We are starting out the new year by being under the weather. Sicky-poo.
Please dry your tears by enjoying these quotes and a picture:
“Me and Mike, ve vork in mine,
Holy shit, ve have good time.
Vunce a veek ve get our pay,
Holy shit, no vork next day.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
“And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.”
— George W. Young
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by J.B. Priestley
In 1932, legendary Hollywood director James Whale gave us The Old Dark House, a real gem of a movie. Whale infused his film with his trademark wit, humor, and camp. Oh, and yes — at least by 1932 standards, it was quite scary.
Whale was also remarkably faithful to the plot of his movie’s source material, J.B. Priestley’s 1927 novel, Benighted.
The plot of both book and film: A group of five young travelers take refuge from a raging storm in an isolated mansion inhabited by members of the Femm family, a collection of oddballs ranging from the eccentric to the sociopathic.
Is Benighted as good as Whale’s movie? I’d say yes and no.
Priestley’s novel is more introspective, getting inside its characters’ heads and finding there: despair, disillusionment — but also glimmers of hope — in the mindsets of young people struggling with the aftermath of The Great War.
Priestley’s focus is on psychology. Whale dispenses with all the navel-gazing and instead highlights the Femms, whose members resemble a 1920s version of the clan of lunatics in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
I prefer Whale’s funhouse interpretation. But I also recommend the book.
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
It’s not often — maybe unprecedented — that you can confidently predict that the coming year will be a momentous one in American history — or even world history.
In January 1941, no one thought the coming year would see Japan bombing Pearl Harbor. In January 2001, no one envisioned terrorist planes crashing into the World Trade Center. (OK, conspiracy theorists, maybe some people saw these things coming.)
But 2024? It’s going to be momentous. The only question is about the details.
**
Maybe my expectations were too high, because the premise (and cast) of The Holdovers had me hoping the movie would be, as some reviewers claim, an “instant holiday classic.”
Don’t get me wrong. Alexander Payne’s comedy-drama is fine. It’s funny and touching and Paul Giamatti is, well, Paul Giamatti.
But “fine” is how I’d describe it.
I doubt that I’ll be planning to watch it every Christmas season.
**
Happy New Year.
If possible.
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
I finally got around to watching Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. If you’d like to read a traditional review of the film, there are 484 of them on Rotten Tomatoes, and 442 on IMDB (probably some overlap between the two sites).
I’m not going to do a traditional review. Instead, here are some of my thoughts about the film:
Nolan’s biopic is ostensibly the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic, scientific genius dubbed the “Father of the Atom Bomb.” But with apologies to Jordan Peele, I think Oppenheimer might have more accurately been titled Us. It’s about much more than a single man.
I was born long after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I’ve lived my entire life under the shadow of potential nuclear war, the specter of global annihilation. I presume that you have, too. It makes me wonder if the Japanese bombings fundamentally changed the psychology of the human race.
Did people born pre-1945 have a completely different outlook than those of us born later? If so, how does that manifest itself today? According to the movie, Oppenheimer himself was haunted by his creation. Shouldn’t we be, too?
I’m no scientist nor a historian, so I can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of this movie. But as a dramatization, it is gripping and, for such a lengthy (three hours) production, moves at lightning speed.
It’s very talky. In that respect, it reminded me a bit of The West Wing. As in Aaron Sorkin’s TV series, I got lost trying to keep up with the incessant talk about subjects with which I was unfamiliar. In West Wing, that was often government policy; in Oppenheimer, it’s fission, fusion, isotopes — and the political climate of the 1940s- ‘50s. But there’s something mesmerizing about watching smart people discuss difficult subjects, whether we are well-versed in those subjects, or not.
There’s been a lot of praise for Robert Downey Jr., who as politician Lewis Strauss returns to “serious cinema.” From some Web-site articles, you might suspect that Downey had been kidnapped and held hostage in South America for the past ten years or so.
Uh, not really. He very happily grabbed lots of cash and turned his career into a series of comic-book movies.
Downey doing comic books
Oppenheimer makes me an even bigger fan of Cillian Murphy.
With his baby-face, I did not expect Murphy to completely own the role of a tough mobster in the TV show Peaky Blinders. But he excelled as Tommy Shelby. Ditto for Oppenheimer, in which Murphy nails the titular character. Baby face or not.
Baby-faced Tommy Shelby
I have never been a huge Nolan fan. I was underwhelmed by Inception and haven’t bothered to see his comic-book movies (about Batman). But this movie is clearly a triumph for him.
Nolan’s been criticized for making films that are “too much brain, too little heart.” I’m afraid that holds true in the final hour of this film, in which Oppenheimer comes under attack in the aftermath of the war and finds supporters in short supply. The last third of the movie should have been more powerful, like the two hours that precede it.
Release: 2023 Grade: A-
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
It’s hard to imagine a bigger “threat to democracy” than a handful of liberal judges telling the electorate that it is not allowed to vote for the presidential frontrunner.
Once again, the left engages in classic projection, accusing its political foes of the very sin the left itself is guilty of perpetrating.
**
I live in Minnesota. Come over and have some hot chocolate, Kat. I feel bad for you.
**
Dee found love and a million dollars by winning Survivor. “Boyfriend” Austin found reality-TV infamy by epitomizing the word “simp,” or what we old-timers used to call a “sucker.”
Unless, of course, Austin is actually a modern gold-digger, hoping to siphon off as much of Dee’s million bucks as possible. That would be a fitting revenge, would it not?
**
Maybe they will turn out to be very different cinematic animals, but if The Holdovers is anything like 2000’s Wonder Boys, I can’t wait to see it. I love Wonder Boys (my review here), and Holdovers is projecting similar vibes.
A problematic college professor bonds with a male student? Check. Nice mixture of comedy and drama? Check. Top-notch actor playing the professor? Check.
**
Oh, boy. I am so looking forward to 2024.
**
Last but not least, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. At some point over the holidays, do yourself a favor and watch one of the two scariest movies ever made: Bob Clark’s Black Christmas.
In 1974, a girl I was sweet on named Laurie Schaefer (forgive my spelling if you read this, Laurie) and I drove to Willmar, Minnesota to see a movie on a date. The movie we hoped to see, Earthquake, was sold out. The only other option was something called Black Christmas, playing on an adjacent screen. Neither of us had heard of it. I can’t speak for Laurie, but it scared the crap out of me.
Forty-nine years later, as far as I’m concerned, it remains one of the best, most frightening movies I’ve ever seen (the other would be The Exorcist).
I suggest you watch it. Happy holidays from me, Billy.
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Emily Guendelsberger
Guendelsberger follows in the footsteps of journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, who 22 years ago went undercover to document low-wage jobs for her book Nickel and Dimed. In 2019’s On the Clock, Guendelsberger becomes a (temporary) worker bee in an Amazon warehouse, at a call center, and in a San Francisco McDonald’s.
Most of her book depicts the misery and humiliation endured by people working such jobs — but then, we already knew about that (or should know about that).
The question is, why don’t corporations and governments do something to alleviate the pain of folks who can’t afford health insurance, can’t afford to move, and find themselves at the mercy of algorithms, invasive monitoring, and decision-makers so far removed from life at the bottom that, even if they wanted to improve conditions, might not know how?
If nothing else, those of us fortunate enough to be on the other side of the cash register (or the phone line), might think twice before blowing up at the human being stuck trying to help us.
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Final thoughts on The Crown
“Ritz”
**
Who the hell knows what Christmas 2024 will be like? I’ve seen others make this prediction, and I’ve decided to join them: A year from now we won’t know who the president of the United States is. The election results will be tied up in the courts, with both sides refusing to budge.
Won’t that be fun?
**
Lex Fridman spent more than two hours chatting with Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos. There was much talk about space travel, much time devoted to Amazon’s customer satisfaction.
But unless I missed it (I did fast-forward a bit during the space conversation), there was no time devoted to employee (dis)satisfaction at Amazon workplaces.
This stuck out to me because I just finished reading On the Clock, in which the author exposes the nightmare of working in an Amazon warehouse. (Granted, the book is five years old; but have Amazon working conditions improved since then?)
**
Listen, I don’t want the draft reinstated for anyone.
However … in recent decades, women have enjoyed pretty much every benefit made possible to them by feminism.
Isn’t it about time they experienced some of the downsides of equality to men?
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
If we must have yet another Dracula movie, it’s probably a good idea to have a change of venue. Rather than revisit castles, and London, and every other setting we’ve seen ad nauseam in previous movies, why not put Dracula aboard a cargo ship enroute to England? After all, that is the setting of chapter 7 in Bram Stoker’s novel. As for the captain and crew stuck on the ship with the vampire: talk about a captive audience.
Alas, The Last Voyage of the Demeter was just … so-so. You might expect that with such an inherently dangerous, eerie setting, the atmospheric possibilities for a horror movie would be delicious. Instead, the ship was kind of cool, but not that cool; Dracula himself was kind of cool, but not that cool; and the ominous sea was mostly missing in action.
I suspect the mediocrity of the film is due to the triumph of computerized effects over practical effects. Had Voyage been filmed in 1975 in a giant water tank on a soundstage, I think it would have been a better movie. Release: 2023 Grade: C+
Would I watch it again? Not likely.
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Leave the World Behind
Netflix Notes
Leave the World Behind
Netflix’s new thriller takes a kitchen-sink approach to the apocalypse: Something is knocking out power and threatening everyday life for two families on Long Island, but what is it? Could the culprit be solar flares? Could it be the North Koreans, or the Chinese, or the Iranians? Our own government?
Leave the World Behind explores existential dread in 2023. If there is a fear it can tap into, it does. (It’s also just political enough to aggravate the left and the right, with a few pointed jabs at both sides.)
Mostly, it’s very good at tension building. I recommend it.
May December (pictured above)
This is a (mostly) well-acted, well-produced drama with one glaring flaw: The actor who plays “Joe Yoo,” Charles Melton, cannot act his way out of a paper bag. When the poor guy is called upon to display heavy emotion, well … he tries.
**
**
I’ve been watching Elon Musk interviews on the Lex Fridman podcast. The more I listen to Musk, the more I like him.
I like his acquisition of Twitter, but I suspect he has the same problem that Trump had as president: He has too many snakes working for him, all of them secretly trying to undermine him.
**
**
Gotta love the early stages of artificial intelligence on the Internet. I wanted to know who was going to star in Big Brother Reindeer Games:
I am guessing that Paul Giamatti was quite surprised to see that his agent got him cast on this CBS reality show.
**
**
One reason I stopped watching Fox News was the reaction by on-air talent to the firing of Tucker Carlson — there wasn’t any.
So, kudos to Greg Gutfeld for having the balls to take a none-too-subtle jab at his employer for firing its most popular host, allegedly because advertisers wanted it to happen.
**
There seems to be a bit of love for Japan’s new Godzilla movie. See critic blurbs above and below.
I’ll admit I am intrigued. Then again, should we really get excited about “the best Godzilla movie ever!” when the bar for Godzilla movies is, face it, so low?
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
TV Updates
Squid Game: The Challenge (reality version)
So many things are wrong with this show, which is an offshoot of Netflix’s monster-hit fictional series:
But oh, yes, the damn thing is also gripping and addictive.
*
Lady Ballers
From watching the trailer (not the film itself), this Daily Wire production looks like it might be quite the lame, stupid movie.
But I’m happy it exists.
Anything that triggers “snowflakes” on the left has to be a good thing.
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
