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Mar 24 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Who ya gonna call, 3.5 readers?

BQB for a review, that’s who.

First, let me hand it to this franchise. At a time when brick and mortar movie theaters are dying on the vine, these flicks put butts in seats. My local cinema, usually sparse on any other night, was packed to the rafters tonight, with nerds of all ages dressed in Ghostbusting outfits, ready to enjoy the show. That’s not bad for a 40 year old movie series.

I went into this expecting great disappointment, but I was pleasantly surprised. IMO, it’s very good and I advise all 3.5 of you that it is worth your time.

Why did I think it would be poopy? A) The last two installments weren’t so hot – i.e. Lady Ghostbusters of 2016 and Ghostbusters: Afterlife of 2021. Actually, I thought 75 percent of Afterlife was a decent movie with the late Egon Spengler’s grandkids, daughter and her BF coming together with friends to solve the mystery of Egon’s last ghost hunting case only to SPOILER ALERT just copy the ending of the original film in the last 25 percent of the movie. Lame.

B) The reviews of this installment were awful. All the critics warned their readers that they’d basically seen piles of poop with more charisma. I was surprised the reviews were that bad – I mean, surely it had some redeeming qualities, right? But no. The critics hate this movie.

So, for some reason, boredom, or just loyalty to a franchise I have loved since my youth, I went to see a movie I was sure would suck but to my surprise, it was really, really good, so those critics can go lick Slimer’s greasy green taint for all I care. Was that too much? Sorry. That felt like too much.

The plot? The Spengler family from the last film has moved to NYC to take over ghostbusting operations out of the famous firehouse their patriarch Egon and his BFFS once operated out of. The fam includes Mom/Callie (Carrie Coon), step-dad Gary (Paul Rudd), daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and son, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard).

Ex-EPA dickless pencilneck from the original film Walter Peck (William Atherton) is now, horror of horrors, the Mayor of NYC and continues his anti-Ghostbusters hard-on, using his office to make the lives of our favorite proton pack wielders harder than ever.

Meanwhile, all the superfluous kid friends of the Spengler fam have come to NYC in various capacities, either working for Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) in his well-funded, super-high tech ghostbusting operation, or with Ray Stantz (Dan Akyroyd) on his YouTube show about paranormal activity.

Double meanwhile, the ecto-containment unit aka ghost prison where the ghostbusters have been depositing ghosts for 40 years is full to capacity and Winston needs to put his top nerds on the case before the ghosts make a break for it.

Triple meanwhile, creepy weirdo Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) sells an old relic he finds in his dead granny’s belongings to Ray’s occult shop, thus starting a chain of events that leads to an ancient demon with the power to scare humans so bad that they literally freeze to death, being busted loose.

It’s up to the Spenglers to save the day, with assistance of some old familiar faces. Akroyd and Hudson get a great deal of screentime and fans will be happy to know that their roles are pretty integral to the plot. Bill Murray is briefly in it in the middle, and then briefly in it at the end. Critics say he phoned his lines in but honestly, I don’t think those critics understand his deadpan sarcasm as his perfectly time one-liners brought down the house with the audience I watched it with. Annie Potts reprises her role as Jeanine Melnitz, the Ghostbusters’ secretary, but she gets to suit up this time.

You know, my complaint about Ghostbuster sequels has always been that the success of the original had very little to do with ghosts. The original was less about things that go bump in the night and more about four guys who saw a need that desperately needed to be met, developed new technology to meet that need and against all odds, started a business to provide a valuable public service. Along the way, they deal with naysayers, bureaucratic red tape, and the fact that the science they are dealing with is very theoretical and could blow themselves the eff up at any time. This all led to good comedy as well as to the audience rooting for the underdog.

Ghostbusters 2 managed to capture some of that underdog vibe but the last two modern sequels didn’t really capture it. They tried to focus more on the ghosts and on villains working with the ghosts but the problem is, and sure this sounds silly for a film called “Ghostbusters” but the original’s popularity just had very little to do with ghosts.

But here they managed to get some things right. They created a villain that was very scary and made stakes that were quite high. They captured some of that underdog charisma by having Peck breathe down the heroes’ necks again. They brought back the old guard ghostbusters and treated them with respect. Sure, we would have loved to have seen more of Murray but all three out of still living Ghostbusters plus their office worker got their turn to shine.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. If they can make more like this, the franchise might have a future yet.

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Mar 18 2024
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Movies

Classic Movie Review – Glengarry Glen Ross

A – Always

B – Be

C – Closing

Always Be Closing, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of this early 90s flick that it has taken me 32 years to see.

The 1990s were an exceptional time for movies and I was a film buff even as a young lad, so it surprised me to no end when in the 2010s, parody after parody of Alec Baldwin’s “Always Be Closing” speech began surfacing on YouTube.

Really? There was a movie in the early 90s starring Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Ed Harris and Alan Alda about a bunch angry, depressed, sociopathic, high-strung, stressed-out junk real estate salesmen and I’m just finding out about it now?

Alas, it took me at least another decade to get around to watching it until this weekend but boy, am I ever glad I did. There’s not a lot to the story. It’s more of a mood caught on camera than a film per se. Like I said, I didn’t even know it existed until 20 years later and only watched it 30 years later, but it may very well be the greatest performances given by all of the actors above. Well, to be honest, though Spacey is good in it (and forgive me for complimenting him but this came out long before the alleged perversions) his role is palpable yet not as prominent as the others.

So, what’s it all about?

On a dark and stormy night, a man simply called Blake (Alec Baldwin) is sent from the corporate office to Premiere Properties, a seedy boiler room in New York City where washed up sales-jerks while away the hours, living off commissions earned by duping morons into buying useless properties in Arizona. You’d almost feel sorry for these chumps if you weren’t constantly reminded that their job is to bilk other chumps.

Blake informs the salesmen that they suck so bad at their jobs that they’re all fired but they’re in luck, if you can call it that. They have one week to redeem themselves and prove themselves worthy of being rehired by logging in boku sales numbers. Winner gets a Caddy. Second place? Box of steak knives. Third place. Go home. You’re fired. Don’t like it? Eff you. Go home and cry to your wife and kids. You know how the speech goes.

The sales-dudes are irate to be spoken to this way. Have you ever suffered through any sort of humiliation at work? We all have at some point. Even if you can honestly say you’ve put in 20 or 30 years of relatively good service and been rewarded with good management, I’m sure at some point you suffered through a boss looking to make a name for himself, who barked non-sensical orders at you, who expected you to deliver everything while giving you absolutely nothing to work with, who demanded you volunteer free overtime, working late into the night but don’t you dare be late the next morning and so on.

Sometimes, these bosses have the working stiff by the balls and when they know it and the squeeze too hard, its enough to make a man go berserk. Three out of four do just that. Shelley “the Machine” Levine (Jack Lemmon), Dave Moss (Ed Harris) and George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) all flip their lids in their own way.

Moss and Aaronow are middle aged with families while Levine is elderly with a wife in the hospital and mounting bills as a result. None can afford to lose a job and all fear they’d never be able to compete with youngsters in the job market.

Levine, once a veteran salesman but now has hit a slump, pledges to get out there and kick ass. Lemmon was infamous in his youth in the 1960s but this role really brought him into the modern era. The old guy is just so sad and desperate that he reeks of it and he deserves an Oscar for the way he composes himself, going from weepy sad sack to composing himself on the phone so that he can pretend to be a high-falutin’ big shot, quoting facts and figures to chumps he’s trying to reel in, even going so far as to pretend to talk to a non-existent secretary in the background, asking her to book flights to all sorts of great places because, you know, he’s such a successful salesman, after all and hasn’t steered a client wrong yet.

Meanwhile, Moss vows revenge and plots to steal the highly coveted, so-called Glengarry leads. These are leads the company has bought because apparently, long before the internet made it easier to separate a chump from his cash, sales companies would pay other sales companies for a list of their marks. It’s a running issue throughout the film that the sales-jerks are irate with the company for holding out on the leads, that they won’t give them the names of people who have a strong likelihood of buying, but the company’s philosophy is these guys are losers who can’t even hoodwink elderly pensioners into buying so they’d probably just screw it up if they company turned over names they paid top dollar for.

I don’t know. I’m not in sales. In a way it makes sense but then again, if no one is calling these big fish and trying then why bother paying to know who they are in the first place? The main complaint of the sales-chumps is that it was uncalled for for Blake to chew them out like they’re a bunch of idiots because they’re doing the best with the lousy leads they have and if the company would just turn over the good Glengarry leads they would call them and make the sales but the company won’t do it. It’s confusing so I guess imagine a construction company that won’t buy its workers any hammers or nails or tools of any kind but still says, “Build a house by Friday, idiots, or you’re fired and by the way, we have a whole warehouse filled with tools we just think you’re too stupid to use them so figure out how to build a house with dirt.”

Aaronow is angry and repulsed by all of this, made to worry even more that Moss told him about his plan to steal the leads. He wants no part of it but Moss tells him it’s too late. He’s already a part of it. He listened to Moss talk about it and if he isn’t going to the boss to tell, then he’s an accessory, even if he does nothing, which worries George sick.

Pacino’s character, Richard Roma, has the best philosophy for making it through life and tough times at work and I dare say one scene in a Chinese restaurant where he’s explaining it all is better than his entire body of work in the Godfather. It sounds too simple to be true, but to dumb it down, Roma essentially tells one of his clients, James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce) not to sweat it. Life is just a big series of stuff that happens to you. Some of it you want to happen. Some of it you don’t. Some of it you’re glad happened. Some of it you wish hadn’t happened. Just stop worrying about it. Much of it is out of your control. Forget about what you can’t control and focus on what you can control. Let go of the past and focus on today and tomorrow.

And thus, while all the other salesmen spend the whole movie running around like their heads are on fire, trying to either meet Alec Baldwin’s outrageous sales demands or to get revenge on him, Roma takes a screw it all attitude. Life is just a bunch of stuff that happens, so he’ll do some stuff and see what happens. He’ll keep his cool. He’ll make some calls. He’ll try to make some sales. If he makes some, that’ll be great. If he doesn’t, whatever. He’ll find another job. Or he won’t. Life is so uncontrollable and unpredictable you’ll worry yourself into oblivion if you try to figure it all out.

Pacino scores one of the more memorable lines of the movie outside of Baldwin’s rant. Irate over a screw-up, he tells office manager John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) that his job is to support the sales staff and to not sabotage them, to work with them and not against them. Truthfully, throughout the film, and especially with the act of holding back the leads, it feels Williamson is working against his team, even though he’s following orders from his corporate overlords.

If you’ve ever had a boss who demands results, yet ties your hands behind your back, tells you to perform but you better not do A, B, or C or X, Y or Z and don’t think about asking for help with this or that…I’d say show them a clip of Pacino’s speech in this movie but they wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Ultimately, there’s no happy ending here. There’s certainly no romance. There’s no women. There’s no traditional Hollywood story. If it were a traditional story, one of the sales-jerks would find a way to meet the quota and save the day while simultaneously exposing the outfit for the fraud that it is but no, everyone starts out mired in purgatory and everyone ends up mired in deeper purgatory. Such is how it goes for those stuck in gigs they despise, especially in the :::shudder:::: dreaded private sector.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Note it’s based on a David Mamet play and essentially is like a play put on film. Watch on netflix.

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Mar 12 2024
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Movies

Classic Movie Review – The Irishman (2019)

Did you know Jimmy Hoffa could be hiding in this blog, 3.5 readers? That’s right. He could be somewhere in this website all along and no one would know because only 3.5 people ever read this damn thing.

BQB here with a review.

5 years. 5 long…actually not so long years it took me before I got around to watching this flick. If you told me as a young man I’d wait five years to watch a Scorcese movie starring Pacino and DeNiro, I’d say your out of your mind, but at three and a half hours, who has that kind of time?

Finally, I decided I would never have that long to devote to a movie in one sitting (I nearly wanted to write a stern complaint letter to Marty when I sat down for what I thought would be two hours of Flower Moon only to find I’d unwittingly signed up for a four hour marathon), I set out to watch this movie in 10-20 minute bites over the course of a week, with a watch of the final hour this weekend.

Does it lend as much gravitas to watch it in bits? Maybe not but that’s the only way I could ever get through this thing. Marty is a light touch with the editing scissors in his old age.

But while the more recent Flower Moon could have been easily reduced by half to two hours, this film does contain a lot of interesting snippets of history intermixed with theories (of the conspiracy variety?) vis a vis the death of the infamous union leader.

To be fair, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) did a lot of good in his life, promoting the union movement and convincing companies to put worker safety, retirement, benefits and futures ahead of bottomlines. But there was also some bad, as he did go to jail for fraud.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

But the movie isn’t so much about Hoffa as the man this flick alleges did him in. Now, I should say up front, no one really knows who killed Hoffa. Technically, no one knows for sure that he died. Officially, we just know he went missing in 1975 and was legally declared dead in 1982 after not being seen for 7 years.

After years of going to war with the Kennedys and sparring with various mafiosos, could he have decided to just run off to the mountains and live out the remainder of his days? Sure, but probably not. He had a pesky habit of publicly challenging his enemies to bring it on and he ain’t goin’ nowhere so he doesn’t really fit the profile of a runner.

So chances are, he was probably forced to take an eternal dirtnap by one goon or another. Do we know that goon whodunnit was Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro)? No, so we have to keep that in mind as we watch this long, long absurdly long film.

The tale is an epic, spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s. Sheeran is a young truck driver with a wife and family, looking to make a little extra money on the side when mobster Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci) recruits him to do odd illicit jobs. Sheeran eventually moves up the food chain, becomes a close friend of Jimmy Hoffa, graduates from hitman to union leader himself but keeps doing wetwork on the side. I want to say allegedly because WTF do I know but hey, that’s what this movie says, not me, so don’t come after me, Sheeran Estate.

Sheeran is eventually torn between his two close friends, each who had a part in making him a success (or at least rich – if you call being a mobster goon a success). In his old age, Hoffa has stepped on too many toes and many a wiseguy wants him to go, with Russell being the main advocate for his removal (on ice). But Hoffa wants to stay and has the ultimate IDGAF attitude, threats be damned.

Alas, Sheeran will have to make a decision. And I guess I already told you what decision he made (my lawyer says I have to tell you according to this movie) so you don’t have to watch it for three and a half hours, unless you want to. Hey I did say spoiler alert.

The good? I have to hand it to DeNiro and Pacino. Both are men of advanced age yet they still got it. Pesci’s not bad either. You learn a lot about history as Sheeran is presented as sort of the Forrest Gump of the mafia – his alleged hits (hey, I said alleged!) turn the course of many a historical tide while he goes largely unnoticed, which I guess, if you’re a mafioso trying to stay out of a can, is a good thing.

BONUS: Sopranos fans will be happy to see many of the old gang back at it. Forgive me for forgetting the actors names, but I’ll just refer to them by their Sopranos characters – Charmaine, Beansie, Eugene Pontecorvo, Gerry “The Hairdo” Torciano. Apparently, there were some more, so forgive me for not getting to them all and there were some who didn’t make it to the screen but were involved behind the scenes.

Plus if you like Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Romano has a pretty prominent role.

Also, there are a lot of big name actors who are in it just in supporting roles. For example, Anna Paquin of Sookie Stackhouse fame plays Sheeran’s perpetually shy daughter, and she barely says a word because her character is perpetually shy.

The bad? Even with all the de-aging techniques, from CGI to makeup, it’s very difficult to suspend disbelief and see a 75 year old DeNiro as a young family man early in the film. I’m not sure what could have been done differently. Younger actors could have been cast but we would have been robbed of Pacino and DeNiro starring together. And the challenge of the film is that it covers a 50, almost 60 year period, so even the younger actors are outfitted in bald caps and gray wigs by the end. There was probably no way really to avoid aging and/or de-aging the talent. To that end, the film deserves a lot of credit in the make-up department.

Also, Pacino and DeNiro are two of the most famous Italian-American actors of all time, but they are playing Irish characters. That’s fine by me. I don’t really care about the cultural appropriation hullabaloo, but there are times when Pacino is playing Hoffa, saying things like “I don’t care if those guineas come and get me” and “Don’t Italians name their kids anything but Tony?” that seems silly for one of Hollywood’s most famous Italians to be saying.

If you like history, you’ll love this movie. My only concern is that, you know, no one really knows for sure who killed Hoffa except Hoffa and whoever killed Hoffa. Hoffa obviously can’t tell us and at this late stage, whoever killed Hoffa is probably gone too, whacked by Father Time if his mafia friends and/or rivals didn’t get him (or her I hate to be sexist but it was most likely a him). So it’s an awfully big claim to say that Sheeran killed Hoffa and movies have a tendency to become fact in the minds of the masses and yet how can we ever really know for sure? If he didn’t do it, then this movie is pretty slanderous.

But I suppose we’ll never know for sure what happened and whodunnit unless an unlikely 100 year old witness steps forward with the evidence.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I’ll hand it to Pesci, DeNiro and Pacino. They’re twice my age and more active than I’ll ever be.

SIDNOTE: I might have been Hoffa in my past life because it feels like everyone’s purpose in life is to constantly annoys me, I take these annoyances very personally, I tell them to eff off yet the come back anyway, I hate bad manners and also I love ice cream.

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Feb 13 2022
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Movies

Movie Review – Spiderman – No Way Home (2021)

I finally got to see it, 3.5 readers and it is the best Spiderman movie ever made.

BQB here with a review of the latest film about our friendly neighborhood webslinger.

Don’t get me wrong. All the Spidey films have heart and the first two installments of the Tobey Maguire version really did bring superhero films into the modern era. Without them, I doubt you’d have the Avengerfest of today. The Andrew Garfield films were fun though I think maybe they just came too close on the heels of the Tobey films and the world wasn’t ready for a reboot just yet.

The past two Tom Holland films were epic, owing in large part to the Avengers-verse that Marvel has created. When a rich, backstory filled structure has been built, it isn’t that hard for a new Spidey to come in and sling his way into the 2020s with great gusto.

Following Mysterio’s big reveal that Spiderman is Peter Parker in the last film, the anonymity jig is up for Peter (Holland), and his partners in crime, girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon). Their lives are ruined under intense public scrutiny as the wall crawler and anyone who assisted him is raked over the coals by media blabbermouth J. Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons).

When Pete seeks the assistance of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), the great wizard agrees to help with a spell that will make everyone forget that Pete is Spidey, but Pete’s own blabbermouth during the incantation causes the spell to go awry and well, the rest is movie making history.

Magic makes worlds collide and those older Spiderman movies? Turns out they weren’t just movies. They were alternate worlds. The multi-verse is real, with infinite versions of you, me, Spiderman and his foes.

Truly a Herculean effort that required cooperation between different studios and different actors of various incarnations of the franchise. Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Electro, The Lizard, and Sandman team up to unleash chaos in our current world and it’s up to Team 3-Pete, Holland, Garfield and Maguire (three Spideys, no waiting) to save the day while Willem Defoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, Thomas Haden Church, and Rhys Ivans reprise their villainous roles. Marisa Tomei and Jon Favreau return as Aunt May and Happy Hogan.

At almost 2 and a half hours, it’s the longest Spiderman movie ever made, though there’s so much going on you’d hardly notice it. It’s quite ambitious with a lot of moving parts, my only criticism is it feels like there might be a few plot holes but honestly, I couldn’t tell you if these are really plot holes of if it’s just something I didn’t quite get on a first viewing with everything moving so quickly.

It’s definitely a movie we all needed, what with the pandemic scaring movie buffs out of theaters, closing theaters, and causing Hollywood to shut down or delay production of big time flicks. Personally, this is the longest I’ve gone without checking out a superhero movie, because a) I literally was unable to buy a ticket at my local theater for the first month because every time I tried they were all sold out online and b) alas, my local theater closed down because it couldn’t stay afloat in the pandemic, which means I just won’t be able to see movies as much as I used to. Is that a good or bad thing? I don’t know.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy, and proof that people will go to the movie theater if a film is awesome enough. Hang in there Hollywood, keep making those blockbusters and try to help theaters stay alive any way you can.

SIDENOTE: 40, 30 and 20 something Spidermen all on one screen. Where has the time gone? Memories, like the corners of my webbed up mind…

DOUBLE SIDENOTE: Kudos to this movie for thinking of a new way to rehash old(er) characters. The problem all superhero reboots and sequels suffer from is we’ve already seen the story before. We don’t need to see Pete get bitten by the radioactive spider again. We don’t need to see Norman Osborne go nuts and become G-Gob. Sure, younger actors can take on these characters but it usually just feels like a rehash of something that has already been done. With the spell gone awry plot device, we can immediately return to our old Spidey baddy faves without having to re-tell the stories we already know.

TRIPLE SIDENOTE: I know the Academy hates comic book movies but I wonder, given the fact this film put butts into theater seats in record numbers at a time when theaters are closing and people are avoiding social gatherings might not have merited some Oscar consideration. If theaters do go the way of the Dodo, I truly fear we will see a stark decline in the quality of moviemaking overall and we need films like this to save the industry.

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Feb 04 2022
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TV

The Book of Boba Fett – Episode 6

Dun dun da dun dun dun…hah!

Why does it always sound like the guy singing that “hah!” in the theme song is having a hernia?

BQB here with a review.

I can’t help but notice the two best episodes of The Book of Boba Fett had very little to do with this new fangled “I want out of bounty hunting” version of Boba Fett. They transferred all of his bad ass stoicism to The Mandalorian and now Mando gets all the cool episodes.

BTW, these past two episodes were visually stunning, filled with gratuitous fan service (cameos by R2, CGI Luke, Cad Bane and Ahsoka from the cartoons) but more importantly, graced by plotlines that make me think Disney might finally be getting the hang of building a post-Empire universe…maybe. We’re not there quite yet but it’s looking good.

Here, Mando tries to visit his teensy weensy BFF Grogu or the Artist Formerly Known as Baby Yodo. G-Spot is knee deep into his Jedi training from a CGI’d up Young Master Luke, and as Ahsoka warns Mando, Jedis can be badass space monks or they can be part of a family but they can’t be both. (Sidenote – why did this scene make me wish I’d abandoned my extended family and become my own personal version of a kickass space monk years ago? Is this orange tentacled babe (Rosario Dawson) right? You can be awesome or you can have a family but you can’t have both? Hmm.

Moving on, CGI Luke was cool yet not overly convincing last season. They have it done better this time around though I noticed much of the action occurs with the camera zoomed out of Luke so perhaps a body double did the far away action scenes?

SIDENOTE: As CGI rendering continues to make old actors young, or rather, rebuilds their youthful bodies anew, are actors/actresses getting worried? As this tech improves, what’s to stop the studios from just giving all the human talent the boot and creating movies featuring CGI humans rendered entirely from scratch? Maybe someday some zit faced teenager will render an entire Oscar worthy film on his laptop. (Come to think of it, most of today’s “Oscar worthy” films look like they were rendered on a zit faced teenager’s laptop but I don’t mean that in a good way.

Cameo from Timothy Olyphant was fun.

Finally, the plot centers around Mando and others coming together to help Boba Fett fight off the Pikes, i.e. a syndicate of alien spice runners. Double sidenote – In Star Wars, “spice” is totes code for drugs, but since it’s a kids show, if your kids ask you what spice is, you can tell them all the aliens are just fighting over a yummy food topping. (Honestly, you adults who want to retain your innocence can feel free to assume they are fighting over a yummy food topping and what? You already thought they were fighting over a yummy food topping? Oh um…hey! What’s that over there? Squirrel!)

My main question is if The Fettmeister is against the drug (er yummy topping) trade…but he also wants to solidify his position as Tatooine’s top crime boss, um…what other crimes will he be ok with? Because seriously, if he wants to be a crime boss and he’s not cool with spice (oregano or otherwise) then what crimes will he support? Murder? Extortion? Space whores? I knew it. He’s totally pimping out space whores.

Or maybe not. It is a Disney Plus show, after all, so don’t think about the space crime lord’s space crime too much. (It’s space whores.)

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Sep 02 2016
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TV

TV Review – Stranger Things

Nerds!  Monsters! Mysterious doings!

BQB here with a review of Netflix’s latest hit, Stranger Things.

NOTE: I’m only up to episode three.  I’ll be spoiling what I know so far so don’t read ahead if you want to avoid spoilers. Meanwhile, don’t tell me what happens after episode three. Thanks 3.5 readers.

So for the past month everyone in my Facebook feed has been all like, “OMG I love Stranger Things! It reminds me of my childhood because I’m a friend of BQB and therefore I’m a dried up old Generation Xer that no one gives a shit about!”

Yup. That’s what they actually said. My 3.5 friends are very hard on themselves.

But those are the grass is greener people.  Me? The tale brings me so far back into my childhood that I ended up thinking, “Oh joy. All the things I enjoyed as a child are now ancient history and the grim specter of death is looking over my shoulder.”

I tend to be a glass half empty type of person.  Glass half full people are like, “What? I had a toy Millennium Falcon too!”

How to describe this show?

Take one part Goonies and one part X-Files.  Throw in a dash of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., just a pinch of Poltergeist and you’re there.

From the electronically synthesized theme music to the kids saving the day on their bikes, this show is a heaping helping of nostalgia for the thirty to forty something crowd to relive their youth and enjoy a distraction from the twenty-two year old millennials who somehow leap frogged the hell over us and became our bosses/safe space dwelling, trigger warning demanding overlords in the blink of an eye.

The plot surrounds a group of boys whose friend Will has gone missing.  Will’s mother, Joyce, played by Winona Ryder, herself a staple of 1980s teen movies, freaks out while the town’s depressed chief of police Jim Hopper (David Harbour) turns the town upside down looking for the lad.

But to hell with those adults, for it is up to nerd boy trio Mike, Lucas and Dustin (Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo, respectively) to ride around town aimlessly on their bikes to save the day.

Oh, and they’re joined by a mysterious girl with eerie super powers (Millie Bobby Brown.)

Was she named after singer Bobby Brown? That kind of would be awesome.

And seriously? “Finn Wolfhard?”  Holy shit. That kid should thank his parents because with a name like that Hollywood had no choice but to put him on the fast track to fame.

I have enjoyed the first three episodes and now that I think about it, it has been quite some time since there was a serious movie or TV show where a group of kids are the main characters yet adults are able to find the story enjoyable.

There were a lot of movies like this in the 1980s, then they sort of trailed of in the 1990s.

Why? I don’t know.  Maybe because today’s kids would learn that their friend is missing and be all like, “Oh noes! I must totes run to my safe space and raise awareness on Twitter! Hashtag #PrayersforWill”

Then again, the adults have gotten worse too.  Kids used to be able to ride around on their bikes and seek assistance from trustworthy adults.  Today, I wouldn’t advise a kid to trust an adult if the adult shows two forms of ID and a reference letter signed by the president and the pope.

Some 1980s things I noticed:

  • Star Wars toys (which are still popular today)
  • Rotary phones with cords.  You pretty much needed to keep your conversations short and sweet, although I do kind of remember just lying down on the kitchen linoleum floor as a whippersnapper in order to have longer conversations whilst being tethered to the phone attached to the wall. Oh and those rotary dials meant you’d stick your finger in the number hole, then crank it all the way around, then do it again for the next number…and the next one….
  • Libraries with micro fiche readers and card catalogs.  Card catalogs were like a computer database on paper! Fun stuff.
  • Mom jeans and window pane glasses.  Not to goof on Barb.  Sigh, people used to care more about function over fashion.  Today, glasses are small and stylish, but those window pane bad boys gave a nerd way more peripheral vision.  Its way easier to sneak up on a nerd now. Thanks a lot small glasses.

So, that’s it. That’s my review. Despite all my gripes about getting older, Stranger Things is actually a fun filled romp back in time.

Oh and if you’re a Gen Xer, its fun to watch this show with a millennial.  Obviously, don’t steal one off the street, but if you have one in your family like I do.  We watched it and the conversation was thus:

MILLENIAL: They had pools back then?

ME: Ugh. Yes.

MILLENIAL: They had cars back then?

ME: And even before then.

MILLENIAL: Wait, when did Star Wars come out?

ME: In the 1970s.  Kids were way into it.

MILLENIAL: And they had plastic toys?

ME: Kids in the 1980s couldn’t buy plastic toys fast enough.

MILLENIAL: People had nice houses for that time.

ME: I know. You assumed we all lived in mud huts.

MILLENIAL: What a wonderful commitment to diversity that the boys have a black friend  despite the racial divisions at the time.

ME: Nope. We had black friends. Wasn’t a big deal. White kids liked toys. Black kids liked toys. We’d get together and play with our toys. Didn’t matter. No one asked for a medal for being friends with a black kid.

See? These whippersnappers don’t know about anything before 1990.

Enjoy it while it lasts, millennials. In twenty years, the next generation will have a show where everyone’s all like, “OMG. I can’t believe that people used to post pictures of their lunch on Facebook. Now that everyone’s a precog we all already know what everyone ate for lunch.”

STATUS: Shelf-worthy

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Sep 01 2016
2 Comments
TV

TV Review – Ray Donovan

Is this a show about a Hollywood fixer or a family whose mobster father’s crimes keep coming back to haunt them?

I don’t know….I’m not sure the people behind the show know either, but either way, I like it.

BQB here with a review of the Showtime series Ray Donovan.

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.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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Apr 18 2016
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Game of the Month

Game of the Month With Video Game Rack Fighter – Uncharted 4

 

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Video Game Rack Fighter – Ranking World Car Thief Mayhem Champion; Currently Involved with Bookshelf Q. Battler (She has our condolences.)

Hey 3.5 Readers,

Video Game Rack Fighter here, swiping BQB’s laptop to bring you my very first Game of the Month column.

Alien Jones has a column.  Dr. Hugo Von Science has a column. Even the Yeti has a column but that’s ok, BQB.  Make the best thing that ever happened to you wait an entire year to get her own column. That’s totally fair.

***cough cough JERKFACE! cough cough***

Excuse me. Lots of dust here in BQB HQ.

Uncharted 4!  Let’s check out the trailer:

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Playstation

3.5 readers, I love, love, love this series. It is cinematic gameplay at its best. These games always grab hold of you, drag you in, and leave you feeling like you’re guiding treasure hunter Nathan Drake through his very own movie.

The graphics are that good, rivaling any big Hollywood blockbuster.

There’s a little bit of everything. Gunplay.  Oh stop. If you’re reading this then you’re a video game nerd and you know you can’t have a good game unless you’ve got some gun action.

Hell, I’ve been lobbying Nintendo to let Mario pack a Mac-10 but they won’t return my calls.  Dorks.

There’s death defying stunts. You’ll feel like you’re with Drake as he’s clinging on that ledge, overlooking a drop into vast nothingness below.

And there are puzzles.  The puzzles I’m not that huge a fan of. Some of them are pretty obvious. Others are real head scratchers that take some time. Occasionally, they take too much time and then I have to go online to search for the answers so I can get back to making Drake make things go boom.

If you’re new to the series, it follows Nathan Drake, modern day ancestor of 1500’s explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he goes on globe trotting adventures to uncover treasures and relics.  Obviously, there are always bad guys with unlimited supplies of henchmen getting in the way.

Naughty Dog, the game’s developer, scored a winner when they first began making this series. I’ve played them all and they keep getting better and better, proving that it is possible for games to a) have a lot of action and b) a compelling storyline.

Screw the movies.  Just stay home and play Uncharted 4.  Just don’t get any popcorn grease on your controller. Those things are like seventy bucks a pop.

You know, a friend of mine who only has an X-Box asked me whether or not Uncharted is worth springing for a Playstation (seeing as how it is exclusive to PS.)

My answer? If you’ve got the money and plunking it down isn’t going to leave you sleeping in a cardboard box at night, then yes. Yes it is.

STATUS: Rack worthy. This game totally deserves a spot on my rack.

Hmm.  Yeah, BQB said that was a poorly phrased line and I scoffed at him but now that I hear it out loud…

Oh well. Uncharted 4 is my game of the month for April.  If you’ve played it, share your thoughts in the comments and tell me which game you think should be my Game of the Month for May.

Take it easy, 3.5.

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Feb 27 2016
3 Comments
Misc Reviews

BQB Reviews Dollar Shave Club

So it’s official.  I’m a member of the Dollar Shave Club.

The Freemasons wouldn’t have me.  The Illuminati said “Illumi-nopey!”  Even the Friar’s Club and the Shriners told me I didn’t meet their high standards.

But the Dollar Shave Club took me in.  So here’s my review.  But first, here’s my shave box:

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I know.  You were hoping to get an inside look at my toiletries, you weirdoes.

I’ve been interested in this for awhile, mostly because of the company’s funny, in-your-face commercials, like this one:

I have to admit, I’m not a daily shaver.  That’s mostly due to laziness.  There’s a little bit of protest thrown in.  Long ago men were able to let their facial hair fly.  We were able to have all kinds of elaborate beards, mustaches and so on.  But now women don’t like that so we have to bow to our XX chromosome overlords.   Now we have to rely solely on our personalities to be interesting. Thanks ladies.  Thanks a lot.

The premise is a) store bought blades are expensive and b) you’ll forget to buy them (I usually don’t get a new set of cartridges until my razor starts growing a foot.

That’s true with most things in life.  You need X product.  You never remember it when you’re at the store so you make due with it until it’s falling apart or gross or whatever and then you remember to get a new one.

Internet entrepreneurs will probably help us out with that one day.  And it’ll be great.  Until Skynet takes over.

On the site, dollarshaveclub.com, there are a varieties of options.  They’ll give you a free handle.  You can get a twin razor blade sent to you once a month for a buck, hence the name of the club.

Or you get go fancier and a little pricier.  I went with “the Executive” – six blades, a little more expensive.  I’m not sure if I just wanted to treat myself or maybe I just wanted to feel like a Fortune 500 CEO.  (Sigh, I didn’t, but that’s besides the point.

It gave a pretty decent shave.  I didn’t detect much difference between that and the Gillette razors I usually use.  So now the razors will come once a month, 4 to a pack, change it every week.

Mostly, it’s just a fun little thing to look forward to.

They also have some bathroom products.  I tried “Dr. Carver’s Shave Butter.”  It’s basically a shave gel.  It lubes up your face and gets the job done, but its mostly clear so it confused the hell out of me.  I realize that means I have a low attention span but still, I prefer the foam because then I know where I have shaved and what still needs to be shaved.

I’m a busy, important man with a blog that caters to 3.5 readers.  I don’t have time to remember what parts of my face I need to shave.

Would I recommend it?  Yes.  There are all kinds of Internet gift box companies.  Give yourself a little monthly present to look forward to.

Will I keep up with it?  Not sure.  As I said, I’m not a daily shaver and often I wait until I’m as furry as the Yeti.  When Video Game Rack Fighter starts beating the snot out of me with a broom because she thinks I’m the Yeti, then I know its time to shave.

At least she said she thought I was the Yeti.  Hmmm…suspicious.

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Oct 13 2014
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Book Based Movies, Mystery

Gone Girl – A Review of the Movie, Not the Book

Long time no see, blogarinos.  What can I say?  I have been busy.  I wish I could say that I have been busy with something worthwhile, but alas, it has been mostly with an onslaught of fabulous Fall TV.  Why, oh why must they put all my favorite shows on at the same time?

I’ve been hearing for quite some time now that Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is an amazing read, and though sadly I never got around to it, I am pleased to say that I did recently take in the film version starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

SPOILER WARNING – If you do not want the surprises to be as gone as the girl, then stop reading.

In no particular order, a list of reasons why I found this film entertaining:

1)  Rosamund Pike deserves an Oscar nomination.  She has always been a decent actress but up until now, has never quite found her niche role.  Honestly, this movie made me learn her name.  Previously, she’d just been that blonde woman who has been in a lot of stuff.

2)  Someone involved in the movie must have had a penchant for all grown up former adolescent nerd TV stars.  Patrick Fugit, aka the aspiring Rolling Stone reporter from Almost Famous and Lee Norris, aka Minkus on Boy Meets World both have cameos as police officers.  I mean honestly, in real life, I would not want either of these poindexters kicking down doors and/or being responsible for public safety but for movie purposes, it was fun to see them in action.

3)  Actually, add to that former nerd TV star list Neil Patrick Harris (who once upon a time played Doogie Howser, M.D.) – I suppose I gave him a pass as a “former TV nerd” since his career had a comeback with How I Met Your Mother.

4)  It is an excellent mystery movie that will keep you guessing.

5)  Sadly, it reinforces what we all know to be true but no one wants to admit – a woman can say anything – anything at all – and people will believe it.

So pick your future brides to be carefully, fellas, because well, you might end up like Ben Affleck’s defeated protagonist.

BONUS:  Tyler Perry was in this movie and a) he did not dress up like an outrageous overweight granny and b) did not suck.

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