The Grouchy Editor

17Feb

The Weekly Review: February 11 – 17

Posted in Weekly Reviews | Leave a comment

Movie Thoughts

I sat down to view Ghostwatch, Britain’s 1992 answer to The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles’s infamous 1938 radio prank on the American public.

The premise of Ghostwatch is clever. Using real talent from BBC’s presenter pool, the 90-minute production purports to be a live Halloween special documenting a poltergeist event in a West London household.

The coverage ping-pongs from man-on-the-street “interviews,” to sit-downs with supposed experts on the paranormal, to creepy incidents in the allegedly haunted house.

What the BBC did not anticipate: Thousands of alarmed viewers inundated the station with phone calls, most of the callers taken in by the elaborate hoax. It was a repeat of the hysteria Welles created in 1938.

After I watched this controversial movie, I checked out Chris Stuckmann’s review of it, then read his comments section.

What’s interesting is the defensiveness expressed by many commenters. They begin with the caveat, “What you have to understand is –” or “The reason this show was so –.”

I think the commenters, many of whom were children when first exposed to the prank show, are defensive because at some level they realize that as a TV movie, Ghostwatch simply doesn’t hold up.

My 2024 perspective: Although the production is interesting as a sort of time-capsule, it hasn’t aged well as a drama. Too many incidents stretch credibility. The “news coverage” comes off as fake. “Pipes,” the ghost at the center of the story, isn’t particularly scary.

After its initial showing, BBC declined to air Ghostwatch again. Ever. Too controversial, I guess. For years it was difficult to find the movie.

No more. If you want to form your own opinion, you can now rent it or purchase it on Amazon.

**

I suppose that if I were inclined to do the research, I could find out how Rotten Tomatoes defines its “rotten” and “fresh” ratings. I am not inclined to do that.

But doesn’t it seem odd that a grade of D-minus warrants a “fresh” rating?

**

Wonder woman Taylor Swift keeps hooking up with losers like man-child Travis Kelce (above).

Isn’t it high time that Swift wrote fewer songs about these guys, and more songs about her personal failings? She is clearly doing something wrong.

11Feb

Still Life

Posted in Books, Books, Movies, TV & Web | Leave a comment

by Louise Penny

The Plot:

Someone using a bow and arrow kills a beloved old lady in the woods. Was it an accident, or is someone in an arts-loving Canadian village responsible?

What I Liked:

Clues to the killer — and other village secrets — are hidden in a unique setting: the victim’s living-room walls. The walls are adorned with a giant mural depicting the residents of tiny Three Pines. Did the dead woman leave a clue to the identity of her eventual killer in her mural?

That’s a fun idea that I haven’t really seen done before. The detectives, the villagers, and readers alike are invited to ponder this maze-like puzzle.

What I Didn’t Care For:

The main characters are a collection of middle-class liberals who believe that, deep down, they are undiscovered great artists. They seem oblivious to the fact that history’s great artists were not often middle-class liberals.

Penny wants us to view lead detective Armand Gamache as an enigmatic, wise man of few words. I saw him as bland and forgettable. (Gamache is much like another low-key detective who leaves me cold, P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh.)

I prefer my protagonists to have a bit more color, a la Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes.

10Feb

The Weekly Review: February 4 – 10

Posted in Weekly Reviews | Leave a comment

If it were up to me, Kansas City and San Francisco would both lose in the Super Bowl.

Alas, it is not up to me.

What tips the scale for me, in favor of San Francisco, is the nonstop hullaballoo over those two boneheaded lovebirds, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

I cannot stomach more media coverage of them. San Francisco must win.

**

Speaking of stomach issues … lots of Internet jokes about Wolf Blitzer apparently stifling an upchuck while listening to a politician.

To be fair, there have been times when I struggled not to upchuck while listening to Wolf Blitzer.

**

Democrats are finally acknowledging what’s been obvious to anyone with a television set: Biden’s a doddering, senile coot.

The question is, do they consider this bad news? Or is it a good excuse to give Biden the boot and replace him with some other presidential contender?

**

Biggest red flag of the past few years for anyone who votes Republican:

This fist-bump between Lindsey Graham and Kamala Harris.

It was a clear sign that Republicans don’t care about their voters. They are sharing a cushy bed of power with their real friends, the Democrats.

04Feb

Reviews in Short: February 2024

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Reviews in Short | Leave a comment

The Invisible Man

This is what you don’t need when casting the titular character in The Invisible Man — Cary Grant or Clark Gable. Movie-star looks, it should be apparent, are irrelevant when you can’t be seen.

This is what you do need — A Voice.

Director James Whale hit the jackpot when he cast Claude Rains as doomed chemist Jack Griffin in this 1933 classic. Rains, whom we don’t actually see until the last scene of the film, had The Voice.

In normal-guy mode, Rains’s delivery is sonorous, commanding, and oh-so-British. But when poor Jack literally loses his looks, and then his mind … talk about putting the “mad” in mad scientist.

I still wake up in the middle of the night hearing his gleeful, piercing cackles.

OK, so the special effects are what you might expect from a 90-year-old movie (crude — but amusing). But overall, The Invisible Man has a winning combination: Rains’s incomparable voice acting and Whale, the king of campy horror, delivering fast-paced, entertaining set pieces.

Release: 1933 Grade: A-

Would I watch it again? Happily.

Whale, left, on the set of “The Invisible Man”

*

Thanksgiving

Eli Roth has been accused of making mean-spirited, unpleasant, misogynistic movies. I’m talking about films like Hostel, or The Green Inferno. That might or might not explain why Roth pivots toward more mainstream with his latest directorial effort, Thanksgiving.

Love or hate Roth’s previous films, they were at least interesting. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is just another teen slasher flick. A masked killer picks off vapid kids, one by one. Gory kills abound. Sound familiar? Yeah, too familiar. Release: 2023 Grade: C

Would I watch it again? No.

*

Evil Dead Rise

What I liked:

Actress Alyssa Sutherland has the perfect face to play a mother who is possessed by a demon. That face was not lost on the film’s marketing team; it’s what we see in most of the posters (see above). Sutherland has an excellent evil grin.

I liked the setting. The filmmakers ditch the obligatory cabin in the woods for a creepy, decrepit high-rise apartment building. Reminded me a bit of the old building in Rec.

What I disliked:

There is one movie trope that irritates me more than the “it was only a dream” cliché, and that is the monster who refuses to die. There is little suspense to be had when you can predict, with 99 percent certainty, that the “killed” demon is only resting.

Gore and a deafening soundtrack are no substitutes for genuine suspense — even in a horror movie.

I enjoy the Evil Dead franchise, movies and the TV series. But most of them have one element that is lacking in Evil Dead Rise: humor. Release: 2023 Grade: B-

Would I watch it again? Probably not.

03Feb

The Weekly Review: January 28 – Feb. 3

Posted in Weekly Reviews | Leave a comment

Administration from Hell

War in the Middle East, invasion at our southern border, stratospheric inflation, and endless culture wars.

I can’t decide if Biden and pals are escalating all these nightmares to advance their “great reset,” or to ensure that there are so many monumental crises that future President Trump — or any future president — will never be able to fix them all.

**

Yeah, the actress pictured above misses the point of criticism of the latest season of Fargo — whether deliberately or through her ignorance, I couldn’t say.

No one is objecting to Fargo’s “strong, independent woman,” in this case the heroine portrayed by Juno Temple. The objections to this season are twofold: Temple’s character isn’t so much strong and independent as she is physically absurd. Small and frail, she routinely bests young, healthy males in physical confrontations. She isn’t human; she is a superhero.

But worse is the depiction of males in the show. Jon Hamm’s villain is so ridiculously heinous that he might as well have a mustache to twirl after his every despicable act. And then there is the heroine’s husband, who is whiny and more helpless than a two-year-old.

And so, we are presented with a god-like woman and utterly worthless males. It’s virtue signaling and political correctness run amok. I stopped watching after the fourth episode, which is a shame because I used to like this show.

**

Rewriting History

I watched this video and realized there is an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of Christopher Columbus.

I saw the thumbnail below and realized someone is trying to find something good to say about Richard Nixon.

Could Benedict Arnold be next on the rehab list?

28Jan

Barbie

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Movies | Leave a comment

Thoughts on Big, Bad Barbie

Satire works best when it has at least a trace of subtlety. Barbie, the live-action cartoon from director Greta Gerwig, has all the subtlety of a fart in the face. Its message: Patriarchy is bad, patriarchy is everywhere. Patriarchy is responsible for all the (primarily female) misery in the world.

If only feminists always had the upper hand and men had more feminine natures, everything would be great!

**

Plot: Margot Robbie’s “stereotypical Barbie” leaves her Mattel-created fantasy land and discovers the horrors of the real world, in which men dominate and women are downtrodden.

Barbie (and Ken) returns to fantasy land, having learned a valuable lesson. Everything is better when men are their “true” selves (i.e., more like women) and women assume their natural roles of running everything.

Uh-huh.

**

In the Barbies’ fantasy land, women drive pink convertibles (likely built by men) and live in dream homes (likely built by men) and idle away their days complimenting each other, dancing … and taking men for granted.

In the so-called real world (which is apparently 1965), construction workers slap women on the ass. Every Supreme Court justice is male. Every member of corporate boards of directors is male. The injustice of all this male domination culminates in a pity-party speech by Oscar-nominated America Ferrera (above). She wails about how difficult and unfair it is to be a modern-day woman.

I am sure there are coal miners, single dads, and military amputees — most of them men — who shed tears as they listen to Ferrera’s heart-felt speech.

**

Margot Robbie (not Oscar-nominated) and Ryan Gosling (Oscar-nominated) as Barbie and Ken:

They play plastic dolls in goofy, likeable manners. That’s it.

Somehow, I doubt that Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier are having their acting-chops legacies challenged.

**

Ugh. I had to pause this movie at the halfway point because it was so tedious. As if the insufferable musical numbers weren’t enough to put me off.

Here’s a novel thought: Maybe, just maybe, the world works best when men and women use their complementary traits to problem solve — rather than by glorifying one sex and demonizing the other.

**

I’m giving Barbie an average grade because, despite its propagandizing and politics, it is a handsome production, and it does have some witty dialogue. And although it’s too long, it’s certainly thought-provoking.

Release: 2023 Grade: C-

27Jan

The Weekly Review: January 21 – 27

Posted in Weekly Reviews | Leave a comment

Looks like “tough guy” Joe Biden is about to abandon Texas the same way he abandoned Afghanistan, with his tail between his legs.

In this case, let’s hope that’s what he does.

*

Biden’s position on Supreme Court rulings when it comes to student-loan payments, or contracts between landlords and tenants: Screw the Supreme Court. Find a loophole or just ignore the court’s ruling.

Texas’s position on its border dispute with Biden: Screw the Supreme Court. Just ignore the court’s ruling.

So much for the power of the Supreme Court.

*

It does seem as if Biden is trying to poke, poke, poke the conservative bear, hoping to goad it into doing something rash so that his administration has an excuse to crack down (again) on the civil liberties of the right — before Trump gets back in power.

**

Chick on the Daily Mail going to town No. 1:

Callahan’s much too tough on Trump in this column, but otherwise, you go girl.

Chick on the Daily Mail going to town No. 2:

Kennedy’s much funnier in print, like in this column, than she is on TV.

20Jan

The Weekly Review: January 14 – 20

Posted in Weekly Reviews | Leave a comment

Bill Maher’s false equivalences

Bill Maher recently topped a “most trusted media personality” list.

I guess that makes sense. Unlike so many progressive pundits, Maher’s a long-time liberal who at least acknowledges leftist lunacies.

But he’s blinded by his hatred of Trump and a desire to maintain his liberal bona fides by continually making false equivalences between the left and the right.

In recent years, on nearly every major issue — border security, inflation, LGBTQ demands, censorship — the madness is generated by the left.

It’s tiresome to hear Maher preface every (correct) criticism of left-wing lunacy by telling us that “both sides” are influenced by extremists. That’s bullshit. Only one side is constantly pushing to change or destroy social norms and laws.

One more thing: Jake Tapper is trusted by anyone?

**

Sean Strickland

Mixed-martial-arts champ Sean Strickland doesn’t strike me as the brightest bulb on anyone’s Christmas tree, and some of his recent press-conference comments seemed unduly homophobic. However …

Strickland’s larger point — that liberals in general and the corporate press in particular, are sheep (“weak men”) marching in lockstep to whatever progressive crap is being pushed — is absolutely spot on.

**

Funny Video 1

Click here to watch the video.

Funny Video 2

Click here to watch the video.

**

Reality TV Bare Ass of the Week

Julie Theis of Netflix’s The Trust

15Jan

Reviews in Short: January 2024

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Reviews in Short | Leave a comment

Society of the Snow

There aren’t many true stories that inspire multiple first-rate movie and book adaptations. A 1972 plane crash in the Andes, in which just 16 of 45 passengers survived — including a grueling 72 days stuck on a mountain — is one of them. The book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors is superb. A 1993 movie, also titled Alive, is riveting. Now we can add this Spanish-language production, which might be the best rendition of all.

The harrowing flight disaster is remembered today, in part, because the group of mostly young men had to resort to cannibalism to survive. But what resonates most for me about this saga is not the cannibalism, but rather the heroism. Release: 2023 Grade: A

Would I watch it again? Yes, but not right away.

13Jan

The Weekly Review: January 7 – 13

Posted in Weekly Reviews | Leave a comment

Da’Vine Joy Randolph investigates a murder in the building

To Woke, or Not to Woke

As I (finally) watched season 1 of the acclaimed Hulu show Only Murders in the Building, I thought about “wokeness.” Early in the season, we learn that the investigating detective is a lesbian black woman who is expecting a child with her female partner.

At this point, I had questions: Was this virtue signaling, an attempt by the producers to pre-empt criticism from the left about yet another high-profile show starring two straight white males (Steve Martin and Martin Short)? Or was it organic storytelling? Hmmm.

I was reminded how tired I am of cop shows about grizzled, white, middle-aged men solving crimes and battling the world at large. You know, like Martin’s character-within-a-character in Murders, the TV detective “Brazzos.”

When showrunners finally introduced non-white, non-male actors in these cop roles some years ago, it didn’t feel woke; it came as refreshing, welcome relief from the same-old, same-old.

The problem, it seems to me, arises when non-traditional roles and concepts are paired with heavy-handed preaching, and when the only acceptable villains are straight white males.

It’s a fine line. You succeed when the story feels natural, not woke. I think Only Murders succeeds in walking that line — at least so far.

“Brazzos”

**

As if we needed more evidence about the bottomless greed of the NFL.