Bird Box!

Really? Netflix says 45 million accounts have watched Bird Box since it debuted. Yeah I'm one of them. I dont get it.

First off I am not a horror picture person. A Quiet Place, though original, did nothing for me. Its just not my bag. Bird Box aint my bag either.
Bird Box features Sandra Bullock, Sarah Paulson (dont blink), John Malkovich, BD Wong (they get rid of the gays fast), Jacki Weaver and the only actor I cared about, Trevante Rhodes (that dude from Moonlight that made me watch it 3 times in 24 hours).

All over the world people are committing suicide after seeing some sort of vision, so to survive you have to walk around with a blindfold on, or drive a car with blacked out windows, just dont look or you end up sticking a knife in your neck, jumping out of a window, climbing into a fire engulfed car, or blowing your head off. Bullock must get her two children, one named boy and one named girl cuz you see she aint a nice person and she doesnt give a shit about anybody, to a sanctuary where the vision cant get to them.

The problem that I have with this movie isnt so much the "horror" aspect but the fact to be a thriller you shouldnt really give away in the first 5 minutes who is going to die and who is going to live. This truly destroyed any suspense the film may have had going for it.

Not that Bird Box is bad, it is not. But its not anything I'm going to remember a week from now. Its a big ehhhhhhhhhh.

Merry Marginal Christmas!

Trumps ruining Christmas for 7 year olds. Start drinking now.

Merry Christmas.

It's Not A Wonderful Life!

Now that Scrooge has shut down the government throwing a temper tantrum cuz he cant get funding to not build a gigantic steel slat monstrosity to keep the brown people from pursuing a better life, this worthless orange coal turd is sitting in the White Hose watching TV. Not that its any different from any other day in this disgusting administration, but the Orange scum is putting the entire world in danger.

Shutting down the government, furloughing hundreds of thousands of everyday people at Christmas time, with a complicit gang of uncaring trash named McConnell, Ryan and (insert Republican congress creep here) and dismissing the so called only adult left in the White House, a guy nicknamed Mad Dog, for a corporate executive who sees only profits in the death of young Americans. Yep, a Boeing CEO is now running America's defense, rather America's defense industry.Great.

The Orange excrement has also decided to withdraw troops from Syria because he has defeated ISIS and will allow the Turks to handle whats left over. You know, like the Kurds. The Orange useful idiot has taken his orders from other dictators in order to keep who knows what from the public. Now I know and you know that it was Obama that kicked ISIS in the nuts but in Trumpy Land, a scary place that exists only in the disease addled brain of POTUS45, and in the dissolving brains of his cultists, ISIS was running wild. But because of Orangeman, ISIS has "largely been defeated". Somebody stop this insanity.

I know its Xmas time and all of this shit should be forgotten but really, with the departure of Mattis and Kelly, the schmoozing done by Bond villains Mnuchin and his Lady McBeth in Cabo, the lack of any intelligence in the Cabinet, the Fox News obsession of this old man President, the grifting of Kushner and Ivanka, the cold hearted ice queen Nielsen, the death of 7 year old refugees, the locking in cages of children, the very presence of a gangly lunatic like Tom Cotton (Scarecrow-Ar) and a blabbing phony like Ben Sasse (Babbler-Ne), the sudden shift to Shitheel by chain migration First Porn Model Melania, and the Dallas Cowboys winning a division, we cannot afford to put this on hold.

Xmas is fun, Xmas is for family, in my case its the day my life changed for the better, but this is no time to rest. You can be assured these Russian fucks arent resting. Their useful idiots arent resting.

Goddammit Mueller, hurry the fuck up.

Movie Time!

God I need an escape from the deterioration of this entire nation. Its too goddamned much. I feel like pulling the covers up over my head and waiting for this putrid group of miscreants to go away. In the meantime, lets go to the movies.

The Mule

Clint Eastwood is really old. But Clint Eastwood is still relevant. The 88 year old directs like he doesnt have much time left. Its like a one take and I havent got time for a second. Who can forget the doll baby Bradley Cooper had to shake around to make it look alive in the horrific American Sniper?

The Mule is story of an old man, a neglectful old man who spent his whole life drinking with his buddies, growing his flowers and having nothing to do with his wife and kids. And the family hates him for it. He's alone, he's rejected, and he's miserable. He's also out of money due to the "damn internet" putting his flower business under water.

In a completely implausible scene he is offered a chance to make a lot of money just driving around. He bites. The next thing you know he's running drugs for the cartel in his old pickup, then his new pickup. He finances his granddaughters wedding, he saves his old VFW hall, he saves his broken down home from foreclosure. He's living high.

But then comes Bradley Cooper and Michael Pena. Working for the DEA, the two agents are after this so called Mule. They get closer and closer and the Mule begins to feel the heat.

The Mexican cartel needs to cut its losses and Clint is is deep shit.

No spoilers here but the story drags at this point. It ends with a whimper.

It's a complete mediocrity but the bar may be too high here. If this was directed by a youngster it would be considered great potential. But directed by the 88 year old legend its a complete ehhhhhhhhh.

Green Book

This movie is corny. Its the old opposites attract story. The rough and tumble Italian street guy and the high class genius black musician team up to tour the Deep South in 1962 America.

Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali play the antagonists who of course become great friends by the end of this movie. I know theres some controversy about making racism so fucking light hearted. And it does. But it works.

This film makes you laugh and cry virtually the entire 2 plus hours. Theres really not a dull moment. I got manipulated by the guy who directed Dumb and Dumber. And I am happy about it.

Widows

Ooooooo that twist at the end that if you know anything about anything you saw coming a mile away. It pissed me off.

Widows is the story of a bunch of widows out to finish what their dead husbands couldnt finish. A heist.

Viola Davis is money. Colin Farrell is money. The acting is money. But the story is not.

Oh and a hint. Keep your eye on the little white dog. That dog is the best detective in the movie.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Theres nothing new here. Its the cliched biopic. But its fucking wonderful. Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury is stunning. The other actors playing the rest of the band Queen are just fantastic. The cameo by Mike Meyers is just so pleasing it made me smile war to ear.

I am not even a fan of Queen yet I became one watching this movie. The last 20 minutes which is entirely a note for note copy of the actual Live Aid performance and it works, man. It reminded me that the only thing I remember about Live Aid was Queen and U2. Those were the memorable moments to me. The tiger like walking of Freddie Mercury and Bono dancing with that girl.

Bohemian Rhapsody brought it all back. See it.

A Star is Born

I wish people would stop raving about Lady GaGa and giving her an Oscar. She's good but why are you so surprised? She acts every stinking night while in concert. She's a pro.

This 4th remake of this familiar story of the fading star giving way to the up and comer is very good. I used to think of Bradley Cooper as a lightweight. A pretty boy. But here, as director and star he enters the reality of Hollywood. You have to take this guy seriously now. he knows what he's doing.

Cooper plays a drunken country rock star, a kind of cross between Eddie Vedder and Sam Elliott (who plays Coopers much older brother), who discovers Lady Ga Ga in a drag club. They fall in love, she gets big, he drinks himself into situations that are hard to even watch and you know the end.

Its certainly a Top 10 contender, hell it may win the Oscar, I dont know. All I can say is this. Sam Elliott will never win an Oscar, but his scene of pulling away in his truck from the last time he ever sees his brother is as good a scene of acting as you can expect. So shit, give it to Sam, just to hear that voice accept it.

Go see a movie, folks. Real life is a horrible enough.

Harvey Milk!

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country."

That was a quote from a tape made by Harvey Milk, to be released just in case he was murdered. If you dont know who Harvey Milk was you oughta learn.

40 years ago today a conservative San Francisco supervisor, that's city councilman to us rubes,named Dan White walked into City Hall and murdered Mayor Willie Moscone and Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the entire nation. Oh yeah, he used a gun, like all chickenshit assassins do, and he did it because he saw a conspiracy against conservative white men like himself.

1978 was a long time ago. I was in college. I had no idea who Harvey Milk was. I hardly knew any gay people. But the murder of a Mayor and a Supervisor by a loser "victim" like Dan White really appalled me. I didnt understand the grief, the horror, the fright that must have come down on San Francisco that day. It was just another assassination of somebody making a difference. JFK, X, MLK, RFK, Lowenstein and now Milk and Moscone.

But then came that candlelight march. That hit me hard. Hey kids, this was the days before the internet so I had to go to Love Library and read the San Francisco Chronicle for something other than news about the Giants. I learned a lot in the next few days. Lessons that changed me from naive and ignorant to woke as the kids say.

You wanna read a great story? Read The Mayor of Castro Street. I carried this dog eared paperback around with me for years and still have it. In fact, I think I'll read it again.

Harvey, we hardly knew ye.

Veteran's Day!

77 years ago my father tried to join the Marines. They said nah. Flat feet or something. So he joined the Army and spent the "4 worst years of my life" trudging around Europe stopping Nazis and fascists from murdering innocents, oppressing freedom and just being assholes. He never ever spoke of it except if the story involved humor, like stealing Generals jeeps cuz they were tired, having Italian POW's tell him that Mussolini, Hitler and FDR were all "son of a beeches" or becoming friends with a German kid named Rolfie who would warn them of approaching "Panzers" though they always turned out to be American tanks.

My point? There weren't any fucking bone spurs or flat feet that kept my Dad from doing whatever part he was assigned in defeating evil.

Yesterday a real life evil doer represented America at a World War I cemetery by sitting in his Paris hotel room and watching Fox News and tweeting that California fire victims were to blame for their own deaths. Oh did I mention it was raining and Jim Acosta was there? Ya know, messed up hair and a rude press guy forced the evil prick to stay away. Bet he doesn't miss the Putin job appraisal.

Thanks for your sacrifices to all veterans today.

The guy representing the country you sacrificed for is a disgrace.

Call To Arms!

77 years ago my parents generation came under attack by imperialists and fascists and Nazis and rose up and defeated all of them within 4 years. That was the Greatest Generation in the words of Tom Brokaw at least in regards to defeating a real threat to the world. Yeah yeah they had real problems at home that have never been fixed but the call to arms was made and they responded by being shipped off to squalor and death and horrors only they knew.

Hey Millennials ! This is YOUR call to arms. My generation of Baby boomers aint gonna save you. We are the fucking problem. We have turned from self interested protesters to a bunch of self centered morons who believe anything an orange toxin says. We elected an imperialist, fascist Nazi very fine person to run the country cuz we were afraid of the changes you Millennials accept as common sense. Equality and color blindness and who the fuck cares if you're gay.

2016 was YOUR Pearl Harbor. Will you young uns accept the challenge today? All you have to do is vote. Thats it. It takes 10-20 minutes and if the vote suppressors make it harder so be it. You can replace them. You have the power. You normally dont show up because your lives are busy and having fun is more important to you than responsibility. I get it. But take a few minutes or hours. I beg of you. Save Democracy from these closet Nazis.

I am in the 4th quarter of life and white so all of this will affect only my fragile psyche and perhaps my retirement. These people HAVE to be stopped. NOW! Its up to you. In cahoots with those of us who actually read and study things and realize what this current situation could become we can stop this. Fear of change, fear of brown people, fear of blacks, fear fear fear fucking fear. This is what the Republican Party gets. Fear.

Fuck fear. Fuck Republicans and fuck fascism. Help us!

Thanks Millennials.