Marvel’s Inverse Law Of Mask-Wearing:
As Your Pretty INCREASES, Your Mask DECREASES.

Not Tingling.

After Tony Stark’s death (in AVENGERS: ENDGAME – c’mon, where you been?), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) bequeaths Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) the command of all Stark’s tech, via a pair of magic sunglasses. Five minutes later, Parker relinquishes his superhero status to chase after panty (the SUPERMAN II syndrome), and hands over the glasses to interdimensional stranger and all-round responsible chap, Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal in mo-cap pajamas). When it is discovered Mysterio is just an efx maven with fancy holograms who wants to be a fake superhero, punching ensues.

SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME is technically the sequel to the Tom Holland Spider-series that started with SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017), yet so much has transpired in the Marvel Cinematic Underpants between the two Spidey films (namely, INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME), that the movie seems like a continuation of some other grand adventure, with many star players missing (like Cap, Wanda, Natasha, Thor, Hulk, et al). So there’s an overarching feeling of nothing being as important as it is made out to be – because if it WAS, then all those other supers would’ve been here. It’s Marvel’s own fault. They’ve setup the connective tissue between all these movies so sturdily that they’ve now got to make “excuses” for the absence of other heroes. Thor is “off world,” Dr Strange is “unavailable,” Captain Marvel is– “don’t invoke her name” – excuses that ring faker than Zendaya’s padded bra.

In a world mourning the absence of Iron Man, Peter, during a school trip to Europe, is smugly kidnapped  by Nick Fury and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), who run those excuses and petition him as the only superhero they can force to protect Earth without pay. But what about Wanda? Panther? War Machine? Or someone like Ant-Man/Giant-Man, who can turn as big as the water monster that appears in the film’s first lame battle? An inter-dimensional entity is threatening to annihilate Earth and they’re too lazy to send out a carrier pigeon to find Cap or Hulk or even Hawkeye fer chrissakes? And that’s another thing: Why does Fury keep chastising Peter as if he’s an employee who doesn’t want to turn up for work? No one’s paying Spider-Man (or any heroes) to save humanity. What hold does Fury have on anyone with super powers?

The lameness of this whole absentee superhero scenario is equivalent to the lameness of the film’s actual plot. Luckily, the guy who looks like Tobey Maguire turns up in his fishbowl helmet, purple cloak and Christmas-light bodysuit, and magics the water monster away. He calls himself Quentin Beck, but civilians start calling him “Mysterio,” and he claims to be from Earth in another dimension—sorry, MULTIVERSE (happy?) – and he’s followed the monsters here from that dimension to kill them.

Fury and Hill are quick to offer Spidey up as second banana to Mysterio, and more special effects battle ensues, with a big fire monster, Mysterio shooting beams at it and Spider-Man swinging around doing fuck-all. And there’s NOTHING AT STAKE. Because we don’t know what this thing wants. It’s just roaring and breaking stuff. We also don’t know the parameters of its powers or the limitations of Mysterio’s powers as he keeps greening his beams at it with varying effect until at some point it just dies from the beams as if it was Padme (i.e., it lost the will to live).

Soon afterwards, Mysterio scams Stark’s magic glasses off Peter, and he orates his evil plan to his troupe of outcasts. Up to this point, Gyllenhaal has been underplaying as a sincere, trustworthy, staid protector; now he chews scenery like a cartoon as he exposits how everyone in his troupe is personally involved in a revenge plot against Tony Stark. But why are you telling THEM this? They already know. That’s why they’re here helping you with your plot, Hamlet!

Mysterio’s Grand Plan? To unleash these fake monsters – which are really holograms created by drones – and to defeat them publicly as Mysterio, until the world heralds him as “the new Iron Man” … Okay, so you become the new Iron Man. Are you going to fight alongside the REAL AVENGERS when a real threat appears, like Ultron or Thanos or Galactus? Do you think Thor or Steven Strange or Bruce Banner wouldn’t see through your lie about being from another multiverse in one second? Speaking of which, how did you con Fury? Did Fury do ONE SECOND of due diligence background check on Quentin Beck when you claimed to be from another dimension? And why would you put yourself in real jeopardy if you are a charlatan? Have you thought this idiotic plan through, Quentin?

Like his lame plan to kill the kids in Peter’s class: they are tricked onto a tour bus, and the driver stops the bus in a “kill zone” and leaves. A Few Seconds Later: We see all the kids running away from the bus, before the bus goes up in flames … So Mysterio’s plan was to kill the kids in a bus, that they could escape by opening the door? Takes Bond Villain inefficiency to a new level.

The performances are comical and poignant when they have to be, the monster effects are, of course, stunning though unnecessary; the best effects being the way Spider-Man swings and attains those frenetic positions straight from the comics panels (love it!) – but the storytelling is atrocious! Aspects like Fury’s lack of awareness grinds at our suspension of disbelief, especially since he and Hill are surrounded by magic computers and neither of them thought to do a simple Google search for “Quentin Beck” to discover he created tech for Tony Stark, before falling for his tale about multiverses. Not to mention all the other pointless sub-plots, like Peter’s BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon) acquiring and losing a love interest; Aunt May (gorgeous Marisa Tomei) and Happy Hogan (gorgonzola Jon Favreau) having a fling; MJ (Zendaya) discovering Peter is Spider-Man – the affairs all begin and end with this film; it’s dull, fan service storytelling.

In his first 5 seconds onscreen, Spider-Man takes off his mask to speak. CAN NO ONE SPEAK THROUGH A MASK OR HELMET ANYMORE? And the pedestrian, non-scientific CGI manner the masks disappear is insulting to our intelligence. What, all those metal parts are going into a ring around his neck? Why isn’t there any bulge there? Apologists pule that the masks are “nanotech” (another name for magic who cares fuck you) – so Mysterio’s cloudy fishbowl is also nanotech? Where do the clouds go when his bowl blips into his neck housing?

I cannot believe how Marvel have conned everyone into believing this is a thing. WHICH SUPERHERO IN THE COMICS BLIPS OFF THEIR MASK FOR EVERY SPOKEN LINE AND THEN MAGICALLY DOIKS IT BACK ON AGAIN? Show me one superhero that does this?! Yet Marvel have pushed the boundaries of this mask-removal so far that when Spider-Man is walking around WITH a mask on, it seems weird; so weird that Fury tells him to remove the mask because everyone at headquarters has seen him without it anyway! Jesus, it’s a nanotech of stupid up in here!

The poster for this Spider-Man movie doesn’t even have Spider-Man on it! Instead, it shows Tom Holland – wearing a Halloween costume that almost looks like a Spider-Man outfit. Tom Holland is not my childhood hero – SPIDER-MAN is! Is it too much to ask to see Spider-Man on a movie poster for a Spider-Man movie?!

Peter excitedly talks about physics and multiverses – and everyone gives him a look like ‘Stop being a smartarse!’ So he stops. And Mysterio tells him, “Don’t ever apologize for being smart.” Isn’t this exactly what the movie just did?! This is American humor: someone speaks intelligently, others in room glare at him like HE’S the crackpot; he stops out of – respect? not wanting to make them look dumb? not wanting to insult them by being smarter? What exactly is this joke? It only ever happens in dunderhead American movies. Did those days come and go so quickly with Scientist-as-Hero (Stark, Banner, Alan Turing in IMITATION GAME, Oscar Isaac in EX MACHINA, Steven Hawking in THEORY OF EVERYTHING)? And Americans wonder why the rest of the world considers them dumbos.

Peter gets waylaid in the Netherlands, remarking how kind every stranger is (America, meet Europe, you belligerent redneck ignoramuses), and Happy picks Peter up, by landing a jet in a field full of carefully tended flowers. And America wonders why the rest of the world considers them Ugly Americans.

The climax is a whirlwind of eye-damaging effects that are ambitious, yet feel unnecessary; the drone-fight sequence only existing to create an arc of Spidey having lost his spider-sense (what Aunt May calls his “Peter-tingle” – another dumb and unnecessary running gag) and re-acquiring it when the stakes are high. In a battle where he doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake – well, he IS fighting Donnie Darko.

Only in this final sequence do we see the classic Spider-Man costume at last! Did I mention how much I HATE that “Iron Spider” CGI costume?! Writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, and director Jon Watts knew they couldn’t let Peter retain that garish costume from the opening scenes because it is too over-powered (what the fanboys call “OP”), so to create adversity for this hero which Marvel has cavalierly over-powered in his last few films, these numbnuts now have to actively rob Spider-Man of his powers, putting him in the black Archer turtleneck duds and the ski mask, and calling him Night Monkey (yet another pointless gag – nothing works in this film, seriously!). In the second act, they magically swish him through costume changes that are illusions – like they’re trying to eat their cake and still have it – but it’s all magic who cares fuck you – it’s a gyp! – it’s a swindle! – it’s the shallowest of fan service visuals! In trying to appeal to everyone – they appeal to no one! Removing the intensity of Peter’s struggle with all these distractions!

Yet the world populace will laud this pap as another Marvel masterpiece. And it will make a billion dollars. And people will call Zendaya beautiful. Only proving that America is getting dumber and uglier.

END

“Dang! This always happens when we bring civilization to a Third World country!”

When Wrongs Make Right.

What makes DC’s THE SUICIDE SQUAD of 2021, different from their 2016 movie of the almost same name, SUICIDE SQUAD? Well, many more things than just THE – R-rated, deeper characterization, rapscallion director, premium swearing, delicious gore, and moral ambiguity right up the chocolate starfish. Written and directed by James Gunn, it’s better in many ways – and the same in the worst ways. It’s a soft reboot / wink-wink sequel / lazy Hollywood cashing in on a recognizable property, that finds another convict team of superhero-adjacent misfits blackmailed into service to the American government, sent to the fictional dictatorship of Corto Maltese to eliminate a threat to democracy. Let the double-crosses and high crimes and malfeasance begin, mostly perpetrated by the BIGGEST threat to democracy – the American government. Hey there Movie Maniacs, welcome to THE SUICIDE SQUAD Top 5 Bottom 5.

Let’s start with the Bottom 5 things about THE SUICIDE SQUAD, starting with number 5 and working our way up to the worst.

Michael Rooker opens the film, with long blond hair, looking sexy as hell – and immediately I thought: Are there no more actors? Rooker was already a prominent character in one of James Gunn’s other tentpoles, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. That was a Marvel property. And now, instead of letting another talented struggling actor make rent, Rooker crosses cinematic universes to appear in this >DC< film? Really, are there no more actors?

Josh Brolin was Thanos – then he was Cable in the same Marvel universe! What the fuck? And Sylvester Stallone has ENOUGH franchises – ROCKY, RAMBO, EXPENDABLES, ESCAPE PLAN – can they not give his role as the voice of King Shark to someone else? And his voice is so treated, Stallone is not even vocally recognizable, nor is he doing the mocap for the CGI creature he’s voicing – that’s Steve Agee, who also plays a staff member. It’s like wasting the salary on Vin Diesel to say “I am Groot” from the comfort of his dickcheese bathrobe. Of course, it’s their agents who have the casting company connectrions to these blockbusters – that’s why the same 12 actors get all the work. And the astronomical salaries of the stars is well worth the cost of the viewers they draw. Their names are marquee Viagra.

That’s why any productions out of Hollywood are on this upward-spiraling budget and downward-spiraling creativity – they HAVE to make back the money for hiring name actors, so they HAVE to hire name actors to make back the money. Now, we can’t begrudge anyone making money, but it’s so transparently —– venal, with everything homogenized to offend the least people and maximize the viewership. This is not like Clint Eastwood using his same trusted cast in a slew of fun 80s films for low budget efficiency and reliability – these are blockbusters that could afford to hire new actors, new writers, new directors, with new ideas – no, every tentpole, you’ll see the SAME 12 actors, the SAME 12 writers, the SAME 12 directors.

To subvert expectations, major characters die unexpectedly – on the pretense that the movie is edgy, and on that conceit that all these characters are expendable D-list DC properties… yeeeeh, but the main ROLES are played by A-LIST actors – I mean, they tried to get Will Smith back – but – other contractual obligations – so there’s the obvious Will Smith replacement – Idris Elba, basically playing exactly the same character as Will Smith, down to his daughter being his motivation. So the arbitrary deaths are basically the D-list ACTORS – stop pretending like your highest paid A-lister might die – Margot Robbie, reprising her D-character Harley Quinn. And it’s gonna be hard for A-lister Idris Elba to die also, even though you’ve probably forgotten his D-character’s name by now. But Pete Davidson? Who gives a fuck? D-actor, D-character…

Like Marvel did with GUARDIANS in the hands of Gunn, DC pulls out lesser-known properties like King Shark and Polka Dot Man and Peacemaker, in an attempt to drag diehard D-character fans out of the woodwork, while throwing in those A-listers to keep it profitable, but if you want to be venal, DC, why force untapped characters into the DCEU, instead of dusting off your established properties that made more money at the worldwide box office than SUICIDE SQUAD? I’m looking at BATMAN V SUPERMAN‘s 872 mil vs SUICIDE SQUAD’s 746 mil. (Which number is bigger? I can’t tell.) Because yeh, I wanna see Henry Cavill as Superman in MAN OF STEEL 2. Get to work, Warner Bros. dickheads.

Viola Davis is government agent, Waller, overseeing the black operation. After the last movie built her into the most ruthless, vicious, callous mercenary, who gunned down her own staff because “they didn’t have clearance,” this installment totally loses its grasp of her character, when her underlings knock her out with a golf club – and suffer ZERO retribution! Waller represents a government operation so deadly, it blows people’s heads off for insubordination – and in knocking her out, her staff has mutinied against the government they are working for. And none of them lose their lives, let alone their jobs?!! A comic reaction shot of Waller holding an ice-pak and looking at her staff like kids in a sitcom who have learned the meaning of decency.

Whereas John Cena’s character is an idiot-patriot called Peacemaker, Waller is the intelligent despicable dark side of that paradoxical statement. They show her disregard for life when she blows Michael Rooker’s skull to pieces, and her reprehensible ethics when she blackmails Bloodsport into the team by threatening his daughter’s life (Oh yeh, that’s Idris Elba’s name)…  The filmmakers forget that when her character comes to, she would simply shoot every mutineer in the fucking head. Twice. Like John Wick.

Weasel – what the fuck? Even in this comicbook universe where men shoot polka dots and a galactic starfish can communicate in English, this character doesn’t make any sense. It’s a distraction, because every time it’s onscreen, all I can think of is: it can’t communicate – how does it even know to BE here? The comicbook character was a man transformed into a weasel, so he had human cognizance and language. But this thing is just a dumb animal. How did Waller communicate the concept of shortening its sentence if it performed the mission? And why is it in prison anyway? Oh, it killed 27 children. Yeh, but it’s an animal – if a lion kills 27 children, you don’t put it in HUMAN jail.

How do they make it walk in a line for the SLOMO shot? Does it understand there’s an explosive in its head? Does it even know what side it’s on? James Gunn wanted it to look like that cartoon, Bill The Cat – okaaaay, but without the barest human cognizance, you’ve created a character with no character.

The worst, stupidest, most annoying thing about THE SUICIDE SQUAD: Exposition! It’s bad enough in a regular movie, when it jumps out at you totally divorced from the scene, like when two characters meet for the first time, “Hey sis” “Hey bro” [somebody shoot me] – and then never call each other that for the rest of the movie. Now multiply that by 20 characters, unnecessary dialogue desperately trying to shape full life histories in 5 seconds screentime – with the filmmakers trying their damndest to get away with “creative” ways to slide the OBVIOUS EXPOSITION by us unnoticed, like the office staff taking bets on which squad member will die first, while explaining to each other the member’s powers, or one of the senior staff – who should know the “guy who put Superman in the ICU” asking who that guy is. Waller, the most insufferable offender, with a monotonal seen-everything attitude that gives Jack Reacher a run for his smug. Stop telling each other what you should already know. And ESPECIALLY stop telling THE CHARACTER WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THEMSELVES!!

And now, Movie Maniacs, the Top 5 things about THE SUICIDE SQUAD.

The Harley Quinn origin movie BIRDS OF PREY had Harley shooting up a police station with non-lethal bean bags of glitter. Even though it was an R-rated movie, it seemed like a desperate PG-13 solution to side-step the gore “creatively.” Here, James Gunn ACTUALLY purveys a creative method of representing gore – with cartoon flowers. Granted, these are dictator soldiers, so they can be murdered in good Western conscience, but this tongue-in-cheek filmmaker succeeds in distracting from the heavy gore truly creatively by seeming to take us on a journey into what Harley’s deranged mind might be perceiving, instead of the same old Black Widow thigh-jitsu action sequence.

Writer-director James Gunn has done for DC what he did for Marvel: bring D-list characters into A-list infamy – and make us care about them! He does this through his unique flair for comedic timing, his countless creative shots, gutshock action, and imaginative title cards. He’s like a more tolerable Michael Bay. Director David Ayer’s 2016 SUICIDE SQUAD (which we now know is more of a studio Frankenstein than the director’s vision) lacked the charm of this entry, which explodes with color and verve and contextual humor, and grand lessons in film MAKING. Either that, or – goddamit! – we’re getting sucked into the style of these same 12 directors…

I cannot give the filmmakers enough props for bringing the very first Justice League villain to life – STARRO THE CONQUEROR [yes, imagine echo echo echo echo…] – and making him… cool. Talk about walking a tightrope between goofy and terrifying. Starro is not – as originally written – some “space parasite intent on conquest”; his backstory here is changed to one of poignant victimhood. We learn that American astronauts encountered him in space and brought him to Earth, to weaponize him. Good ole Murrica. He laments to the Squad, “I was happy… floating… staring at the stars…” Cute. Tragic. Starro.

Daniela Melchior stars as Ratcatcher 2, the hypersomniac daughter to an original Batman villain called Ratcatcher, who is played here for a few brief poignant moments by Taiki Waititi. (Wait – isn’t Taika a director on the Marvel side of the universe? Are there no more fucken actors?!) Even though Daniela’s character is written from scratch for this movie, she brings a humanity and heart to what could’ve been the most shallow of paper-thin placeholders.

Ratcatcher 2’s arc from a reluctant casual observer to the actual savior of the day is as surprising as it is touching. Combined with the finale orchestra swell, grandiose hero shots, and the turnaround of her saving the life of the man who promised HE would get HER back alive, she goes from that girl with the ratty hair that you never noticed, to the woman you want to marry for her power and beauty! Margot Robbie may be the obvious sex appeal of the movie – but little Daniela steals the show.

If THE SUICIDE SQUAD is about villains, then surely the biggest villain of all is the united states government. Not in a simple “hey, we install dictators in other countries” kind of way – which is bad enough – but in a layered, ambiguous, insidious, anti-society, anti-human manner. (Oh you mean republiKKKan?) The film illustrates how a banana republic works by showing us the handsome dictator of Corto Maltese and his ugly policies – and by the time we realize it’s an analog for the United States with brown faces, “freedom fighters” are rebelling against the fascist government by BREAKING INTO THE PRESIDENT’S HEADQUARTERS to stop the new president from being sworn in [sideways look at January 6th].

These Suicide Squad “villains” are only considered villains because they weren’t the people who made the rules on what constitutes villainy. Because, let’s face it – the hypocrisy of a government that derides dictators and then installs dictators in other countries is equal to the irony of that same country not having laws to deal with latent dictators within its own political system (see: the never-indicted dumbo donald, after 4 years of daily high crimes and misdemeanors). And THE SUICIDE SQUAD illustrates this government villainy transparently; they’re pretty much saying, “You think these brown people are villains – you think this purple starfish is the villain – nope, THIS is the villain.

When it comes to chests, make mine a Manganiello.

The Sleep Through It.

THE SLEEPOVER is made from the scrapings at the bottom of the cliché dumpster, as two kids discover their boring suburban mum is an ex-super-thief blackmailed into one last job, and must use their plucky ingenuity to rescue her from her criminal organization. Because a teen girl and pre-teen boy totally have enough worldly knowledge AND espionage experience to outmaneuver adult career criminals.

Malin Akerman is Margot, mother to 15-year-old Clancy (Sadie Stanley), and 12-year-old firecracker Kevin (Maxwell Simkins). Ken Marino is father Ron, a dork masterclass. As a teacher at her kids’ school, Margot is captured on a viral video, and seen by thieves from her past life, who kidnap her for her expertise in heisting a royal crown; with dork father tagging along, who never knew Margot was in the witness protection program. All this happens on the same night Clancy and Kevin have two friends over for a sleepover, which accounts for the tenuous movie title. Cree Cicchino is Clancy’s smug friend Mim, a bad influence when it comes to boys and skinny jeans, and Lucas Jaye is Kevin’s bedwetting friend Lewis, allergic to everything, which the filmmakers think is super funny for some reason.

The kidnappers (Harry Aspinwall and Enuka Okuma) reunite Margot with rugged Leo (big Joe Manganiello), her partner in crime, and ex-fiancé, which sets up all manner of unfunny jealousy jokes from dork husband, especially that old fallback of the doughy guy constantly telling the beefcake to put a shirt over his muscles – a joke stolen from every Mark Wahlberg movie.

The kids follow a trail left by Margot, “This is our chance to be heroes in the real world, not some imaginary world.” Now, I understand kid’s adventure stories need to exist in a dullard reality so that the hero kids can be equal to adults. Fine. But don’t make things appear out of nowhere like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. They enter a tunnel – suddenly a flashlight. They want to cuff someone to a pipe – suddenly handcuffs. They need dry clothes – suddenly a clothes store is there, conveniently left open in the middle of the night with no alarms on.

The disjointed clues come at us faster than you can stand there and look at something that leads to something else for the barest of reasons. They break into Margot’s storage garage and spy gear emerges from the walls, including a car – which drives itself, to avoid the thorny problem of kids driving without licenses; they break into a locked library at night – have alarms been invented in 2020 yet? – Mim complaining, “I don’t know who Dewey is but his system sucks!” Really? You just found what you needed FASTER than doing a Google search. The kids are led to one of Margot’s accomplices, Jay, who outlines a plan to rescue Margot, but then Clancy handcuffs Jay to a pipe, pleading, “Please don’t find me and kill me, I just need to get my mom back.” Yeh, that’s WHAT THE KIND OLD 40-YEAR-OLD LADY WAS JUST ABOUT TO DO WITH HER EXPERTISE, DUMMY!

As dork husband dorks all over the heist, and Margot and Leo fight indiscriminate guards/royals/henchmen—who knows?- Clancy just reaches out and plucks the crown from the royal’s head as they WALK PAST THE FIGHT SCENE. Since this kids’ movie can’t advocate stealing, the crown is returned almost immediately – yet they stole a car to chase down the villain, endangering lives and destroying property. Got the message kids? Only good guys can do crime. To add carrots to our vomit, everyone arcs to resolution, all at once in a two-minute saccharine wrap-up.

Written by Sarah Rothschild like she’s read too many Nancy Drew mysteries and directed by Trish Sie like she didn’t pay attention in Bond Action Movie class, THE SLEEPOVER is produced by “LD Entertainment” but it rigorously follows the rules of homogeneity laid down by Disney, where all the kids are smarter than the adults, and all the females are smarter than the males; where hot chicks are married to dorks and all the kids speak as if their lines were written by adults. (That used to be cute, until we realized Hollywood kids are just gregarious weirdoes raised as a cry for help by underachieving parents.) With Hollywood whining there are not enough female filmmakers, honestly ladies, do you really think you’ll be taken seriously enough to be hired for tentpoles or Oscar noms if you keep producing this feeble-minded porridge?

THE SLEEPOVER will only be appreciated by those young enough to get excited over one.

END

Spy Sandwich.

James Bond 007 and his female Russian counterpart, Agent XXX, are ordered to join forces to stop a megalomaniac sinking civilization beneath the sea. But is it naïve of M and KGB not to know that when England and Russia end up in bed together – they really end up in bed together?

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is Roger Moore’s 3^rd Bond movie (from Ian Fleming’s 10^th Bond novel, publ. 1962), and we can see how Moore’s fans might have come to regard him as “better than Connery” with this third solid actioner (despite the odd hiccup of the “Talking Not Shooting” trope in all three adventures).

The cold open is breathtaking (except for the rear projections) as henchmen ski-chase Bond down a mountain. There are so many good practical skiing shots, you’d think the closeup shots of Bond with absurd rear projection backgrounds tilting at comical angles would reduce the excitement of the chase, but I guess audiences of the day were inured to these necessary evils. The efx are a scant improvement on the ski effects in HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (from eight years ago – illustrating how slowly early efx were improving), but suddenly none of it matters – as Bond skis directly off a cliff! Stuntman Rick Sylvester in an unbroken take, in imperceptible slomo, glides off the lip of the mountain, detaching his skis and then freefalling for an eternity before deploying a parachute emblazoned with the Union Jack!

Connery never opened with anything this exhilarating!

Sylvester was paid a record $30,000 for the stunt, off the El Capitan in Yosemite, California, and was credited as the first ever ski BASE jump (Building Antenna Span or Earth).

Add to this stomach-turning fall into space, one of the best, most poignant songs of the series, Carly Simon crooning sensually, Nobody Does It Better (the first Bond theme song titled differently from its film).

British and Russian nuclear submarines have gone missing. In England, M (Bernard Lee) puts his top agent on it – James Bond, alerted via a Dymo-type readout from his watch (very quaint). In Russia, the KGB leader also gets his top agent on it: we intrude on a guy and girl making love; the man answers a call for a mission, as ‘70’s sexism kicks in and audiences of the day take it for granted HE is the “top agent.” But he leaves and SHE takes a secret call – it is she who is Agent XXX (Barbara Bach, pre-Ringo Starr).

(Note: Walter Gotell, who plays KGB General Anatol Gogol here, appeared in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE as a henchman. This is his first of 6 appearances as Gogol; his last would be THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Seven Bond films total – that’s as much as Connery and Moore!)

Richard Kiel as Jaws: Dental Plans Gone Wild.

Somewhere under the ocean, we meet Stromberg (Curt Jurgens, THE LONGEST DAY) in his lair called Atlantis, that looks like a WAR OF THE WORLDS Tripod Fighting Machine when it rises above the waves. He commissions his giant henchman named Jaws (Richard Kiel) to recover micro-film of a submarine tracking device. We have achieved McGuffin, ladies and gentlemen! (The unkillable Jaws would become a beloved villain of the Bond franchise, also appearing in the next entry, MOONRAKER, and being redeemed there. I think it’s because we all recognized that – apart from his 7’2” killer – the real life Kiel looked like he found it hard to walk or run comfortably; maybe he was at peace with himself, but his gigantism seemed more of a hindrance than a boon. We empathized with the guy as a fellow human, not as a Bond villain, and I’m sure no fans had any qualms about him finding true love onboard the Moonraker.)

So begins the quest for 007 and XXX to each find the tracking device.

To Egypt, chasing down info on missing submarines, with Polaris missiles onboard. (Developed by the U.S. specifically to be launched from submarines, the Polaris missile was THE British nuclear deterrent by the mid ‘70s; a creamy cultural tie-in.) And we marvel at the location shooting – besides the exotic locations in Italy, Canada and Scotland, the most exotic location of all – Egypt. There’s nothing like being there – on the enigmatic Giza Plateau, with those Ancient Alien super-generators in the background ([whisper] the pyramids).

It is here that Bond meets Anya/Agent XXX (Bach, cheekbones carved from the same undying rock of the pharaoh’s tombs, nipples so close to the edge of those tantalizing plunging necklines). Conversant with each others’ resumes, he knows her drink and she knows his; she reels off his history, about being married only once — he stops her — a painful topic, as it happened to the OTHER guy…

They both want the McGuffin. But Jaws gets it first. Biting his victims like some steel-jawed vampire.

Pursued to the great Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak, Jaws loses Bond and Anya amongst those monolith columns. Again, just being in the real places stirs the blood in our temples (didja see what I did there – ha!). This Bond adventure, like the temples it visits, is feeling as solid as stone. Then – Abu Simbel Temple, the four statues of Ramses II guarding the entrance – with MI6 headquarters underneath! Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) onscreen for less than a minute.

The LAWRENCE OF ARABIA theme as Bond and Anya trudge across desert sands. (How are they allowed to use this music? And why do they use it? Wouldn’t it behoove you as a brand to stick to your own themes?)

This is the first time Bond has been paired with another equally proficient agent. Yes, there was Agent Goodnight (Britt Ekland) in MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, but she was eye candy. Anya is Bond’s equal at tactics, research and self-defense. They even bond as two professionals drawn to each other’s expertise. So we feel their urgency when they’re on a train, on either side of the door separating their cabins, wondering like teenagers when the other will give in to their urges and barge in.

Jaws attacks. Which brings them into the same cabin and into the same consoling bed. Tending wounds, emotional or physical, was always about sex…

Carolyn Munro: As the Millennials say, I just can’t—

Funny old Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is a big part of the story, appearing at many points with gadgets and information. He’s the Bond series Plot Convenience pudding bear. He brings Bond the Lotus Esprit car, loaded with the usual Bond accoutrement. Anya greets Q with his rarely-mentioned name, “Good morning, Major Boothroyd.” Because she’s a spy. She knows his name (as Chris Cornell would sing three decades hence).

Posing as husband and wife, Bond and Anya visit Stromberg in Atlantis, whom they deduce is responsible for the sub disappearances. Stromberg’s assistant meets them. And we are floored by an even sexier version of Barbara Bach – Carolyn Munro (AT THE EARTH’S CORE)!!! Such fecund lubricity, such salivating eroticism! Almost canceling out Jane Seymour as the hottest Bond babe! However there’s one thing that Jane has that Carolyn lacks – innocence! Jane is the precious virgin love-bucket, while Carolyn’s bikini body simply screams out in urgency for my naked flesh! I can’t even concentrate anymore. What was I talking about?

Stromberg is a Blofeld-Lite and cannot capture the menace of even the least menacing Blofeld, Charles Gray. For probing into his affairs, he orders Bond and Anya killed. (What would their paparazzi name be: Bondanya? Banya? Anyond? Or 007XXX? Triple X7?)  A great helicopter chase of the Lotus; great only because Caroline Munro is flying the helicopter in a bikini.

Some of the action music (by composer Marvin Hamlisch) sounds like LIVE AND LET DIE; he uses that same technique of xylophone on top of accent notes.

The Lotus dives off a pier into the ocean – and transforms into a slick little submarine. In keeping with the theme of the nuclear subs, from below the surface, it launches a tiny Polaris missile at Caroline’s helicopter – and that’s just wrong.

Just when we think her role has been relegated to saying, “James!” every two minutes to warn Bond of danger, Anya presses buttons on the Lotus, launching missiles at pursuers. He asks, “How did you know about that?” “I stole the blueprints of this car 2 years ago!”

As we’re considering the bronzed smooth Anya the perfect spy soulmate for the flighty Bond, she discovers it was Bond who killed her husband recently (on that ski slope). All their bonding seems wasted as she vows vengeance. Bond mitigates angrily, “In this job we all know that any of us can get killed! He knew that too! Yes, I killed him!” She replies coldly, “When the mission is over, I am going to kill you.” I kinda wished the filmmakers followed through with this gritty, tragic plotline, making them mortal enemies after bosom buddies, with Bond having another great love that he himself would have to kill. What a great Greek-Shakespearean tragedy! Instead, we all know Bond’s musk cannot be resisted and the inherent sexism will flop Anya back into his arms.

The finale onboard Stromberg’s giant ship, where Bondanya discovers Strom is a different kind of megalomaniac – he doesn’t want to blackmail New York and Moscow with missiles – he wants to annihilate them and create his own undersea kingdom.

James Bond on a future-boat.

Bond really slides into his role of Commander Bond here, leading the charge of the British and Russian captives, within the massive indoor sets of Stromberg’s ship, with shooting, screaming and Pretty Orange Explosions aplenty. After they escape Stromberg’s ship in their sub, they blow it up for screenplay closure.

Bond uses a jet-ski to speed to Atlantis to rescue Ringo’s love interest. (The Jet Ski was domesticated in the early ‘70s, so I’m presuming the filmmakers throw it into the plot because it’s a relatively new gadget – but the waterscooter design was around since the ‘50s, so is Bond behind the curve here?)

In the last battle – Jaws again! Bond uses a giant magnet (the type used to pick up cars in the junkyard, that happens to be in Stromberg’s shark pool room for no apparent reason) to pick up Jaws by the jaws and throw him to the sharks – Jaws against Jaws!

Ends with 007 jawing XXX.

As with many Bond writers, Christopher Wood (novelist turned screenwriter, in his first Bond film) and Richard Maibaum adapt an Ian Fleming title to the screen, not using any plot elements from Fleming’s novel. Lewis Gilbert‘s direction seems classier than his last Bond (Connery in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE).

SPY WHO LOVED ME is one of the better Bond entries and I’m wondering whether that’s because of the potent mix of writer and director. Throughout the Bond series, I’ve tried to make sense of the inconsistent quality of the various films by examining the teaming of directors and writers. I thought I pinpointed Richard Maibaum as a writer who brought The Stupid consistently – and then he co-wrote (with Kevin McClory) the lean THUNDERBALL with director Terence Young. Meaning Young might have reined in Maibaum’s Stupid – and then we see they were both onboard the idiotic FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (so – maybe it was McClory who did the reining?). In SPY WHO LOVED ME we see the primary writer Wood might be reigning in Maibaum’s Stupid – and then Wood’s next screenplay, MOONRAKER, outdoes all of Maibaum’s Stupid in one fell swoop – with this director Lewis Gilbert! Meaning the same team that brought us this good film also brought us the next dumb film!

It doesn’t make sense – UNLESS – we surmise that the Bond series producer Cubby Broccoli was simply churning out this cash-cow product and any “good” entries were simply flukes? Sorry, Bond fans, you don’t want to imagine the godfather of a series you hold dear was a mercenary who never cared for his own product’s quality, or your intelligence, taste or enjoyment, but if you do an objective examination, with pie charts, Venn diagrams and those wall displays with the pins and photos and connecting lines, you’ll see the horrible truth. These men were a meat factory. And you were the cows…

No spy ever loved you.

END

If the comedy isn’t there – Force it.

There was no show, there was no idea; it was really based on nothing, except a name that made everybody laugh.
— Steve Carell.

Who knew that a pointless, ignorant, non-sequitur, idiotic utterance by the 45th president of the United States could be turned into a pointless, ignorant, non-sequitur, idiotic Netflix show?

For that is where SPACE FORCE originated and that is what SPACE FORCE is.

Created by Steve Carell and Greg Daniels specifically to rag on the moron american president’s wayward musing on creating a “sixth branch of the armed forces” to defend space, SPACE FORCE does more harm than any other unfunny show on TV today, because it glorifies ignorance. Because it glorifies one particular man’s ignorance – that man who holds the lives of 330 million Americans in his hands, if not the futures of 7 billion Earthlings, with the nuclear codes at his reprehensible fingertips.

And the show’s target audience won’t even get the gag.

The dumbo president of the United States and his braindead supporters, whom this show is satirizing, are too oblivious to comprehend they are being made fun of, and it will be regarded by them as vindication that A SPACE FORCE IS VALID. Because any publicity is good publicity. And see? – our fantastic idea is on TV – it MUST be good!

The series has distilled the premise of SPACE FORCE to utmost simplicity: get “boots on the Moon.” Which translates to: Get a military strike force on the Moon, because China is already there, and we’re going to be as juvenile as possible in fighting for that territory which has no known beneficial resources, and no profit incentive. Because America.

Headed by the incompetent General Mark Naird (Carell), the series follows his daily tribulations in getting the agency up and running smoothly while butting heads with his superiors and his science advisor Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich).

Dumbo Donald is never seen and his name is never mentioned – the bitchbaby is referred to as POTUS, and that moniker is mentioned frequently. The branch itself is hastily put together based on the mundane “space force” speculation the real life POTUS made in mid-2018, and its existence is regarded as a joke by the other branch generals (Patrick Warburton, Noah Emmerich, Jane Lynch). (Note: Dumbo Donald is SUCH a lazy conman that the new U.S. Space Force – which was “founded” in December 2019 – is actually a renamed version of the Air Force Space Command founded in 1982 by Iran-Contra traitor Ronald Reagan. So the baseline premise of this show – everyone running around like headless chooks in a “new” department – is bullshit. All the personnel should simply be doing the same non-sequitur jobs they’ve been doing since Reagan gutlessly designated an armed forces branch for “space warfare.” In essence, Dumbo just RENAMED as existing department – just so it could be called “his” creation. It’s the same thing he’s done with the U.S-Mexico border wall. It’s already there, but Dumbo wants to pretend like HE built it, so repeats the lie enough times until it’s truth to 36% of dumbo Americans.)

Naird is fashioned on Michael Scott from the American unfunny version of THE OFFICE. He’s an ignorant blowhard that denigrates intelligence and thinks he’s the smartest person in the room even though he is totally unqualified to do his job. Sound familiar?

Steve Carell is trying way too hard to Be Funny. Shouting, making faces, forcibly trying to squeeze gags from a script where no gags can be squeezed, choking past the point of constipation to deliver deliver deliver on a script that gives him nothing to deliver. Though they keep his character boneheaded for the most part, there are small lapses where they afford him lucidity and the occasional ‘Murrican speech. Because let’s face it, to create a character as starkly ignorant and evil and un-American as the actual Dumbo Donald wouldn’t hold many fans (except that calcified 36% of asshats who support him, through pussy-grabbing to murder).

Steve Carell ponders whether any man needs this many phallic symbols.

Lisa Kudrow is Naird’s wife; she seems dissatisfied in their marriage – unless that’s her usual inadequate acting performance – and halfway through the episode she is suddenly being visited in prison by Naird. Couldn’t be bothered to find out why (too painful after watching three drab episodes and clicking through a few others to verify the whole enterprise is unpalatable).

Malkovich’s casting is trying to draw in people like myself, who will put eyes on this maniac no matter what dung he’s stepped in. Grand performance. Wrong dung.

Anne Hathaway lookalike, Diana Silvers (the new It Girl since MA, 2019), is Naird’s smug trope Millennial daughter.

Lackluster productions like these always make me sorry for the people who DO pull good performances: Two standouts are Jimmy O. Yang as Dr. Chan and Tawny Newsome as pilot Angela Ali (although by Episode 7, the writers turn her into a shrike for awhile, to bud a romance between her and Chan).

Carter Burwell (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) composes, far below his abilities. Most Burwell-scored movies, I pick up on his evocative style and recognize his rapturous intangibility before I’ve seen the credits. But this music, it’s not cinematic or soul-stirring in the least. I noticed nothing. We all want to work on projects we believe in, but sometimes, we just need the work.

The first outro title card: “In Memory of Fred Willard.” Coincidentally, Willard was in a low-budget comedy called SPACE FORCE in 1978. From low budget to lowbrow, Willard cameos as Naird’s dad in three episodes (Eps 1, 2 and 7) and injects some actual laughs into the dire proceedings. His hands badly shaking, his mind still a comedy funhouse, it’s tragic that his swansong had to be this excrement.

Satire has to stretch farther than the reality it is satirizing, but when your TV show cannot come within morbidly obese distance of the pointlessness, ignorance and non-sequitur idiocy of the real life Dumbo Donald administration, your satire has failed. The confusion and disorganization exhibited by Naird’s Space Force team is nowhere near the confusion and disorganization exhibited by the real life white house, who couldn’t even find the light switches when they took over the joint. When a fictional TV show cannot match the stratospheric levels of dumbass, felony and treason of the reality, it reveals what a hot mess the actual 2020 american government truly is. And that just makes us madder.

Maybe 10 years ago, SPACE FORCE might have been able to make these jokes (if some less malicious idiot had blurted it at a press conference – cough – W) but in the idiocracy of today, it’s a terrifying documentary.

The close-minded, incurious, ignorant Naird, risen to the rank of 4-star general through brown-nosing the administration, wants to launch their first satellite against all his technicians’ advice; he personifies the piece of dogshit they are lampooning by NEVER LISTENING TO SCIENTISTS and making decisions NEVER based on empirical evidence, but on benefitting his political position – and we are meant to find him funny when there is a sitting U.S. president who fires federal scientists who do not promulgate his sociopathic ramblings as truth?

Noah Emmerich is General Kick Grabaston. Is that really funny when the grab-ass president of the United States has sexually molested over 49 women and is not in jail for one of those rapes and assaults?

Ben Schwartz is the Space Force publicist, who tells Naird, “I never get involved in whether people are telling the truth or lying. I mean, those words carry very little meaning to me.” Again, is that really a joke when the real life president is telling the citizens of his country, who are waiting to hear factual methods on how to stay alive during a pandemic, to inject disinfectant to cure a virus?

The nods to the Dumbo Donald admin are constant, as in Episode 7, when entrepreneur Edison Jaymes (Kaitlyn Olson) sells Space Force her “Skinny Fuel” which is supposedly more efficient than regular rocket fuel, yet she won’t reveal the science behind it. How does she sell it? She sycophants herself to Naird to get on his good side, and he blindly buys the fuel and loads his rocket with it – because she praised him. (Sound familiar?) Here’s the clincher: Naird discovers that it will blow up his rocket (meaning: egg on his face – for being scammed with the fuel and his rocket blowing up), so surreptitiously replaces the Skinny Fuel with regular fuel. The launch is a success, and Naird whispers to Edison the switch was made “off the books.” Which means for all intents and purposes, her fuel worked. When in fact, it is dangerous and could get people killed. This means she will tout this launch on her resume to other buyers as evidence that her fuel is safe. This convoluted matrix of harm is not just in this fiction – it is out here in the world.

Because America.

In a world where the dumbo president lies to reporters that he is taking hydroxychloroquine – a malaria drug – to cure a virus that he doesn’t have, then tells reporters a week later that his regimen of taking it is over, because he doesn’t want to continue the lie – this is the world in which this scam rocket fuel episode is being aired. You really find this funny, Steve?

This is not smart satire. This is just dumb enough that Dumbo Donald and his cronies and supporters will use it as evidence that scientists are full of shit, and that going with your gut is RIGHT. We can’t place the blame anywhere except at the feet of Carell and Daniels as writers, producers and star.

Carell and Daniels are not even writing jokes by Episode 2, just transcribing actual dialogue from meetings that NASA and other space agencies must have had with Dumbo Donald. When China sabotages the launched satellite, amongst Mallory’s team of scientists gathered to brainstorm solutions, there’s Naird shouting out imbecilic fantasies in his unmitigated ignorance and insisting his baby ideas be taken seriously over the technical solutions of the scientists. Naird is actually asked by Mallory: “Why do you distrust scientists?” After his word-salad answer, someone points out his discrepancies, and he simply snouts them down – “SHUT UP!” Funny? No. Reality? Yes.

The final scene of Episode 2 at last skews the character away from the orange sphincter, as Naird, who has been awake 24 hours, goes home to find his daughter struggling with trig homework and stays up to help her, against her pleas that he get some rest. That helping hand is something Dumbo Donald would never offer—hang on! Naird’s daughter is in her late teens, slim and hot, so in the spirit of Dumbo Donald, Naird is actually cultivating that daughter’s panties—

To everyone who just groaned (Awww, that’s gone too far!) *I* am simply reporting what Dumbo Donald ACTUALLY DOES. *I* wasn’t the pervert who said “I would date my daughter if she wasn’t my daughter.” Who said that again? I wasn’t the pedophile who held my daughter in a photo when she was 15 like I was embracing a concubine. I wasn’t the lecher who touched my daughter’s hips in public like I’m used to touching them as I take her roughly from behind. Which adulterous, incestuous, unindicted co-conspirator to obstruction of justice did all those things again?

The ten Season 1 episodes of SPACE FORCE are Low Earth Orbit drudgery. If Dumbo wins a second term, this show will unfortunately be picked up for further Seasons, as the filmmakers think they are sending a positive message about the negativity of the Dumbo administration. All we can hope for is that the elections are fixed for the Other Guy this time round, and that any further SPACE FORCE plans will burn up on the launch pad.

END

When watching your very first porno, no one will blame you for jizzing in your pants.

Less Sinister than before…

With no stars to speak of, a vanilla leading man and a leaden story, SINISTER 2, the unfocused sequel to 2012’s SINISTER (starring Ethan Hawke) relies on jumpscares and morbid deaths to register any heartbeat at all.

The Deputy from SINISTER (mourning-faced James Ransone) is traveling the United States, burning down the houses where the supernatural Bughuul possessed kids to commit atrocities on their families. At one house, he finds mother Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon) and her two sons, squatting, in hiding from her abusive husband.

The two boys are regularly visited by ghosts of dead children (led by Lucas Jade Zumann), who all murdered their families in creative ways and filmed the murders with 8mm shaky-cam (I’m still wondering who did their magnificent lean editing – maybe Bugoo?) They’re on a quest to entice young Dylan (Robert Daniel Sloan) to do the same – murder his family creatively and film it. But Dylan proves too strong-minded, and the enticement works instead on weak-minded brother Zach (Dartanian Sloan), who will definitely be wearing a MAGA hat the minute he’s old enough to vote for an imbecile.

Writers Scott Derrickson (who directed the first one) and C. Robert Cargill, with director Ciaran Foy, try to ground the movie in gravitas by having a priest poo-poo a confessor’s idea of exorcising evil, “You think you can sprinkle holy water and shout, ‘The power of Christ compels you’?” – But I don’t get where you’re coming from, Priest. Your whole ethos revolves around a fantasy from the get-go, so how is ANYTHING more silly than anything you believe right now?

Underneath the insipid, trope-laden ghost story – with many cameos by Bughuul – there’s a real horror – the story of a woman and her kids powerless against her abusive policeman husband. He’s got the cops on his side, so he can send out private dicks to tail her, turn up at her house illegally with squad cars to terrorize her and the kids, and then eventually physically drag them all back to his home to live with him, all with no lawful repercussions. Raping her is par for the course. The filmmakers didn’t count on this common real world predicament being much more compelling than the fantasy tale of a ghost who looks like The Crow forcing kids to kill families for him.

The face of a man that can’t recreate the face of a man.

The main reason SINISTER 2 fails is that the supposed leading man looks like Elias Koteas doing Concerned Face #9. James Ransone worked well as the B-character to Hawke’s leading man in the original movie, where he ran the gamut of Concerned Faces, from #1 all the way to the difficult #17, but how is he expected to carry the sequel by doing Officer Doofy from SCREAM 3?

When Doofy accidentally discovers Courtney and her kids living in the house he intends to torch, so begins a sallow, non-chemistry romance between them. When Courtney’s alpha-male husband (Lea Coco) comes a-calling to remand the boys into his custody, Doofy fends them off with legal mumbo-jumbo, in the cringiest scene of the movie – because he is a watery excuse for a knowledgeable, powerful protagonist. The only reason the husband backs down is because the script says so – Doofy doesn’t convey a shred of authority. Nonetheless, Courtney is fearful and asks him to stay the night on the couch. Now an invitation from any woman to stay the night – whether on the couch or in the guest house – usually means there is a slight chance she may flounce downstairs in a diaphanous gown – some peekaboo thigh, a nip-slip, and we’re off to the races… But with Doofy, we feel there is ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE this scenario might ever happe—

Wonder of wonders, here she comes in a diaphanous gown. They go out on the porch and get giggling drunk on half a bottle of beer, “innocently” touching thighs and arms, until – that kiss, lacking any passion, heat, lust, animal magnetism; like kissing your sister.

In all the ghost kids’ films, we see their families strung up in ways impossible for those slight kids to manage. When Zach eventually progresses his massacre, he starts to film his handiwork – Dylan, Courtney and Husband all tied to elevated crosses, bags over their heads… but how did he get his 350-pound father up on that cross?

In this finale, instead of burning all three of his family at once, he lights a fuse to his father’s cross first, who conveniently dies so that Courtney’s passionless sister-brother relationship with Doofy can blossom after the outro credits.

Doofy crashes into the clearing, like a leading man or something, and rescues Dylan and the cheap drunk.

When Bughuul makes a final cameo, slamming his head into frame like some kind of comedian, I laughed. I think that was the correct reaction.

END

Influencing every superhero movie ever made.

The Jedi of Japan.

Seven samurai against forty bandits. The bandits never stood a chance…

Ultimate majesty. Ultimate tragedy. How does one describe the greatest Akira Kurosawa film, one of the most touching, savage and layered stories about sacrifice, courage and redemption, released in 1954 and still standing as one of the greatest films of all time?

SEVEN SAMURAI. (Well, that was easier than I thought!)

In 16^th Century Japan, seven ronin (freelance Samurai, unattached to any royal house or clan) are recruited to defend a peasant village terrorized by bandits for their annual crop.

It is a strange thing viewing SEVEN SAMURAI through the lens of modernity, after being indoctrinated with Hollywood screenwriting rules, modern moviemaking techniques and, not least, John Sturges’s brilliant 1960 Western remake THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (western in genre, western in hemisphere). Though I’ve viewed SAMURAI innumerable times as an adult, I, like the rest of you round-eyes, was exposed to MAGNIFICENT SEVEN first, since childhood, so we are prone to compare the characters in SAMURAI to their analogs in MAGNIFICENT, rather than the other way round…

Takashi Shimura (who had released another film that year which also attained immortality – the original and best GOJIRA) is wise samurai leader Kambei, clearly the Yul of this magnificent seven. His McQueen here is a mashup of two warriors, Daisuke Kato as Shichiroji (a former right hand man) and Yoshio Inabe as Gorobei (recruited for his display of tactics); there is the Coburn knife-thrower (Seiji Miyaguchi as Kyuzo), and the down-on-his-luck Bronson chopping wood (Minoru Chiaki as Heihachi). The Horst novice who yearns to be on the team and is denied until his persistence wins out, is a mashup of young Katsushiro (Isao Kimura) and a veteran drifter named Kikuchiyo (the breathtaking Toshiro Mifune).

Influencing Iron Man.

Toshiro Mifune. His name is synonymous with the Way of the Samurai. This film would not be his first in wielding a katana, but it would rocket him to such fame as a cinema swordsman that it would become strange to see him grace a movie screen without that trusted samurai weapon. What an incredible, unique energy he brings to the role of Kikuchiyo! If it were not for Mifune, SAMURAI would be just another great film, not the towering work of art that it is. Mifune imbues the film with the imperfect humanity it requires; he is the everyman thrust onto a super-man pedestal; he brings all the left turns and laughs required to punctuate the spiraling tension, and surprises us with many gems of profundity. The other samurai stand tall, their superhuman auras glutting the screen, but as Kurosawa has noted, six sober samurai would have been boring, “they needed a character that was more off-the-wall.”

Truly the Brando of Japan, Mifune’s Kikuchiyo is a raw nerve: boundless joy, volcanic anger, quizzical neck scratches, perturbed expressions, gales of laughter; inserting himself into the troupe as they travel to the troubled village, unwanted at first by the solemn Kambei, his bombastic revelry eventually winning over the six. After seeing Mifune in later majestic roles, his fierce mien that of a hunting hawk, we forget how insanely funny he makes Kikuchiyo – he’s the class clown, the goofball, with his very own comical bassoon theme, keeping the villagers laughing around him – until he needs to be the iron man.

Many films make the claim, “greatest of all time,” but how many can boast Toshiro Mifune’s glistening man-butt? Kikuchiyo infiltrates the bandits’ lair and steals an armor breastplate, and spends the rest of the movie wearing only that torso armor and a slim breechclout (like a sumo wrestler’s), so if the camera isn’t angled to see that thin material going right up his butt crack, he’s basically naked for Shinto.

There’s that one movie in an actor’s repertoire that rocks you backward and makes you wonder how you never discovered him earlier; makes you want to watch everything he’s ever done. That’s SEVEN SAMURAI for me, with Toshiro. For this ferocious performance, we discover Mifune studied lions in the wild to inform Kikuchiyo. (Is that why he spent so much time not wearing pants?)

After Kyuzo returns from a stealth mission, youngest recruit Katsushiro stands before him enamored, eyes aglow with awe and respect for Kyozo’s skill, effusing, “I think you are… very great!” In this hyperbolic world, these subtitles read as less than salutary, but Katsushiro’s manner tells us he is giving Kyuzo the highest of accolades, while unable to contain himself nor properly express how formidably this hero moves him.

That’s me with Toshiro.

Influencing Gangnam Style.

The samurai accept the job of defending the village, for nothing but meals and beds. They teach the villagers self-defense, they build new walls, trenches, traps for the bandits… Why? Why did they do this for nothing? Was it honor? Was it altruism? Was it desperation? The world has turned so far since those long-ago times and since those majestic Men, and we wonder whether writer-director Kurosawa and his co-writers (Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni) were trying to capture more nuanced reasons than the simple altruistic avenger story SAMURAI seems on its surface.

Of course they were.

When Kikuchiyo discovers samurai armor hidden by the villagers, it sets off a cataclysm of doubt and betrayal and duplicity – we discover that in that 16^th century dark age, ronin were not as respected as history makes them out to be; Kikuchiyo rages how the farmers pretended innocence, yet had encountered samurai before – and had obviously killed many and kept their blades and armor! What makes Kikuchiyo even madder is that the samurai were responsible for the wars that destroyed the farmers’ livelihoods – and he froths at the mouth that the samurai deserved to be murdered (viewers say “Whaaa–?”). Wise Kambei recognizes immediately, “You were a farmer’s son…”

Kikuchiyo loathed his farmer’s life so thoroughly that he carried around a scroll that supposedly proved he was of a royal bloodline. Of course, the other samurai can see through this ruse – but soon Kikuchiyo proves that his blood doesn’t have to be royal to be noble: he screams how he hates the villagers (“Damn these fools!”), screams as a family and their child stays behind in their home outside the protective boundary – and then rushes headlong without hesitation into their burning home to save them when the bandits attack.

Influencing rap battles.

Filmed in black and white, SAMURAI is a technical masterpiece (Kurosawa pioneered filmic techniques, multi-camera shooting, efficient editing), an artistic milestone (the tragic hero’s journey encapsulated in a battle for a village), a runaway financial success (Japan’s highest-grossing movie), and a cultural juggernaut (its impact in films is felt to this day, as innumerable storytelling tropes were popularized with this film and copycatted through the decades, the most popular trope being the assemblage of a team of experts; if LETHAL WEAPON and DIE HARD influenced 80’s action movie trends, SAMURAI influenced ALL action movie trends; even someone as culturally influential as George Lucas has cited the movie as part-inspiration for STAR WARS – now you see where he got the idea for his ascetic swordsmen).

Accept no substitutes: view the full 203-minute version with Japanese dialogue and subtitles. As always, dubbed versions are not just laughable but idiotic, and make all of us Movie Maniacs who tout this movie’s brilliance seem like buttheads for recommending it.

If there is anything to criticize in SAMURAI, it might be the lack of character development for the villain. Whereas the samurai are painted as thoughtful, tactical, virtuous, humble, with a desire for balance, there’s only the barest motivation for the villain, a faceless leader who only appears twice with a few basic action lines. He’s a cardboard cutout. John Sturges would rectify this shortcoming in MAGNIFICENT SEVEN when Calvera (a saucy Eli Wallach – an actual star, adding heft to the role, therefore making the heroes look better) rationalizes why he must steal – to feed 40 men, horses, ammunition, winter…

Influencing Hammer pants.

The bandits here are faceless attackers; the study is on the farmers and samurai who beat them back. Until the bandits use their new-fangled weapon of mass destruction – a gun.

The battle scenes in SAMURAI are to die for – probably literally, as the villagers and bandits clash in frenetic, seemingly un-choreographed havoc. I love the way the samurai run into battle: that straight, flat run, where they don’t bounce up and down or flap their arms, but come at you in a sturdy straight line like an arrow, while one hand rests on their sheathed katana, or – worst nightmare – wielding their unsheathed katana! That dead run looks so cool, so terrifying in its willfulness and fatal utility.

Kurosawa lamented he was forced to film in rain, but it lends a thrall of doom to the already breath-hammering action. In those days of practical effects, with all those people running around with katanas, bamboo spears and pitchforks, even though they were props, how many people actually got injured with all those long, pointy objects flailing about?

Young Katsushiro would discover the farmers were hiding away their women and children for fear of the samurai. His redemption would come in the form of female: Shino (Keiko Tsushima), a farmer’s daughter. He may have joined the samurai looking for glamour and excitement, but he would find his destiny lay along another lay—I mean, path.

For many of the samurai, their redemption IS to give their life, in the struggle to make the world a place that would not require their killing expertise.

Influencing that BRADY BUNCH episode, “Marcia Marcia Marcia.”

This is why tears will flow for SEVEN SAMURAI. Not because it’s one of the very first avenger films (long before men wore iron suits and threw vibranium shields) but because SAMURAI exemplifies the axiom, “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” and layers that truism with wrenching humanity.

Katsushiro, in renouncing the sword for sex, does not meet his end, for he is now a creator of life, not a taker of it. The older warriors, these mercenaries, were no doubt asked to perform deeds throughout their lives they were never proud of. Yet they lived day to day, piling regret upon regret in their violent lives. When Kambei tells his lieutenant Shichiroji, “In the end we lost this battle too. The victory belongs to the farmers, not to us,” he knows that even after this win, he is still cursed to wander the Earth, rootless, loveless, a hired killer. In a sense, it is a lament that he too did not die a noble death alongside his compatriots, defending something purer than his own stained soul.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the circle is now complete.

END

Gettin’ the bland back together.

Damage Control while Digging a Hole.

The older we get, the farther away from STAR WARS we feel. Use the Force and go in young. And you’ll be fine.

In the dark, a blue title card on black background: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” Then – fanfare! Stirring our deep innocence memory banks. That John Williams opening theme will still send shivers up your spine, and transport you to a place that cannot be stolen.

To cut through the breakneck, dense storytelling, STAR WARS: EPISODE IX – THE RISE OF SKYWALKER brings back the old gang from EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS – Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), and BB-8 (Bowling Ball Eight) – and hurls them together into a single mission, rather than five scattered missions that saw our gerreras. The Millennium Falcon is their ride, as Rey, Finn and Poe hyperspace jump through one Friend Zone after another to collect McGuffin after McGuffin, eventually leading them to a final showdown on the Sith planet Exegol, their rogue resistance rebels taking on countless star destroyers led by… Emperor Palpatine! [lightning, organ chords, fluffy toys running]

Ian McDiarmid gives Dr. Smith a run for his fruitiness in reprising the bi-curious role of Palpatine (yes, that villain whom Darth Vader killed in RETURN OF THE JEDI to complete his redemption arc, now rendered moot), with so much deadman makeup, it’s a safe bet he might actually be dead and the filmmakers went Moff Tarkin on his Last Known Photo.

Carrie Fisher, having died (1956-2016), reprises her role as General Leia. Or should I say, was forced into some cynical, inhumane contractual bind to allow archive footage of herself to be exploited by the Satanic Disney Corporation for avarice whilst pretending respect. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) has fixed his duck mask with red duck tape, as a show of aquatic solidarity with the duck side (or to show that his evil resolve has “cracks” in its armor? How saucy!), and he’s still mind-skyping Rey and twisting her Jakkusian knickers into knots. His grand plan is to kill the apparently unkillable Palpatine, and rule the galaxy with Rey’s knickers on his face, “We’ll kill him together and take the throne!”

As BB-8 was the Cousin Oliver who held up R2-D2’s fading cuteness, now BB-8 has been Cousin Olivered! How quickly influencers and internets grow bored! A tiny one-wheeled droid is the new cuteness, named Ronnie James Dio.

Babu Frik performing a head job.

In an ever-spiraling vortex of Cousin Olivers, and as a middle finger to THE MANDALORIAN’s Baby Yoda, comes Babu Merch—I mean, Babu Frik (a practical-efx puppet voiced by Shirley Henderson), soldering wires, speaking pidgin and making C-3PO his bitch.

Kelly Marie Tran was last seen updating her résumé and crossing off J.J. Abrams as a reference.

RISE OF SKYWALKER is riddled with the same mistakes, plot holes and inexplicable magic of every STAR WARS movie, from the first (that’s EPISODE IV to you youngbloods) to all the Originals, Prequels and Sequels. It’s still a fun ride, though, depending on how young you can Force yourself… There are gaps in storytelling that rely on comics and other media to retcon into canon, contradictions in Force powers, insufferable plot armor (for example, everyone gets to die at least once, and only three of them stay dead – one because she really died); the same physics stupidities still abound – spacecraft operate in both outer space and atmosphere, and maneuver exactly the same way in either medium; and stormtroopers still can’t aim. But they can fly now. Still can’t aim.

Director/co-writer J.J. Abrams (with writers Chris Terrio, Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow) works damage control on director Rian Johnson’s dangling disliked threads from EPISODE VIII – THE LAST JEDI, while digging his own hole of new conundrums. As an example, he follows through on the massive sexy power upgrades of Rey (scissoring her legs to cut Kylo’s wing off – Emasculation Metaphor Alert! – or gesturing to hold back a stormtrooper ship from taking off; I was so wet, my panties were sliding down my leg), but then Abrams gives Rey a new Force power – the power to heal. We realize later it will add heft to the tragic climax, but it’s as jarring as Liam Neeson saying “midi-chlorians” in a ponytail with a straight face.

The Death Star that killed the dinosaurs.

Throughout this visually breathtaking production, Abrams walks a tightrope of good storytelling and bad ideas: There is a One-Line Plothole Fix about “cloning” pertaining to Palpatine’s reappearance (but nobody’s buying it!), and although I see the sense in plundering this most heinous of villains from the OT for impact, Abrams only did it because the Big Bad showgirl he was grooming in AWAKENS, Snoke, was killed off unceremoniously by Johnson. Johnson also turned Abrams’s charismatic Hitlerian dictator from AWAKENS, General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), into a Dumbo Donald in JEDI, whom Abrams can’t quite write back into relevance. And wasn’t Kylo Ren also being groomed as a Big Bad in AWAKENS? Kylo is redeemed here in a poignant, bittersweet erection, but his arc would have achieved much more emotion had his Duck Side not been diluted by Palp’s pallid presence.

– – – – – S P O I L E R S – – – – –

Another good story/bad execution dichotomy – it’s something we never noticed as kids, but notice the lack of as adults: though it’s commendable J.J. reunites the main characters in the A-story, there is a noticeable lack of mature adult interaction between them. Everyone is a Just Friend! In the OT, George Lucas and his writers created a sexual tension love-triangle between Luke, C-3PO and R2-D2 (you thought I was gonna say, Luke, Leia and Han, didn’t you? Well, there was that as well…). Because for breeding-age adults, that’s all we think about. Because that’s all we are – gene-carriers/gene-spreaders for the planetary ecosystem. It’s why, in most action movies, when a man and woman run from danger together, it leads to sex. Because with their lives at stake, there is a subconscious fear that their genes won’t have the opportunity to spread. So – sex. For the planet.

So when RISE gives us male-female running-from-danger interactions left and right (Finn alongside a female ex-stormtrooper (Naomi Ackie), and Poe alongside a come-hither-eyed fellow female rogue (Keri Russell); not to mention the mad sexual tension electrifying Rey and Finn on their libido-laden runs), the filmmakers miss every opportunity to turn these one-dimensional action figures into real people by actually pairing them up as adult sexual beings.

For everyone racking their brains trying to find reasons why this movie fails to connect with them, I submit this overarching neglect as a major cause of the characters feeling vapid and non-relatable.

Finn simply deserts the trooperchick after they support each other in battle like spooning lovers (leaves her with a decrepit Billy Dee Williams, reprising his role as Creepy Lando, who looks like he’s going to Cosby her). Poe asks his rogue, “Can I kiss you?” She says No – and he backs away from that hotness like a whipped MeToo bitch with no Plan B. And every hug between Rey, Finn and Poe is Hips Apart For Jesus. How can viewers see “homosexual undertones” between Finn and Poe when no one is exhibiting any sexuality at all?

Rey and Kylo have been blue-balling it for three movies now (so we figure Rey has avoided touching tips with Finn to save it for her Sith boo), but as soon as Kylo gets to first base – he dies. We can’t have that erection poking into the Woman Empowerment. No Man Required to complete this Mary Sue! You go, Progressive Disney!

Remember in AWAKENS during one of Rey’s and Finn’s later hugs, when she held him tight with her eyes closed, melting into his arms, and the whisper of a smile crossed her face? At that point I thought, “Ah, she feels his groin awaken against her,” presuming the filmmakers were giving us subtle foreshadowing of the black-on-white Bantha-style to come… But here, at the end of the saga, with no one’s body defiled, we have to presume that what we thought was Rey’s little knowing smile was actually gas from the Mandalorian burrito she had earlier.

Just like a real couple: always fighting, always wet.

For a movie constantly gabbing about “family,” there is not one well-adjusted heterosexual couple in all of its star systems, yet Disney can’t stop patting itself on the back for apparently showing two lesbians kissing. I say ‘apparently’ because if I didn’t hear about it in the media storm of self-back-patting, I would never have known this scene existed – because I never saw it! And I was looking for it! It’s not even a “scene” – merely two extras somewhere amongst the mise en scene of a forest celebration, over in a corner somewhere, obviously still in the closet for all their secrecy. Are they even human females? If it was two female Gungalamabams, would Singapore, Dubai and Asia still ban this pointless, mundane, vanilla visual?

Poe’s female rogue actually asked him to accompany her when she fled her planet. He declined, to go fight the star wars. After the war, he motions her over, and she declines. Why did you ask him to join you in the first place? So you can Friend Zone him across the galaxy, you frigid cow? Poe shoulda bent that cock-tease over and given it to her so hard that many Bothans died.

Finn, who thinks he’s going to his death in sinking sands, shouts urgently to Rey that he “has to tell her something.” We all speculate it’s that he loves her. Because that’s how a man would be affected by that perfect-featured sweaty warrior goddess. Finn never does tell. And we never find out. Though it doesn’t matter if he craved her like the cream pie she is, Disney doesn’t do interracial couples. But they want us to know they are all onboard with the lezzos.

Remember when “fan service” was called storytelling? Every time something familiar pops up in this ninth STAR WARS entry, the sophisticates label it “fan service” and cross their arms in fear that they might enjoy themselves. But use that muscle memory from the opening theme, go back to that unstolen place, and be happy the storytellers are presenting you with something familiar from your youth, before you were broken inside.

You know what I’d love to see? Harrison Ford. Done. [Raspberries from the peanut gallery: “Fan service!!” So let me get this straight: you DON’T want to see Harrison Ford?] In the most touching scene of the movie, Ford (who hates STAR WARS more than you fans do) reprises his Solo (mayhaps to show a certain origin movie how it’s done?): “Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive.” (My eyes. They quiver so…)

You know what else you all want to see? Luke (Mark Hamill) as a Force ghost. You want to see him effortlessly raise his X-wing from the tempest, coming full circle from the boy who “didn’t believe it” on Dagobah. You all want to see R2-D2 bloop his bloink. You all want C-3P0 to live, even with Babu brain damage. You want to see Lando and Chewbacca at the helm of the Falcon, like old times. You all want someone to say, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” And yes, you even want Ewoks. And you all want to see those smooth-breasted cliff-cows on Ahch-To [bless you!] and fondle those rounded udders and nuzzle your face on them as you gently bite the—- okay, maybe that’s just me.

Answering the question: What happens when you put your willy in an electrical socket?

Palp, who claims all the Sith are in him, wants to kill Rey for fighting on the Light Side, or recruit Rey for being a princess of the Dark Side. His revelation that she is his granddaughter is not as horrific as imagining him gettin’ jiggy with some Balthusian nerf herder from the Dagobah system. (My eyes! I can’t unsee this!—) He warns Rey that even if she kills him, all his evil Sith energy will flow into her, making her transsexual. So he’s trying to kill her so that all her power will flow into him, keeping him gender fluid. The Force ghosts come out in force to ear-bang Rey with one-liners – Obiwan, Anakin, Yoda, a host of B-listers from the SW comics and cartoons, and even Qui-Gon!! (Sure, you all want to see everyone’s Force ghost, but paychecks and Force ghosts don’t mix well.) And Rey reminds Palp that though she is from a dark bloodline, all the Jedi are in her [dirty comment deleted], and blows Palpatine gloriously [innuendo achieved], with no repercussions of becoming evil, because logic mixed with Dark Side = magic who cares fuck you.

With no legacy players left to call family (Han died in VII, Luke died in VIII, Leia dies in IX, Lando has a heart attack trying to rufie his 23-year-old date), Rey returns to Uncle Owen’s and Aunt Beru’s moisture farm (ironically, a desert hole completely devoid of moisture, probably because Luke kept going into Toshi Station to pick up those power converters instead of actually doing his chores), and takes up the mantle of The Last Skywalker (because you can do that in a galaxy that has faster-than-light travel but not one shred of identification protocol).

This sprawling, gargantuan tale ends as it began all those decades ago, with an extremely pretty Skywalker gazing into a binary sunset, as the orchestra swell brings one last tear to our eyes… for a farmboy from our lost youth, for a life spent hating what we should have loved, for the new warriors we take away as Just Friends, for a lost girl who forges her own redemption in this final nail, and for the inoperable cornea damage of staring directly into two frickin’ suns.

END

The effects are so realistic, it’s uncanny!

Shark Fin Stupe.

THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT’S ABOUT TIME is about the first sharknado, and how Fin the shark hunter travels back to prehistoric times to stop it, thereby negating all further sharknadoes and saving the planet from having to witness the bombastic mindlessness of any SHARKNADO movies.

He fails. Because obviously this is the sixth SHARKNADO shit sandwich. And whether it’s the first or last, it’s about time they stopped cheapening the human species with SHARKNADO releases, and put a bullet through the head of this exploitative, intelligence-depleting franchise.

Ian Ziering continues the burial of his film career by starring once again as Fin, who jumps across time to fight sharknadoes, while pursuing his lost son Gil through wormholes. I find it precious how Ziering tries to pull out an “acting” performance amongst this stable of rank amateurs, gimps, douches and bushpigs.

Somehow, through unbelievably lazy screenwriting, all Fin’s asinine ‘nado buddies are in the Mesozoic too, while feckless CGI dinosauria stumble around them – Nova (Cassandra Scerbo, so vapid I forgot to look at her tits), Bryan (Judah Friedlander, who can’t out-act the dogshit in his beard) and Fin’s lost wife April (Tara Reid, still undeniably untalented). Bryan explains that the first sharknado caused the others “like a game of dominoes.” Which totally explains nothing.

Tara Reid surprises us by sinking her credibility LOWER than zero, reprising her vacuous role as wife/mother/cyborg/non-actor April. After her cutie-pie turn in AMERICAN PIE (1999), she could have become another America’s Sweetheart, but these days her acting is like a caveman’s idea of what “acting” is. Truly a sight to behold, she is such an expressionless, talentless moron, it’s amazing she knows to keep her hand off the stove.

So Fin’s gang of stupes succeed in stopping that first prehistoric sharknado… Then they continue to jump forward through time to stop other sharknadoes. But didn’t Bryan just say that stopping the first one will stop ALL of them? If you’re looking for logic, you came to the exact opposite place.

Directing – pathetic. Editing – atrocious. Effects – horseshit. It is NOTICEABLY lousy. In each scene, if there is more than one cutaway, we lose all sense of where objects are situated in that scene: they are shooting fireballs into a sharknado way over there, then Fin dives off the Pteranodon he is riding with his gang, and lands – on a shark – one of those sharks that is way over there in that sharknado they are shooting fireballs into. The gang shouts DOWN to him on the shark, then two minutes later, Fin is jumping off the shark DOWNWARDS to land on the Pteranodon again. I mean – what the–? Rookies with cellphones would do a better job than director Anthony C. Ferrante.

Can Tara Reid’s clones be even more expressionless than the real Tara Reid?
Answer: No.

I’m not one of those people fooled into the groupthink that “it’s so bad it’s good.” SHARKNADO 6 – like all its entries – is a joyless, cynical exercise in how far into unwatchable un-quality something can be driven before the mongoons stop buying it.

Desperate to attach itself to anything of quality, there are numerous references to BACK TO THE FUTURE. Doesn’t help. Just annoys.

Scotty Mullen screenplays as an 8-year-old child would write an adventure story, making rules up as he goes along about time travel, history, characters, eventually resolving in a sharknado-free world where so many of the writer’s own rules were broken to get to that point, he might as well have dispensed with all the painful explanatory dialogue and squeezed in 20 more downward-spiraling-career cameos.

Dee Snider is a sheriff, his frosty locks on full stun. He tells Fin, “I think I know who’s twisted, mister!” and “I’m not gonna take this anymore!” I am in such pain. Darrell Hammond does his Clinton impersonation as George Washington. The great James Hong makes an asshat of himself. Vivica A. Fox appears as a fat version of herself– no wait, uh, that’s just herself. And Neil deGrasse Tyson is Merlin – !?!… no… NO!…. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Fuck you, Sharknado!

To balance the insidious demolition of talented personalities, there are also those people who are a waste of space on planet Earth – Kato Kaelin, La Toya Jackson, Marina Sirtis, Ben Stein, Tori Spelling, all mixed in a big jumbled scrotum of cameos.

So come one, come all, you morons who made the 2013 film debacle SHARKNADO a success; come, all you lowbrow, oleaginous imbeciles who derogate learning and elevate ignorance to the point that America is led by a congenital idiot; come, all you preachers of dogshit and low information voters and low-bar dung-eaters who don’t know or care about quality in this life or in your work, who tear down people of learning and give Flat-Earthers and Moon-Fakers and Astrologers and Psychics equal time. This LAST SHARKNADO is for all of YOU.

Oh, and fuck the human race.

END

Possessed by Mediocrity.

After inheriting a rambling old country house from their grandpa, Josh (Tony Spitz) and sister Erin (Aurora Heimbach) invite a gaggle of their Millennial friends over for a par-tayyy. Grandpa “died in the lake; his body was never found…” And if you think that will yield further plot, you haven’t seen one of these barely-written modern kid-possession movies.

Instead, the kids have a séance, someone gets possessed, and it’s got nothing to do with Grandpa, who remains forgotten at the bottom of the lake.

SOUL TO KEEP inundates us with so many annoying college-age kids that I don’t know who I’m wishing would die first. Maybe that guy who looks like a Fogel. Remember Fogel, the nerd from SUPERBAD? This is that guy in real life. His real name is Craig Fogel. And he’s a virgin dork. And in this movie he’s playing a virgin dork.

This guy’s real-life name is Fogel. The curse is real.

The coolest aspect of this movie is how the whole clique offhandedly uses sign-language when they are speaking in a group, because Erin is deaf. It’s performed very confidently, and adds a poignant undercurrent to these character tropes that are usually portrayed as selfish and hubristic. I can’t comment on how authentic the signing is, but it must have taken some time for all the actors to incorporate it into their dialogue, and it’s a commendable dynamic to an otherwise lazy movie.

In the basement, the kids discover a 6-foot wide triangle of blood smeared on the floor, comprised of fresh bloody hearts at regular intervals. No reaction at all to the fresh hearts in the basement of this newly-inherited house. Did I miss something growing up in the cucumber patch, where it’s normal to find fresh hearts in the basement of vacated American farm homes?

Grace (Kate Rose Reynolds, the only busty redhead worth noticing) proclaims that because she’s a wiccan – for non-hipsters, that means witch – only she can read the grimoire (conveniently located near the triangle) and summon Beelzebub. Well, what is the plot waiting for?! The realism of course. The kids all have to poo poo the whole bit to place us in the sophisticated 21st century. Then they do it anyway.

They have to choose a vessel for the demon, so the witch’s boyfriend Brandon the Jock (Jordan Theodore, who looks like Flea from the Chili Peppers) sits in the triangle awaiting possession with eyes tightly shut. Nothing happens.

Co-written and co-directed by David Allensworth, SOUL TO KEEP may be a rehash of every Millennial killing spree movie, however it does have its tiny interesting elements, such as the possession of Grace instead of Flea, the way the demon experiences sex in human form as if it’s a new experience, and the fact that leader Josh reminds us of Gale Harold from QUEER AS FOLK.

Does making the devil sign count when you ARE the devil?

Soon after the failed séance, Grace sees a devilish entity before her that whooshes into her body. Surprise! She fucks Flea, fucks Fogel, then jacks off, then eats gluttonously, drinks until she pukes, then possesses Fogel. It’s a cool sequence that illustrates the demon experiencing its human form. And it loves The Sex!

Then it tries to kill everyone, even Jesus. Oh, did I mention that Toby (Derek Long) looks like Jesus… Well, Beelzebub’s here, so… was that intentional? Again, like Grandpa, Toby’s resemblance to the lamb of god holds zero import to the plot.

A sudden subplot of lesbian love, a badly-edited OCEAN’S ELEVEN flashback montage of how the plain brunette set up all this murder so she could be with her girlfriend—Wait, she planned a demonic possession as part of the setup??– We don’t really care whether it makes sense or not! Let’s see summa that lesbian love in action! No luck.

Some scares are handled well, while some pointless jumpscares are for the sake of pointless jumpscares; questionable acting choices, dumb plot holes, and of course – magic who cares fuck you – but on the whole, a workable thriller, especially for the young-uns who have not seen better yet.

In the end, they bury one of the girls on the property, “No one needs to know what happened here.” I guess no one will ask about her whereabouts then – no police, friends, family or job?

They all walk away slowly in sad mourning… Didn’t they arrive in two cars?

Maybe Grandpa drove the cars into the lake?

END