UFO Week - The Program; A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK - THE PROGRAM

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An informative and worthy effort from James Fox, one of the very best ufo documentarians in the business.

Day five of UFO Week is here and today we review the highly anticipated new James Fox documentary, The Program, which was released on December 16th and is available on video on demand.

James Fox is unquestionably one of the very best ufo documentarians working today. He has made five UFO related documentaries in the last twenty-seven years, with The Program being his sixth.

Not all of Fox’s UFO documentaries have worked, but the ones that have, like Out of the Blue (2003), I Know What I Saw (2009) and The Phenomenon (2020), are among the very best ever made.

Fox’s most recent film, Moment of Contact, was a major disappointment as it never fully came together as a noteworthy cinematic venture, and so I was very apprehensive about his newest film.

I am glad to say that The Program, while not nearly as good as the masterpiece that is Out of the Blue, is certainly a top-notch document and important piece of the UFO puzzle for any interested in a serious examination of the topic.

The film, which runs a brisk one hour and forty-two-minutes, opens with a discussion of the “Wilson Memo”, a 2002 memo allegedly sent between Admiral Wilson and astrophysicist Eric Davis regarding the secret UFO programs run by various black budget government agencies in conjunction with aerospace and military contracting companies.

The story goes from there and includes discussions with such serious luminaries as Dr. Gary Nolan of Stanford University and Hal Puthoff, as well as lesser-known insiders like former intelligence agency analyst Lenval Logan, DOD research scientist Sarah Gamm, and former Asst Deputy Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon.

Logan and Gamm in particular make for compelling subjects as they seem like smart people trying to tell the truth while trying to avoid saying anything that would violate any oaths or NDA’s they have signed.

Mellon has become a mainstay in UFO discussions and documentaries and he gives a good interview as he comes across as serious as can be without being a fanatic. That said, I’m a bit wary of the guy with his intelligence background and his insanely rich family background (he comes from the Mellon banking dynasty).

One of Fox’s real strong points as a filmmaker is his ability to properly pace a documentary. His good films flow with an effortlessness that is compelling, and The Program is no exception.

While Fox does appear in many of his films, he is most successful when he is not the protagonist, but just an observer/interviewer.

To his great credit, Fox is masterful with his direct yet easy-going interview style, and he gets the most out of his subjects as is possible.

Another subject examined in the film is the case of Gary McKinnon, a British hacker who broke into U.S. government computer systems searching for secret UFO stuff…and found it. And for his trouble he was arrested and faced extradition and life in prison in the U.S.

What McKinnon discovered hidden away in the government vaults, besides a crystal-clear photo of a UFO, was a list of “non-terrestrial officers” which included names. Quite the unnerving find.

The film then stays in the UK and transitions to a case in Calvine, Scotland where in August of 1990, two Scotsmen photographed a UFO. The British government confiscated their pictures…but one savvy officer held one for himself and kept for thirty years, finally releasing it in recent years.

The photo is extraordinarily good, the story of the two men who took it as told by one of their co-workers, is not. The co-worker sounds like a drunk making up a story as he goes along…and it would’ve been better leaving him on the cutting room floor entirely.

Another issue with the film is the story of Jason Sands, a former-USAF airmen who worked at infamous Area 51. Sands, who was vetted and recently gave private testimony to congress, has footage of a UFO at a firing range, and tells a strange story of an interaction with an alien.

Sands’ story of his alien interaction is definitely outlandish, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Unfortunately, after having watched the film, I’ve since seen Sands interviewed elsewhere where he tells even more outrageous tales about having to execute an alien at the behest of his superiors in order to guarantee his silence about the program in which he worked. This story is just a bridge too far and makes Sands sound like a committed fabulist or a fabulist who should be committed. I wonder if he told that same tale to Fox and Fox wisely kept it out of his film or if it is a new revelation? Either way, I think in terms of credibility it probably would’ve been better for Fox to keep Sands out of his documentary entirely.

The final portion of the The Program deals with the deep state obstruction of disclosure and features the always reliable Rep. Tim Burchett and Mellon describing the undemocratic government within a government that keeps all the secrets. (As an aside about Burchett, I was recently watching an episode of Finding Bigfoot with my son, an Animal Planet reality tv series from the 2010s – and in one episode the crew goes to Knox County, Tennessee to search for bigfoot and the mayor of Knox County – good old Tim Burchett, is there to help out and discuss his interest in the subject. I wholly endorse him being named director of the Federal Department of the Weird, Wild and Wonderful.)

There’s also a very damning display from the repugnant Bill Nelson, a former Senator from Florida and now head of NASA, who puts on a bullshit display that is so transparently dishonest and full of bureaucratic bluster that it is painful to watch. That Fox himself questions Nelson in an open forum, and then does a split-screen between Nelson blatantly lying about whistleblower David Grusch, and Grusch speaking to congress, is a master stroke.

The reality is that deep state despots like Bill Nelson, Admiral Wilson and their ilk are the tyrants of our age. These unelected bullying bureaucrats run the security and surveillance state that is antithetical to democracy and a republic and keeps us in the dark and in our cage.

The Program is about the UFO programs that men like Nelson and Wilson control, and the knowledge they refuse to share because that knowledge is power and they will never give up their unearned power.

The Program is a solid, well-made documentary that is well-worth watching. Unfortunately, it is only available to purchase and not rent, and the purchase price is $17...pretty steep.

The film will no doubt be available to rent at a much cheaper price in the coming weeks, and as good as I think it is, I think it’s worth waiting to rent it a cheaper price than buy at a steep one.

The bottom line is this, The Program is a very good companion piece to Fox’s earlier films, Out of the Blue, I Know What I Saw and The Phenomenon. As a collection, these films make a great starting point for newbies to the subject, and an excellent library of information for more experienced ufologists.

©2024

UFO Week - Battle for Disclosure : A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK - BATTLE FOR DISCLOSURE

My Rating: 1/2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Another in a long line of self-serving, money-grab documentaries from the narcissistic to the point of being messianic, Dr. Steven Greer.

Day four of UFO Week is here and today’s topic is the newest documentary from legendary ufologist Steven Greer, Battle for Disclosure.

The film, which runs one hour and forty-one minutes and is directed by Brent and Blake Cousins, was released on December 10th and is available to rent on video on demand. I rented it the day it came out and paid $1.99, but I have since went back to check the price and has been listed at $9.99 one day and $3.99 another.

The hard truth is the film isn’t worth $1.99, nevermind $9.99 or $3.99.

Steven Greer has produced a bevy of documentaries in recent years. The Lost Century: And How to Reclaim It (2023), Contact: The CE-5 Experience (2023), UFO: Endgame to Disclosure (2023), The Cosmic Hoax: An Expose (2021), Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (2020), Unacknowledged (2017) and Siruis (2013) are among the titles.

These films all share one very prominent feature…namely Steven Greer talking mostly about Steven Greer and how much Steven Greer knows.

If you don’t know who Steven Greer is…here is a primer. Steven Greer, or more accurately Dr. Steven Greer, is a physician turned ufologist who claims to have been an advisor of sorts to numerous presidents and governments officials over the years on the subject of ufos. How he became so close to the halls of power has never adequately been explained, but Greer does have pictures of himself with various big wigs, so there’s that.

Greer claims he saw a ufo as a kid and again as a teen and that he has some deep connection with them. Apparently, it is a very strong connection because he actually claims to be able to summon them.

And thus, we get to the crux of Dr. Greer. Dr. Greer has the distinct whiff of the grift to him, and that stench is quite odious. Greer obviously has a messiah complex as indicated by the fact that he, and he alone, has been bequeathed special powers and the he, and he alone, is the holder of special, secret knowledge. In this way Greer’s school of ufology feels more like a cult than a scientific exploration.

Greer’s ufo thesis is that aliens are a benevolent bunch who want to give humanity free energy technology that will release us from the bondage of our evil overlords and unleash a utopia here on earth. To be clear…I WANT Greer’s thesis to be correct. But Greer is such a shady character and seeming charlatan that I can’t help but dismiss his ideas even when some of them are somewhat believable.

For example, in Battle for Disclosure, Greer talks about how a lot of ufo sightings are actually human made crafts that were reverse engineered from alien craft byu a dep state cabal. Greer’s argument is that these human-made ufos are “illegal”…and he can “prove it in a court of law”, because the government didn’t disclose the technology…or something like that.

Greer’s legal grandstanding feels like just another example of his messiah complex…like who gives a shit if Steven Greer can “prove in a court of law” that the dark deep state is up to ufo shenanigans…because you aren’t going to get it into a court of law…that’s how the game works.

Throughout the film Greer, with a peculiar, ever-present and diabolically persistent, booger-free nose hair saluting out of his left nostril, declares that HE could prove his case in court…but then never actually meticulously makes his case for the cameras.

Battle for Disclosure is structured in such a way that it is obviously made for people who have been closely following Greer’s films and philosophy over the years. It hits the ground running from the get go and doesn’t give much context, expecting viewers to know the backstory already.

In another peculiar move, Greer goes out of his way in the first third of the film to berate, diminish and ultimately dismiss journalist Ross Coulthart, and whistleblowers David Grusch and Lue Elizondo as deceptive scions of the deep state. He doesn’t specifically lay out his case against them but just attacks them.

Now, many of my friends in the ufo community (I have a lot of them), think very highly of people like Grusch and Elizondo and Christopher Mellon. They are all in on these guys and hang on their every word. I, on the other hand, am not and do not. I look at these characters with the most jaundiced of eyes. I don’t trust them because to trust members, or former members, of the intelligence community, is a fool’s errand. These people are professional liars and they are very good at manipulation. To be clear, I don’t dismiss everything they say out of hand, I am just skeptical of what they say and more importantly, why they may be saying it.

The problem, of course, is that Greer attacking Elizondo and Grusch and their ilk without making a viable and clear case against them, doesn’t do much to damage their credibility nor does it elevate his…it just makes him seem petty and jealous of all the mainstream attention those guys get.

In the last third of the film the narrative shifts to a collection of men recounting their experiences with ufos of one type or another. These men, all military men at the time of their encounters, tell compelling but often-times preposterous tales – all of which Greer substantiates through his alleged unnamed insider sources in the deep state.

The first story is from former US Marine Michael Herrera, who claims to have stumbled upon a human trafficking operation in Indonesia run by black ops guys that used ufo/alien tech. He said his superiors were pissed at him and his team about their discovery and told him to keep his mouth shut.

Another story was told by DC Long, who while working on a military base saw technology that could use some strange sound wave technology of some sort to lift massive blocks of granite. When Long refused to sign an NDA regarding what he saw, the government destroyed his father’s construction business and confiscated all his equipment. Long’s father never spoke to him again until he was on his deathbed.

The third story is from Steven Digna Jr., who saw a ufo while doing live fire drills on a military base. Digna is in such a diminished physical and mental state at the time of shooting his interview, that it is preceded by a disclaimer of sorts telling the viewer that these guys have been through the ringer and it’s taken a deadly toll on their lives.

Digna’s story is, frankly, the most believable, but he is in such a fragile physical and emotional state it is difficult to watch him or to know if he is telling the truth.

The final story comes from Eric Hecker, who worked for the Navy and Raytheon and went to Antarctica to work security there. Hecker claims he saw a directed energy weapons system there that is capable of creating earthquakes. He claims it is the largest telescope that is also a phased array transmitter – a sort of air traffic control for UFOs – and is capable of faster than light communications. Hecker claims this weapons/communications system is above and beyond nations…it’s a transnational program that answers to no government.

The stories told by these men are pretty fascinating. I found Hecker’s the most chilling, Digna’s the most believable, Long’s the saddest, and Herrera’s the most bizarre and incomprehensible. Your mileage may vary.

As for the Battle for Disclosure as a whole, I found it to be a poorly constructed, muddled and jumbled mess of a cinematic venture. It is less a document designed to inform or convince than it is a money grab from those already converted to the Church of Greer.  

Battle for Disclosure, or any of Greer’s films for that matter, are not really useful for the majority of ufologists, nor are they a good place to start for newbies, as they are too fantastical and Greer is too aggressively grating and dubious a spokesman to be convincing.

The bottom line is, while I am immensely skeptical to the point of devout disbelief, I do hope that Steven Greer is right and that E.T. is coming to save our home and free us from the villains who currently rule our world, but that doesn’t make his documentaries good or worth watching or very informative. They are, for the most part, pretty much a waste of time….and if you’re a dope like me…a waste of money too.  

©2024

UFO Week - Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown (MGM+) - A Documentary Review

BEYOND: UFOS AND THE UNKNOWN

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE. IT. NOW. One of the very best UFO documentaries I’ve seen. Highly informative and insightful. Well worth watching whether you’re a seasoned ufologist or a newbie to the topic.

It is day three of UFO Week here at the home office and things got off to a decidedly bumpy start with two less than stellar documentaries in day one and two.

Thankfully, day three is a gem.

The documentary today is Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown, a four-part documentary miniseries from JJ Abrams’ production company Bad Robot that released it’s first episode on October 27th and its last episode on November 8th.

Bad Robot released their first UFO documentary back in 2021, simply titled UFO, and I found it to be professionally made but underwhelming in a style over substance kind of way.

Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is not underwhelming in the slightest. Simply said, it is exquisitely made, abundantly researched, and one of the very best documentaries on the subject I have ever seen.

The documentary series, which runs roughly four hours long in total, hits upon a myriad of angles related to the UFO topic. It examines it scientifically, historically, politically and spiritually.

If you’re looking for a murderer’s row of UFO experts Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is the documentary miniseries for you.

The stellar first episode opens up with a bang with Dr. Gary Nolan, an esteemed medical professor at the prestigious Stanford University, speaking about his scientific and medical work with various intelligence agencies on deathly serious UFO-related topics.

It then dives into the bevy of sightings and experiences of Navy pilots who witnessed and recorded their interaction with various entities in the last twenty years…resulting in the Gimble and Go-Fast videos made famous in the New York Times article of 2017 that brought the UFO topic into the mainstream.

This episode features prominent Naval personnel like former pilot Ryan Graves, Rear Admiral Tim Galudet, as well as Leslie Kean, the journalist who wrote the NY Times piece in 2017, and Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense – and now prominent UFO disclosure advocate.

Also examined are the maze of various UFO programs in the Pentagon over the years and the mind-numbing acronyms that go along with them. As well as the very complex political situation around the subject, which is explained by Senator Kristen Gillibrand, who describes the military’s handling of the UFO situation, “duplicitous and inappropriate.” Wow.

Episode two delves into the history of ufology and features a who’s who of UFO heavy-hitters, like the godfather of ufology, Jacque Vallee, and the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried, PhD Hal Puthoff.

Also explored are the early days of ufology, including Donald Keyhoe’s important work and the curious case of J. Allen Hynek.

One of the most important things discussed in this episode is how it is the Navy pilots who are reporting UFO encounters, with nary a peep from the Air Force. The reasons why this might be are fascinating, not the least of which is that the intelligence agencies take a large chunk of the Air Force budget for black projects, so they are deeply intertwined with the Air Force…and not the Navy.

The other big topic in episode two is Whitley Strieber and alien abduction. Strieber, who was a novelist who was allegedly abducted in the 1980s in upstate New York and wrote a best-selling book about it titled “Communion”, was a catalyst for hundreds of thousands of regular people across the country to come forward with their abduction stories in letters to him after he published his book.

Strieber’s story is an intriguing and compelling one, and he is a terrific spokesperson - articulate, humble and serious.

This leads into episode three and four which feature Jeffrey Kripal, a professor of philosophy and religion at Rice University, who has begun to gather UFO source material from Strieber and Vallee among others in one place so that scientists and academics can do serious study of the subject without ridicule. He has also has begun conferences on esoteric subjects that brings together experts and experiencers to discuss once taboo subjects academically and scientifically.

Episodes three and four delve deeply into the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of UFOs and what they may be beyond physical objects, and what they may mean to science, philosophy and humanity going forward.

Episodes three and four are so rich with deeply serious and thoughtful discussions on elevated esoteric matters that they are worth watching over and over again…as is the rest of the series.

For seasoned followers of the UFO topic, Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is a gloriously rich documentary that not only informs but seriously challenges.

For newcomers to the subject, this documentary is a great starting place if for no other reason than to give a brief glimpse at the scope and scale of the subject matter, and to do so with a seriousness that it deserves.

The biggest problem with Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is that it is very difficult to find. The documentary is currently only available on the streaming service MGM+. Not only do I know no one who is a subscriber to MGM+, I myself had never heard of it until I went looking for Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown. That’s not a good thing because unless if you’re a UFO nerd like me, you wouldn’t know this documentary series exists, and therefore won’t ever stumble upon it unless you explicitly are looking for it.

Hopefully it will eventually become available to rent through Amazon or Apple in the future, but for now the best thing to do to see it is to sign up for MGM+…which will give you a free week before it’s month to month subscription at $6.99 kicks in. Watch Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown during your free week…in fact I’d recommend you watch it twice, like I did…and then cancel your subscription before you actually have to pay.

The bottom line is this…whether you’re a ufologist or a newbie, Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown is a must-watch documentary miniseries if you want to have a deeper understanding of the UFO phenomenon and topic. I highly recommend you put in the effort to find and to watch it because considering what is going on in our world at the moment, arming yourself with as much knowledge as you can is a very good idea.

©2024

UFO Week - Investigation Alien (Netflix): A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK - INVESTIGATION ALIEN

My Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT.  An abysmally made mini-series that is allergic to insight and context. Total shitshow.

Investigation Alien, a six-part documentary mini-series that premiered on Netflix on November 8th, follows legendary reporter George Knapp as he and his team seek the truth of the UFO phenomenon.

George Knapp, for those who don’t know, is one of the most important journalists in the UFO community. Knapp was taking the UFO subject seriously back in the 1980’s as a television reporter for KLAS-TV in Las Vegas when no one in the mainstream media would touch it with a ten-foot pole. In fact, when Knapp was maybe the first legitimate journalist to cover the UFO topic without smirking and winking to let the audience know it was all a joke. To Knapp, and to a large audience, it isn’t a joke, and he covered it like a real news story.

Among the prominent stories that Knapp has brought forth are John Lear’s claims of the U.S. government having downed craft and bodies, much reporting on Area 51, reporting on bizarre happenings at Skinwalker Ranch, and his bombshell 1989 interview with Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked at Area 51 on alien craft.

Knapp is still at the forefront of serious journalists reporting the UFO topic, and if you watched the recent congressional hearings with whistleblower David Grusch, you could see Knapp sitting directly behind him in the galley.

Knapp’s bona fides and his integrity when it comes to UFO reporting is unquestionable, so when I heard he had a Netflix documentary mini-series coming out, I was very excited.

Then I watched Investigation Alien.

This series is a devastating disappointment. It is so bad, so cheaply made, so derivative and dull, and frankly, so tawdry and stupid and such a brazen money-grab, that it has deeply damaged Knapp’s standing as a journalist, his integrity and has forever tarnished his legacy.

The series is poorly produced and shot like a second-rate reality series as it follows Knapp, and some superfluous and annoying underlings, as they go out seeking the truth about cattle mutilations, Brazilian UFO sightings and alien encounters, underwater anomalies off the Pacific coast, the Phoenix lights, and government cover-ups.

None of the six episodes is even remotely interesting or well-made, and in fact, some are so stupid they made me laugh out loud when I wasn’t cringing. No new information is presented, no insights gained, no compelling knowledge shared.

To give an indication of how ridiculous this series is, there’s a sequence where Knapp goes to talk to a “whistleblower” and they meet out in the middle of nowhere at night, with car lights the only illumination. The setting is obscenely absurd but is fitting as the whistleblower is a clown who fits right in with the reality tv circus that is Investigation Alien. If this were a genuine journalistic endeavor, instead of a tawdry money-grab, they’d meet the whistleblower in a hotel or office and keep him in shadow instead of putting on a dog and pony show meant to look like an adolescent spy thriller.

The cattle mutilation episode opens the series and is so painfully moronic and intellectually obtuse it made teeth hurt. Knapp goes to the Northwest to talk to two ranchers who’ve lost cattle to mutilation. No insight is given, no context supplied, no case built or presented.

Watching the first episode was a devastatingly deflating experience, and the rest of the series goes about as well as episode one. Getting through this idiotic mess of a mini-series is a complete slog.

I’ve spoken to multiple people with considerable knowledge on the UFO topic who have watched this series and the vast majority of them were at a minimum disappointed, and some of them loathed it with a furious passion.  Consider me among those in the latter category, as this series’ stupidity left me in an incandescent rage.

One well-informed ufologist I spoke to was so pissed about the series that he seriously thought that the show was intentionally bad at the behest of the powers that be who demanded Knapp scuttle his credibility and with it the ability of the general public to take the UFO topic seriously. I don’t know if that is true but I will say that the series is so bad that I can see how someone would think it is.

Knapp is partnered on a podcast, titled Weaponized, with documentarian Jeremy Corbell. Corbell and Knapp are one of the more prominent pairs in ufology - for example, Corbell too can be seen sitting in the front row of the congressional hearing featuring David Grusch, right next to Knapp.

It is very interesting to me that Corbell, despite being attached at the hip to Knapp the rest of his professional life,  is only seen very briefly in Investigation Alien. It is also curious that Corbell himself didn’t direct it, since he is a documentarian and has made a notable documentary on the UFO subject, titled Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers. It would seem from Corbell’s reticence to be in this ill-conceived and dismally executed Knapp series that he knew it was going to be a shitshow from the jump and was trying to salvage whatever credibility he could by keeping away from it. Wise move.

Ultimately, Investigation Alien is an unconscionably awful documentary mini-series that would set back the seriousness of the UFO topic decades if it weren’t for the real-time events happening in the world that prove it needs to be taken very seriously.

I cannot, under any circumstances, recommend Investigation Alien, even as an introduction to the topic of UFOs. The series is just too egregiously made and too unserious to be of any value even to newcomers.

©2024

UFO Week - Manhattan Alien Abduction (Netflix): A Documentary Review

UFO WEEK: MANHATTAN ALIEN ABDUCTION

Earlier this year I was alerted to the fact that starting on October 30th and running up to December 16th, there were going to be five UFO-related documentaries being released on various streaming platforms.

As someone who has been interested in the topic and followed it for the majority of my adult life, I was glad that there would be a bevy of new UFO documentaries to digest. I was so happy, in fact, that I decided that once the final documentary, James Fox’s The Program, was released on December 16th, I would have a celebratory “week” on the website and review all the UFO documentaries over the course of five days – one review a day.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to UFO week…namely UFOs!! In the past two weeks there has been a cavalcade of coverage of the UFO topic because apparently New Jersey is being swarmed by drones of “unknown origin” that nobody seems to be able to do anything about. (As an aside…its odd that they are called “drones” when in fact they are the etxtbook definition of UAP’s - unidentified aerial phenomenon, or UFOs - unidentified flying objects…makes you think)

The New Jersey reports have been followed by reports, and video, from other areas of the country and the globe. Truth be told, a week before the New Jersey sightings, my son and I witnessed a very bizarre anomalous object flying at night over our farm in rural Pennsylvania. It looked somewhat like a plane, but it wasn’t a plane, and it made no noise and had odd lights on it that are not like the lights on a regular plane. We spotted something similar, but not identical, just last week as well, again at night.

We get lots of military craft flying over our farm so I just chalked it up to some military craft I couldn’t identify….and maybe it is…and maybe that’s what everyone is seeing over New Jersey. Who knows? There have been other reports in the local media of UAP/drones in the area over the weekend.

The theories about the sightings in New Jersey are all over the map. There are people claiming they are “Special Ops” drones used to sniff out a nuclear threat posed by a “loose nuke” or a “dirty bomb”. The theory goes from there and speculates the nuke is from Iran or China or Russia.

Others speculate that it is actually a false flag and that nefarious elements of the U.S. government are planning to detonate a nuke and blame it on…Iran, China and/or Russia in order to get the neo-con world war of their dreams.

Then there are those who think the “drones” are from Iran/China/Russia and are part of some recon mission that is a prelude to a Pearl Harbor type event.

Then there are others who think that the events of the last two weeks are the beginnings of “disclosure”, where the government admits there are aliens and they’re here, or the aliens step out of the shadows and tell everyone themselves that they’re here.

There are others who think that this is just a false flag using Project Bluebeam to make it appear there are alien craft in our skies in order to scare people and drum up a draconian response that demands we give up more rights to the powers that be in order to stay “safe”.

And finally, there are those who claim that this is all a hoax or a mass hallucination, and that some teenagers are flying normal drones over New Jersey as a gag and the media and the populace are going full War of the Worlds on it because they’re in the throes of hysteria.

As for who to believe…one thing is for certain, whatever government spokespeople say - don’t believe it as it is either going to be a manufactured lie or completely and utterly incorrect. That you can take to the bank.

What do I think is happening? Honestly, I don’t know. My sense is that the false flag discussion, be it about nukes or Project Bluebeam, are probably on the correct track…but who the hell knows?

On that note…let me officially welcome you to UFO Week!! Let’s start things off with a review of the Netflix documentary mini-series Manhattan Alien Abduction.

MANHATTAN ALIEN ABDUCTION

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This could have, and should have, been a thorough debunking of an abduction claim, but it is a rather empty and shallow miniseries that diminishes everyone involved.

Manhattan Alien Abduction, which premiered on Netflix on October 30th, tells the story of Linda Napolitano – who claims to have been abducted from her New York City apartment on November 30th, 1989, and her nemesis, Carol Rainey, who thinks the story is an elaborate hoax.

Napolitano’s story is, not unexpectedly, an odd one. She claims that on November 30th, 1989, in the middle of the night, that aliens abducted her out of her 12th floor Manhattan apartment “on a blue beam of light, lifting her onto a reddish-orange spacecraft that quickly sped off toward the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Linda’s story could easily be dismissed as the ravings of a mad woman except for the fact that there were 23 people who claimed to witness it, among them a “world leader”, namely United Nations Secretary General Perez de Cuellar.

What really propelled Linda’s story into the spotlight was that she brought her tale to ufologist Budd Hopkins, who was one of the leaders in the study of alien abduction in UFO culture, and was a conduit for Linda to the wider UFO community.

Hopkins, who died in 2011, was very well known in the UFO world for having been among the first, along with Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, to use hypnosis to help people recall their abduction experiences. Hopkins hypnotized writer Whitley Strieber and assisted him in recalling his famous abduction experience which is recounted in the blockbuster book Communion (1987).

Hopkins brought Linda into his world of self-help alien abduction survivor meetings in his New York City apartment, and dove deep into her story, including with hypnosis.

Carol Rainey was Budd Hopkins’ wife at the time of Linda’s alleged abduction, and had a front row seat to Linda’s relationship with Budd and with her time in the spotlight recounting her tale to anyone who’d listen in the media.

Manhattan Alien Abduction is essentially a cat fight between Linda and Carol stretched over three episodes.

Carol is there to debunk Linda’s story, and Linda is there to convince you of it.

In my less than humble opinion, neither woman succeeds, despite the mini-series obviously being made for Carol’s benefit and from her perspective rather than from Linda’s or from a genuine journalistic instinct.

Linda’s story is, frankly…preposterous, and it only gets more and more outlandish with every passing fact and incident that comes to light.

For example, Linda claims that two bodyguards for UN Secretary general Cuellar, named Richard and Dan, come to her apartment in the days after her abduction and, in a somewhat menacing fashion, question her about the incident, and in doing so admit they, along with Cuellar, saw the whole thing while driving by that night.

That element of the story is fine and is very helpful in making Linda seem somewhat believable…but the Richard and Dan story just goes off the rails from there.

Linda claims Richard and Dan later abducted her…while she was walking down the street audio recording herself for her own safety, and abscond her to some location to threaten and question her again.

This second Richard and Dan story is, frankly, embarrassing. It sounds so fake and so stupid is boggles the mind that anyone would tell it, never mind believe it. But Linda told it, and Budd Hopkins believed it.

Linda seemed to have Hopkins wrapped around her finger by playing the ‘fragile bird who needs protecting’ game, and Hopkins fell for it. This seemed to infuriate Carol back in the 1980’s and 90’s…and still today.  

Back at the time, Carol, a self-proclaimed documentarian and journalist, then goes about getting Linda on camera as much as she can and investigating her story in order to debunk it. Carol, and the makers of this docu-series, think she has succeeded…I don’t.

To be clear, I don’t believe Linda’s preposterous and ever more outlandish story. It is so outrageous and ridiculous as to be absurd. But that also makes it very easy to debunk…and Carol and the makers of this documentary, fail to do even the most rudimentary journalistic work to expose Linda as a fraud…but they work very hard to make it seem like they’ve done the work.

For example, Linda and Budd have 23 witnesses who claim to have seen her being abducted into the New York night sky. That’s a lot of witnesses. A scene plays out in the documentary where Carol, while videotaping in the early 90’s, has Budd call one of the witnesses in order to question them, but Budd isn’t able to get in touch with them and leaves a message. This is his second attempt to do so. No other attempts are made…and Carol, and the producers, claims this proves all the witnesses are fake or frauds. Huh?

The claim is also made by Carol that she called one witness and that it “sounded like Linda”. Again, this is the extent of the journalism on display in this series. Out of 23 witnesses, one didn’t call back and the other sounds kind of like Linda, and so that makes all 23 fake or fraudulent? That is just as ridiculous a claim as Linda’s original claims.

Then there’s the story of Richard and Dan, the UN security guards for the Secretary General. Back in 1990 Carol films Linda as they go through file footage of various UN events and Linda actually identifies one of the guys in the video as being Dan. She literally ID’s the guy.

Now, does that mean it is the guy? Does that mean that the guy she ID’s came to her house and did all the things she claims? No. What it does mean is that it should be easy to investigate who that person is…and maybe…just maybe…find him and talk to him. If you work as a security guy at the UN, there’s a paper trail, pay stubs, taxes, insurance, and all the rest. There’s a paper trail and probably a picture ID on file. Do Carol and the producers of this series investigate and find that material? No, they don’t. Why not? I have no idea. Maybe they’re lazy.

Carol and the producers do have handwriting analysis done on a type-written letter signed by Secretary Cuellar in which he claims to have seen all that happened to Linda that night in 1989. The hand writing analysis is on Cuellar’s signature and the expert declares that no one writes their name exactly the same way twice and this signature is too perfect to be real.

Now, the signature and the type-written letter may very well be fake, but public officials use signature stamps to sign their name all the time…is it out of the possibility that this happened here? No. Did Carol or the producers acknowledge this? Also no.

If Linda is as big a bullshitter as she appears to be in this documentary, you’ve got to find more substantial evidence and prove she is a bullshitter…it can’t be that hard.

What about the other 22 witnesses? Did they try and track them down? Who are they and where are they?

Where’s the investigation into Richard and Dan and the UN and all that? This is simple stuff. It may not be easy to do and may take effort, but if Linda is so full of shit then it should be easy to prove and yet they never prove it.

With the slightest bit of awareness on the game being played on you by understanding what is missing from this series, Manhattan Alien Abduction looks in hindsight to be a cheap and tawdry venture.

As bizarre and unbelievable as Linda’s claims are the investigation into them is shallow and amateurish. Do the work. Track down the witnesses. Find a connection. Don’t just speculate and assume and conjecture and imply…investigate and prove…or in this case, disprove.

Here’s another oddity about this mini-series, namely that Carol Rainey has her own major biases from a tormented childhood in a religious cult, and from her personal relationship with Budd Hopkins, that skew her own objectivity and judgement.

Hopkins and Rainey divorced in 2006, and when he died in 2011 he was in a relationship with Leslie Kean. You know who Leslie Kean is? She’s the journalist who went on to break the big UFO story published in the New York Times in 2017 that brought ufology into the mainstream.

The question I have after learning of Hopkins relationship with Kean, and Carol Rainey’s background and her obvious jealousy of Linda Napolitano, is this…is this docuseries just Carol Rainey in a jealous fit trying to destroy the legacy of Budd Hopkins, Linda Napolitano’s reputation and undermine Leslie Kean’s life’s work?

As much as I think Linda Napolitano is a fabulist, I think Carol Rainey is one too…and a much more nefarious one. Rainey is the woman scorned, and while she may be right about everything, her personal vindictiveness and venom are not journalistically acquired evidence…they are just grievances in the form of accusations.

Ultimately, Manhattan Alien Abduction disappoints despite a very compelling thesis, and is scuttled by a thoroughly amateurish and weak journalistic effort that fails to adequately disprove something that should be so easily debunked.

©2024

The Substance: A Review - Everything Old is New Again

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Be forewarned, this is a body horror movie with ample amounts of gooey gore, but it is also a well-executed and well-acted piece of social commentary that works quite well despite some major issues with its third act.

The Substance, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, is, almost despite itself, one of the more intriguing films of 2024.

The movie is a satirical body horror film that stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a once celebrated but now aging star who hosts an exercise show ala Jane Fonda in the 1980s.

On Elisabeth’s fiftieth birthday she connects with a mysterious company that sells “The Substance” – which is an injectable formula that creates a second, younger you. As The Substance company is quick to remind customers, this new version isn’t a different person from the original…the original and the newer version are one in the same.

A desperate and depressed Elisabeth ultimately chooses to take The Substance and the rest of the film involves Elisabeth and her younger new self, Sue - magnificently played by Margaret Qualley, trying to navigate their very unusual circumstances.

The Substance, which is available VOD or on the streaming service MUBI (you can get a free trial subscription for a week and then cancel – that’s what I did) is an undeniably clever movie that is well-executed enough to be elevated to an interesting and compelling piece of cinema. It masterfully and often hysterically comments on the long-running, rampant misogyny and ageism in Hollywood. Having worked with many women in the acting business over the years I can attest that it’s a young woman’s game, and hitting thirty, never mind forty or fifty, is often a death knell.

The Substance’s biggest issue as a film is that it is two-thirds of a very good one. Unfortunately, in the final act the story and the film’s internal logic and perspective, take a beating and the movie meanders aimlessly for about thirty minutes until finally settling on a less than satisfying conclusion.

French writer/director Fargeat seems like she didn’t know how, or when, to end her movie. In this way The Substance reminded me of another pretty good horror film in recent years, Barbarian, which was exquisite for its first two acts and then devolved into a bit of a derivative mess.

As poor as the final act of The Substance is, and it really is poor, the first two acts are really wonderful.

Demi Moore gives a brave performance as Elisabeth, doing a bevy of extended nude scenes – which are pivotal to the narrative and to the drama. An actress having the courage to bare her aging body on the big screen in age and perfection obsessed Hollywood is a courageous one indeed.

Casting Moore, whose career is vaguely similar to Elisabeth’s, is a meta-textual masterpiece, most of all because she gives a dynamic, nuanced and very vulnerable performance which elevates the film.

Margaret Qualley is an actress who I have noticed from the beginning of her career. I remember the first time I saw her was in a small film titled The Novitiate. I thought she was extremely good in that mostly forgettable movie as she displayed an undeniable charisma and magnetism…and thought she had a chance to have a big career in front of her. I didn’t even know she was Andie McDowell’s daughter at the time.

Qualley has proven me right with her work since then. She was spectacular in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and she is equally impressive here.

I was going to congratulate Qualley on her bravery as well for the numerous nude scenes and body shots on display in The Substance, but I was informed by a female “friend” that Qualley used a body double for her nude scenes. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I will say that whoever is baring their body as Sue in this film, be it Margaret Qualley or a body double, has my respect and gratitude.

Qualley is fantastic as Sue as she fills her with a verve and vitality that few can replicate on screen. Sue’s persistence, petulance and power are a combustible combination, and the film comes alive whenever Qualley as Sue is unleashed.

Another noteworthy performance comes from Dennis Quaid as pervert producer Harvey. Quaid goes all in on repugnancy and is such a repellent figure it is uncomfortably hysterical. That director Fargeat repeatedly shoots him in the most grotesque of close-ups only heightens Harvey’s repugnancy.

Despite the misstep that is the third act, there is no denying the great job writer/director Coralie Fageat did in the first two acts of The Substance.

The film is exquisitely shot and edited, and the costumes and sets are artistic perfection. There are little details throughout the film that are impressive to notice, such as all the cars parked in the street when Elisabeth is walking around town, are either, fancy sports cars or refurbished muscle cars – which is a subtle cinematic touch that is an indication of a quality director at the helm.

Recommending The Substance is a slightly tricky thing to do because as stated it is a body horror movie, so there are ample scenes of grotesque gore that, while well-executed, are pretty horrific. If you’re into that sort of thing I think you’ll definitely love this movie…even the third act.

If you’re not into that sort of thing, then this might be a tougher watch. I would recommend The Substance to the cavalcade of, dare I say it, older actresses I know (ducking to avoid the Manolo Blahnik being thrown at my head), because they will totally get the sentiment that drives this movie even if the body horror stuff is a turn off.

The truth is that in lesser hands, both in terms of the acting and the directing, The Substance could have been a real cringeworthy piece of feminist bitching, moaning and man-hating. But Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and director Coralie Fargeat make this satiric body horror story into a complex cinematic venture that, despite its massive third act issues, is an insightful, and thoughtful piece of work worth checking out.

The Substance resonates as a piece of art, and despite being a body horror film it really is at heart a European arthouse movie, because it exists in a world over-run by Instagram and Tik Tok influencers making a living off of exploiting their young, nubile bodies, and in which the public sphere and the entertainment industry have been pornified beyond belief.

The Substance doesn’t get everything right, but it gets enough right, particularly the performances of Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, to be worth watching.

©2024

The Disaster That is Hollywood’s ‘Diversity Era’

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…” – my motto for the last 8 years, borrowed from Rudyard Kipling.

This past weekend the esteemed New York Times Magazine ran a piece titled “Is the Awkward ‘Diversity Era’ of Hollywood Behind Us?” written by Kabir Chibber.

The article caught my eye because as long-time readers can attest, I have been writing critically, and seemingly endlessly, about Hollywood’s ‘Diversity Era’ for the better part of eight years now. If Cassandra and Nostradamus had a child prodigy whose sole gift was the ability to clearly diagnose the excesses of Hollywood’s ‘Diversity Era’ as it was happening but to be ruthlessly ignored/punished for their correct prophecies…that child would be me.

I would link to the articles to prove my bona fides as a critic of the ‘Diversity Era’ but there are so many of them it would be ridiculous to even try. If you type “woke” into the search bar of this website your computer, and your brain, may explode at the avalanche of articles that confront you.

I don’t know, and don’t really care, who this Kabir Chibber is…but to quote John McClain from Die Hard…”welcome to the party, pal”…even if it is 8 years too late.

Hollywood’s ‘Diversity Era’ essentially started in 2015 with the mathematically ignorant protest movement named Oscars Too White. In the wake of that nonsense came the calamity that was Trump’s election victory over Hillary Clinton, followed by the Harvey Weinstein revelations and the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter and the rest.

Hollywood, and some audience members, went into a tailspin of emotionalism and lost their minds in a hysterical fever of self-righteousness in the wake of these events. This hysteria forced them to embarrass themselves by seeing racism and sexism everywhere, and by steadfastly ignoring quality in favor of diversity when it came to cinema, and by also being deathly allergic to reality.

Examples abound of how asinine and insane the ‘Diversity Era’ has been…here are a few tips of the very crazy iceberg.

The ‘Diversity Era’ made the middling Marvel movie Black Panther into a Best Picture Academy Award nominee, and had middle-aged white women giving black power salutes in theatres like they were Huey Newton.

It turned mind-numbing mediocrities like Jordan Peele and Greta Gerwig into award-contending auteurs and made the mundanities that were Peele’s Get Out and Gerwig’s Lady Bird into Best Picture nominees. Hell, people were furious when Gerwig wasn’t nominated for Best Director last year for the insultingly awful Barbie. Oh yeah…and it made Barbie into a box office blockbuster too.

Ava DuVernay, one of the truly atrocious filmmakers of her time, becoming a Hollywood power player due to DEI is one of the signs of how widespread and potent the ‘Diversity Era’ disease really was.

Disney lost its fucking mind in the ‘Diversity Era’ and essentially sabotaged its two largest cash cow franchises, Marvel and Star Wars, on the altar of wokeness by going Girl Power crazy and replacing all their white male leads with women, women of color or people of color. Ironically, no white guys were allowed in the ‘Diversity Era’.

Marvel went from being the biggest box office behemoth of all-time to being a franchise in free fall, all because executives in the C suite wanted to signal their virtue by getting rid of their white male leads.

The post-Endgame Marvel lineup looks like it was assembled by an HR department at a Seven Sisters liberal arts school. Thor was replaced by Lady Thor, Black Panther was replaced by Lady Black Panther, Iron Man was replaced by black Lady Iron Man (Iron Heart), Captain America was replaced with black Captain America and Shang-Chi – a second rate character if there ever was one, got his own movie, as did the female fronted and directed Eternals – one of the worst films of the last decade. All of these movies were absolutely abysmal by the way.

Star Wars was turned into a girls and gays franchise over these last 8 years with the Rey storyline and the incessantly PC narratives and casting of their television series like Ahsoka and The Acolyte. Again, white guys need not apply…in either the creative process or the viewership.

Film critics across the mainstream media sacrificed their credibility and integrity on the altar of the ‘Diversity Era’ too as they bent over backwards to pretend to like sub-par movies just because they were ‘diverse’, and/or had a female or person of color director and/or star, and they continuously handled all ‘diverse’ projects with the most patronizing of kid gloves.

The list of Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards in the recent past highlights how deep the ‘Diversity Era’ hysteria went. It all started with Moonlight, a story about a gay black boy - directed by the entirely forgettable Barry Jenkins (a black man) who hasn’t done a damn noteworthy thing since, winning Best Picture in 2016 over La La Land as a reaction to Trump’s election.

In the following years we’ve had Nomadland – a story starring the insufferable Frances McDormand about the wandering underclass in America that somehow manages to celebrate the corporate behemoth Amazon, winning Best Picture and Best Director because it was directed by an Asian woman, Chloe Zhao.

Then we had the embarrassingly bad CODA win because it was directed by a woman, Sian Hader, and was about deaf people. This was followed by the egregiously overhyped Everything Everywhere All at Once, which won because it was about an Asian family and was co-directed by an Asian man. Quality, talent, craftsmanship and skill be damned…diversity for the win!!

As for the details of Chibber’s article, what infuriated me about it was that it acts like the insanity and inanity of the ‘Diversity Era’ only now has become obvious, and that it was impossible to recognize while it was ongoing.

Chibber opens his piece writing, “Hollywood has its eras, often apparent only in retrospect. Think back several years: Do you remember packed theaters giving Black-power salutes at screenings of “Black Panther”? Do you remember when an all-female version of “Ghostbusters” was treated as a pioneering development? Do you remember when the writer of a “Star Wars” film described the Empire as a “white supremacist (human) organization”

My question is…why on earth would anyone listen to a writer like Chibber who was completely blind to what was occurring for the last 8 years WHILE IT WAS ACTUALLY OCCURING. Contrary to what Chibber thinks, eras are not only apparent in retrospect. I am not a genius by any stretch, but apparently, I am extraordinarily good at my job…you know how I know that…BECAUSE I WAS AWARE OF THE ERA AS IT WAS HAPPENING! Unlike Mr. Chibber.

Chibber goes on to describe the Hollywood formula during the ‘Diversity Era’ as being “the same old thing, but with a bold and visionary new twist: fewer white guys.”

I wrote that exact thing over and over while it was actually happening over the past 8 years and I lost jobs, clients and friends because of it. Telling the truth in hindsight takes no courage. Doing it while the battle rages, takes not only a keen eye and perception but gigantic balls of steel. Mine are apparently the size of fucking Jupiter while Mr. Chibber is a eunuch.

Chibber then writes of the ‘Diversity Era’ and its excesses that “The moment is easier to see now that it has ebbed.”

Bullshit. The moment was glaringly obvious when it was happening but as Mr. Chibber and his ilk in the establishment media proved over and over again that it is difficult to see things clearly when your livelihood depends on you not seeing it. To quote Orwell, “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a struggle”. Well, Chibber and his pampered set are incapable of struggle, while I was born to thrive in it.

The funniest thing Chibber writes is an admission of something I have been writing about so often even I am tired of hearing myself. Chibber writes in regards to the end of the ‘Diversity Era’, “At least we no longer have to pretend to like something because it has the right politics, or because the people most vocally against it are Nazis.”

So just as I wrote for these long 8 years, critics, pundits and creators were pretending to like things simply because they had the “proper” politics and because they hated the people who disliked those projects. You think I’d be more comfortable being right considering it happens so often.

The movie studios, particularly Disney, literally turned that formula of having the “right” politics and the “right” enemies of those politics into their business model.

Amazon has done the same thing, just look at the catastrophe that is the Rings of Power series with its diverse, and dreadful, cast, and how Amazon uses the Disney model of making all criticism of their projects into claims of racism and sexism.

I have to admit, I have found Hollywood’s insatiable appetite for wokeness, political correctness and diversity uber alles over these last 8 years to be extremely depressing.

Cinema and television have never been at such a low point creatively in my lifetime, and it is all because of the woke, PC, diversity and inclusion agenda which rules our current era and cares not a bit about quality, but only about signaling virtue and having the proper politics.

I hope cinema as an artform can make a comeback in the coming years and decades, but I’m not optimistic. The signs all point to movies going the way of music…in other words, losing ever more artistry, creativity and cultural power through corporate and creative malfeasance.

As for Mr. Chibber and his article…it is the height of irony that a “person of color” like Mr. Chibber, who got the ‘Diversity Era’ of Hollywood completely and utterly wrong while it was occurring, is now hired to write an article about it for the lofty New York Times, while I, a brutish white man who was 1000% correct in every way about Hollywood’s ‘Diversity Era’ from the jump, can’t even get a respectful comment in the comment section on an op-ed published by the fierce gatekeepers at the Old Grey Lady.

It seems Mr. Chibber’s insights on the excesses of the ‘Diversity Era’ forgot to mention the fact that he’s one of the big beneficiaries of it, as he’s proven through his ignorance of, and blindness to, the ‘Diversity Era’ that he is just another mid-wit DEI hire who in a saner, less hysterical time, never would’ve been chosen to write for the New York Times because he brings zero insight to the topic and is intellectually incapable of producing even one original thought.

Don’t kid yourself, Hollywood’s ‘Diversity Era’ isn’t over by a long shot. And even if the hysteria is ebbing a bit, that doesn’t mean the damage done to the art of cinema, and the business of entertainment over the last decade isn’t indelible and won’t have long term consequences. It will…and not for the better, no matter what Mr. Chibber and his kind may claim to think.

©2024

Juror No. 2: A Review - Guilty of Moviemaking Malpractice

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Another in a long line of weak cinematic efforts from director Clint Eastwood. Shallow, vapid and lazy, this movie is a made-for-tv mistake.

In the first season of NBC’s acclaimed sitcom 30 Rock – which ran from 2007 to 2013, the character Jenna Maroney, a narcissistic, needy and aging actress, is excited to show her co-worker/friend Liz Lemon the new independent movie she is starring in, The Rural Juror, and gage Lemon’s opinion.

The title The Rural Juror elicits laughs because no one on 30 Rock can pronounce it properly…it just sounds like ruhhr-juhhr. It’s also amusing because it sounds like some generic Grisham-esque piece of courtroom garbage that Hollywood loves to churn out from time to time. Adding to the humor is the funny fact that The Rural Juror is actually based on a book written by Kevin Grisham – John Grisham’s brother.

On this episode of 30 Rock Lemon watches The Rural Juror and loathes it but spares Jenna the truth, which ultimately causes problems down the road between her and Jenna.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am no Liz Lemon – I’m much closer to Jack Donaghey and maybe Tracy Jordan, as I am not known for pulling punches when it comes to my opinions of film…or much else.

I kept thinking of The Rural Juror as I watched 94-year-old director Clint Eastwood’s new film, Juror No. 2, which is currently available on VOD and come December 20th will be available to stream on MAX.

Juror No.2 looks and feels like someone actually decided to make The Rural Juror…and not as a joke…despite it being unintentionally very funny. This movie has all the cinematic panache and dramatic power of a Lifetime movie you stumble across late at night and decide to use as a sleep aid.

The film, which stars Nicholas Hoult, with supporting turns from Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Leslie Bibb and Kiefer Sutherland, tells the preposterous story of Justin, a gentle juror in a Savannah, Georgia murder trial that may know more about the case than he lets on.

I will avoid spoilers as a courtesy in order to keep potential viewer’s pure of mind before watching this movie, but I’ll only say this, the premise of this movie is completely devoid of dramatic tension – at least for me. The bottom line is that Juror No. 2 asks viewers to choose “the right thing to do” in a specific scenario and the answer to that question is painfully obvious to me…so much so that I was utterly devoid of any moral qualms about what I would do. Maybe that means I’m a psychopath…who knows?

Others may find the premise more intriguing and engaging than I did, but I found it to be ethically obtuse and dramatically anemic.

Eastwood is one of the more-odd directors of the 21st century. He is going strong and consistently making movies well into his nineties, which is a great credit to him. Because he is so old, and let’s be frank, so close to death, critics and Hollywood tend to treat him with kid gloves, so he gets undeserved glowing reviews and awards consideration (and even wins), but the reality is his movies are, for the most part, awful to the point of being embarrassing.

In the last twenty years Eastwood has made 17 movies…which is extraordinary…but unfortunately none of the movies are anywhere near extraordinary. I would argue that maybe two of them rise to the level of being “just ok” (Richard Jewell and Gran Torino) and even those are pretty suspect.

Juror No. 2 has all the distinct trademarks of a late Eastwood era movie. It is allergic to detail, its visuals are dull and flat, the script is trite, the dialogue atrocious, and the acting is stilted and often-times amateurish – thanks to Clint’s hands-off/minimal takes approach.

Eastwood’s ability to entice decent and even very good actors into giving abysmal performances, is front and center in Juror No. 2. For example, J.K. Simmons, someone I deeply respect, plays a juror and is unable to make his decrepit dialogue make the least bit of sense or sound remotely human.

Toni Collette is a terrific actress and here she is essentially just a caricature throwing around a bad southern accent and painting by numbers.

Nicholas Hoult is an actor I really think highly of - I thought he was brilliant in the wonderful Hulu series The Great, but here he is handcuffed by the poor script and uneven pacing and tone of the entire cinematic venture.

Bad actors, and Eastwood employs a lot of them, are painfully exposed by Eastwood’s laissez-faire directing approach.

For instance, Chris Messina, whose career is a mystery to me, gives a lifeless, uneven and thoughtless performance as an attorney in this movie. As does Kiefer Sutherland, who does his best wooden Indian imitation throughout.

As bad as Messina and Sutherland are, Adrienne C. Moore and Cedric Yarbrough, who play jurors, are so bad they make Messina and Sutherland look like Sir Laurence Olivier and Marlon Brando. Yikes.

Juror No. 2 runs for two hours…and it is a long two-hours. While watching with my wife I paused the movie to go to the bathroom let out an audible groan when I saw that only 50 minutes had passed…it felt like we were on hour three of this son of a bitch.

Juror No. 2 is The Rural Juror. In other words, it is a joke but no one is allowed to laugh. That said, I literally did laugh out loud on numerous occasions while watching this thing as it got more and more inane as it unfolded.

Look, I like Clint Eastwood. He was a fantastic movie star. I also think he used to make very good and sometimes great movies. For example, Unforgiven is an absolute masterpiece, as is The Outlaw Josey Wales. High Plains Drifter and The Pale Rider are top notch. Everything else, including his Oscar-winning movies Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, are, at best, middling movies.

The truth is that because I like the guy I’d like to think that Clint has one more Unforgiven in him even at age 94. After watching the moviemaking malpractice that is Juror No. 2, the fantasy of a Clint return to greatness isn’t just dying on the vine, it is as dead as a door nail…and there is no mystery as to who committed the murder.

©2024

Blitz: A Review - Bombs Away!

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: ½ out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An ill-conceived, poorly executed and outrageously awful movie.

If you’re yearning for a story about Nazi Germany’s brutal blitzkrieg bombing assault on London during World War II that is so pretentious and preposterous that it will have you rooting for the bad guys to go full on Enola Gay and Hiroshima the Brits into oblivion…have I got the movie for you.

Blitz, written and directed by acclaimed auteur Steve McQueen, tells the story of George, a young mixed-race boy, and his single white mother, Rita, who try to survive the chaos and calamity of the Blitz.

My wee Scottish grandmother, one of my all-time favorite people, lived in London during the Blitz and when I was a child would tell me stories of frantically running to the underground with her two horrified toddlers and one wailing infant (my uncles) in tow in order to survive the German bombing raids.

Her harrowing experience had me deeply interested in watching Blitz. As did the fact that one of my favorite actresses, Saoirse Ronan, stars in it, and that the film’s writer/director, Steve McQueen, was a once upon a time a filmmaker I revered for his artistic courage and vision.

Then I sat down and watched Blitz – which is streaming on Apple TV+…and holy shit balls is it egregiously, atrociously bad.

This movie is so ill-conceived, poorly designed, erroneously executed, didactic, patronizing, pedantic and pedestrian that it left me frustrated to the point of being furious. It is difficult to put into words how much I hated this movie…but I’ll try because I truly and absolutely despised it.

The film, which runs two-hours, makes the ludicrous decision to make the story of the Blitz, a terror bombing which killed 40,000 Brits – the overwhelming majority (literally 99%) of whom were white, about a little black-skinned boy suffering a bevy of racist micro-aggressions while on an odyssey through London. I shit you not.

It would be hard to misunderstand and misrepresent the meaning of the Blitz more than to use it as a weapon to bash the very people it brutalized. This movie is the equivalent of telling a story about the Holocaust and having it focus on a mixed-race Polish kid in Krakow bemoaning the Jewish racism he endured at the hands of the Jews being forced into the ghetto and onto the trains headed to Auschwitz.

The film’s pretentiousness and its patronizing tone are astonishing, and seemed designed to please a particularly putrid audience from our recent past.

This is one of those films that vacuous liberal white people would’ve exalted in the most glowing terms back in 2019, no doubt during breaks at their book club meetings where they self-righteously discussed the brilliance of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility and Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist and lamented how everyone else besides them is so racist.

This is the type of movie where the white people are almost unanimously atrocious and despicable villains, and minorities, be they Indian, Jewish or African, are noble saints with hearts of gold.

The heart of gold lineup includes but is not limited to…the Jew with a heart of gold who stands up to defend an Indian family – who also have hearts of gold. There’s a Nigerian nightwatchman with a heart so golden he is essentially Jesus Christ. Then there’s a communist midget…again I shit you not…with a heart of gold considerably bigger than his tiny little body. There’s also a black woman who is a criminal but she too ends up having, you guessed it…a heart of gold!

The Anglo-Saxon/white Brits on the other hand…well, they are, with the exception of Rita and her father, a vile, vindictive, violent, vicious and venomous bunch. Whether it’s the street criminal Albert, who seems like something out of a second-rate Dickens novel, or the bevy of pale civil servants tasked with public safety, or the white men in various positions of power, the white characters are a cruel and heartless bunch, that lie easily and incessantly. They are all filled to the brim with a savage and irrational hate for anyone not white that burns brighter and hotter than any Nazi fire bombing.

On top of the incomparably trite and passe agenda fueling the film, there’s the issue of the plot being so ludicrous and preposterous as to be incandescently stupid.

George’s odyssey is essentially like Pinocchio’s, as he goes from one inanity to the next, making awful, idiotic decisions every chance he gets. But, of course, because George is of mixed-race, he has a heart of gold and is outlandishly courageous and brave, while the white kids are just cruel and mean-spirited.

George’s odyssey is the main narrative in the film, and it is incessantly nonsensical and moronic. Elliot Heffernan, who plays George, is a stone-faced dullard who does nothing but grate and irritate viewers every second he’s on-screen. I’ve never wished for a child to be killed in a movie before…but this dope had me rooting for it.

The more interesting, but equally inane, narrative, is that of George’s mom, Rita. I love Saoirse Ronan, and she does the best she can with what’s she’s given, but Rita’s story, which is filled with a bevy of lifeless flashbacks, is so vapid it made my teeth hurt.  And, of course, it is filled with a cavalcade of loathsome white men and their unending racism and sexism and the like. Yawn.

Steve McQueen was once a filmmaker I deeply respected and admired. His first feature, Hunger (2008), which chronicles the struggle of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, is a masterful, exquisitely executed, immensely moving film. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

His next film, Shame (2011), is a shocking, vivid depiction of the chaotic life of a sex addict that is also well-crafted.  

His third film, 12 Years a Slave (2013), won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It is a bit of a controversial pick in hindsight because apparently making slave movies is a no-no among the DEI sect nowadays. But back then, it was an impressive film that was very deftly put together, and I loved it then…and still do today.

Then things started to go off the rails for McQueen. His next movie, Widows (2018), was, frankly, a mess of a movie. It tried, and failed, to say a lot of things about a lot of subjects, and generally ended up being politically flaccid, dramatically incoherent and cinematically impotent.

Which brings us to Blitz. Blitz is proof of something that makes me quite unhappy, namely that Steve McQueen is not the noteworthy filmmaker I wished him to be, but rather a painfully pedestrian and banal artistic poseur devoid of any truly compelling or original vision.

The reality is that the brilliant Steve McQueen of Hunger is dead and buried, and all we have left is the man who made Blitz, a cloying, trite and treacly film that feels like a sub-par parody of one of those racially-motivated and quickly forgotten BBC movies of the week.

The bottom line is that Blitz is an embarrassingly bad, painfully pretentious and preposterous film that I cannot recommend to anyone at any time. This movie is an abject failure in every way and, like the vast majority of the films of Apple TV+, is a complete and total waste of time. Skip it…I know I wish I had.

©2024

Gladiator II: A Review - There Was a Dream That Was Rome

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. It pales considerably in comparison to the original, but still a decent enough, and entertaining enough, swords and sandals action epic.

There’s been a TikTok trend going around in recent years about how every man supposedly thinks about the Roman Empire at least a little bit every day of his adult life. That, of course, is utter nonsense. Just kidding…it is absolutely, 100% true…at least in my life…I mean, what the hell else am I going to be thinking about during the day except the Roman Empire?  

The makers of Gladiator II, the long-awaited legacy sequel of Ridley Scott’s Best Picture winning Gladiator (2000), are hoping that audiences will think enough about Ancient Rome to make the trek to the movie theatre to go watch a movie about it this coming Thanksgiving weekend.

The film, once again directed by Ridley Scott, stars Paul Mescal as Hanno, a prisoner of war turned gladiator, and features supporting performances from Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal and Connie Nielson.

In order to avoid any semblance of spoilers, I’ll give a brief and intentionally vague rundown of the plot.

Fifteen years after the events of the original film where Maximus famously kills Commodus, and then himself dies, Rome is an empire on the verge of collapse due to the depravity, debauchery, decadence, militarism and mismanagement of its in-bred ruling class…sound familiar? If you have even a passing association with reality in America, then it should.

Twin emperors, Caracalla and Geta, are bloodthirsty madmen presiding over the empire who have sent skilled general Acacius across the globe to satiate their appetite for conquest.

Acacius invades and conquers the African city of Numidia, where Hanno is a warrior. In defeat Hanno is enslaved in the service of Macrinus, a former slave himself who has a stable of gladiators who fight in the Colosseum. Macrinus sees great talent in Hanno and makes him his number one gladiatorial attraction in the hopes of using Hanno’s success in the Colosseum as a tool to climb the social and political ladder.

The plot, which entails a bevy of twists and turns and flashbacks and reveals, goes from there.

The original Gladiator was a miracle of a movie. A big budget, sword and sandals action epic that barely had a working script during shooting, which, through the sheer force of Ridley Scott’s talent and Russell Crowe’s movie star charisma, became a blockbuster prestige movie that made a bundle of money and won a handful of Oscars. It is, after twenty-four years, still glorious to watch and re-watch.

I kept thinking of the famous line from Gladiator, “what we do in life echoes in eternity” while watching Gladiator II, because what Gladiator II really is, is a very faint echo of the boisterous blockbuster bellow from twenty-four years ago that was the original Gladiator.

Another quote from Gladiator was ringing in my head as I exited the theater after watching all two-and-a-half hours of Gladiator II, and that was “are you not entertained??”

My answer is…”ummm…yeah…I guess so.”

It is undeniable that Gladiator II pales considerably in comparison to the original. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, or that it isn’t entertaining, because it is decent enough and entertaining in its own way, it just means that the best way to enjoy it is to go into it with low expectations.

Gladiator II is, like the original, in its essence, a sword and sandal action movie, and it boasts some impressive fight sequences that are, at times, exhilarating. Most notably Hanno’s fight in the emperor’s palace, which is electrifying for its close-quarters brutality and realism.

But at other times, the fight sequences border on the inane. For example, there’s a fight between gladiators and a gang of baboons that seemed the absolute essence of silliness.

Overall, the movie serves up a bevy of gladiator fights, and even if some of them are a bit preposterous to the point of silly, they’re still gladiator fights…and who the hell doesn’t like gladiator fights?

The plot of the film is a bit convoluted and stretches credulity as well, and its twists and turns don’t quite compel like they did in the original, but that said there are some bright spots.

For instance, whenever Denzel Washington’s Macrinus is on screen, Gladiator II is winning. Washington’s Macrinus is a Shakespearean super villain, like the bastard love child of Iago and Richard III. Denzel chews the scenery in this movie with more aplomb than the CGI sharks in the Colosseum naval battle do their unfortunate victims.

Late career Denzel is often times underwhelming as his verve can wane and his focus can wander. But as Macrinus, Denzel is totally engaged and seems to be having a helluva lot of sinister fun, and it is a pleasure to behold.

The lead of the movie though is Paul Mescal, who is a moderately well-known actor, despite my never having seen his work. I thought Mescal did, for the most part, an admirable job in the lead of Gladiator II.

For starters, Mescal is in fantastic shape for the role, which is in sharp contrast to the mildly chubby Russel Crowe in the original. Mescal has a physical dynamism to him that is undeniable and jumps off the screen in the action sequences in the movie. Unfortunately for Mescal, and despite what Hollywood will tell you, muscle doesn’t make a movie star. Mescal is no Crowe in terms of charisma and gravitas, and he cannot carry the film on his own. In many ways, Denzel steals the show right out from under him….which isn’t much of a mark against Mescal since Denzel steals most every movie he appears in.

Pedro Pascal is subdued and rather forgettable as Acasius, the morally and ethically conflicted general. The lethargic Pascal seems devoid of magnetism in the role and feels out of place in the film.

Connie Nielson, reprising her role of Lucilla from the original, also feels out of rhythm and out of place. Her character’s arc is not written particularly well, and she does not elevate it with her rather anemic performance.

Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn, playing Caracalla and Geta respectively, seem to be mimicking Joaquin Phoenix as crazy Commodus for the entirety of their rather one-note performances. There are worse actors to copy than Joaquin Phoenix, but in this case a bit of nuance and variation, which Phoenix brought in the original, would have better served the film.

As for director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II is nowhere near the upper echelon of his staggering filmography, but it must be said that it is truly remarkable that an 86-year-old man is churning out big budget epic movies like this.

Scott has made four films in the last four years, one bigger and more complicated to pull off than the next. The Last Duel (2021), House of Gucci (2021), Napoleon (2023) and Gladiator II (2024) is a grueling gauntlet for a filmmaker half of Ridley Scott’s age…and he doesn’t seem to be done just yet as Gladiator II is doing very well at the box office and no doubt will compel Ridley, and more importantly movie studios, to let him keep going.

While Gladiator II is certainly a flawed movie, it is still a real movie and a proficiently made one that is fun to watch. I don’t think it’ll win any Oscars, or break box office records, but it’s a decent and respectable piece of work for any filmmaker, never mind one that is 86.

If you loved, or even just liked, Gladiator, you’ll find Gladiator II to be a passable but ultimately second-rate imitation. I do recommend you check it out, and do so in a movie theatre, but just be sure to arm yourself with lower expectations.

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 126 - The Substance

On this episode, Barry and I dive head first into the fountain of youth to discuss the intriguing satirical body horror movie The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. Topics discussed include the clever premise of the film and it's quality execution, third act issues, and the stellar work of Moore and Qualley. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 126 - The Substance

Thanks for listening!!

©2024

Megalopolis: A Review - A Mega Mess

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This is a truly, truly awful movie in every single way. Poorly written, directed, acted and shot. It deserves zero stars but I gave it one star out of respect for Francis Ford Coppola and his stellar work in the 70s.

My favorite baseball player when I was a kid was Tom Seaver. Seaver was a pitcher for the New York Mets and for some reason, I just attached myself to his stardom when I was very young. I even had a tiny #41 Mets jersey and uniform that I wore every year for Halloween, even after it stopped fitting.

The Mets traded Tom Terrific in 1977 and I was a heartbroken and homeless baseball fan until I quickly latched onto the irascible Thurman Munson and the Yankees – which only led to its own heartbreak down the road…but that’s a story for another day.

The reason I bring up Seaver is that I always loved the guy, even after his Hall of Fame playing career came to an end. He was a phenomenal pitcher, but he was also a great guy and a class act.

So in my teens, when Seaver was forty-years-old, I made a pilgrimage to see him pitch in Fenway Park for the Chicago White Sox against the Boston Red Sox on July 30th, 1985. I assumed this would be my last chance to see him pitch live, and I was right.

Seaver was well past his prime and couldn’t throw his fastball with the savage velocity he used to, but he was still a master craftsman and could pitch his ass off. On this night he called on all his experience and mastery and pitched an absolute gem, throwing a complete game, 7-5 victory…the 299th win of his career. It was a joy to behold.

I thought of the old war horse Tom Seaver conjuring up some late career magic when I sat down to watch Megalopolis (now available to rent on VOD for $20), the new film from iconic, Academy Award winning auteur Francis Ford Coppola, who is now 85 years-old and well past his prime. But I hoped, like Seaver, Coppola would recapture some of that old magic just one more time.

Megalopolis, which is written and directed by Coppola, is a science fiction fable that chronicles the personal, political and cultural quest for power, purpose and meaning in an alternative, 21st-century, New York City named New Rome.

The film is an epic inspired by Greek and Roman classics, Roman history, and Shakespeare, and it is an outrageously ambitious and audacious cinematic venture.

I desperately wanted to like this movie, and desperately wanted it to work and I desperately wanted it to be good. Unfortunately, Megalopolis is a catastrophically, disastrously bad movie that doesn’t work in any way at all.

The film follows the story of Cesar Catalina, yes – that is his real name, a genius architect blessed with the ability to stop time. What does Mr. Catalina do with that ability? Nothing really.

Catalina is in a power struggle against Mayor Franklyn Cicero, and banking tycoon Hamilton Crassus, as well as both of their extended families.

He’s also in a tenuous and very shallow relationship with tv presenter and social climber Wow Platinum, yes – that is her real name, and also gets into a Romeo and Juliet type situation with the Mayor’s daughter, Julia.

Through all this Cesar Catalina is trying to rebuild New Rome into a utopia that will endure well beyond his and his direct descendant’s lifetimes and be a shining city on a hill through the ages.

If that plot and character description sounds like a lot, that’s because it is…and frankly, that’s not even the half of it.

The problems with Megalopolis are legion – pardon the pun. Coppola famously financed the film himself, all $130 million of it, and it’s easy to see why as no studio executive with half a brain in his head and any semblance of a survival instinct would attach themselves to this convoluted and incoherent mess of a movie.

Let’s start at the beginning. The casting for this movie is so egregiously awful that it beggars belief.

Adam Driver, or as I call him – the modern-day Elliot Gould (in case you’re wondering…that’s not a compliment), is the darling of the auteur sect at the moment, but he is unquestionably an atrocious actor and an even worse movie star, so his being cast as the lead Cesar Catalina is a major error.

Driver is an irredeemably impotent actor devoid of even a minimal amount of power, presence or gravitas, so he is incapable of carrying a gargantuan film of this magnitude.

Catalina is supposed to be this object of desire oozing with sex appeal and magnetism, but Driver is a doughy doofus and is so repellent as to be the walking embodiment of anti-sexual attraction.

Catalina is also supposed to be a genius, but Driver is a dim-witted, dead-eyed dullard who has no light in his eyes and comes across as a dumbass and dope, meathead and mope on-screen, which only makes his performance all the more infuriatingly flaccid.

In addition to the abysmal Driver, is the equally awful Shia LaBeouf, who is consistently terrible at everything he does.

LaBeouf plays Clodio, Cesar’s jealous cousin, and he does all the usual hackneyed, ham-fisted histrionics you’d expect from a minimally talented actor trying too hard to show everyone he’s acting.

The worst performance in the film, and that is saying something, comes from Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Julia Cicero. Emmanuel is a beautiful woman but she is such a lifeless and wooden actor that you’d be better served casting a cigar store wooden Indian than her. Emmanuel’s dismal line readings are so devoid of life I felt like I was watching her narrate her own autopsy.

The rest of the cast, which include Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, are no walk in the park either. The main problem with the acting is that the performances are all over the place tonally. It’s like watching ten different actors working in ten different films all spliced together randomly. It’s bizarre.

The blame for the epic failure of the epic Megalopolis falls squarely on Francis Ford Coppola as he’s the one who cast these incompetent snores in the first place, and then failed to direct them adequately to present a unified tone.

I also blame Coppola for the film’s uninspired and amateurish cinematography. Scenes are consistently poorly designed, blocked and framed. The visual effects, the sets and the costumes all look unconscionably cheap and tawdry. Which begs the question…where did that $130 million go?

The theatricality of the film, in its writing, staging, acting, set design and costumes, doesn’t seem avant-garde but accidental, like a way to cut corners with unfinished ideas and unpolished set ups.

The script is an unmitigated disaster, like a glimpse into the mind of a narcissistic, drunk, manic depressive mad man having a break down while strapped to a chair in front of Fox News.

There’s a plethora of inane B-story lines about a virginal pop singer named Vesta Sweetwater, and yes that’s her real name, and a dangerously malfunctioning Soviet satellite falling to earth, and a populist politician’s quest for power and on and on and none of them mean much of anything in the big picture or come to any dramatically satisfying conclusion.

The film is just Coppola saying the world is a mess and only he understands it and only he can fix it. The problem with this is that the animating philosophy of the film is so trite as to be ludicrous.

As are the film’s heavy-handed and extraordinarily vacuous politics. For example, there’s actually a sign held up at a populist rally that says “Make New Rome Great Again”. Subtle.

Francis Ford Coppola has given us some of the very greatest films ever made, The Godfather I and II, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. But he hasn’t made a half way decent film, or been even remotely relevant as a filmmaker or artist, in over thirty years. In other words, he not only can’t throw his fastball anymore, he can barely throw a ball anymore.

It pained me to watch the mega-mess of Megalopolis because Coppola, like Scorsese and Kurosawa and Kubrick, is such a cornerstone to my love of cinema. But the cold and very hard reality is that Megalopolis is a film made by a man who shouldn’t be making films anymore.

Coppola no longer has the effortless talent, craft and skill he displayed during his heyday in the 1970’s. He is a man with lots of ideas but without the ability to convey them cinematically in a coherent and competent way. That is heart breaking for fans of cinema, like myself, and no doubt for Coppola, who still has a lot to say but is unable to adequately say it.

I wish Megalopolis was Coppola as Tom Seaver battling Red Sox batters for nine strong innings to get his 299th win. But it isn’t. It is Coppola as Seaver, a good man and once great pitcher, having to suffer the heartbreak and indignity of quitting his post-playing broadcasting job because he was suffering from dementia.

In this respect Megalopolis isn’t just a bad film, it is a gut-wrenching tragedy. Poorly considered, poorly crafted and poorly executed in every single way, it is better not that you don’t ever watch Megalopolis, but that you entirely forget it ever existed. That’s what I hope to do.

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 125 - Megalopolis

On this episode, Barry and I head to New Rome to discuss all things Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola's newest film. Topics discussed include egregious casting errors, abysmal acting, incoherent script and subpar craftsmanship. But besides that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 125 - Megalopolis

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 124 - Trap

On this episode, Barry and I head out to a Lady Raven concert in Philly only to discover we've unknowingly walked into an M. Night Shyamalan Trap, starring Josh Hartnett. Topics discussed on this pod include M. Night Shyamalan's very odd career arc, and the greatness of his early work contrasted with his disappointing later period films - which most definitely includes Trap. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 124 - Trap

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Conclave: A Review - Committing a Cinematic Cardinal Sin

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A well-crafted and well-acted film that ultimately condemns itself to hell with an inexcusable plot twist that is so inane as to be infuriating.

Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and written by Peter Straughan (adapted from Robert Harris’ book of the same name), tells the story of Cardinal Lawrence, a man struggling with his faith who must navigate palace intrigue in the Vatican as the College of Cardinals assembles to elect a new pope.

On the surface, Conclave has a lot going for it. For example, it stars a cavalcade of top-notch actors, with Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, Stanley Tucci as Cardinal Bellini, John Lithgow as Cardinal Tremblay and Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes among the cast.

In addition, it is directed by Edward Berger, whose last film, All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), was a phenomenal, Academy Award nominated piece of work, my favorite of that year because it was so beautifully shot and masterfully executed.

On a personal note, as a Catholic myself (I’m not a good one…but I definitely am one) who has visited the Vatican on numerous occasions, I find the subject matter of a conclave in the wake of a Pope’s death, and the pomp and circumstance and politicization and jockeying for positioning that takes place, to be extraordinarily compelling.

And speaking of politics, in the wake of the US presidential election, Conclave is perfectly positioned to have something interesting to say about elections and liberals versus conservatives and the power of convictions and possibilities of backlash.

This is all to say that Conclave, which was released in the U.S. on October 25th and is still in theatres, had me in the palm of its hand even before I sat down in the theatre to watch it.

And yet…it failed to capitalize on all of its advantages and, in fact, alienated me in such a profound way with an excruciatingly egregious and inane plot twist, which I found to be a mortal moviemaking sin and entirely unforgivable.

In order to avoid spoilers, I will not reveal the specifics of the plot twist but will only say that it occurs in the final ten minutes or so of the film and is so contrived, bizarre, atrocious and appalling, and is such a grievous dramatic error, and so narratively unsound, that it ruined everything good about the film that led up to it and completely scuttled the good ship Conclave.

But besides that…how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Truthfully, it was pretty good.

The film is well shot by cinematographer Stephane Fontaine, who uses a soft light and wonderful composition to often times create scenes reminiscent of Caravaggio’s great works.

Fontaine is aided by the spectacular work of the set and costume designers who masterfully recreate the distinct look and feel of the Vatican and the Cardinals’ outfits.

In addition, the entire cast all do tremendous work.

Ralph Fiennes in particular is outstanding. His Cardinal Lawrence is the Dean of the College of Cardinals and must wrangle the Cardinals to come together to vote for a pope and make sure everything is on the up and up…and it is never quite clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

Fiennes is a supremely gifted technical actor whose skill is as good as anyone working today, and he brings all of those skills to bear as Cardinal Lawrence, a man who is struggling with his faith and his self.

An Oscar nomination, and even a win, could and should be in Fiennes future for his work in Conclave.

The supporting cast are also excellent.

Stanley Tucci is as reliable an actor as there is and he brings a subtle power to portrayal of liberal Cardinal Bellini that is enjoyable to behold. Tucci expertly embodies the illiberal liberal who is enthralled by himself more than humanity.

John Lithgow’s Cardinal Tremblay is a character that in lesser hands would’ve been forgettable, but here, Lithgow never breaks and lets the audience off the hook, so even after the film has ended, you’re still wondering if he’s a mistreated martyr or an exquisite liar.

And Isabella Rossellini has a small role as Sister Agnes, but every time she is on screen she crackles with an incandescent light and life that is undeniable.

But despite all of the magnificent artistry on display in the form of the acting, cinematography and costumes and set, Conclave commits too egregious a sin to ever be forgiven.

That sin, which is not venial sin but a mortal one, is the cheap, absurd and unearned plot twist that turns a compelling Catholic mystery and thriller into a pandering and pathetic cinematic exercise that feels like it deceived and betrayed you and stole two hours of your life.

For Catholics, Conclave will hold some appeal because it is a look behind the curtain of something familiar but still mysterious, namely the inner working of the Vatican and the conclave. In this way the film is compelling for Catholics…until the plot twist…which not just many, but I would say most, Catholics will find at best annoying, and at most infuriating (I’m in the infuriating camp).

Non-Catholics will find the majority of the film impenetrable for its disorienting maze of Catholic-ness. For example, I’m not even sure I can ask my podcast partner Barry, who is not Catholic, to watch this movie because he’s not going to know, or care, about all the Vatican and Catholic stuff that made at least the premise of the film interesting to me.

Regardless of all that, the bottom line is that I simply cannot, and will not, recommend Conclave to readers because the plot twist near the end eviscerates any artistic good the film achieved which led up to it.

If you’re interested in watching a challenging yet entertaining piece of Vatican/Pope artistry, I recommend you go back and watch The Young Pope (2014) series on HBO starring Jude Law. That overlooked, off-beat, exquisitely avant-garde series is very insightful and spiritually invigorating.

And if you’re just looking for a great story of Catholicism and Catholic priests, I highly recommend you check out Xavier Beavois’ 2010 film Of Gods and Men. It is a extraordinarily moving and spiritually insightful piece of work.

Both The Young Pope and Of Gods and Men are everything Conclave should be but ultimately isn’t. Go watch them, and skip Conclave…I certainly wish I had.

©2024

The Penguin: A TV Review - We Have a Frontrunner for the Best Show of the Year

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE. IT. NOW. The best show of the year and easily the greatest comic book IP series since Daredevil.

The Penguin, which stars Colin Farrell in the titular role, chronicles the rise of one of Gotham’s most infamous villains. It is the first tv series in filmmaker Matt Reeves’, director of The Batman (2022), DC Cinematic Universe.

The series, which premiered on HBO and the streaming service MAX on September 19th with its eight-episode season ending on November 10th, is set in the immediate aftermath of the events of The Batman (2022), but also serves as an origin story for Oswald Cobb - The Penguin.

For a variety of reasons, one of which is that I’ve had to sit through a cavalcade of terribly disappointing Marvel tv shows over the last bunch of years, I had low expectations when I sat down to watch the first episode of The Penguin.

I assumed the series would just be another watered-down piece of IP nonsense with little meaning or purpose beyond momentarily distracting me from the mundanity and minutia of life.  

Then I watched the first episode…and goodness gracious was I proven dead wrong.

The first episode of The Penguin hits like Bat Kick to the chest. It reveals a creative team that is dead serious about the subject matter and an artistic and cinematic sensibility and quality that is exceedingly rare in any television show…never mind a comic book television show. Put simply The Penguin is comic book series as elite prestige tv.

The credit for the show’s success goes first to the series’ creator and showrunner Lauren LeFranc, who expertly brought the cinematic vision of Matt Reeves to life on the small screen.

LeFranc’s fearless approach never allowed for winking at the audience or cutting creative corners. LeFranc set out to make a devastatingly dramatic television series that just so happened to be set in a comic book universe, and she succeeded spectacularly.  

LeFranc is loyal to the cinematic style of Reeves, and her ground-level view of Gotham is gloriously gritty, grimy, grungy and gruesome. As a result, The Penguin seems like a slightly lesser version of HBO prestige dramas The Sopranos and The Wire, as it looks cinematic and feels authentic.

For all eight episodes, LeFranc masterfully toys with audience expectations and conditioning. She subverts audience expectations so expertly at every turn that viewers are kept continually off-balance through the course of the narrative. And the finale is as perfect a piece of villain origin story as you’ll ever see.

The second person responsible for the success of The Penguin is the Penguin himself, Colin Farrell.

Farrell’s performance as Oswald Cobb, aka The Penguin, is as great a performance as we’ve seen in television in years. Under mountains of makeup which render him unrecognizable, Farrell is able to imbue his character with a vivid and frantic inner life that pulsates and radiates incessantly.

Farrell’s Penguin is a vulnerable, yet vile, violent and vicious villain. His relentless quest for power and his insatiable hunger for love are inexorably intertwined, and fuel his grinding ascent from lowlife street thug to high level mobster.

It is an absolute joy to watch Farrell in the last decade or so blossom into such a terrific actor. He has always been a naturally magnetic screen presence, but in recent years his skill has matured and made him into one of the best actors we’ve got. If he doesn’t win an Emmy for his work on The Penguin then there is no justice in this crazy world.

The rest of the cast are almost as fantastic as Farrell.

Cristin Milioti is essentially the co-lead in the series as she stars as Sofia Falcone, the troubled adult daughter of mob boss Carmine Falcone. Milioti is an absolute revelation in the role. She radiates an unnerving energy every time she’s on-screen…one that is both fragile and furiously fierce. Milioti too should garner Emmy recognition as she had a lot of heavy lifting to do in the series and does it with aplomb.

Deirdra O’Connell plays Francis Cobb, the Penguin’s mom. O’Connell is spectacular in the role of the scheming mother. In lesser hands this role had the potential to scuttle the whole show, but O’Connell gives a powerhouse performance that elevates the already superb series.

Rhenzy Feliz plays Victor, a homeless teenager who Oswald/The Penguin takes under his wing. Feliz at first seems like the weak link in the show. His performance feels a little thin and a bit shallow and showy…but as the series went on his work got stronger until in the final few episodes, he really came into his own. Ultimately, Feliz shows himself to be a very worthy actor.

The rest of the cast, which includes a few notable actors, like Mark Strong, Clancy Brown and Michael Kelly, all bring a gravitas and professionalism to the festivities that only adds to the quality of the show.

A bunch of years ago one of my friend’s father, the incomparable “Hollywood” Gary, made the astute observation that the reason why the Dark Knight trilogy was so successful and so good was because if Batman really existed in the world, that’s how it would be. I concur. The same exact thing is what makes The Penguin so good.

It is almost irrelevant that The Penguin is set in a comic book universe because it feels like a story about low level and low life mobsters set in the real world. This could be a spin-off from a Scorsese series like Boardwalk Empire for crissakes.

The battle between the cinematic universes of DC and Marvel haven’t been much of a fight for the last fourteen years or so. Marvel has dominated the cultural landscape and DC has stumbled through the failures that was the Snyderverse.

But since 2019, things have begun to slowly change.

That year Marvel capped its incredible run with the two-billion-dollar box office darling, Avengers: Endgame. But that same year DC came out with Joker…which was a prestige comic book movie that garnered a Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor Oscar nominations (and a win for Best Actor and Best Original Score) and made a billion dollars.

Marvel since then has churned out a plethora of movies and tv series, most of which were mediocrities and some of which were considerably less than mediocre.

DC on the other hand, gave us Matt Reeves’ The Batman, and now The Penguin. Both of these pieces of work are vastly superior to anything Marvel has put out since Endgame. And even though Joker and Joker: Folie a Deux are not connected to the Matt Reeves cinematic universe, both of those films (yes, even the near universally panned Folie a Deux – which I actually loved) are undeniably more artistically daring and dynamic than anything Marvel has EVER done.

The best thing about DC at the moment is that cinematically, artistically and thematically, its cinematic universe is much darker than Marvel’s. This has been a complaint by some, but never by me. I like the darker material, and the Marvel material in comparison seems, frankly silly to the point of ridiculousness.

Visually the same is true. DC is making real movies with a distinct and artistically compelling cinematic aesthetic, while Marvel churns out the flattest and most visually bland movies and tv shows imaginable that look, frankly, unconscionably cheap.

The battle for comic book IP supremacy may be irrelevant at this point as the superhero genre seems to be in a recession which may head into a depression. But if we are measuring it in artistic terms, DC is winning right now and it isn’t even close, and that winning may lead to more cultural cache.

One can only hope DC keeps going in this direction…although I must say that James Gunn being in charge at DC and making a Superman movie does not fill me with much confidence that the ship will stay headed in the right direction.

Regardless of all that, The Penguin is undeniably the best TV series I’ve seen this entire year, and tied with Netflix’s Daredevil (2015-2018) as the best comic book series ever made.

If you have a passing interest in comic book IP or in mob movies and tv shows, you have to watch The Penguin because it isn’t just what a great comic book tv series should be, it is what a great tv series should be.

©2024

Dispatches from the Shitshow: There and Back Again

ELECTION 2024 - POST-MORTEM #1

I’m picking up Bad Vibrations

In case you haven’t heard, former president, nepo-baby real estate mogul, and reality tv star, Donald J. Trump, has won the 2024 presidential election in resounding fashion.

I believed, due to my extensive expert analysis of “vibes”, that Trump would not win…or more accurately…would not be allowed to become president again. I was definitely wrong about the election results – as I thought the establishment would steal it fair and square, but I might still be right about whether Trump actually gets inaugurated.

A lot can happen between now and January 20th, and most of it can be very, very bad.

I had a conversation the other day with a good friend of mine, Red Dragon, who is a therapist. He and I avoid talking about politics for the most part but he called me to ask my Jungian thesis on Trump. I told it to him, which is essentially that Trump is the archetype of Loki, the Norse trickster god, personified.

Red Dragon, who is devoutly anti-Trump, then explained to me that he has a “feeling” and a “sense” that Trump’s astonishing story has one more gigantic twist in it and that twist involves some calamity befalling him. He wasn’t sure what it was…maybe a heart attack or stroke or worse.

What intrigued me about Red Dragon’s “feeling” and “sense” is that I have had the same feeling for some time now, and have even written about it. And to be clear, Red Dragon does not read my writing at all, so it’s not like he’s seen my pieces on the subject.

So my sense of the “vibes” around the election were wrong, but my “sense” of a calamity awaiting Trump persists – and is shared by other distant, yet kindred, spirits.

I fear, and I genuinely mean that I am fearful because I do not want anything bad to happen to the guy or to the country, that he will not make it to the presidency, and if he does, he won’t be there very long (remember the very murky and mysterious assassination attempt on Reagan in March of 1981 was a little over two months after he was inaugurated).

Trump may have a “heart attack” or “stroke” that aren’t really a heart attack or a stroke. Or he may get shot. Or blown up. Or poisoned. Or have an anvil fall on his head. Or may have a lawfare bomb blow up in his lap. Whatever it is, the powers that be, most notably the intelligence community, are out to get him, and when they want to get someone, they usually, but not always, do.

After Trump’s win he put out a series of videos describing his plan for his presidency. In one of the videos, he talks at length about his plan for the intelligence community and how he is going to bring them to heel. It is shocking to watch, and is the equivalent of when JFK said he would “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces”. We all know how well that went for JFK…he got his brains blown out all over his Ivy League suit on a sunny November day in Dallas, Texas.

Trump further antagonized the intel community when he tweeted that he would NOT be inviting former CIA director, and unrepentant neo-con, Mike Pompeo, to join his administration. Pompeo was the one who convinced Trump to not release the JFK assassination files during his first term…something he has sworn to do this time around. Trump’s “no Pompeo“- announcement made me both cheer…and shudder, because Pompeo is a monster but his ouster will only further antagonize the villains in the intelligence community.

The point of all this is that Trump has a big old bullseye on his back, and the people putting it there are notorious for assassinations and coups. So the Trump drama may hold another turn to it that will be Shakespearean in its tragedy.

Again…I hope not…but it’s a distinct possibility.

It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I Feel Fine

I spoke to a high-ranking election official here in Pennsylvania on the morning after the election and they told me that Harris was poised to win Pennsylvania and therefore the White House until a single vote was cast in my small, rural, overwhelmingly conservative township for Jill Stein. According to this official, this single vote somehow miraculously, single-handedly, halted Harris’s momentum and began her precipitous electoral decline.

In case you’re wondering…it was me…I was the one who voted for Jill Stein and thereby destroyed Harris’s electoral bid and, according to establishment liberals and hysteric woke fools, the democratic experiment that is the United States of America.

Sorry about that. Just kidding…I’m not sorry at all.

While every liberal I know is freaking out, or inconsolably depressed and deep within the throes of despair, I feel fine.

The reason for that is simple, yet complicated. The simple part is this…Donald Trump is a gigantic middle finger to the establishment and the DEI, woke, pussy-hat brigade, identity politics obsessed portion of the democratic party, and I have, for many years, been loudly saying “fuck you” to this intellectually insipid and politically insidious faction.  

In this sense, Trump’s victory fills me with a shameful amount of schadenfreude – the German word for pleasure in response to another’s misfortune. Of course, my feeling of schadenfreude is only heightened by the woke cult’s extraordinarily expansive amount of self-righteousness and hubris over the last ten years.

So, in one sense I am giddy at the truly malodorous, mid-wit, machine politician mediocrity that is Kamala Harris and her supremely silly sycophants losing this election.

I fully acknowledge that this response is childish, vindictive and vulgar. I am not proud of it, but I do admit to it.

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness…like resignation to the End…always the End

There is another part of me though that is deeply concerned about Trump’s victory, and it has nothing to do with his policies or the American polity, and everything to do with my own humanity. Namely, that there are many people that I love dearly who have personalized their politics to the point where they are in a great deal of emotional pain at the moment.

While I am a notoriously vicious son of a bitch, I am only that way to my enemies, and am deeply protective of those that I love.

In the broadest sense, my enemies are those in politics, like the entire democratic party and their shills in the legacy media, who have embraced a self-righteous racial, gender and ethnic identity politics over class politics. I despise these vapid and vainglorious villains because they are the most duplicitous, diabolical and deceptive scoundrels in American life, as they have irreparably destroyed the middle-class and decimated the working-class, and thus given us President Donald Trump…not once, but twice.

But then there are people in my life – most notably women, and everyone knows how much I obviously respect and adore women, like my wife, and my girlfriend, and my other girlfriend, and the prostitute I frequent, and the other prostitute I frequent, and this other women who may or may not be a prostitute who I’m trying to make my girlfriend but she’s kinda being a bitch about it so who knows where that will go…anyway…these women are deeply upset that Trump won, and I don’t like them being in anguish.

In all seriousness, I know a bevy of women who are either furious, or despondent, or inconsolable, or all of the above, regarding Trump’s victory. I totally get it. I do.

Therefore, I will not try and convince them to feel otherwise because how they feel is how they feel and I am not going to mansplain to them how their feelings are wrong no matter how wrong they are.

What I will do is encourage them to, in due time, put aside their feelings and try and analyze not so much their political beliefs but their political strategy and tactics and try and find how we, and they, got us where we are.

I would also try to encourage them to, going forward, not catastrophize and internalize their politics, because, as I have learned through experience – the Bush years were hell on earth for me, that is a terrible waste of time and an egregious waste of a glorious life.

I’m NOT looking at the Man in the Mirror, oh yeah, I’m NOT asking him to change his ways

In my final dispatch from before the election, I wrote that if liberals lose, they should, “look in the mirror and ask yourself some meaningful questions like…what have I done and what policies have I supported, that brought this vile man to power? If the answer you receive makes you question your entire ideology and approach to politics…then you’re on the right track.”

Thankfully, liberals are taking my sage advice and looking deeply inward in an attempt to learn from failure.

Just kidding…liberals have learned nothing and are once again doubling down on identity politics in order to explain their catastrophic defeat in this year’s election. The top three reasons I’ve heard for why Kamala lost are…you guessed it…racism, sexism and white supremacy. Yawn. I guess liberals think they didn’t screech “racist, fascist and sexist!!” quite loud enough over the decade. Maybe if they yell it louder, they’ll win next time. Addiction to wokeness is a hell of a thing.

A glance at MSNBC, CNN or ABC in the hours and days following Trump’s win and you were treated to intellectual titans like Joy Reid, Eddie Glaude, and Sunny Hostin, declaring that the only reason Trump won is because of racism and sexism….some of that racism and sexism even coming from “people of color” and women.

Glaude, a Princeton professor and one of the griftiest of race grifters, responded to an argument that people voted for Trump due to economic reasons, by saying, “I do not believe that…I CANNOT believe that…”. Exactly. Glaude, like the rest of the identity politics hucksters, CANNOT believe that because his entire career is premised on race being front and center at every moment in America….so if racism goes away...so does his income stream and prestige.

Glaude is, like his fellow race hustlers, Ibram X. Kendi, Joy Reid, Sunny Hostin, and Nikole Hannah-Jones, and their ilk, an intellectual midget and political and cultural snake oil salesman and charlatan.

These mendacious morons are the same ones denying the fact that Kamala Harris was one of the most grotesquely inadequate politicians of the modern era and, in fact, have over and over, along with fellow talking heads and pundits in newspapers, declared that Kamala ran a “flawless” campaign. It’s impossible to take anyone who says that seriously. Kamala’s campaign was a lot of things, but “flawless” was not one of them. Kamala’s campaign was just like her in that it was fearful and entirely forgettable.

Thankfully I haven’t yet heard my favorite term “misogynoir” (hatred of black women), but that may be only because I’ve not watched enough cable news…as it is sure to be thrown around quite a bit in the coming days by the race hustler du jour trying to sound smart.

The reality is that Kamala Harris is not just a not-ready-for-prime-time player, she’s a never-will-be-ready-for-prime-time player. She is a generic, disingenuous, California machine politician who never had to actually convince people of anything in her entire career, just got to show up with the “D” next to her name to get elected. She never got a single vote in the democratic primary and was chosen to be vice-president, and democratic nominee, not despite being a black woman, but simply because she’s a black woman.

The KHive, a collection of rabid Kamala fans in both the media and public at large, loved Kamala but couldn’t name a single policy she believed in…because her identity as a black woman was all they needed, as supporting her was a self-righteous way to signal their virtue. This is why Kamala is the ultimate candidate for DEI-obsessed democrats.

This is also what made her such a disastrous presidential nominee, not to mention a heinous vice-president and senator. This is why she didn’t do the Joe Rogan interview…because she can’t sit for three hours and talk to anyone about anything. The reason for this is because there is no there - there. She is as vacant and vacuous as Trump is venal and vile…which is saying a lot.

But to Trump’s credit…he may be a bullshitter but at least he is dexterous enough to go on Joe Rogan and bullshit for three hours and not crumble and cackle his way into a warm puddle of his own piss.

Thankfully, Kamala Harris will, barring something extraordinary, disappear from public life forever because she will be a stark reminder of the failures of the DEI, woke, identity politics driven hysteria that put her a heart-beat away from the presidency…and put Trump in the Oval Office for a second time.

Alright…that’s enough ranting and rambling for today. Until next time America!!

©2024

Dispatches from the Shitshow: What to Expect When You're Expecting

Cleaning out my notebook of a few random thoughts before the “most important election of our lifetime”® tomorrow.

Ground and Pound

I’ve read a great deal about the Harris campaign’s money advantage and the power of their “ground game” recently…and have come to see it firsthand.

I currently reside in a ruby red republican county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I live in a very rural part of this very rural county. In addition, I live way off a main road and my home is only accessible by a half mile dirt lane…and is entirely surrounded by corn crops rendering it not only invisible from any road but also very spooky.

Well, despite my extremely remote location, I’ve had four canvassers come to my home in the last three weeks, all of them from the Harris campaign. I’ve had none from the Trump campaign come around.

One canvasser was a twenty-something woman and she was riding a bicycle and I was legitimately worried for her because the road nearest me is not bike friendly and bears have been known to roam these parts…I know because I’ve come face to face with one.

The point of all this is that the Harris campaign is definitely trying to get out the vote. From the ratio of Trump to Harris signs in this county, which overwhelmingly favors Trump by a margin of 20 to 1, it is an uphill battle to beat Trump here, but as they always tell us, “every vote counts”.

As an aside, I’m always tempted when a canvasser is here to tell them I’m not down with Kamala because genocide isn’t my thing, but I never do because I feel bad for these folks. From what I understand they are getting paid but I still have no interest in arguing with someone or making them feel bad. If they love Kamala Harris – good for them. Same with Trump fans. Me…I’ll pass on both but feel no need to burst anyone else’s bubble.

Two Voters

Here’s a minor sample of a discussion I had with two different voters.

The first voter, a centrist independent man from a swing state. He told me he is voting Trump because “Trump pisses off all the right people”.

I totally understand the sentiment.

The other voter, a woman, from a different swing state. She told me she would vote for Kamala if it meant “that would be the end of it”, meaning all of the victimhood stuff and identity politics being front and center in American culture. She acknowledged that her hope that voting for a black woman would stifle the woke impulses so prevalent in our current culture, is foolish, as she cited that same hope after she voted twice for Obama, and in her words, “things got much worse” in regards to that subject.

Ultimately, this female voter, who felt exhausted and dejected, told me she will either refrain from voting or vote third party.

Once again, I totally understand her situation and the sentiments she expressed.

Media Malpractice

Even to someone like me, who has spent a lifetime monitoring and commenting on the media’s mendacity and propensity for misinformation and disinformation, the last weeks of this campaign have been jaw-dropping.

For example, the media’s complete disregard for facts about Trump’s statement where he eviscerated Liz Cheney for being a war mongering chicken hawk, was disgusting.

Trump made the same point most liberals made back during the Bush administration (I know because I was one of them), namely that the neo-cons wanted everyone else to go fight in their wars but they themselves, and their offspring, would never go to war.

Liz Cheney is a perfect example of this as she and her truly vile father, Dick Cheney, are chicken hawk royalty.

That the media turned it into Trump calling for Liz Cheney to be put in front of a firing squad, is shameless and shameful. As for me personally, I do hope that Liz Cheney and her scumbag father Dick are put in frotn of firing squads, along with the rest of the neo-con cabal…but I’m not running for president.

I get that the establishment media hates Trump, but they’ve insured that they’re already greatly diminished credibility will only further drop.

The reality is that anyone who watches/reads the mainstream media…and believes it…is an irredeemable dupe and unconscionable dope.

On the bright side, if Trump wins then maybe we will get a return to actual journalism from actual journalists….you know the kind where journalists are adversarial to power and yearn to expose the truth.

After four years of the mainstream media playing patty cake with the Biden administration, and the previous four years of manufactured misinformation and disinformation regarding Trump, a return to reasoned and professional journalism would be a miracle…but a man can dream.

FDR, Revisited

You sir, are correct!!

After Trump’s shocking victory in 2016 (it wasn’t shocking to me – but most everyone else), liberals absolutely lost their fucking minds. People went insane…white liberal women most of all. And from their mental and emotional breakdown the egregiously inane identity politics, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), Black Lives Matter and #MeToo all flourished.

The pussy hat brigade drove liberalism into a ditch that is quickly turning into a grave. These fools, who stamped their feet and went on a seek and destroy mission against anyone who dare call them out for their vapid emotionalism and their political and intellectual vacuity in the wake of their loss to Trump, have set back leftist and liberal politics forty years at least. Ultimately, they have accomplished nothing but to align democrats with the malignant forces of big business, Israel, and the intelligence community, all while obliterating any meaningful class politics in their coalition. Well done, dipshits.

The same Clinton clowns who have ruined leftism and liberalism, make up the deplorable Kamala Harris supporters known as the KHive. So, if Kamala Harris loses in this election, expect more of the same from these unhinged hysterics, who in response will only double and triple down on identity politics and taking the corporate side in the class war.

My advice to all liberals is to not believe your own bullshit about this being “the most important election of our lifetime” and about “democracy being on the ballot” and how this might be our “last election”.

Stop with the existential nonsense. This election is just like any other. If Trump wins it will suck for you, there is no doubt, but…this too shall pass.

I had the same feelings you had back when Bush “beat” Gore in 2000…and all my fears were correct as Bush was the worst president of my lifetime (including Trump), and anybody else’s lifetime. But the truth is I survived…and so did the farce/charade of a democracy that I live in.  

Liberals need to understand this…Trump is an annoyance, not an existential threat. He is hated by the establishment because he lays bare the hypocrisy, corruption and shamelessness among the ruling elite.

Liberals loathing of him is based almost entirely on style over substance. Trump’s style will no doubt grate, but his substance will be only slightly different from the business-as-usual American politics. Israel and big business will rule.

There’ll be lots of bluster and bullshit…but little else that matters will change in any meaningful way.

Just know this…the truth is that it is liberal’s reaction to Trump that makes him so dangerous. Aligning with the malignant and mendacious intelligence community, big business, Ukraine and Israel, in reaction to Trump is how you not only lose elections, but more importantly, your soul.

Liberals need to understand that the only thing they need to fear, is fear itself. Trump feeds off of fear and loathing, and if you do neither, he withers and dies.

As the saying goes, when you find yourself going through hell…keep going. Well, liberals, four more years of Trump will be hell but you gotta keep going…and maybe, just maybe, look in the mirror and ask yourself some meaningful questions like…what have I done and what policies have I supported, that brought this vile man to power? If the answer you receive makes you question your entire ideology and approach to politics…then you’re on the right track.

My advice…return to class politics and completely disregard identity politics and the cult of woke. I doubt you will (or even are capable of doing so)…but that’s what you should do.

All that said…the only thing worse for liberalism and leftism than Trump winning, is Trump losing, because then liberals will think that mid-wit mediocrities like Kamala Harris, who are slaves to corporations, the intel community and Israel, are the path to power.

They may be the path to electoral victory on occasion, but they aren’t the path to progress, and they sure as hell aren’t the path to lower class and working-class prosperity, and morality and ethics in American governance.

MAGA Mania

I’ve seen a lot of media pontification about how if Trump loses there will be violence from his supporters. Consider me unconvinced.

The MAGA maniacs are not going to start a civil war in defeat. They will bitch and moan and rant and rave, but do it all from their couches. There won’t be riots or violence or marches or meltdowns because MAGA at heart is, for the most part, fat and old…just like its leader.

There will just be impotent anger that never spreads further than their own living room because MAGA is a movement for the isolated, and with Trump no longer politically relevant, it will dissipate and disappear.

Now, if Trump wins…liberals may very well march and riot, and in response to that MAGA in its various forms will come out and there may very well be violence and in the most extreme case, civil unrest/skirmishes in a civil war.

But that will only happen because Trump is still relevant and that’s what gives his movement life. Trump out of power and out of options, saps MAGA of its mojo.

Middle-Fingers

Speaking of MAGA, I was considering the whole MAGA movement the other day and came to the conclusion once again that Trump is little more than a gigantic middle-finger to the establishment and a boorish response to the feminization of America and American culture.

At this point Trump is a caricature and a parody of himself. He is all bluster and bullshit, but his real value is in telling the establishment, which has actively destroyed the foundational working-class of this country and actively despises the majority of Americans it has displaced and dispossessed, to go fuck themselves.

That establishment includes Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama. These guys, along with Biden, are the ones who sold out the manufacturing base of America, and gutted the working and middle class of America.

They bailed out Wall Street and sold-out Main Street. They’ve flooded poor inner-city communities will drugs, and sold Americans, most notably black men, as slaves to the prison industrial complex.

These presidents, of both parties, hate you. They not only want to see you fail they want to see you suffer. They thrive off of your misery.

To MAGA, Trump is the white knight come to slay the establishment dragon and right all the wrongs from decades past, up to the present day.

What MAGA fails to understand is that Trump is just more of the same. He talks a big game but plays a small one. He gives a middle finger to the establishment but then does almost exactly what they want him to do.

Trump is a showman, a shaman and a charlatan. He’s an archetype come to life. A clown in all its manifestations…happy, sad, angry. He’ll put on a show and you’ll either love him or hate him, but you’ll find it impossible to ignore him.

Harris, on the other hand, is not a showman or a shaman, she’s just a charlatan. She will try to pass through her presidency like a ghost through a fog – unseen and unheard. She is a bad actress miscast on a dismal daytime drama. She likes that she was cast in the role but will be entirely forgettable in it. She enjoys the perks and prestige of being on the show but doesn’t want the pressure of any big scenes.

This election at its core is a question of who will haunt our collective consciousness for the next four years…and obviously, no matter who wins, we will all lose.

Right again!

On that bright note…that’s all I got for now folks. I’m sure I’ll have a few thoughts on the election once we know who won, but until then, stay safe and stay cool.

©2024

Dispatches from the Shitshow: Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

The phrase “weird scenes inside the gold mine” is a cryptic lyric from The Doors epic song The End off of their iconic eponymous first album. This seemed like an apropos title for an article about the merciful end of the insane and inane 2024 election, which is now, thank the good Lord, in its final week.

The weird scenes of late have included the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden which the mainstream media and democrats universally claimed was a “Nazi rally” because Nazi’s rallied there in 1939…or something like that. Which has me wondering if the New York Knicks are Nazis too since they attempt to rally there forty-one times a season. I KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, that the New York Rangers are Nazis…but they’re good kind!!

As for Trump being a modern-day Hitler…let’s get real. Democrats tout the fact that Dick Cheney is endorsing Kamala Harris and they have the nerve to call Trump Hitler? Cheney is the most malignant and malicious force in American politics in at least the last quarter century…this prick was behind the War on Terror, the surveillance state and the torture program and is responsible for the murder of millions…so spare the Trump – Hitler comparisons as Trump has done nothing even remotely close to the evil that Cheney has done.

In addition, a man of style and panache like Hitler wouldn’t be caught dead dancing to The Village People’s YMCA. Would not happen. Wagner maybe. But not The Village People.

At this Trump/Nazi rally over the weekend, which was a who’s who of Trumpian sycophants and miscreants, famed closeted homosexual and roast comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke calling Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage and you’ll never guess what happened…the media freaked out and wept and wailed over “hate speech” and “racism”. Yawn.

I admit I too was offended by Hinchcliffe’s joke not because he called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage, which is inaccurate, but because he didn’t call it a floating piece of shit, which is a scientific fact.

Trump also went on the Joe Rogan Experience and talked for three hours. I haven’t listened to the show only because I’m allergic to fucking retards, and that would be a double dose which could potentially be fatal to a delicate genius like me.

In truth, I like that Joe Rogan has a podcast but I only listen to it when there’s a guest on who interests me, which isn’t all that often. That said, I’m glad the option of Rogan is available especially when the mainstream media is so obviously mendacious and manipulated. (Full disclosure – Joe Rogan once talked at length and quite glowingly on his podcast about an article I wrote – which increased the traffic to this website literally by millions.)

Trump going on Rogan is a big deal for no other reason that it proves he can do it…something of which Kamala Harris is simply incapable. The idea of Kamala sitting down and talking with Rogan, or anyone, for three hours is ridiculous. Harris is an intellectual midget devoid of even a smidgeon of charisma, and she couldn’t hide that fact during a three-hour chat with Rogan.

The reality is that Kamala Harris is such a horrendous candidate it is actually stunning to behold. She seems entirely inauthentic and out of her depth every single time she opens her mouth. It is not surprising that in the final weeks of this god forsaken campaign that Harris has gone out of her way to seem as unappealing and incompetent as ever. It almost feels like she doesn’t want to win.

And as for the MAGA morons calling Kamala Harris a socialist or communist…she’s a socialist without the socialism and a communist without the communism. She, like Biden, Obama, Bush, Reagan and the Clintons before her, and just like Trump, is a corporate whore who will voraciously fellate corporate interests and not just ignore the working class, but viciously and violently destroy it with a shameless vim and vigor.

Now don’t get me wrong, my criticism of Kamala Harris is not an endorsement of Donald Trump, or vice versa.

Trump is Trump…a narcissistic carnival barker and con man. But for all his faults, and there are a bazillion of them, the one thing you can’t say about him is that he lacks charisma and confidence – two things Kamala Harris has exactly none of.

The truth is that Kamala Harris is what’s wrong with American Politics, and Donald Trump is what’s wrong with America.

Speaking of Nazis (Ironically Enough)

A vote for Trump or Harris is a vote for continued Israeli control over the American government.

A vote for Trump or Harris is a vote for more genocide and ethnic cleansing from the apartheid state you’re not allowed to call an apartheid state – Israel.

A vote for Trump or Harris is a vote for corporate America, the oligarchs and the aristocracy.

A vote for Trump or Harris is a vote against the truth.

No thank you. I will vote for neither.

Promises, Promises

The one thing you can count on is that whatever Trump or Harris are promising on the campaign trail won’t become a reality.

Trump says he’ll release the JFK files…he won’t release the JFK files. You know how I know that? Because he didn’t do it the last time he was in office.

Trump says he’ll drain the swamp and has learned from his first administration, and yet he talks openly about putting the swamp dragon himself, Mike Pompeo, into his cabinet. Mike Pompeo, by the way, was the Director of the CIA who convinced Trump not to release the JFK files during Trump’s first term.

Kamala talks about controlling illegal immigration and blah blah blah…she’s not gonna do it. You know how I Know she’s not gonna do it…because she hasn’t done it while in office. In fact, she’s not gonna do a god damn thing in office but maintain the very worst of the status quo. She is the DEI candidate who will further infect the government and this country with the DEI nonsense that diminished everyone and everything it touches.

She will also bend over backwards to stifle free speech by banning hate speech – and making sure the sycophants and psychopaths that love her are the ones who determine what is and isn’t hate speech.

No thanks to all of it and to both of them. Neither of these shitbags will make my life any better and both of them will keep the world at its worst. He was a shitty president the last time around and she is a shitty vice president now…so the choice is between something shitty and something shitty. I’ll pass and vote third party instead.

Oh, and anyone talking about this election being about saving our democracy…just shut the fuck up. Our democracy died a long time ago, the exact moment being maybe when the intelligence community pulled off a coup and killed a sitting president by blowing his brains out all over his nice Ivy league suit in Dallas, Texas.

Speaking of Assassinations

Two days before the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania back in July, I wrote an article saying that my sense of things was that the establishment was going to do anything and everything to make sure Trump didn’t become president…up to and including having some “lone nut” taking a shot at him.

I still get the sense that Trump will not be allowed to become president. The establishment, by hook or by crook, will keep him out of power.

Here’s the weird thing…this is not based on reading of polling data or anything like that, just on my sense of the moment and of the narrative…but 2024 feels a lot like 2016 except in reverse.

Everybody was talking about Hillary winning in a landslide in the final weeks of the campaign of 2016 (except me who predicted a Trump victory)…democrats were ruthlessly arrogant and cocky and republicans oppressively depressed and horrified.

Fast forward to 2024 and everyone is talking about Trump winning and the MAGA maniacs and morons are arrogant and cocky and democrat dupes and dopes are depressed and horrified.

The polls still say it’s very close but have Kamala slightly ahead overall and in a small majority of the battleground states. The assumption is that the polls are tilted in her favor and under-estimating Trump’s support, so a close race for Harris in the polls is considered a winning race for Trump on election day. I am not so sure assumption is accurate.

Anecdotally, I can tell you here in flyover country in a deep red county in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, Trump seems like a shoe-in.

BUT…the vibes feel to me like 2016 but in reverse. I think Kamala Harris…who is awful, will “win” this election. I still think the establishment, for reasons I cannot quite figure out, simply cannot tolerate Trump in power and therefore are going to pull the rug out from under him on election day or in the days and weeks following.

If the establishment/intelligence community don’t “beat” Trump or “steal” the election fair and square, then Trump is going to face all sorts of obstacles before taking the oath of office. He might have a “heart attack” or “brain aneurysm” or get a deadly case of Covid or have his plane malfunction or another “lone nut” will blow his brains out or some other calamity will befall him and that will be that. And if the establishment/intelligence community don’t remove him from the power equation in the electoral way or the covert action way, then they’ll use false flags, lawfare and the media to once again to neutralize his presidency – maybe even before it starts.

The bottom line is that I still think Trump will not be president come January 2025. Maybe I’m wrong. Who knows? But we’re about to find out.

©2024

Halloween Viewer's Guide - A Horror Movie Round-Up for the Harrowing Holiday

Horror Movie Round-Up And Halloween Viewer’s Guide

It is Halloween week so I thought I’d put together a quick movie guide to help you set the tone for the spooky times ahead.

I love Halloween, always have, and have spent the last few weeks gearing up for the festivities by catching up on some of the horror films released this year, and the last few years, that I’ve missed.

Here are the films I watched for the first time in recent weeks (all rated on the “1 to 5 horror movie scale” not the “1 to 5 regular movie scale”).

MaXXXine (2024) - Available on Max: This is the third movie in Ti West’s trilogy – which began with X (2022), then Pearl (2022), and now MaXXine. MaXXXine is hands down the worst of the three films. X was terrific and Pearl was pretty good too, but MaXXXine is just an incoherent mess that never finds its footing or a distinct flavor. It’s a mish mash of 1980s nostalgia stuffed into a dour and dull narrative that doesn’t really know what it wants to be.

Yes, Mia Goth is an intriguing screen presence, but even she can’t overcome the flaccid and foolish script for this seriously sub-par film. Very disappointing and definitely not worth watching. 2 stars out of 5

Late Night with the Devil (2024) - Available on Hulu: An extremely clever and well-executed movie that deftly uses the medium of 1970’s late nite tv to plumb the depths of devilry and the demonic depravity of the ruling elite who sell their souls to the dark lord at Bohemian Grove.

David Dastmalchian gives a fantastic performance as a desperate late night talk show host trying to catch Carson in the ratings. A very effective and captivating film…especially if you lived through the 70s. 4 stars out of 5.

The First Omen (2024) - Available on Hulu: Speaking of the 70s!! The First Omen is a surprisingly well-made and executed prequel to the iconic 1976 film The Omen. The First Omen won’t change your life but it will keep you mildly entertained and reasonably spooked for its two-hour run time. 3 out of 5 stars.

Immaculate (2024) - Available on Hulu: This is a not great movie but serves as a decent enough vehicle for Sydney Sweeney to keep building the foundation to her movie stardom. A rather forgettable film with a tenuous premise but the luminous Sweeney, who still manages to be insanely sexy even in a nun’s habit, makes the most of it…especially in the final scene. 2.5 out of 5 stars

Doctor Sleep – Director’s Cut (2019) - Available on Amazon Prime: A shockingly well-made and completely compelling sequel to The Shining which, like Late Night with the Devil, casts a severely jaundiced eye toward the ruling elite and their demonic ways, which include feeding off of the pain and suffering of regular people, most notably children. It’s impossible to watch this movie and not think about the infamous pedophile rings involving people of power, including the Jeffrey Epstein ring, the P Diddy accusations and the horrific Franklin Affair…not to mention the wholesale sickening and senseless slaughter of children in Gaza by the Israelis.

Doctor Sleep features two great performances, the first by Ewan McGregor, who gives a subtle, layered and impressive performance as the adult Danny trying to navigate life after the horrors he endured in The Shining. The other by the absolutely luminous Rebecca Ferguson. Ferguson is so good, so charismatic, so gorgeous and so sexy in Doctor Sleep it is astonishing.

I completely skipped Doctor Sleep when it came out in 2019 because I thought “a sequel to The Shining? No thanks!”. To me The Shining is one of the greatest horror movies of all time…and to be clear Doctor Sleep is nowhere close to being an equal of The Shining in terms of the filmmaking or storytelling. But…it really is a fantastic horror movie.  In some ways I’m glad I missed it in the theatre though because my first watch of it was of the three-hour Director’s Cut which is available on Amazon Prime. I highly recommend you watch the director’s cut and not the theatrical release.

Know this going in though, Doctor Sleep – The Director’s Cut, has one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve seen in a film in a long time. It deeply disturbed and unnerved me – which may say more about me and my life’s circumstances, but still…this scene was tough to watch, but necessary to see. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Smile (2022) - Available on Hulu: Smile came out in 2022 and has a sequel out this month…but I never saw the original so I watched it last week. Smile is a decent enough piece of trauma porn horror movie making. It’s got some clever story lines and keeps you engaged through out. I thought Sosie Bacon did a solid job as the lead, and she had some very heavy lifting to do. In some ways Smile is a typical middle of the road horror movie, but to its credit, it works. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

As for the rest of a Halloween Movie Guide…

My usual go-to horror films are previously mentioned The Shining (1980), The Exorcist (1973) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968). They are, to me, the best horror films around and they never fail to scare the living shit out of me.

I also love the Universal Classic Monster movies like Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), The Wolf Man (1941) and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Another old movie classic is F.W. Murnau’s masterful Nosferatu (1922), which is creepy as hell and well worth watching.  

Other less ancient notables would be most anything by David Cronenberg, his remake of The Fly (1986) is particularly fantastic and his films The Brood (1979), Scanners (1980), Videodrome (1983) and The Dead Zone (1983) are solid choices as well.  

You also can’t go wrong John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and The Thing (1982), which are all time horror classics that never fail to frighten no matter how many times you’ve seen them.

More current horror films that are most worthy of a watch are Robert Eggers’ extremely eerie The Witch (2015), and Ari Aster’s formidably frightening and fearsome Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019).

And finally, one movie which is not technically categorized as a horror film but which is as creepy, frightening, disturbing and unnerving as any movie out there, is David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007). Zodiac is a great film that pulsates with a darkness of such depth that haunts you for days and weeks after after watching.

And thus ends the Halloween viewer’s guide!! I hope everybody has a Happy Halloween and gets a bevy of tricks AND treats!!

©2024