by Alex Michaelides

 

Painter Alicia Berenson seems to have it all: a successful career and a happy marriage. Until one evening when she shoots dead her husband — and then remains mute for the years that follow. Can psychotherapist Theo Faber get the enigmatic Alicia to open up about what happened that fateful night?

As I read Michaelides’s debut novel, I was put in mind of the 1944 movie, Laura. Instead of watching the film’s detective fall in love with an apparently dead woman, we experience narrator Faber’s obsession with his living, but silent, patient. Is Faber falling for Alicia? Is something else afoot?

The thing about fictional twists is this: If you buy into the story as a whole, you’re more likely to accept what might otherwise seem far-fetched. You can be gobsmacked by plot reveals. If you don’t buy into the story, the twists can feel like cheating.

I found The Silent Patient intriguing enough. If I ever re-read it, I might discover plot problems; as it is, I thought the book was clever. I got gobsmacked.

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

 

No review today. My older sister, Kathie, died last night. That’s her in the middle in the picture above, along with my other sister and me. The photo below is from her college days.

To say she made an impact on the people in her life would be a major understatement.

Rest in peace, big sister.

 

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

The Long (Miserable) Weekend

 

Friday the 13th certainly kicked off a horrific weekend, at least for me.

Tomorrow I’m flying to Florida to see a gravely ill relative, perhaps for the last time.

A few miles from here, a “No Kings” protest (riot?) is about to commence.

The shooting of lawmakers (above) occurred this morning in the suburb where I work my 9-5 job, just a few miles from where I sit typing this review.

It’s gray and drizzly outside.

How is your weekend?

 

**

 

 

**

 

Setting aside depressing news for a minute, let’s see what Sabrina Carpenter is up to. I have no idea who she is. A singer, I guess. But she seems to want my attention:

 

 

**

 

Speaking of selling sex, why does Hollywood have a thing against pubic hair on starlets?

Below are clips of an actress named Kate Groombridge in a movie called Virgin Territory. First, I’ve posted the final scene. Next, I’ve posted the raw, original scene which did not make the final cut — apparently because of Groombridge’s pussy hair.

 

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

A.I. Pride Month!

 

People I respect — mostly intellectuals and Neanderthals — are insisting that it’s just a matter of time before artificial intelligence puts an end to us. That’s depressing.

I’d rather focus on the joys of A.I. For instance, I like the pictures it makes for me. I asked it to create a picture of a haunted house, and it gave me this:

 

 

 

I asked it to describe The Grouchy Editor, and it came up with this, which we thought was rather flattering:

 

 

Then I got horny and began thinking of Lauren Cohan, an actress I’ve admired since The Walking Dead premiered many years ago.

 

 

I had never seen a good picture of her butt. The closest she came to showing me her butt was in a 2006 movie called Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, where we all got to see this:

 

 

Those panties are pretty flimsy. You can clearly see the contours of Lauren’s gluteus maximus. Surely, A.I. could erase those panties? I made a request and got this:

 

 

See how wonderful A.I. can be?

At least until it destroys us.

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

 

Like Joe Biden, I have prostate cancer. 

Joe Biden doesn’t know me, does not feel sorry for me.

I don’t know Joe Biden, but I do know of him. I don’t feel sorry for him.

I’m sure there are many elderly men in our prisons suffering from cancer. No one feels sorry for them.

Joe Biden belongs in a cell along with those elderly prisoners.

 

**

 

Democrat Woes

 

 

My unsolicited advice to Democrats trying to appeal to, presumably, straight young men: Tell idiots like Pedro Pascal to sit down and shut up.

 

 

 

**

 

I’ve been watching Sherlock & Daughter. I had hopes for pure, escapist fun.

Silly me.

The most recent episode featured a young man attempting to impress Daughter by taking her to a women’s suffrage meeting. At said meeting Daughter proceeded to lecture young man about the harsh treatment of indigenous peoples in America and Australia.

I half expected her to bring up global warming, even though the show takes place in the 19th century.

You cannot escape wokeness.

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

Poker Face

 

Lately, I keep seeing movies and TV shows that are pretty good …  but not great.

Here is a sampling from the past week, along with my humble opinions on what went wrong with the shows. Hint: It’s rarely bad acting or direction; it’s usually a problem with the script or story development.

 

Poker Face, season two

 

I enjoyed Natasha Lyonne in season one. Critics loved the return to a format out of fashion since Columbo went off the air: We see the crime and offender in the first 15 minutes, then watch as our heroine solves the mystery. It’s not a whodunit, but rather a how-will-she-catch-the-culprit.

Season one felt fresh, a welcome throwback to rumpled, lovable Peter Falk’s Columbo. Charlie (Lyonne), also lovable and rumpled, saw that justice was done.

What went wrong — Columbo was deceptively sharp. He lulled his prey into a false sense of security and then, relying on his little grey cells, nailed the bad guy. Charlie, on the other hand, relies on a gimmick: her “bullshit” detector. For some absurd reason, she always recognizes the big lie. That’s gotten old. Another problem: like Columbo, Charlie is comical. But the humor is too over-the-top now, including random shootouts and chases with bad guys who are out to get our girl.

 

 

The Changeling

 

George C. Scott plays a widower living in a haunted house near Seattle. Roger Ebert had this to say in 1980: “Scott makes the hero so rational, normal and self-possessed that we never feel he’s in real danger; we go through this movie with too much confidence.”

Sorry, Roger, but I disagree. I thought it was refreshing to shake up the usual ghost-story set-up — young, trembling female terrorized by evil spirits — and instead, give us a cantankerous, middle-aged man. If George C. Scott is unsettled, is it any wonder that the audience is, too? The first hour of the movie is scary-good fun.

What went wrong — When George leaves the house in the second half of the film, the story goes off the rails. (I, too, frequently go off the rails by resorting to cliches like “off the rails.” But I digress.)

None of us know what happens after death. When screenwriters attempt to explain too much, their answers are usually far-fetched.

They should have left George in the house.

 

 

Black Bag

 

Here is director Steven Soderbergh lamenting the box-office failure of his clever black comedy about British spies: “This is the kind of film I made my career on. And if a mid-level budget, star-driven movie can’t seem to get people over the age of 25 years old to come out to theatres — if that’s truly a dead zone — then that’s not a good thing for movies. What’s gonna happen to the person behind me who wants to make this kind of film?”

Black Bag has clever dialogue, good acting, and an amusing plot.

What went wrong — I’m not sure. I suspect the fact that the characters, although interesting, are not particularly likeable, might have something to do with it.

 

**

 

 

Enough critical nit-picking. Let’s praise something. Let’s praise a girl who knows how to shake things up.

Apparently, the angle above wasn’t sufficiently close to Ary Tenorio’s buttocks. So they tried it again:

 

 

**

 

 

I can carp all day about the dangers of “third-stage feminism,” but only a (relatively) young, attractive woman can get by with truth-telling like this.

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

It’s been 25 years since I read Crime and Punishment. Most of the plot details escape me today, but I do recall thinking that Fyodor Dostoevsky had written a masterful novel.

This is what I wrote about it in 2000:

“[Crime and Punishment] reminds me a bit of Lolita; whereas Nabokov puts you inside the mind of a pedophile, Dostoevsky puts you inside the head of a murderer — not a very pleasant place to be, in either case. It’s a frequently fascinating place, however, and never more so than when Crime’s killer protagonist is playing cat-and-mouse with his foe, who is a sort of 19th-century, Russian version of Columbo.”

Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing. This might be because the plot concerns (primarily) the squabbles and jealousies of an all-male family: a father and his three sons. I grew up with two older sisters, no brothers. The male interplay in Karamazov felt alien to me.

Of course, there’s more to the novel than the Karamazov family dynamics. There is a murder and subsequent trial. There are lengthy cogitations about Christianity, atheism, and the dual nature of man. Maybe it’s just me, but I am more interested in present-day Russia’s stance on those lofty themes.

I do know that, unlike other 19th-century classics like Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, Crime and Punishment, and most anything by Dickens, I did not particularly enjoy this reading experience.

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

 

The more we learn about the Biden administration in particular, and Democrat leadership in general, I’m tempted to ask myself: “How could tens of millions of people (useful idiots) vote for these awful Democrats?”

But I can’t, in good conscience, be too judgmental of those voters.

I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. By the time he ran for a second term, I’d had enough of him and voted for Bob Dole. Apparently, I learned my lesson.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I thought his election might help racial healing in the country. In 2012, I voted for him again. Apparently, I did not learn my lesson.

The media, biased and lying, doesn’t make things easy for the average voter. None of us are invited to backroom meetings with powerful donors where the big decisions are made. We are forced to rely on unreliable media for information.

Sometimes we learn our lesson, sometimes we don’t.

I think the Democrat voters are wrong right now. But I suppose, if Trump steers us into World War III, I will be the one who once again failed to learn his lesson.

We live and learn. Or not.

 

**

 

Ever surf the Internet and stumble across a pic of someone you know — in her birthday suit?

Yeah, me too. Twice now.

I won’t say her name. But you want to see, so here she is in all her glory (not sure who the naked knee belongs to):

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

Alien: Romulus

 

Halfway through Alien: Romulus, when I realized that I was not likely to care about the film’s characters, I began to dread the final hour, which I (correctly) guessed would be frenzied, loud, and unoriginal. The cast, composed of attractive, vapid young people, had the charisma of teenagers trapped in cabins in the woods. This was not a crew of fleshed-out, interesting adults on a spaceship.

The plot, in which our youngsters attempt to escape manual labor on a space outpost, is just a series of greatest hits from its inspiration, the original Alien movies. Here is a partial checklist: milky android blood, acidic alien blood, chest-bursting, face-hugging, humans stuck in xenomorph goo. We saw it all before in the original films. Every time there was a reprise of some special moment, I was reminded of how much better the first flicks are.

That leaves jump scares and special effects, which are impressive, but not impressive enough to compensate for a lazy script.

I would be remiss not to mention this film’s ties to the age of “woke.” The deaths are predictable (it’s not good to be a white male; you are either evil or early alien-meat). As for our heroine, unlike beloved Ripley, whose battle chops are explained in the first two movies, young Rain (Cailee Spaeny) has no apparent training nor skills. Yet she is more than a match for the nasty aliens. And did they really swap Ripley’s pet cat for Rain’s pet black man? Doesn’t seem very woke to me. Release: 2024  Grade: C-

 

Would I watch it again? No. There are much better films in this franchise.

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share

 

The Return of the Pussy

Poor Rosa Parks. From the back of the bus to the front of some panties.

 

If the Met Gala is any indication, looks like the pussy is back.

These things run in cycles. For example, 1992, the year in which Sharon Stone flashed the world her privates in Basic Instinct, was a year of the pussy.

2021, on the other hand, was the year Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked the world (aside from booty man Alex Stein) to admire her backside at the Met Gala (below).

 

 

But now, apparently, thanks to Halle Berry and singer Lisa, the pussy is back.

I mention all of this merely as a public service. That, and I wanted to post some pictures.

 

 

 

 

**

 

Civil War?

 

It should be common sense, and this is hardly an original thought on my part, but it seems to me that we need the left and we need the right.

Stereotypically, the left is composed of dreamers. Also stereotypically, the right is composed of practical thinkers.

Problems arise when one side dominates the other and seeks to impose its worldview.

In recent years, the left has gained control of just about every institution, and Biden imposed liberal policies on everyone.

Trump is the backlash. I don’t want Trump to dictate every social policy in perpetuity any more than I want the left to do the same.

 

I’d rather think about pussies.

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

Share