Oscar Time 2017!

Its Oscar night and even though watching it is a chore due to the speeches from sound people and costumes designers and lame skits, I'll be there and rooting for some and hating others. And though this busted leg has kept me from seeing movies like Hidden Figures and Silence and Nocturnal Animals, I hope to hear more Meryl Streep or Casey Affleck type speeches but anyway, my Top 10 of the year goes as follows:

10) Captain Fantastic

starring Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen as a father of lots of kids who live off the grid because of freedom. It's like if Bernie Bros actually had personalities. Captain Fantastic tackles a lot of issues from the unfairness of modern economics to the obesity epidemic in America. It's kind of preachy and Trumpers would hate it but I found it to be much like the 80's film The Mosquito Coast but with a lead actor who didnt play a total asshole.

9) Everybody Wants Some

I will say nobody and I mean nobody captures moments in time better than director Richard Linklater. Dazed and Confused is the best movie about the 70's youth culture ever made and Everybody Wants Some captures the early 80's perfectly. Of course it helps if you actually were a youth in the 70s and 80's to see it and say ohhhhh yeah! This film follows a college baseball team coming together in the 4 days prior to school opening. Yeah its male oriented but hey I'm a male so it made me go ohhhhhhhh yeahhhhhh lots of times.

8) Sully

I base a lot of movies I see on emotion. Did it make me laugh? Did it make me cry? Did it make me feel anything? Sully, with Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart with 2016's best mustache playing the pilot and co pilot who landed the airplane in the Hudson made me tear up a bit at the end when you see the actual Sully and his passengers come together. Yeah, director Clint Eastwood made some stuff up for dramatic purposes but this movie did its job. It was very underrated.

7) Dont Breathe

This tiny horror picture was truly a horror picture because it was real. Starring actors you see and go where do I know them from this story is simple. Dont try and rob a blind veteran who knows his own house inside and out and has the ability to kill you. The tenseness as the youthful invaders are picked off one at a time by the blind killer played by Avatar's Stephen Lang also contains the year's grossest scene. I mean its just fucking disgusting. Just disgusting enough to make it that much better than crap horror pictures catching 2016 buzz like The Witch.

6) Sing Street

Some movies you just like for no reason other than the characters are appealing, the music is appealing, the story grabs you, and you just like it. It's not Raging Bull or Citizen Kane and you wont ever argue with someone that its better than La La Land, which it is, but Sing Street grabbed me. The story of a bunch of poor Irish kids who form a band to get a girl is just so damned cool. The music is pop catchy and the fact the song Drive It Like You Stole It wasnt nominated for Best Song is crazy.Its the best song from a movie in 2016. Period.

5) Hell Or High Water

This was my favorite movie of the year until the fall when all the Oscar bait movies came out. The story about two Texas brothers robbing banks and being pursued by Sheriff Jeff Bridges is captivating and clever as hell. Chris Pine and Ben Foster are hot and cold as the two brothers who keep eluding the law by seconds until the inevitable fuck up. Bridges is his usual crusty lawman self and this movie is smart. Very smart.

4) Arrival

This is very much like Contact in the sense that you almost have to see it twice, no you do have to see it twice, to let it fall into place. Starring Amy Adams (denied an Oscar nomination why?) and Jeremy Renner as people who can communicate with an alien force that stations a bunch of eggplant ships at various spots around the globe. It's covertly political as the aliens warn us of our impending doom. But the twist is there to be figured out. It's all about second chances.

3) Moonlight

I just saw this last night. It is story of a young black man who also happens to be gay trying to survive in the streets of Liberty City Miami during a period of about 15 years. The story takes us from a young 9 year old Chiron, to a gangly teenaged Chiron to a buffed up adult Chiron. I cannot rave about this movie enough as it is so full of unknowns who can really get it done. Mahershala Ali is going to win an Oscar for his role as the drug dealer who takes the young Chiron under his wing but be warned he isnt in it that much. But there is so much more to this movie. Janelle Monet is not only a kick ass female James Brown singer, she can act her ass off too. But Trevante Rhodes as the adult Chiron just blew me away. His subtle way of showing vulnerability despite being buff enough to kill anyone who he wants was so heartbreaking. His trip back to his past at the end was so perfect.

2) Lion

This movie is #1 at times in my mind. This story of a young Indian child who falls asleep on a train and gets lost only to be adopted by a well to do Australian family never drags. Google Earth causes the young man to wonder of his past. Where did I come from? Who is my real family? Dev Patel should win the Oscar for this role of a lifetime. He is both joyful and melancholy in his deep desire to abandon his new comfortable life to look for his roots. The journey is well worth watching. And this years Jacob Tremblay (Room) is young Sunny Pawar as the young version of Dev Patel's character Saroo. He is not only so cute, he starts the engine and merges this film into traffic for Patel to take the wheel.

1) Manchester By The Sea

Grief. Guilt. How it can destroy you. Casey Affleck shows those emotions in such a realistic way as the Boston father whose children die in a fire and thus destroys his life, his marriage and his soul. Forced to take care of his nephew after his brother dies and forced to come out of his shell to do so, Affleck acts his ass off. Everyone talks about his scene with Michelle Williams in the alley where they finally talk about the tragedy and it is certainly one of the year's best but there is one moment in the film that damn near made me burst into tears. That moment is when he tells his nephew "I cant beat this". Yeah, how could you? I wont reveal the reason he feels such grief and guilt as that moment comes about halfway through and is gut wrenching enough, but if one movie this year made me both laugh and cry it was this one. I hope it wins. At least I hope Casey Affleck wins cuz he deserves it.


Now about the elephant in the room.

La La Land was a fine movie. It entertained me. But that SNL skit waso right on. People that just LOVE La La Land annoy the shit out of me. Tell them yeah it was ok sends them into apoplexy. Chrissakes, tghis movie wasnt even the best Ryan Gosling performance of the year because that was him in The Nice Guys. Emma Stone was fine. But La La Land didnt grab me like it did others. Sorry.

Hacksaw Ridge

The last hour of this movie is like the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Except its an hour. And by the end of that hour you are mentally exhausted. You know I said a movie has to get me to feel something for it to be truly great in my mind? Well in moderation please. I wanted to leave this one. It is intense and not in a good way. It's bloody and disgusting and its so Mel Gibson. He is after all batshit crazy.

I did like other movies this year.

Florence Foster Jenkins--Meryl Streep was great as was Hugh Grant
Free State of Jones--featuring a with hair Mahershala Ali on an unknown Civil War story
Allied- the best looking cast of the year with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard
Hail Caesar-- oh come on Coen Brothers geeks, it was a fine movie full of religious overtones
Cafe Society--was a good flick even considering a sleepy Kristen Stewart and an even sleepier Jesse Eisenberg
Loving--told a great story about the court case involving biracial couples being allowed to marry. Hey it happened in my lifetime. In MY lifetime


The WORST movie of the year that I saw and I dont purposefully see crappy movies was

The Purge: Election Year

This thing was trash from beginning to end. Just like the real Election Year. The real one was even scarier as we actually do have an evil cartoon villain in office. '

Screw it, I am going to go watch Sing Street again.

Fahrenheit 38%!!!

Today the enemy of the American people banned journalists from what was another bunch of lies from that woman pasty faced beady eyed badger of a press secretary, went and spoke to a band of angry white goobers waving Russian flags, and refused to admit the terrorist attack last weekend in Sweden was another one of his fucking lies.

The enemy of the American people today told CNN, the New York Times, the LA Times and Politico to stay away from the daily presser led by that soulless ginger portrayed accurately by a woman comedian late at night on Saturdays, prime tweeting time for fat bloated fascists lonely old fossils whose wives hate them and flinch at their touch.

To ban news organizations from the White House because you dont like the truth, or are so syphilitic that you dont know what the truth is any longer, is pure totalitarianism. This cannot be allowed and one day the dorks who worship this foul mouthed tawdry ignoramus will realize this and turn on him also. Already the bankrupt dope is at 38% approval after 24 days of smelling up the Oval Office with his polluted screeds. How much farther south can this dreadful worm sink?

This is dead serious. This indecent louse is making this nation a laughingstock and now he's banning news organizations because he doesnt care for what a total deceitful shitheel they truthfully say he is. Christ, the Deceiver in Chief is causing the tourism industry to take a hit because people from countries that have real leaders dont want to come here and put up with a 70 year old rug rat and his poopy pantsed cultists.

The rest of the world is laughing as the greatest power in the history of the world implodes from within because of band of clodhoppers threw a temper tantrum and elected a perverse lunatic to the highest office in the land. The greatest power in the history of the world needs help. For some reason, a bigot with bats in his belfry who got 3 million less votes than his opponent won. Explain that to the rest of the world.

Maybe next election, and we have one here in May, the rest of the world can send observers to keep the shenanigans to a minimum. In fact, a band of third graders have the math skills to tell you 65 is more than 62. Spare me your electoral college bullshit since that founding fathers check on a rube like tantrum electing a Russian controlled fruitbat has failed miserably.

Its Panic Button Time.

Oklahoma, Where The Wind Blows Right Thru Your Ears!

First of all, anybody and I mean anybody who votes for a shitheel wearing that hat for any public office should lose their right to vote for anything, including online Donald Trump "polls". Now that's voter suppression ID laws I could get behind.

That distinguished goat roper gentleman is Justin Humphrey (R what else-Ok), a member of the Oklahoma House of Reprehensibles Representatives. He has introduced a bill in that body of Oklahoma Einsteins that would require women to get written "permission" from the man who implanted the darling little fetus in her lady parts to get an abortion. After all, according to the respecter of all the Lady-Americans, they are just the host to the future little Oklahoma darlings that keep Oklahoma the backwards ass Trump cesspool it is. Now keep in mind that Justin The Vessel of Douchebaggery's science inspired brain thinks a pregnant woman is a "host" which would logically make the darling little fetus a "parasite". But Justin, the representative of Northern Oklahoma metropolises like Choctaw and Anoka, doesn't see things in that way.

Representative Justin thinks that this bill would give abused men, tempted by harlots interested in their double wide, a say in what the harpy does with her own body because of the inherent evil that is femaledom. Humpty made the following statement:

“But after you’re irresponsible then don’t claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you’re the host and you invited that in.”

Invited that in? Irresponsible? Justin is truly a lover of all women, as long as they are a parasite in some strumpet's uterus. Congratulations to the fine state of Oklahoma, the most pro-life state in Trump's America. As long as you arent yet born of course. After that fuck you. Humphrey is one of those morons who think the "parasite" label only comes AFTER you breathe air.

Yet Justin the Terrible isnt even close to being dangerous since his moronic bill will never pass constitutional muster, at least on any level other than Okie level.

Now the real danger blowing out of Oklahoma is not some rural rube in a stupid hat introducing insipid misogyny bills into a lawmaking body of halfwits.

It is one Scott Pruitt, the Attorney General of Oklahoma, being about to be confirmed by 51 bootlickers in the United States Senate as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now Pruitt, whose idea of protecting the environment is making sure no part of the environment isnt being explored by the land rapists oil and gas industry, is the worst nominee of all of Trump's cabinet members. For the love of Duke Energy Pruitt is currently suing the agency he is about to be confirmed to lead. Excuse me? Now Pruitt is a whore for the oil and gas industry, thats just a fact, and his cozy cuddling of an industry that causes 1000 earthquakes a year (trust me I felt one and I'm 400 miles away) in a state used to having 2 or 3, should disqualify him from even emptying trash at an Oklahoma rest stop. But the Senate of these United States , less the given permission to Susan Collins (Coward-Me) to vote no, will ram through this creeps nomination sometime today WHILE an order from an Oklahoma judge to release Pruitt's emails, which may show he's right up the ass of Fossil Fuel Man, is being enforced. Nothing like a speeded up vote to keep the inevitable conflict of interest buried in the fracking hole.

Do when Pruitt's suits against his own agency come up, will a Woody Allen movie come to life?

Shit, I'd rather have Woody Allen running the EPA. He at least knows satire is not reality. This bunch does not.

Trump Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest!

What in the name of Richard Nixon was that? 1 hour and 17 minutes of a man setting himself on fire in front of the entire world.

Donald Trump (I cant even call this sad insane man a name right now) held a press conference today to announce his new choice of a Secretary of Labor after the Carls Junior perverted plantation owner dropped out cuz he beat his wife or something. Who is his replacement nominee? Who the fuck knows because this announcement turned into a 77 minute meltdown by a man with nuclear codes who obviously has a lot of screws loose.

I cannot even believe what I watched. The old Nixon sweaty upper lipped meltdowns were bad enough. But this, this thing was beyond crazy.

Trump is obviously obsessed with Hillary Clinton. He mentioned her so many times I expected her to run in from the back of the room and beat him over the head with a folding chair. Geez, dude, just because you hired a fake wrestling mogul worth millions to run the Small Business Administration that does not mean you have to conduct your pressers like Mean Gene Okerlund is going to ask a question. Trump was rambling on like a crazed Gary Busey on so many subjects it gave me a pounding headache. In fact, he mentioned CNN's Jim Acosta's name more often than his new Secretary of Labor's name which is also Acosta. I think.

Besides reliving his own delusion that he beat Hillary like a drum, worse than anybody since Reagan (you DO know people can google that right?), Trump also picked fights with virtually everyone who asked him a question. The back and forth was brutal as Trump called people fake news, said he had massive crowds seeing him off in Florida, boasted of a bogus 55% approval ratings, whined about leakers leaking fake news, claimed if he blew the Russian spy ship off Connecticut out of the water everybody would think it was great, got into it with a Jewish reporter for asking about antisemitism and accused him of asking a bad question and lying, assumed a black woman reporter was going to ask a "bad question" (but he's the least racist), and asked her to set him up with the Black Caucus cuz we know all black people know each other, said he wasn't "ranting and raving" while he was ranting and raving, said he'd be a great reporter, the Muslim ban was "smooth" its just the court was bad, Chicago was worse than the Middle East and oh yeah, refused to answer if any of his staff talked to Russians during the campaign.His answer was hey, as far as I know I dont know.

Trump asked why do you people keep asking about Russia he whined at one point. Uhhh, because you never answer. You jump the tracks to start talking about Hillary or Obama or blame the other side for racist signs held up by your racist cult members or say he'd be put in the electric chair if he did something Hillary allegedly did.

If this is what will happen for the next 4 months or whatever amount of time this madman is still in office it will at least be very entertaining and frightening at the same time.

Good thing Saturday Night Live is not a new show this week. There is no way they can top this. Trump is best satire writer out there, whether intentional or not.

Live from DC, Its Thursday afternoon!

Russiagate?

I remember Watergate. I was a teenager with lots of time on my hands and watching the hearings every day. When Alexander Butterfield said the words "Oval Office tapes" and the entire Watergate Committee did a spit take it was a fascinating moment in American scandal history.

This IS another Watergate moment. The only way for Donald Trump to escape the hordes of Woodward and Bernstein wannabes is for his Republican co-conspirators in the Congress to stonewall this scandal. As I've stated before, the real Republican Congressional goal is de-legitimizing this government bu destroying the very foundation of it and providing already wealthy people with even more wealth to hide off shore while putting the chances of closing the income gap at damn close to zero. If these Congressional stooges can achieve this goal by protecting a Russian puppet government led by a clueless reality show host under the thumb of white supremacists and flat out bigots striving for a return to a white dominated society akin to the 1930's well then let it be so.

The Congressional Republicans always knew this scandal was there. For chrissakes, they were briefed prior to the election that the Russians were hacking away to make sure their flunky was elected and the Republicans, led by a Kentucky fool doing the plutocrats dirty work, chose to do nothing. Meanwhile the fake news on Facebook continued to captivate the birdbrains who were all "economically anxious" and the election went as it did. And now this. Less than one month after the oath of office was administered to the Nincompoop in Chief, the Russian connection is coming out.
It is coming out because of journalism. Journalism so absent during the campaign because of ratings and journalism's desire to bend over backwards to appear fair to a group of malcontents who will never ever stop the "liberal media" bullshit. But now, and it can be argued that this is still ratings driven, the stories are coming out.

The Republican Congress will stall this for as long as they can. Wildly passing bill after bill to cut taxes, cut more taxes, and cut more taxes to the 1% this Congress will ignore it all, blaming it on that "liberal media" bias against their vengeful Pawn In Chief. Speaking to the lamebrain Trump base and getting them all hopped up on the political oxycontin via either Facebook or other social media this strategy may work for a while. But inevitably, that 30% of the American people so blinded by their "economic anxiety" will become even more marginalized and the Congress will be forced to do something.

There ARE Republicans in Congress that HAVE to be troubled by this disreputable administration. But for now, they are silent. At some point the consciences of these non crazy Republicans will kick in. Granted most of them are demented ideologues bent on the white power structure being retained and making themselves rich but there are enough willing to accept the obvious foreign entanglement this putrid Trump administration has become. Right, Ben Sasse (Uber Driver-Ne), Susan Collins (R-Me), Lisa Murkowski (Somewhat Sane-AK), John McCain (Hero-AZ) , Jeff Flake (Trump Hater-Az), Little Marco Rubio (Remember That-Fl), Rand Paul (Moments of Sanity-Ky), Deb Fischer (Fleeting Moments-Ne), Lindsey Graham (Pearl Clutcher-SC), and Tim Scott (Cops Still Pull You Over Dude-SC)? Do something. The oligarchs you work for will drop you like a lousy reality show as soon as they want to anyway so do the right thing.

We patriots smell blood. Trump ((Puppet-Russia)is on the ropes. The country is on the ropes. Attack Attack Attack.

And Donald, I'll lay off for one second here and give you a piece of well intentioned advice. Dont try that handshake bullshit with Bibi Netanyahu (Rabid Dog-Israel). He will rip your arm out of its socket and shove it up your tookus.

Statue Of What?

A quick note here, CBS News reports that thousands of people are fleeing the United States across the border to Canada. No they arent whitebread Americans born here, but are people who fled shitholes around the world and fear being sent home by the Reality Show Host In Chief to what they say is certain death. You may call that paranoia or actually cheer for that but the fact is THERE ARE PEOPLE FLEEING THE SHINING LIGHT ON THE HILL because they are afraid.

That is a fucking disgrace. All Americans should be embarrassed of this. I doubt all are since many under the rock dwellers have come out of the hills to state their prejudices as "just telling it like it is". I am embarrassed of this because it's never happened. You may as well close fucking Ellis Island where unless you are an American Indian your ancestors showed up where later on you got dropped in an American hospital thru no effort of your own. So if the thought of people fleeing oppression are somehow a danger to you you really need to up the medication.

Harvard, where really dumb coastal elites study facts and stuff, said "The substance of President Trump's recent executive orders highlights this administration's hostility toward refugees and asylum seekers." Jesus people, what would Saint Reagan say?

Oh probably something like this.

Out Like Flynn!

Remember December 29, 2016? Thats when the Obama administration put sanctions on Russia for ratfucking the 2016 election and helping to put a thin skinned blob of borscht in charge of the free world. The day after, American Russian strongman Vladimir Putin strangely stood down and said nyet, we will do nothing in response. For this, Putin was praised by Russian American President elect Donnie Trumpski with a tweet that read:

Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!

Really?

The 12/30/16 phone call between National Security Advisor (let THAT sink in) and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak is in play. What was said on that phone call? Did Flynn promise to lift those sanctions after Trumpski was sworn in? Did Flynn ask what Russians had on Trump, on him, on someone else? What exactly did take place in that call? Flynn naturally denied anything like that occurred. Or else he forgot? He couldnt recall. Hell I dont know.

American hero and acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned the Trump administration two weeks later that Flynn had been compromised by the Russians. She knew, as did the American intelligence agencies what was discussed on that call. Warning to Trump. Mike Flynn needs to be jettisoned asap because he is potential blackmail material by a hostile nation. But did Trumpski and his white supremacist clown Bannon and Miller listen? Of course not. Flynn, when questioned by Indiana dumbass and Vice President elect Mike Pence, lied about what was discussed. Pence then told Trump that Flynn was cool cuz he wasnt gay and in came Flynn to be NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR for 23 fucking days! That may not be a problem to the cultists that make up Trump supporters because they are starry eyed and brainwashed or just plain racist, but it IS a problem for anyone with that room temp IQ.

Mike Flynn gave that famous whack job speech at the Republican convention. The screaming and eye rolling and screeching and the
Lock Her Up chants led by a madman fired by Obama because his colleagues thought he was unbalanced. Flynn also hollered how if he had done "one tenth" of what "she" had done, he'd be in jail. Well lets hope he was correct. Because Mike Flynn HAS done 10 times what "she" did. He has violated the Logan Act which of course will never be prosecuted because if it ever was 47 United States Senators would be doing time. But the bigger questions remain.

What did Trump know and when did he know it? Well the answer is obvious. That's when Sally Yates, the aforementioned Acting Attorney General, told the incoming band of vandals about the call. Trump may have been predisposed at the time watching cable news or tweeting out nonsensical rants against somebody who took a shot at him but the conclusion is obvious. Either Trump is truly a Russian operative or he is an incompetent boob. Or probably both.

Look, with a war between the country's intelligence agencies and the sitting POTUS and his staff of white agenda driven crazies, we are in deep shit. This is not going to end well for any of us. For chrissakes the sitting POTUS said the intelligence agencies were akin to Nazi Germany. Who takes that with a grain of salt? Not the CIA or the NSA or anybody else who knows what the real story is. These people are reportedly withholding information from Trump and his band of Visigoths because they fear it goes straight from Trump's ear to Putin's ear. There is fear the Russians have a mole in the Situation Room.

Good lord, remember back when it was the Democrats who were called commies and fellow travelers and worse by right wing kooks. Now the right wing kooks are in Putin's corner. Which confirms in my mind the real agenda of the far right. Authoritarianism.

There's a lot of Americans who really dont buy into democracy . Never have. And this 2016 election has emboldened them. Mike Flynn is just a cog in the machine of establishing a right wing dictatorship much like we keep installing in foreign nations. Leave it to Republicans to do the dirty work.

Remove ethics, remove regulations, remove election overseers, make it a crime to assemble protest, gerrymander, silence women, take control of peoples personal lives, demonize the press, burn down the fucking Reichstag, hell I dont know what they are capable of here. But it has to be stopped NOW. Normalizing these crazy fuckers was always my fear. It appears now that there is constant pressure to point out these people's foibles. Keep up that pressure and let the 30% of America who wants a strongman to crack down on these protesting broads and hippies and anarchists and browns and blacks and pussy boys and paid stooges gizz in their cut offs.

Now, I must go check the mailbox for my weekly Soros check, who by the way has never paid me, much in the mold of the sitting deadbeat President. The only difference is one was fake news and the other is 100% true. The sanity test is which is which.