2050 now that the path towards ugly acceptance has been started by this film.
There are traces of Oscar worthiness in this film. If it were to be nominated as a Best Picture, I think that would be great. On the other hand, it was released kind of early. Most Oscar type movies are released at the end of the year.
So we’ll see. But even so, it is, IMO, the best movie I’ve seen in 2016 (at least when it comes to serious drama as opposed to comic book type movies) thus far.
Guns. Horses. A town in trouble. White hats and black hats.
BQB here with a review of The Magnificent Seven.
So yesterday I railed against Hollywood reboots and now I’m going to be a hypocrite and tell you that I really enjoyed this remake of The Magnificent Seven (1960) starring Yul Brynner (dead), Charles Bronson (so dead), Steve McQueen (a badass even in death), Brad Dexter (also dead), James Coburn (totally dead), Horst Buchholz (the German James Dean who, like the American James Dean, is dead,) and Robert Vaughn (still alive, huzzah!)
Admittedly, I never saw the original, so the new version was new to me, which just goes to show that reboots are always new to someone and when the inevitable Back to the Future reboot comes out and some dumb kid asks, “There was an original BTTF?” then I will know my time has run out and it is time for me to dig my own grave, lie down, and wait for the worms to eat me.
But I digress. The new seven are:
Denzel Washington as lawman Sam Chisholm
Chris Pratt as drunken gambler/comic relief Josh Faraday
Ethan Hawke as the troubled yet smooth talking Goodnight Robicheaux
Vincent D’Onofrio as grizzly mountain man Jack Horne
Byung-Hun Lee as knife thrower Billy Rocks
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as mysterious Mexican Vasquez
Martin Sensmeier as Native American warrior Red Harvest
Peter Sarsgaard, who’s built a career on playing epic douches, stars as epic douche/evil businessman Bartholomew Bogue who notifies the townsfolk of Rose Creek that they have three weeks to sell their land to him on the cheap or be killed.
Not willing to roll over for Bogue’s chicanery, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett, who looks so much like Jennifer Lawrence that movie studios could save a bundle by hiring her instead of J-Law and no one would know but movie nerds like myself) scrapes her life savings together and uses it to hire the seven.
The first half of the film is basically Chisholm wandering the countryside recruiting the seven, during which time we learn about who they are and what they’re capable of and then this all leads to the second half, the ultra violent, action packed showdown.
I loved it. It had all the Western tropes that I love. The townsfolk want to bend over and take it from Bogue rather than risk incurring his wrath. Sigh. Western townsfolk always want to take it from the bad guy rather than cooperate with the good guys. Also, there’s card playing, drunkenness, prostitution, duels, gambling and so on.
I applaud Hollywood for making historical movies at a time when they aren’t doing so well. Earlier this summer, I enjoyed the Ben-Hur remake (meaning I’m a hypocrite again, though I hadn’t seen the original so it was new to me) but it did not do well at the box office.
I hope this film does well so that Hollywood will be encouraged to keep making historical movies. In fact, you should go see it to add to the ticket sales.
About to close its fourth season, this show stars Liev Schreiber as the titular character Ray Donovan, the man that Hollywood celebrities go to with problems that can’t be handled through regular channels (i.e. the police, lawsuits, etc.)
I have to admit it, when I first started watching the show in 2013, I thought this sounded like a great premise. Surely there must be a seedy underbelly to Hollywood that we mere mortals never see.
The series began strong. Ray beats up a pop star’s stalker with a baseball bat. As the show moves on, he blackmails celebs, hides their dead bodies, etc.
Problem – the show, pretty much from the start, made the Hollywood stuff a side dish and the family drama the entree.
Ray’s father is Mickey (Jon Voight) , an ex-convict recently released after serving a long stretch. Despite being in his seventies, Mickey is constantly plotting a heist, a hustle, any number of get rich quick schemes that threaten to tear the Donovan clan asunder.
It goes without saying that looking out for his brothers is Ray’s second full-time job.
Here, the actors who play Ray’s brothers shine. British actor Eddie Marsan is boxing club owner/trainer Terry. Marsan’s performance captures the essence of a man who is single, getting older, clearly depressed over not having a family of his own and wishing he could have done more in life. His brain was willing but his past boxing career left his body weak.
Meanwhile Dash Mihok stars as slow yet loyal Bunchy, sort of like the family puppy dog who from time to time declares that he too can put on his big boy pants only to end up causing trouble. Still, you can’t help but hope that Bunch puts on those big boy pants one day.
Pooch Hall, a boxer in his own right, is the Donovan family’s black half-brother, Daryll aka ‘Black Irish’ a young, wannabe boxer and the product of Mickey’s affair behind the late Mrs. Donovan’s back.
The show follows a basic formula:
Ray tells Mickey to go F himself and never talk to anyone in the family ever again because he is tired of cleaning up after him.
Mickey ignores Ray and concocts an illegal scheme.
Mickey is so charming that he tricks one, two, or sometimes all three of the Donovan brothers into helping him.
Mickey’s plan is botched, resulting in potential criminal charges, arrests, and/or other criminals coming after the Donovans.
Ray, not wanting to see one, two, or all three of his brothers go to jail or worse, uses his fixer skills to bail them out.
I’ll say this for the show – it is schizophrenic. A third of the time it is about scummy Hollywood life and the other two-thirds are devoted to the family drama.
Is it a Hollywood fixer show or is it The Departed with palm trees? (Oh, I forget to mention the Donovans are all Bostonites transplanted to California, so expect a lot of wicked bad Bah-stahn accents, kid.)
Other cast members:
Ray’s henchman Avi, an ex-Israeli agent played by Steven Bauer who often tells Ray the hard truths he doesn’t want to hear.
Ray’s hench-woman, Lena – messy haired lesbian played by Katherine Moennig. I thought it was interesting that this show has a hench-woman. And she doesn’t do the stereotypical “oh let me put on a pretty dress and fool the men” schtick. She is a pretty serious member of Ray’s fixing operation.
The other Donovans – Paula Malcolmson as Ray’s wife Abby, who puts up with Ray’s constant cheating and Kerris Dorsey and Devon Bagby as Conor and Bridget.) Viewers, you may not be able to relate to a bat wielding leg breaker like Ray (and that’s no doubt a good thing) but if you’re a parent, you can probably relate to the spoiled brat hi jinx that Ray and Abby have to deal with on a regular basis.
At times, I have thought that the show would be better if it would pick one angle and stick with it.
If it is going to be a show about a Hollywood fixer, then focus on Ray doing illegal shit to get celebrities out of trouble…OR…
…if it is going to be about a man who constantly has to bail his dumb father and brothers out of trouble, then focus on that.
But somehow, this cast and the folks behind the show make it work, tie it altogether, and provide a good story.
Thus I can’t fault them for having two angles.
I keep coming back to find out what will happen next and that is always a sign of a good TV show in my book.
And while Jon Voight has had a long career starring in many acclaimed movies, in my mind, his role as Mickey “I do horrible things that ruin my family’s lives but I’m so charming they forgive me in five seconds” Donovan is what I will remember him for years from now.
Though we’re only in mid-August, that’s pretty much all she wrote for the summer blockbuster season.
Hollywood has officially spent its load, so to speak.
So which summer movie was your favorite?
For me, I’d have to go with a tie between Captain America: Civil War and Suicide Squad.
As for unexpected surprises, the one movie that got me though I didn’t expect much from it was the Nice Guys. That was very funny. Bits and pieces of it still leave me scratching my head but overall, good movie.
I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile now because the trailer looked hilarious. Rarely does a movie live up to a good trailer but this one does.
The setup – Amy (Mila Kunis) struggles to be a top notch mom. She juggles work, taking care of the kids, the house, the dog, getting everyone to all of their activities and still finding time to volunteer for the PTA.
Blah blah blah…it all becomes too much when super perfect mom/PTA president Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) and her flunkies (Jada Pinkett-Smith and Annie Mumolo) become Nazi moms – i.e. the moms that have all sorts of rules (the highlight being a detailed power point presentation on what ingredients are allowed in treats sold at the school bake sale along with punishments for those who don’t comply.)
Long story short, Amy and friends Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and Kiki (Kristen Bell) decide to be…wait for it…”bad moms.”
Get it? That’s why they called the movie Bad Moms…because they decided to be bad at motherhood.
I don’t want to ruin it by getting any further into detail. Lots of funny R rated material. Abundant jokes about male and female anatomy. Musical montages in which they openly disobey PTA rules by purchasing sugary snacks and so on.
There’s definitely a lot of social commentary throughout.
Some things I noticed:
Millenials jumped over Generation X without waiting their damn turn. I complain about this constantly myself. Also, that millennials just lump all the generations that came before them together. Case in point – Amy’s boss is a dopey 20 year old who is convinced Amy is part of “the Greatest Generation.”
People downgraded to part-time. Companies downsizing jobs to part-time status has been in the news a lot lately. Amy suffers the same problem.
No one respects marriage anymore. Her dopey husband is caught cheating on her and makes it out like it’s no big deal and she’s being uptight.
Kids start worrying about what college they’ll go to at twelve now.
Parents aren’t allowed to tell their kids no or to tell them to shape up or stop being little jerks when they act jerky or what have you.
Of course, the overall theme is to show what the average working mom goes through. Between work, taking care of kids, volunteering at their school and all kinds of other stuff, life becomes one big juggling act where moms are frantically running from one thing to the next and feeling like there’s never enough time for everything. So give those moms a break, will you?
Anyway, lot of laughs. I had a good time. It makes me sad that Christina and Mila, who were once the teenage daughters in Married with Children and That 70’s Show, respectively, are now old enough to be playing moms who go to mom war against each other.
Oh well. Time marches on. It’s tough for us old folks in the Greatest Generation.
But seriously, it is an issue I’ve brought up to the 3.5 readers of my blog so many times, so I was so happy to see the “Millenials think anyone born before 1990 must be a hundred years old” issue in a movie.
I thought it was just me and I was the only one who’d noticed. It was worth going just for that.
OK. I’ll stop sounding like an old crank now. Get off my lawn.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Theater worthy, though the laughs would be good as a rental too.
Hollywood just made two hours of my life disappear.
If you don’t want SPOILERS to appear, look away.
BQB here with a review of Now You See Me 2.
Some critics made fun of it but I actually liked the first Now You See Me.
Sure, the plot, the “magic” and everything that happened in the movie was highly unlikely…but in a time of rebooted reboots of sequels to reboots, IT WAS *GASP* AN ORIGINAL IDEA!
If you missed the first one, check it out. Basically, a group of magicians (the Vegas performer kind of magicians, not to be confused with pointy hat wearing wizards) called “the Four Horsemen” use their magic skills in Robin Hood style, robbing from a corrupt/rich insurance company tycoon played by Michael Caine and giving to the poor.
So I was up for a second one and…meh.
Yeah. I’m sorry but “meh.”
Razzle dazzle was the original’s hook. The magic shows/tricks were fun to watch and in your mind you try to figure out how the performers did it. Plus, they convinced me that Michael Caine’s character was douche-tastic enough to deserve to be robbed.
But in the sequel, they kind of just went back to the same well. Michael Caine is still the villain, but this time his son, played by Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame, does most of his dirty work.
I don’t want to be part of the “let’s all typecast Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter so he never gets another acting job again” movement. I realize he’s been in other movies since Harry Potter.
This is the only one I have seen and in my opinion, he did well in the role. Of course, the role was of a British nerd, so yeah, Daniel did just fine.
That’s not a dig on British nerds. We love you, nerds across the pond.
I have a complaint about an issue that I wish I knew more about.
Isla Fisher played the female horseman or “horse woman” in the original and she didn’t return for the sequel.
I don’t know why and wasn’t able to find any info on it. I don’t know if it was a case where she didn’t want to return, the studio decided to not have her return or what have you.
Lizzy Caplan joins the group as the new female horsewoman.
She’s very funny and in many ways, the star of the show, but it does send a message that females are interchangeable in movies.
It happens a lot in big ensemble movies like this one. All the dudes return but for whatever reason, they just swap out one hot chick for another hot chick.
The movie suffers from crammage – too much going on packed in to two hours and not enough time to address it all.
Mark Ruffalo returns as an FBI agent/magician (which continues to be an unlikely pairing of abilities). Magic debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) continues to be a pebble in the Horsemen’s shoe (magic debunker continues to be a unlikely career occupation, IMO).
Really. Who wants to be a magic debunker? Talk about pooping in the punch bowl.
Still, there are some great scenes. In particular, there’s a card throwing scene in which…well, I’ll just let you watch it. I enjoyed that part enough to be left with the feeling that the movie wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Maybe just 97% of a waste of my time.
Woody Harrelson was also pretty funny playing his character from the first film as well as that character’s obnoxiously evil twin brother. It’s the first time I have ever seen a movie in which Woody Harrelson made a conscious effort to become someone other than Woody Harrelson.
I also liked the exotic locations. Macau, China (the Vegas of China), London – lots of globe trotting. Made me want to do some traveling myself.
Among my many complaints, the top one has to be that they really should have come up with another villain/plot other than, “Damn it! Michael Caine’s up to no good again!”
If they do go with another sequel to make a trilogy, they have got to come up with another villain.
Do you need to rush out to the theater to see it?
No.
Is it worth a rental?
Yes.
But if there’s going to be a Now You See Me 3, they really need to up their game.
STATUS: Meh. Not shelf-worthy but not quite toilet worthy.
So you can see in the caption she says, “LA face with an Oakland booty.”
As you butt rap song aficionados may be aware, that’s a reference to Sir Mix-a-lot’s classic tune, “Baby Got Back” in which the world’s premiere rapping knight proclaims his love of large butts to the world.
Blake took a lot of heat. People said this was a racist comment. I guess if I think about it, I can sort of see the point. (If you say you have an LA face and an Oakland booty, aren’t you saying that white faces are better than black faces and black butts are bigger than white butts?)
And then I suppose people might complain isn’t this too superficial? Is she seeking attention, like “Hey everyone look at my face and butt!”
I don’t know. I understand people are trying to be more sensitive about racial issues these days. But if you want my two cents, you also have to consider the speaker’s intent when analyzing these comments.
I don’t believe she intended to make fun of black people. If anything, I think she was making fun of her own butt. She is married to Ryan Reynolds so she must have a healthy sense of humor.
And if she was seeking attention…well…that’s what celebrities do, isn’t it?
What say you, 3.5 readers? Was Blake Lively in the wrong or should lonely male nerds the world over thank her for posting a picture of her fabulous badonka donk and move on?
Or heck, don’t move on. Just stare at it with your jaw dropped for awhile and drool like Homer Simpson. “Mmm Age of Adaline heiney…”
Bookshelf Battle 