Monthly Archives: March 2019

What’s that old adage — “Never meet your heroes,” because you’re bound to be disappointed?

I think I’d update that for 2019:  “Never read your heroes’ Tweets.”

 

It was … interesting … the way certain very vocal celebrities suddenly wanted to change the subject away from politics when the long-awaited Mueller report was turned in:

 

 

 

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Speaking of Twitter, I still don’t completely understand the etiquette, or rules, or whatever the hell it is we’re supposed to do. Take, for example, this Tweet:

 

 

Now, does this mean that 52 people are quite pleased that Larry Cohen is dead? Confusing.

 

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I could be wrong about this. I hope I’m wrong about this. But I suspect that we’ve gone past “peak TV” and are now sliding downhill.

There are more shows than ever, but I can’t find a single new series that really grabs me.

 

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It’s nigh impossible to find a columnist who can write about politics these days and actually be funny. I think this guy pulled it off.

 

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If you’ve seen the Volvo commercial, then you know the voice. Once you’ve heard it, it’s impossible to banish it from your head.

In the ad, an other-worldly, tinny, high-pitched voice implores us to “be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else.”

It sounds like some fun-house god issuing instructions to mankind over a cheap megaphone. Listen up:

 

 

That voice gave me goose bumps, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Then I remembered. I’d heard that voice before, and so had poor Doris Day in 1960’s Midnight Lace:

 

 

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Listen, I’m not into guns. But for some reason, I find this short video of Daily Caller reporter Stephanie Hamill (above) both disturbing and mesmerizing:

 

 

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Journalist Allysia Finley, pictured above, has an, ah, interesting way of speaking:

 

 

Makes me wonder if she’s related to, ah, this guy:

 

 

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Now that the Ferris Bueller report has finally been completed, we can all get back to normal.

Ha ha ha.

Sadly, these words of wisdom from Reuters’s Jeff Mason are much more likely:

“The fact that there is a conclusion is a start.”

 

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Far be it from us to hold a grudge, but after we were promised an interview with the female star of the new movie Long Lost and were then snubbed by said actress, well, let’s just say it was a very sad day at The Grouchy Editor office.

We can’t imagine why Catherine Corcoran, who is actually quite good in the movie (that’s her pictured above; our review is here), developed cold feet over our interview. Could it be that she feared we might ask about her Carrie-inspired nude scene in Return to Nuke ’em High (below)?

 

 

Or did she suspect that we might compliment her on her Instagram posts, like this one?

 

 

Perhaps she didn’t care for this question in our interview: “That hanging upside-down business in Terrifier – were you ever in danger of passing out from all the downward blood flow?”

 

 

But most likely, she felt burned by glowing “tributes” like this one from Mr. Skin:

 

 

Goodness. We would never be that crude and vulgar.

Would we?

 

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Let’s check in one more time with poor Doris Day and the Voice from Hell:

 

 

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Long Lost

 

A young man receives an invitation to visit his long-lost half-brother at his posh country house — but there are nasty surprises in store for the family reunion.

Long Lost is a decent enough erotic thriller marred by an unconvincing twist ending. A movie twist, if it’s to be a good one, has just two requirements: It has to be surprising, and it should be at least somewhat plausible. Long Lost’s big reveal is certainly unexpected. But is it realistic? Not really.

Still, the movie is entertaining thanks to an intense, creepy turn from actor Nicholas Tucci (above), who personifies a cliché that I am loath to use but that fits perfectly here: toxic masculinity. Release: 2019 Grade: C+

 

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This decision to blur a mass killer’s face so that he doesn’t get the attention he seeks might be well-intentioned, but it’s also moronic. It just guarantees that everyone will rush to the Internet to find out what the nutcase looks like.

 

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Broadcast News

 

Cock your head to one side, look sad, and you, too, can be a big-time anchor

 

Many, many moons ago, Yours Truly was a young journalism student. I know, I know; that sucks, but there you have it.

Anyway, we learned in school that there are two kinds of journalists: the print media kind, and the TV kind. The print-media journalists mostly toiled away in low-paid obscurity, spending days or even weeks on important stories that maybe 16 people would read. The TV journalists would read these stories in the newspaper and then use them to craft three-minute segments about whatever issue the story discussed.

That’s how TV journalists got their story ideas: from someone else.

One day in my misbegotten reporter’s youth I found myself seated at a table at some important, government-type meeting, directly across from Dallas’s hot-shot television news anchor, a pompous ass named Chip Moody. While I took copious, laborious notes about the meeting, Moody sat with a smirk on his face, doodling on a scrap of paper. He didn’t take notes; he barely heard what was being discussed.

He knew that all he had to do was show up, and the glamour and money would follow.

 

 

They do make lots of money, so maybe, unlike the buffoon played by William Hurt in Broadcast News, TV anchors aren’t so stupid after all.

Nah, most of them are clowns.

 

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It does seem like nearly all of our institutions – academics, courts, legislatures, media, Hollywood, medicine, big business, and whatever else I’m forgetting – are crumbling. They all seem to be run by corrupt people with too much power.

What’s the other thing they all have in common? The Baby Boomers are in charge.

Pretty sure Chip Moody was a Baby Boomer.

 

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Something a print journalist would notice and a TV journalist would not:

 

 

Not sure why dog owners are so prone to nonstop barking, but jail time seems appropriate.

 

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The fun part about having so many Democrat candidates for president? Watching most of them crash and burn.

Lord knows what kind of scandals and embarrassments we have to look forward to.

 

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Say what you will about Bill Maher – and you will say what you will about Bill Maher – but he’s not boring. One week he’s just another whiny little bitch; the next week he’s one of the few liberal talking heads with a scattering of brain cells.

 

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CBS cameramen continue to do an admirable job tracking the progress of their favorite Survivor contestant, young Lauren O’Connell (above right and below).

 

 

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John Mulaney hosted Saturday Night Live and made me do something I did not expect to do:  laugh. More than once.

The “Cha Cha Slide” (above) was just brilliant.

 

Alas, now that Mulaney’s gone, I suppose it’s back to this tired, lame routine:

 

 

 

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I guess there are worse things than casting Brie Larson as Captain Marvel.

But come on now. What really makes America great, comic-book heroes or Brie Larson in scenes like these?

 

 

 

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Cunning linguist. You have to say it real fast. You see, it … oh screw it.

 

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We get a lot of review requests along with links to private “screeners.” Mostly, these are low-budget movies so dreadful that they don’t even appear on Netflix or Amazon Prime – yet.  They have titles like Luciferina and The Haunting of Mia Moss and, in this case, Abduction 101.

Often the movies are unfinished: The soundtrack might not match the video, the credits have yet to be added, that sort of thing. But occasionally these films have a certain rustic charm; the spirit of Ed Wood living on.

 

Abduction 101

 

 

I suppose that if I’m an aspiring actress or model stuck in Portland, Oregon, and some French director asks me to star in his low-budget horror movie, I might jump at the opportunity. I suppose I might.

And so we have Abduction 101, a Portland-filmed indie starring four Portland babes. It’s the kind of schlock that gave birth to Joe Bob Briggs (remember him?); the kind of movie that gave oxygen to Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Director Robin Entreinger’s movie stars beauty-pageant contestant Brianna Shewbert Rouse (who’s not bad), Portland model Luna Labelle (who’s quite fetching), and an actress named Adrienne Stone* (who is very, very naked. So naked, in fact, that her prolonged exposure won “Best Nudity Scene” at the Independent Horror Movie Awards).

 

“Best Nudity Scene” — hey, who are we to argue?

 

But I digress. The plot of Abduction 101, not that it matters, is about three cute girls who decide to investigate their mysterious neighbors in the woods. They intend to film the neighbors, who are not expected to object to this invasion of their privacy because, as one of the girls says repeatedly, “all of us are so fucking hot.”

But uh-oh. Turns out the neighbors must have seen Alien 3, in which Sigourney Weaver got impregnated by a creature, and now enjoy doing the same sort of thing to unsuspecting people – like snoopy neighbor girls who are so fucking hot. That’s the plot.

Watching Abduction 101 is at times an endurance test. Any shot that might last five seconds in a better movie will drag on for 30 seconds in this one. A scene that goes on for a minute in another flick will be stretched to five minutes here. In fact, the whole movie feels like filler between the opening 15 minutes, in which Entreinger’s camera lustfully scans the girls’ bodies, to the midpoint, which features the famous nude scene, to the blessed relief of an ending.

 

Three “fucking hot” girls

 

And yet … I shouldn’t complain. In the “Me Too” era, I’m glad that they still make outright exploitation like this. Someone needs to carry on the tradition of Joe Bob Briggs. And Portland models need the work.      Grade:  You Don’t Want to Know

 

Directors: Robin Entreinger, Steve Noir  Cast: Brianna Shewbert Rouse, Luna Labelle, Adrienne Stone, Nixi Oblivion, Kayla Kilby Release: 2019

 

*It’s possible that the naked actress is actually called “Nixi Oblivion.” It’s impossible to know based on the incomplete credits. Maybe that’s intentional?

 

The Girls of ‘Abduction 101’

 

 

.                                grouchyeditor.com Abduction 101

 

 

Brianna Shewbert Rouse

 

It must be frustrating when your leading lady won’t get naked for your horror movie. What’s a French director to do? In this case, he dresses Brianna in tight pants and bikinis and then zooms in on her butt. A lot.  

 

Above at far right, Brianna in a beauty contest

 

Kayla Kilby

 

Kayla has a small part in Abduction 101, basically just a fight scene near the end of the movie. She gets killed (below). Looks like she isn’t wearing panties. Judging from the modeling photos that follow, that seems to be a recurring theme.

 

 

 

Luna Labelle

 

Inexplicably, Luna, who had no issues with doing full-frontal and full-rear nudity in the modeling photos below, does not appear naked in Abduction 101. We can only guess that this oversight was due to the directors being unaware of the photos.

 

 

 

 

Adrienne Stone (we think)

 

Last but not least, we bring you Adrienne Stone. Unless it’s Nixi Oblivion. We’re going to go with Adrienne Stone. Whoever she is, she was quite the good sport and was no doubt most responsible for the movie’s “Best Nudity Scene” honor.

Also, the fact that she allowed some actor to fondle her boobs and let Entreinger’s camera peek between her legs probably had something to do with it.

 

 

Abduction 101 is now available on Amazon Prime. Click here to watch the trailer.

 

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All of this babble about the evils of socialism versus the evils of capitalism is annoying. Face it: What we have in the United States right now is a mix of both.

Unrestricted capitalism, which the right seems to favor, leads to ridiculous income inequality. Unrestricted socialism, as we are seeing down south, can lead to Venezuela.

The question is not which system do we choose, socialism or capitalism. The question is determining what kind of a mix we need.

 

On the other hand, I’m terrible at math and economics, so there is an excellent chance that I might not know what the hell I’m talking about.

Now, were you to ask me who has better legs, Larry Kudlow or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, well ….

 

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Poor Hollywood. It can’t quite bring itself to lavish Oscars on superhero and comic-book movies. But all Hollywood makes these days are superhero and comic-book movies.

So that means Hollywood has to reward movies that nobody sees. You know, blockbusters like Green Book (above) and The Shape of Water and Moonlight.

 

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Survivor is back, which means it’s time to find out which female booty the CBS cameramen are favoring. At first, I thought it might be this chick with the perky boobs:

 

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But no, it looks like the clear front-runner is student-athlete Lauren:

 

 

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Click on thumbnails for a better look at Lauren’s booty

 

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