October 2022 – The Grouchy Editor

29Oct

The Weekly Review: October 23 – 29

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The Grouchy Editor used to have a regular feature called “Asshole of the Week” (or month, or whatever). We stopped running it because, frankly, there were simply too many candidates.

But to celebrate Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, today we feel obliged to honor the

ASSHOLES OF THE MILLENNIUM!

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Ousted Twitter assholes Parag Agrawal (left) and Vijaya Gadde

Infuriatingly, these two enemies of free speech, fired by Musk, will nevertheless enjoy golden parachutes to soften the blow. But should they feel the need to work again, we sincerely hope that they can both learn how to code.

**

Why It Sucks to Be a Little Guy on Twitter

If you think of a joke and post it at the same time that some blue-check clown thinks of it and posts it and … he gets 26,000 likes while you get, well ….

The timing of Elder’s Tweet triggered our suspicions. Assuming he posted from his home in California using his “preferred time zone,” and knowing that The Grouch posted from the Central time zone, we did the math and, well, you be the judge.

Who posted first? The Grouch posted at 3:23 Central time, which is 1:23 Elder time. Elder likely posted at 2:38 Pacific time, which is 4:38 Grouch time.

Yes, we are very bitter and have too much time on our hands. But Larry Elder is clearly stealing our jokes.

**

Thanks to the Paul Pelosi attack, there are calls for taxpayers to pick up the tab for additional security for congresspeople. Wealthy politicians like Nancy Pelosi, who enrich themselves at the public’s expense, at the very least should pay for their own damn security.

Also, do Democrats still think it’s a great idea to replace police with social workers for “mental health” incidents like this one?

**

Joe Biden paused before answering a question about his wife’s feelings concerning Biden running for re-election, and the conservative media went wild: Biden zoned out! Blatant senility!

Listen, I detest Biden and believe he belongs behind bars. But I have to defend this pause. To me, he was simply considering how to answer the question. No big deal.

But Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters and conservative colleagues seemed to think Biden’s pause was bombshell news.

Nah, it was just a pause to reflect.

**

Looking for a good scary movie? Something that’s not supernatural? Something that’s not stupid?

I recommend The Good Nurse (above) because it’s based on a true story and is pretty damn frightening. It’s about a serial killer of whom, unlike Dahmer and Bundy and the rest of them, you might not know very much. But you should know his name because his victim tally is likely the highest of them all. (Here is our review of the book the film is based on.)

Charles Cullen never explained why he killed so many hospital patients — possibly because he doesn’t know, himself. And what could be scarier than that?

*

Speaking of The Good Nurse, a secondary villain is played by actress Kim Dickens (above), as an insurance baddie hoping to thwart the cops. I thought that, for a 57-year-old actress, Dickens was, well, hot as the dickens.

She also looked hot in this scene from Sons of Anarchy, filmed when she was a mere child of 48:

OK, her butt cheeks are a bit chunky and chubby — but that’s how some of us like them.

*

Scary Movie Recommendation Number Two

If you’re seeking something scary but a bit less realistic and more “fun” than The Good Nurse, we recommend Beast. The Idris Elba flick has a ridiculous climax, but until that point it’s a real nail-biter.

Oh, yeah. This is the one in which Idris wrestles a lion. Literally. Sort of.

**

Now that we’ve degenerated into rank misogyny, if you’d like to drool over pretty Priya’s private parts, check out either her (defunct) Just For Fans page or her current Babepedia page.

*

While we are busy being sexist …

Mr. Skin features Deborah Voorhees’s breasts a lot. Can’t blame him. But he never got to ride an elevator to work with her every day, like we did. Take that, Mr. Skin.

22Oct

The Weekly Review: October 16 – 22

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American Horror Show

With the big elections just a couple of weeks away, there is likely nothing more my humble self can say that might dissuade you from voting for the monsters (Democrats) — if you are hell-bent on doing so.

I might as well just sit back and watch the horror show, if that’s what it turns out to be.

In the spirit of Halloween, here is what you can expect if you vote blue:

“Son of Fester and Lurch”

Above, Morticia and Lurch Jr. greet the monster-in-chief.

“The Man Who Laughs”

If everything goes to hell, it’s your fault, not his.

“Quasimodo”

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Male Quasimodo’s unsightly hump is in the back; female Quasimodo’s unsightly humps are in the front.

“Bride of Dracula”

**

The Curse of Ryan Murphy

Ryan Murphy has a long history of creating shows with great premises but which, sooner or later, go off the rails. His openings almost always intrigue, but then it’s just a question of time before the show turns into a parody of itself. It’s as if Murphy loses interest in his own story, and then doesn’t care how it ends.

Sometimes a Murphy show takes years to go bonkers (Nip/Tuck 2003-10), sometimes it happens near the end of season one (The Watcher), but usually it goes haywire somewhere in the middle of a season’s run (American Horror Story).

Murphy should just write a story outline and then let someone else fill in the rest.

**

I used to be fond of Mike Lindell because, back when the left was trying to get advertisers to boycott Tucker Carlson’s show, Lindell and his pillows stuck with Carlson.

But good lord, with Lindell’s omnipresent, annoying TV commercials, in which he doesn’t so much pitch his product as make my walls shake due to his shouting, it feels like he’s moved into my living room.

I want to stuff His Pillows up His Ass.

**

The girl from Minnesota with the “fuck me” fanny continues to generate hits for our site. Certainly nothing monstrous about her.

15Oct

The Weekly Review: October 9 – 15

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Guess who was (probably) on set for this scene from 1981’s The Burning. See below.

Yesterday, I was watching an obscure horror flick from 1981, a piece of junk titled The Burning, and I was struck by the scenes focusing on starlets in the buff.

Nothing unusual about a 1980s slasher flick having nude scenes, but these exposures seemed more gratuitous than usual, with the camera panning and lingering and practically salivating over the unclothed actresses.

Then I saw the end credits:

Something tells me that young Harvey was probably heavily involved with the casting/auditions for The Burning, as well.

Above, Carolyn Houlihan does what she can to help Harvey’s movie — front and rear (that’s also her in the photo at top).

Carrick Glenn contributes to the cause.

**

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I hate to defend an ex-Dallas Cowboy, but whiney pansies like Page are proving Troy Aikman’s point: Too many “woke” liberals want to keep wearing their dresses.

Then again … Aikman’s subsequent cave to the mob and apology suggest that he, too, would like to keep wearing a dress.

**

Bravo, Mr. Carpenter. “Elevated horror” like Hereditary and The Babadook have decided that critical appeal, artiness, and “deep meaning” are more important than actual scares. Boo to that.

**

Our weekly review for July 24-30 did not simply get more hits than a typical post — it went through the roof. And kept climbing. It garnered more than 20 times our typical hit count.

Sadly, this was likely not due to Grouch’s sparkling prose, nor to any major scoops. No, we suspect it was because of the sexy piece of ass we wrote about, a cute Hmong girl from Minnesota (above). She used to have a Just For Fans page. Now we’ve learned that she has a page on Babepedia.

For more leering looks at the girl from Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, check out this post about the delectable Miss Vang.

We keep reading about the decline of the American male’s sexual potency. Hence the link (above) on Priya’s Babepedia page, in which we do what we can to help her raise a thousand erections. (Or a million.)

10Oct

Reviews in Short: October 2022

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The Munsters

It’s hard to believe that a two-hour homage to a cartoonish 1960s sitcom might be “polarizing,” but hey, this is the age of Twitter. Everything is polarizing. Especially if you are Rob Zombie, a director known for R-rated fare like The Devil’s Rejects and Halloween (2007). Zombie’s fan-base is typically into sex, violence, and gore — but Herman and Lily Munster? Probably not so much.

And yet, who are we to say that Zombie shouldn’t indulge his inner child? The TV series was not exactly Shakespeare, and neither is Zombie’s film, but it is amusing, nostalgic, and (literally) colorful as hell. Would I watch it again? Probably not. Am I glad I watched it once? Sure.

The plot: Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Lily (Zombie wife/regular Sheri Moon Zombie) meet and want to get married. There is opposition to this idea. And then … oh, hell. The plot doesn’t matter. Corny jokes, goofy-looking monsters, and the good-natured spirit of the TV show are what matter.

Grading a movie like The Munsters is tough. It depends on the audience. I would guess that kids would say Grade: A. I am guessing that most adults would say Grade: B-minus.

Unless, of course, they were expecting sex, violence, and gore. Release: 2022

*

Vengeance

Writer-director B.J. Novak plays a New York podcaster who travels to Texas to investigate the death of a local girl with whom he had a fling. When Novak’s city slicker meets the residents of a west Texas town, ideologies clash, fish-out-of-water humor ensues, and a family drama unfolds. In short, it’s Meet the Parents wrapped up in a murder mystery.

Wikipedia describes the movie this way: “Vengeance is a 2022 American western neo-noir mystery black comedy film.”

By my count, that’s four genres. If that sounds like a bit much, I think it is. By trying to tackle so many themes, Novak dilutes each of them.

Still, Vengeance is thought-provoking and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. It’s certainly an ambitious movie, and I give it an A for effort but, sorry, I can’t go higher than an overall Grade: B Release: 2022

*

The Black Phone

It’s 1978, and someone driving a black van is kidnapping kids in suburban Denver.

The good: Black Phone features nice performances from child actors Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as siblings living in an abusive home. Their relationship reminded me of Jem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird (aside from the abuse). The 1970s atmosphere is also quite good.

The bad: In an otherwise cookie-cutter kidnapping movie, it would be wise to have a memorable villain. Alas, Ethan Hawke isn’t likely to make anyone forget Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter. Despite wearing an obligatory serial-killer mask, Hawke oozes all the menace of a fly on the wall.

Release: 2021 Grade: B-

*

Halloween Ends

Halloween ends? Well, the movie’s midsection is certainly endless.

After a nifty opening scene involving a child and his babysitter, the audience spends the next hour (or more) following two troubled and morose young people as they act … troubled and morose. Michael Myers, apparently as bored by this twosome as we are, is nowhere to be seen.

Not so for Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising yet again the beloved scream queen Laurie Strode. You might expect that Laurie, now much older and presumably wiser than when she first encountered Michael Myers, will use her experience and wits to finally triumph over the masked boogeyman.

But this is 2022 and the age of “you go girl” superheroes, and so aging Laurie is asked to dispatch her nemesis, mano a mano, using her brute strength. Because that’s believable.

Sure. OK, whatever. Stupid.

Release: 2022 Grade: C-

09Oct

Psycho

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by Robert Bloch

My apologies, Robert Bloch. I underestimated you.

When it comes to Psycho, the legendary horror film, I’ve always assumed it was a product of its director’s genius. I still believe that, but until I read Bloch’s novel, I had no idea that Alfred Hitchcock relied so heavily on Bloch’s written words and basically transferred the story, with just a few tweaks, onto the silver screen.

Or as the master of suspense put it himself, “Psycho all came from Robert Bloch’s book.”

Everything you love about the movie is here in the novel: Norman (and Norma) Bates, the shower scene, the old house on the hill, the detective’s murder and, oh yes, the creepiness. Reading the book is like reading Hitchcock’s screenplay.

Again, my apologies to Robert Bloch.

08Oct

The Weekly Review: October 2 – 8

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Dahmer is apparently doing gangbusters business on Netflix — despite controversies involving the gay community and relatives of the notorious serial killer’s victims.

There’s a reason most shows about monsters like Jeffrey Dahmer focus on the twisted minds of the killers, and not on the people they slaughter. The former is endlessly fascinating; the latter is predictable and, well, often dull.

I was completely absorbed by the first six (of ten) episodes in Ryan Murphy’s miniseries, in which we zoom in on the madman from Wisconsin. As played by Evan Peters, Dahmer is bland and mundane … and monstrous. Once the emphasis of Dahmer shifts to the victims, a great deal of the drama fades.

**

Speaking of lunatics, with any luck, the whole country will be fucking with the Bidens in the not-so-distant future.

And haven’t thousands of citizens chanting “Let’s go, Brandon!” at sporting events been fucking with Joe for a year?

**

Southern governors shipping illegal aliens to big cities in the north might be a political “stunt,” but it’s a highly effective, brilliant stunt.

**

Listen, I want the Republicans to take back congress next month (not because they deserve it, but because the alternative is unthinkable). But as a longtime Minnesota Vikings fan, my opinion of candidate Herschel Walker hasn’t changed over the years. He’s always been a bonehead, and he remains a bonehead.

In fact, it’s really a tossup as to who is more inarticulate, Walker or Pennsylvania’s John Fetterwoman.

**

My cable company seems to think I would enjoy watching Hart to Hart. But I’m unconvinced that a picture of Robert Wagner pointing a gun at a woman he is supposedly close to is the message they want to convey.

01Oct

The Weekly Review: September 25 – Oct. 1

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TheQuartering

“When flying over the middle of America the turbulence is so bad. It’s like all the ignorance is rising through the air.” — Trevor Noah tweet

“When flying over The Daily Show studio in New York City, the turbulence is so bad. It’s like all the bad jokes and low ratings are rising through the air.” — America’s Midwest

**

I feel the same way about hurricanes in Florida as I do about wildfires in California: They are not going to stop. If you are a resident of either state, either purchase hurricane/wildfire insurance or move somewhere safer.

Those of us who do not live in tropical paradises like Florida and California spend much of our lives envying residents of those states. If we are expected to bail you out every time disaster strikes, perhaps you should pay a luxury tax to less fortunate citizens stuck in “Flyoverland.”

**

TV Bad News

Three Reasons I Have No Desire to Watch Blonde:

1. I understand it’s a real downer. I already knew Marilyn Monroe’s life was a downer. I don’t care to wallow in it.

2. It’s 166 minutes long. Unless it’s Lawrence of Arabia, that’s too long for any movie, especially one that’s a downer.

3. If I want to see Ana de Armas naked, that’s what the Internet is for. There are already tons of naked pics and videos of Ana de Armas, and they don’t last 166 minutes.

TV Good News

Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, and James Corden all gone or going? Now if they can just dump Kimmel and Colbert, I might start watching late-night talk shows again.

**

How to discuss your tiny penis with a young Filipino artist who has been commissioned to draw it:

First: If you are Rip van Dinkle, you send her uncensored pictures from the Smallest Penis in Brooklyn pageant. You include a full-frontal and a shot of a pageant judge measuring your manhood on stage.

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Second: You read the following questions and/or concerns that the girl, Kryanne Dane, has for you: