Melissa McCarthy isn’t ugly but she is chubby and unfortunately, the Oscars will never allow a person who isn’t skinny to win. It’s sad such discrimination against people of size.
How long must my people suffer before we are finally recognized by the Academy?
For shame, Academy. For shame.
The Oscars are too damn pretty, 3.5 readers.
I rooted for Willem Dafoe to win Best Supporting Actor last year and for Best Actor this year. He’s lost two years in a row. The Oscars just won’t let an ugly man take home a little gold statue.
An outrage! Outrage, I say! On behalf of all Ugly-Americans, I am offended.
Who knew a movie about crap that happened hundreds of years ago could be so controversial?
BQB here with a review of “Mary Queen of Scots.”
I’m going to say it at the outset. For me, as one of a handful of fans of historical films left, this movie was a stinkburger with extra turd fries. The problem is, I think that might have been the point?
I’m loathe to cry SPOILER ALERT because you’ve had 500 years to learn the tale, and there have been a number of other shows and movies about it but the short story is Mary returns to Scotland after the death of her French husband and takes her place as Queen of Scots. This causes turmoil for Elizabeth, the infamous red haired Queen of England as two queens on one island is a recipe for disaster.
I’ll say a nice thing about this movie. I will admit it taught me a lot about this period that I never knew before. Namely, it takes the stance that the women, Mary and Elizabeth, were the calmest heads in the proverbial room, and it was their butthole male advisers refusing to take council from women that screwed everything up. More specifically, Elizabeth is Protestant and her Protestant advisers subvert her efforts to make peace with Mary. Elizabeth is like (she doesn’t say this but I’m paraphrasing), “Hey, I’m old and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else with a brain ready to take over when I croak so England might as well go to Mary’s offspring.”
But her male advisers are like, “No fuck that! We hate Catholics!” and in secret they’re like “This is bullshit we have to take orders from a broad!” Again, paraphrasing.
Meanwhile, Mary is like, “I’m a Catholic but if I take over England I won’t kill the Protestants! Everyone can worship as they choose!” but her male advisers are all like, “Fuck this! You have a vagina! My dick is superior! I must rule!”
And so, that’s the gist of the story. It claims Elizabeth and Mary wanted peace, but the hot headed males under their command wouldn’t listen to them. The injustice seems to be that if Liz and Mary had been male kings, male advisers wouldn’t have dared betray them but lost on the cutting room floor is that male kings probably would have had a few heads chopped off of people who looked at them funny just to keep conspiracies against the crown at bay.
So maybe the lesson is men have to keep their testosterone in check and obey the chain of command when a woman is in charge and women have to rough up a few muthafuckas to show everyone who’s boss.
Ultimately, that would have been a modern twist on an old tale. Men, keep your balls in check if you want to work for a female leader and women, grow a pair of hypothetical balls if you want to lead because there will be times that call for aggression.
But it doesn’t stop there. This is a very woke, very PC retelling of a classic tale, so much so that it looks like a bunch of SJWs got together and crafted it in a lab.
OK. What I’m about to say may sound racist but I’m going to make the argument why it is not racist.
Mary has an Asian lady-in-waiting an African adviser and a Puerto Rican secretary. There are also people of color throughout, as extras and in smaller roles. Thus, the diverse casting in period dramas debate is raised.
Is it the end of the world to provide to a movie about 1500s England with a diverse cast? No. Is it historically accurate? Also, no. And I guess this is where the film goes out of whack for me.
And I know, this is where you say, “Oh BQB, you are a racist douche face because you hate seeing a diverse cast in a movie.” No, that’s not it. I just think that whenever Hollywood makes any kind of history piece, they’re taking a gamble because audiences don’t flock to historical movies. On the other hand, Hollywood should be encouraged to keep making these flicks because they preserve and teach history for future generations.
Therein lies the problem. You might argue, “Oh it’s so horribly racist to look at a period piece and see no diversity in the all white cast!” but my counter would be that more and more, people turn to movies and TV as their main source of learning about history. As that trend continues, what if some nitwit, hundreds of years ago watches a movie like this and thinks, “Aww, look. Mary Queen of Scots had a black advisor, an Asian lady-in-waiting and a Puerto Rican secretary. 1500s Britain must have been a wonderful place for people of color!”
No, it wasn’t. There weren’t any there and of the few who may have been, they were no doubt treated poorly and definitely not appointed to high positions.
Director Josie Rourke explains her diverse casting choice in this article. from Refinery29.
I hope I won’t botch my take-away from the article, but it seems like she is saying that theater companies today are very diverse and when actors are honing their acting chops, it is common for them to turn to the classics. Thus, you’ll have Shakesperean and old English era plays put on with diverse casts.
Fair enough. I just…I don’t know. To me, there just seems to be something off about it. The message, I thought anyway, was, “Hey. Here were two strong women who could have made peace and kept their island from imploding if all the male underlings would have just shut their holes and done as they were told.”
In other words, the island erupted in Protestant vs. Catholic warfare because it was an unwoke time where men couldn’t drop their egos long enough to take direction from a woman.
Good message, but to me, it’s lost in the diverse casting. You can’t simultaneously claim this was an unwoke time where a lack of wokeness led to war but also, look, it was so woke that there were people of color in very high, prominent positions.
Maybe I’m a caveman. I don’t know. Any other type of movie, I’m all for diverse casting. I actually don’t even care if there’s diverse casting in a historical fantasy. For example, Netflix has a show called The Frankenstein Chronicles about 1800s London where a pair of detectives, a black and white cop buddy duo, investigate a series of murders that seem to imitate the murders in Mary Shelley’s tale. Is it accurate that a black cop would have been treated with respect and seen as an equal in 1800s London? No. But then again, they didn’t have Frankensteins either. It’s all pure fantasy and there are nerds of all different colors who love fantasy so sure, why not have a diverse cast that appeals to all the different colors of the nerd rainbow?
Further, I think sometimes Hollywood does stuff like this to excuse their failures when it comes to casting larger roles in bigger movies. For example, giving Mary Queen of Scots a black adviser in a film few will see doesn’t excuse the lack of diverse casting in big budget blockbusters. Where’s the black Batman? Where’s the Asian Ironman? Etcetera.
Back to the movie. Saorise Ronan and Margot Robbie each play their parts well. Ronan is the hotter young babe, while Elizabeth is older. There’s an underlying subtext of youth and beauty vs. age and wisdom. The older you get the wiser you are but alas, you lose your looks and the uglier you get, the worse people treat you even though you’ve lived longer and know more than the younger folk don’t. We are shown scenes where Elizabeth appears in full regal clown makeup (apparently people thought it looked great at the time though I think it made her look like Bozo.) Then, behind the scenes, we see Elizabeth with her hair falling out. She’s getting older. Wrinklier. She contracts chicken pox and spends a good portion of the movie with blisters all over her face.
Indeed, this lets Margot Robbie flex her acting muscles. “Look! I’m more than a pretty face!” However, as an ugly rights advocate, I object. See, Hollywood is so committed to racial diversity that they’ll throw diverse actors into a period piece, but Hollywood is still so discriminatory against the ugly and the old that they won’t let an ugly old woman play Elizabeth. There were probably many fifty year old women losing their hair who would have loved to play Liz but Hollywood was like, “Nope! Slap some ugly makeup on the hot chick! We need the audience to know that it’s all ok. There’s still a hot young babe under all this ugly makeup!”
Black adviser? Sure! Puerto Rican secretary? Why not? 50 year old woman playing a 50 year old woman? GOD, NO! GET HER OUT OF HERE AND SLAP SOME UGLY MAKEUP ON MID 20S HOT MARGOT ROBBIE AT ONCE!!!
STATUS: Borderline shelf-worthy, only because it taught me a few things about that time period I never knew before. Problem is, you have to wade through all the wokeness and turn to the Internet to look up what was fact and what was fiction. I think the film’s best messages get lost amidst a sea of wokeness and the problem is, the messages are woke if you sift through the PC-ness long enough to find them. Ironically, this could have been a great movie.
Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here.
As you know, I have long been an advocate for ugly rights and this year, I have no doubt that ugly actors will be snubbed yet again.
But moving on, my thoughts on Best Picture:
THE NOMINEES:
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star is Born
Vice
WHAT I DID NOT SEE:
I didn’t see The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, Vice.
Vice, to me, seems like just one big long early 2000’s era SNL sketch about a presidential administration that is long forgotten. Doesn’t seem like it should be but time moves fast. So, I’m not sure it is Oscar worthy but again, I didn’t see it.
SNUBBED:
Crazy Rich Asians was a rare enjoyable romantic comedy. Asians get so few lead roles in American cinema and on top of that, there was a message about how every young adult has to choose between making his/her family happy and making him/herself happy that is universal around the world.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? I actually just saw this tonight and I didn’t expect it to, but it really moved me. There is just something about Melissa McCarthy as a lonely old woman balling her eyes out over the death of her cat, quite literally her only friend in the world, that provides a look into the depths of loneliness and sadness that grips many people. It’s something that a million hottie actress could never convey, no matter how much you ugly them up.
A Quiet Place – I might be alone here but I feel like this could have gotten some love. It achieved a lot with very little. It told a whole story with only a handful of words ever spoken.
Chappaquiddick – A powerful case study on how there is one set of laws for the rich and powerful and another set for the rest of us schlubs. But, you know, Kennedy was loved by Hollywood so, on and on the vicious cycle goes.
WHO WILL WIN? (And What Did I See?)
Black Panther was a good superhero movie. It’s watchable again and again and when I went, there were so many black people in attendance in traditional African garb that I figured there was no way the Oscars could ignore it. They’ll never give an Oscar to a super hero movie (though if the Avengers series ever finally ends, they should consider giving that last movie an Oscar as they did with Lord of the Rings, another comic booky type of movie series, just to celebrate the achievement of finishing a series that lasted so long.)
Bohemian Rhapsody was touching and a good story about a) doing what you love b) being loyal to those who help you do it c) choosing one love over lots of meaningless sex will, surprise, surprise, make you happier. D) Confidence will get you places.
But it won’t win because alas, the original director has some perv allegations. I actually agree with that. We can’t reward alleged pervs.
A STAR IS BORN – It’s long, too long. And sad. Yet, at the same time, it was hard for me to feel sorry for Lady Gaga or Bradley Cooper. They are both just too beautiful. It did have some important messages about keeping your jealousy in check in a relationship and also, as you age, you’ll have to learn to accept that you’ll never be as fabulous as you were in your prime.
PREDICTION: BlacKkKlansman will win. It was a good movie. It tackled a serious subject with, surprisingly, a lot of humor. It’s one of Spike Lee’s best. I think the Academy will pick it not necessarily because of the movie itself but because it is critical of Bad Orange Man and in case you haven’t noticed, Awards shows like to dump on him.
Oh well. Let’s get this over with.
BQB here with a review of Liam Neeson’s last semi-watchable film, Cold Pursuit.
It’s unfortunate that the man with the particular set of skills decided to whip out a proverbial revolver and shoot himself directly in the foot before this film, because it would have been better for Liam Neeson to have gone out on a high note. I don’t what he was thinking when he publicly declared to the press that back in the day, he walked around looking to beat up any black man when one black man raped his friend but oh well, thanks for the honesty, Liam, now go sit in the corner with Mel Gibson.
Hollywood loves something that works and will try to milk it forever if they can. Earlier this decade, Neeson, known mostly for historical dramas, wowed us in Taken, being the ex-CIA spy who uses his skills to rescue his kidnapped daughter. It was something new, the beginning of a, “Uh oh, those idiots messed with the wrong guy” type of action genre that Neeson excelled at. Mild mannered men who would gladly kick back and let dust grow on them until they are wronged…and then they kick ass and take names.
The trailer of this film promises us just that. Here, Neeson plays Nels Coxman (the connotation made fun of throughout the film), a mild mannered snow plow driver who, to our great delight, owns a vast array of heavy, dangerous snow removal equipment which can easily double as bad guy murdering devices, chief among them his enormous truck with an equally large plow. When Neeson is shown using said truck to knock a car off the road with the ease one might flip an unwanted veggie off of one’s plate, I was sold.
Now I want a refund. The first twenty minutes start off as you might expect. Nels has the kind of life most good men yearn for. Loving wife (Laura Dern), a son, a business, respect of his community. Alas, when the young lad is iced by a Denver, Colorado drug running syndicate, it all goes to shit. Nels trades in his polite ways and starts murdering his way up the gang’s food chain, picking off baddies one by one, longing to eventually get to the big boss and take out the operation for good.
Had that line been pursued, the movie would have gone down as a fun thrill ride. Alas, like Bugs Bunny, it takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Many wrong turns, in fact.
A comedy of errors ensues and to the film’s credit, there’s a very dark, unsettling, just below the surface version of dark humor. The gang’s leader, Viking (Tom Bateman, who has a future as a breakout star and go to guy if Hollywood ever needs someone to play a pretentious douchebag as he does it so well here) assumes that a rival Native American gang has broken a long truce and both sides go to war. Tom Jackson provides Viking’s nemesis as the stoic White Bull, who with actions instead of words, shows us he’s a bit mixed up. During a trip to a typical, overdone, luxury ski resort, White Bull one second seems pleased by the atmosphere then remembers this was once his peoples’ land for as far as the eye could see and screams.
The rival factions go to war and Liam is forgotten for long periods of time. A running gag in the form of “In Memoriam” cards ties the film together. Every time a baddie is rubbed out, his name runs solemnly across the screen. Most of the times you see the murder. Occasionally, you’re not sure what the prospective killer is about to do with the prospective victim in his midst until you see the victim’s name appear.
It’s an ensemble cast, featuring some fairly big names, as well as a number of actors you know you’ve seen in many other films but can’t quite place their name. William Forsythe, for example, was the king of playing back-up, douchey/tough guy henchmen and or cops in 1980s action flicks. Ergo, it is somewhat fitting that he plays Nels’ brother here…as well as a long retired drug dealer whose name Nels had all but forgotten. If there’s one good part of the flick, it gives Forsythe a long awaited chance to shine and for a brief minute, step outside of the lead’s shadow.
There are a lot subplots and characters that go nowhere, as if the film were a pot and someone, somewhere said, “I like candy sprinkles! Let’s throw that into the stew! Wait, I love cucumbers! Let’s put that in and pig’s feet? You can’t go wrong with those! Hey, here’s a leftover pizza slice from last week! Gotta have it!”
For example, Emmy Rossum and John Doman play a old cop teaching young cop combo. In Nels’ hometown of Kehoe, Emmy as Kim Dash, wants to crack the string of murders case wide open. John Gipsky, the older veteran advises to leave things be. As long as the gangsters aren’t targeting civilians, let them murder each other while small town life continues. You wait, and wait, and wait for some moment when against her older partner’s wishes, Dash manages to get the duo caught up in the middle of the shitstorm but it never, ever happens. Oh, spoiler alert.
Same thing with Domenick Lombardozzi, the bald headed Italian tough guy who wowed us in The Wire, wasn’t so bad in the latest season of Frank Donovan and has a strange way of making audiences feel like he could equally give them a hug like a big old teddy bear and also smash their faces with a tire iron. He play’s Viking’s top henchman, Mustang. He seems to be bonding with the boss’s son and there’s an inkling that he thinks the boy deserves a better life than the one the crime boss can provide. Then you learn that Mustang is gay and he and his lover, another henchman, are keeping their love quiet from the boss. You wait and wait and wait for the scene where Mustang and his love take the boy, adopt him and run off into the sunset but, well keep waiting.
I could go on. There’s so much build up in all of the characters and so much, nothing. Ultimately, the movie is like the hodge podge plate you might take away from a pot luck dinner. You’ve got a piece of lasagna, some asparagus, a piece of meatloaf, a deli sandwich, some jello, a glob of tuna noodle casserole and three potato chips. All good stuff, but rather pointless together, and in such small bites, not one of them alone can make you happy, and all of them mixed together just makes you sad.
STATUS: Moderately shelf-worthy…only for cool snow removal equipment murder scenes. Also, the scenic views of the Rocky Mountains, which seem like living in the Hoth like weather would be worth it.
Gather around the round table, 3.5 readers, for it is time for a review of “The Kid Who Would Be King.”
Someone call the late, late, late, incredibly late Arthur Pendragon’s agent because that guy is posthumously hot lately. However, unlike 2017’s Guy Ritchie directed “King Arthur,” this latest flick, as kids’ movies go, is mildly enjoyable.
Let me put it this way. I don’t think it is destined to become that childhood classic that today’s youth will break out and watch year after year, but for parents, it is something you can take your kid to and your eyes won’t completely glaze over.
Louis Ashbourne Serkis, son of the infamous motion actor Andy (the guy who gets into one of those green suits with ping pong balls over it so computer geeks can turn him into various CGI monsters) stars as Alex, a British boy who attends Dungate Academy.
He and his bestie, Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), are a pair of dweebs who are bullied early and often by cool kids Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris).
While on the run from one such bullying session, Alex hides out in a construction site, only to miraculously locate the accidentally excavated “sword in the stone.” Only the heir to King Arthur’s throne will be able to remove Excalibur, so when the boy does so, this is a very big deal indeed.
Alas, Alex gets more than just a mere pointy trophy. He’s now got a duty. He must save Britain from Morgana, Arthur’s half-sister turned witch (Rebecca Ferguson.) As early narration informs us, she’s laid low in the bowels of the earth, waiting for a time when mankind has become so divided that she can easily swoop in and take over. Cue endless number of borderline heavy handed allusions to how everyone on all sides of the political divide need to stop bickering and come together to face any number of threats and dangers coming the world’s way.
As we are also told, Arthur had a knack for turning enemies into allies, a trait that is sorely needed in today’s leadership. Alex manages to do so with Lance and Kaye, turning his former bullies into his trusty knights.
Other critics have noted that the performances of the various kid actors were somewhat flat. I mean, you know, they’re kids, so I didn’t really expect any of them to break out as the next Al Pacino. I felt the kid who played Bedders had an innocent lacky quality, blindly following his buddy and saying naive, “the world is a nice place” type things to motivate Alex, things that only an innocent kid who has yet to be knocked out by the world’s endless “No” machine would believe.
The kid who played Lance comes off as a typical bully and the girl who plays Kaye comes off as his lackey. Overall, everyone did what they needed to do and I wonder if a flat performance by Serkis might have been the point. The kid’s character, is, after all, just a normal, average kid. He isn’t extraordinary. He’s picked on all the time. The kid that the whole school loves could easily get everyone behind him. The kid who gets the snot kicked out of him because kids think that’s a fun thing to do will have the harder challenge to unite his classmates against the forces of evil.
Admittedly though, the film is rather British. Had it been American, there would have been endless fart jokes, burp jokes, and so on. One kid would have definitely got kicked in the nads or something. (Not gonna lie, as an American, I think these additions would have turned the flick into a classic.) Alas, the Brits prefer to find higher forms of humor I suppose.
The character who truly makes the movie come to life is Merlin. Sometimes he’s an owl. Sometimes he’s Sir Patrick Stewart (i.e. the old version of Merlin who is only broken out when the kids aren’t listening and require an adult to drive some sense into them.) Most of the time he’s young Merlin, having taken a teenage form so as to easily blend in while keeping an eye on the kid heroes. Angus Imrie takes that role and not to dump on any of the other kids but if forced to place a bet on which kid has a future in show business, I’d put my money on this one. His take on Merlin is the main source of laughter in the film – wild eyed and crazy, performing magic spells that require an elaborate series of hand gestures. By the way, if his take on modern day fast food doesn’t get you to swear off that swill completely, then nothing will.
My one criticism is I did think some of the monsters might have been a little scary for kids, but then again I don’t think this film is meant for the wee ones. It’s geared toward tweens. High school kids will scoff. Toddlers should run for cover. Anyone in the middle will find it just right.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Holy crap, 3.5 readers.
Hollywood didn’t waste any time in releasing the shittiest movie of 2019.
And yet, it has some redeeming qualities.
BQB here with a review of “Serenity.”
SPOILERS ABOUND
At the outset, this film seems pretty strong for a January release. It’s got a star studded cast, including Matthew McConaughey (“Alright, alright, alright”), Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou and Jason Clarke.
Moreover, it starts out as a pretty decent mystery. Baker Dill (McConaughey) is an Iraq War veteran who unfortunately, brought the war back home with him in his mind. Unable to shake depression, his marriage falls apart and he moves to the Caribbean style Plymouth Island.
After spending years in pursuit of an illusive and massive tuna while aboard his fishing boat, the Serenity, his ex-wife, Karen, (Hathaway) pops back into his life. Frank (Clarke), the man she left Baker for, has turned out to be a real Dick Cheeseburger with Extra Turd Fries. He is abusive to Karen, beating and shouting at her regularly, so much so that Karen and Baker’s son has retreated from life, shutting himself in his room and playing on his computer all day just to drown out his crappy reality.
Karen has had enough. Frank is a gangster and Karen offers Baker 10 million of her shitty husband’s ill gotten loot if he’ll take Frank out on his boat and dump him in shark infested waters, making it look like an accident.
Initially, the film has a touch of old school noir style. A mystery is unfolding and there are all sorts of threads held out before you. Is Karen legit? Is she setting Baker up? Will Baker do it? If he does, will he get caught?
As the movie progresses, a supernatural, science-fiction angle grows and grows. It’s slightly hinted at in the beginning, followed by a slow build until it totally consumes the film.
Frankly, the angle is stupid. And I have a hunch someone, somewhere behind the scenes realized the angle was stupid. Ergo, the first half of the film is a mystery and then the last half is basically an extended episode of Twin Peaks.
I’ll admit, the old “hot babe asks a man to kill her husband” plot has been done before, so something new had to be added to make it interesting. I won’t give away what that is, but suffice it to say, this movie has the shittiest ending since 2008’s “The Happening” in which Mark Wahlberg learns that the culprit that was causing so much mayhem was the plants all along.
Say hello to your mother for me.
STATUS: Shitty, but shelf-worthy. Ironically, there’s good acting here. McConaughey is convincing as a broken man, and ladies, you get to see his butt for an unnecessarily long period of time. Hathaway plays the scheming damsel in distress well but sorry men, you only get to see half her butt and only for a second or two, which seems highly unfair. Jason Clarke, who usually plays respectable heroes, gets out of his comfort zone as an asshole who gets increasingly assholier until you start rooting for him to get killed. Hounsou rounds out the cast as Baker’s first mate and conscience, trying to steer his boss towards making the tough yet moral decision.
This should have been good. And briefly it was…until it wasn’t. It’s an example of how a film can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and alas, earns it’s January debut.
My advice? Wait until it comes out on cable. Watch it for the first hour, switch the channel. Maybe find a good rerun of “Seinfeld” or something.
Life’s just one big gamble, 3.5 readers.
BQB here with a review of Netflix’s “Win It All.”
I caught this film by accident, scrolling through Netflix’s never-ending list of offerings when all of a sudden, the premise just appealed to me. It’s simple and from a writer’s perspective, simple is good. Simple isn’t necessarily easy but sometimes simple doesn’t need you to keep a variety of plates spinning in the air the way more complex films do.
Eddie (Jake Johnson) is a down on his luck, degenerate gambler. His only source of income comes from his lowly job as a parking lot attendant (but only when the Cubs are doing well and fans need spillover parking.)
Addict that he is, his life is in a downward spiral, largely because whatever money he is lucky enough to get his hands on, he immediately takes it to an underground casino club to gamble it all away.
On one fateful night, a rather scary looking loan shark who Eddie has tangled with in the past makes an offer. He’s been sentenced to relatively short prison sentence and wants Eddie to hold onto a bag of money, no questions asked. Keep the dough safe and at the end of the bid, 9 months to a year tops, the crook will reward Eddie with 10,000 bucks.
I know. It is a rather gaping plot hole that anyone would trust a degenerate gambler with any sum of money, but then again, the loan shark may not have a large number of trustworthy people to turn to and frankly, his menacing appearance would be enough for most people to avoid screwing with him but alas, Eddie’s addiction is that severe.
Long story short, Eddie gambles away a large chunk of ill-gotten loot, and as you might imagine, the rest of the film circles around Eddie’s various attempts to get himself out of hot water.
The middle of the film has a nice message. SPOILER ALERT, at that point, Eddie has lost a large sum yet it isn’t an insurmountable amount. He works out a deal with his brother to take a job with the family landscaping business, and he devotes as much as he can from each paycheck towards refilling the bag of money.
In doing so, Eddie starts to feel good about himself. He’s doing productive work. He’s achieving goals. His confidence soars, so much so that he meets a nice woman. Suddenly, he’s got a job, a girlfriend, reasons for being…what a turn around.
I assume the message there is that when it comes to anything good in life, the long game always beats the short one. You’ll get better health through daily exercise than you will through a one-time sip of that snake oil supplement you saw advertised on late night TV. You’ll find a more meaningful relationship through a longtime partner than you will with a one night stand. And while your paycheck doesn’t seem like much, save enough over a long period of time and you’ll get somewhere.
Alas, SPOILER ALERT AGAIN, shenanigans ensue, Eddie can’t beat his addiction and like the alcoholic who can’t shake the booze, he keeps dipping his hand into that bag and keeps losing, and losing and losing. Like the fast food addict who knows his love of Big Macs will eventually lead to a coronary, Eddie knows that pissing away a murderous criminal’s cash is going to wind up with him six feet under but sadly, that addiction is calling and hey, surely there’s enough time to turn it all around before that inevitable bad ending right? Come on, just feed the addiction beast one last time, ok and another last time, and one more time…just two or three or twenty last times, tops and then let’s quit cold turkey tomorrow.
I don’t want to give away the ending but there was a part of me that thought it might have defied the typical gambling movie genre by letting Eddie beat his addiction through that “build yourself up from the rock bottom day by day” routine we all hope to master. Ironically, Eddie beats his addiction by feeding his addiction and while it made for fun viewing, I’m not sure that’s the best message for addicts out there.
Comedian Keegan Michael Key stars as Eddie’s sponsor or at least, friend, because as he notes, sponsors can only help recovering gamblers who are working the program steps and Eddie isn’t, at least at the film’s beginning.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie. My main critique is that in many ways, it comes across as a shoddy student film. There are many parts where the dialogue seems improvised and wrap ups of plot points seem thin but I on the whole, I liked it and I think it did have a good message, i.e. the constant ware we all face between instant gratification (do the bad thing that gives us a tiny bit of happiness right NOW and who gives a shit if it fucks up our future later) vs. forcing ourselves to be that little turtle. He’s slow. He’s steady. Progress towards a happier you seems like it is taking forever and will never happen but years later, you look around and you see yourself with a nice house, a great job, a loving family and you’re happy you took the time to solve this puzzle, one little piece at a time.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
I’m not going to spend long on this review because overall, it’s cute and schmaltzy, basically a Hallmark movie that your kids will enjoy because…dogs!
Bella (voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard) starts out in life as a puppy living under a broken down, abandoned house. When her mom, Mother Dog, is taken away, she is looked after by none other than Mother Cat.
Soon enough, she’s adopted by a family, including Lucas, a young medical student at a VA Hospital and his mother, a veteran who attends group therapy sessions there from time to time. Lucas, Mom and Bella become a happy family until an evil developer interferes and through a series of hijinx, Bella ends up on her own in the wild, lost and far away from home.
From there, the canine goes on a two-year quest to get back home, meeting all sorts of friends along the way, from a mountain lion that becomes her BFF to a pack of dogs who knock over trash cans for sustenance to a dog abandoned by his owner and more.
Happy at times, sad at others, it’s so hokey it’ll make you puke but again, the kids will like it, because there are dogs and one of them talks. There seems to be a growing number of movies with talking dogs and how the filmmakers have the patience to stare at a dog for hours on end with a camera until the dog performs the desired action to keep the film running, I’ll never know.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. FYI it is a follow-up to A Dog’s Purpose, another film based on W. Bruce Cameron’s work. This dude is raking it in on his dog books. Sometimes, all you need is a good niche, and this guy really knows how to pull at the heartstrings of pet owners.
They’re dirty. There’s twelve of them!
BQB here with a review of the WW2 classic, “The Dirty Dozen.”
Killing Nazis is a tough job, but someone has to do it, 3.5 readers.
And when it comes to a suicide mission deep in the heart of Nazi-dom, only men with nothing left to lose will do.
Enter Major Reisman (Lee Marvin), the surly soldier who gets results, but instead of the accolades he deserves, gets nothing but disdain from the brass who wax chairs with their asses but don’t know the first thing about actual combat in the field.
There’s a mansion in Germany where Hitler’s top men meet, and General Worden (Ernest Borgnine) wants them dead. The plan? Twelve men will parachute into the territory and kill as many Nazis as they can, by any means necessary.
Only the worst of the worst will be willing. Men beyond redemption facing either life in prison or a date with the noose. Reisman is ordered to recruit his men from a military prison filled with lowlives, degenerates, killers, rapists, thieves and con men – ex-soldiers who have been drummed out of the service for betraying the trust once placed in them.
Most of them are, indeed, scum without question. Perhaps one or two were just in the wrong place at the wrong time or have an understandable excuse. By and large though, these are men who would just as soon stab their new commanding officer in the back as opposed to work with him.
Eventually, they come around. The majority of the film (and it’s way too long) is spent on the training. Slowly but surely, Reisman wins the respect of these dirtballs and eventually, convinces them that he’s offering them the one and only shot they’ll ever have at redemption so they’d better take it and not screw it up. Resiman is a better man than these men, but as his superiors often remind him, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been court martialed himself, as his methods are extreme and on the battlefield, he walks right up to the “line” and occasionally, crosses it when no one is looking.
SPOILER ALERT (though you’ve had a really long time to watch it) – 3/4th of the film is spent on the training that when it finally comes time for the big battle royale with the Nazis, you’re like, “Finally!”
Oddly enough, this film makes me feel bad for the Nazis. I know. I know. They were orchestrating the downfall of humanity. But at this particular moment, they were at a party and something about all those defenseless Nazis, cowering in a bunker as Reisman’s goon squad pours in gas and grenades and blows them all to smithereens. I don’t know. Yes, OK. They were Nazis but like…their wives and mistresses were there and they’re all crying and trying to claw their way out of what will become their tomb…look I’m glad we won the war but all I’m saying is that you have to be a real bastard to kill all those people (good or evil) in one sitting and not flinch and I suppose that’s where the Dirty Dozen comes in.
Is there a point to all this? Maybe we need to take the bastards of the world and direct their skills at lying and cheating and so on and put them to work on saving the world instead of ruining it for once?
Maybe.
And maybe today, we’re all like those generals with their fancy brass, criticizing the military from our easy chairs while we don’t have one iota of what the hell of war is really like.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 