Key Largo (1948)

Frank McCloud (Humprey Bogart) is on a bus to the Florida Keys.  The bus is stopped by the police, who announce they are looking for a pair of Seminole Indians who escaped from jail.  Frank gets off the bus at Hotel Largo and asks for Mr. Temple.  The men who are there prove to be particularly unwelcoming and announce that the hotel is closed for the season.  Frank persists and is finally told that Mr. Temple is out on the pier.  Turns out that Frank was a Major in WWII and the commanding officer of George Temple.  James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) is George's father and Nora (Lauren Bacall) is his widow.  Frank tells stories about George during the Italian campaign where he died.  Then warnings of a hurricane arise.  The unwelcoming guests prove to be mobsters, led by the notorious Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson).  They had come in from Cuba by boat in order to do a deal with another mobster who was to come down from Miami; the hurricane has complicated matters.  Tension is high and emotions flare as the police are still looking for the escapees.

The story is great, the characters are well-developed and are giving opportunities to shine.  Rocco's goons are each unique and are all given lines.  These aren't nameless thugs like the men who surround a James Bond villain.  Robinson is in top form as the exiled mob boss.  He's a killer but he's also not stupid.  He plays his hand well, but fails to account for Frank McCloud.  Bogart gives a strong performance as a conflicted man.  Sure, Rocco's a bad man but this isn't his fight.  He had his fill in Italy.  Some view him as a coward for his reticence to fight Rocco.  The standout is clearly Claire Trevor, who won an Oscar for her role as Gaye Dawn, Rocco's girlfriend.  With Rocco having been in Cuba for some time, their reunion is not what she had hoped.

This is the last of the Bogie & Bacall movies and a definite must see for any fan.  Great popcorn fun and highly recommended.

The Long Riders (1980)

While robbing a bank, Ed Miller (Dennis Quaid) becomes anxious and shoots the bank teller.  In the gunfire that follows, Jesse James (James Keach) is wounded.  After the gang makes good their escape, Jesse ejects Ed from the gang.  Ed's brother, Clell (Randy Quaid), agrees with Jesse and rides away with the rest of the gang.  The James-Younger gang consists of Frank (Stacy Keach) & Jesse James, Cole (David Carradine), Jim (Keith Carradine), & Bob Younger (Robert Carradine), and Clell Miller.  After returning to their Missouri home, the Ford brothers, Charlie (Christopher Guest) and Robert (Nicholas Guest) try unsuccessfully to join the gang.  Despite their rough profession, the gang pursues a fairly ordinary life when not robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches.  While Jesse woos Zee (Savannah Smith Boucher), Cole has a long-standing arrangement with Belle Starr (Pamela Reed), whom he gladly calls a whore, which is why he likes her.  The Pinkertons' pursuit of the gang figures heavily and the fact that many Missourians preferred the James-Younger gang to the law explains how they often lived normal lives.

The movie pieces together some of the tales of the gang in an entertaining fashion.  The climactic battle in Northfield, Minnesota, is well done.  The famous gang met its match in a bunch of armed civilians.  Though the Northfield Robbery was in 1876, the story jumps to 1882 when Jesse has the Ford brothers over to discuss 'business.'  Of course, Bob Ford was more interested in the price on Jesse's head.

The big selling point of this version is that four sets of siblings were cast to portray these criminal families.  Though that is cool, it is beside the point.  In fact, it may have detracted from the film.  This is a good story and mostly well-acted.  The weakest parts are James Keach, who is surprisingly wooden, and David Carradine, who lacks range.  This is a problem because these are the two leading characters.

Good popcorn fun and recommended.

Cocaine Bear (2023)

It is 1985 and Andrew Thornton is tossing bags of cocaine from his plane as it flies over Georgia.  Once all the bags have gone out the door, he throws himself out.  In the morning, Thornton is found dead on a driveway, having failed to open his chute.  Meanwhile, in a nearby National Forest, a black bear is on a rampage after consuming cocaine.  Unaware of the murderous drug-fueled bear, Dee Dee and Henry - a pair of 8th graders - ditch school to hike into the woods.  Dee Dee's mother, Sari (Keri Russell) is soon trekking into the woods to retrieve them.  Syd (Ray Liotta) is the drug dealer responsible for the cocaine and there will be hell to pay from the Columbians if he doesn't recover the shipment.  As such, he sends Daveed (O'Shea Jackson) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) to retrieve it.  Bob (Isiah Whitlock), a police detective, also heads to the woods to investigate.  Added to the mix are Park Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale), Peter the Naturalist (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a trio of juvenile delinquents, a pair of medics responding in an ambulance, and a couple on a hike a few days before their wedding.

This is a horror comedy.  At times, it gets tremendously gruesome and graphic.  On the other hand, there are lots of big laughs.  Henry (Christian Convery) gets some great lines.  After watching a man get shredded by the cocaine bear, he comments that he wished he could forget it but suspects that is the sort of thing that stays with a man for the rest of his life.  Having encountered the bear, he climbed a tree.  When found by Peter the Naturalist, he assures the man that bears can't climb trees.  Peter disagrees, saying of course they can!  At which point, the bear starts climbing Henry's tree.

The music is great, having a bunch of hits from the period play in the background.  Many of them have the drug culture as a theme.  The characters are all worthwhile and nicely developed.  The pacing is excellent, the action is terrific, and the bear is awesome.  Elizabeth Banks has knocked this one out of the park.

Very entertaining and highly recommended.  Great popcorn fun!

The Return of Bowdler

In 1807, Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) published The Family Shakespeare.  This was an edited version of Shakespeare's works that removed materials thought to be unsuitable for children.  For example, in Hamlet, Ophelia's suicide is instead painted as an accidental drowning and "Heavens!" is substituted where the original had used "God!"  It is a kinder and gentler Shakespeare.  This type of revision came to be called by his name: Bowdlerize.

Today, the works of Roald Dahl are being rewritten to make them more suitable to children of today.  The word 'fat' must be removed lest someone get shamed.  The word 'ugly' has to go as well.  And let's not even get started on "crazy."  Certainly, we can rewrite it, make it better than it was before.  His old-fashioned and politically-incorrect prose can be updated to the woke standards of today.  You'll hardly even notice.  Winston Smith is hard at work in the Ministry of Literature, revamping the inappropriate compositions of yesteryear into a modern masterpiece.

This zeal for changing the past has been gaining speed.  At first, it was a fad in the entertainment industry to revive popular TV shows and movies, only to undermine them.  In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker was now a pathetic looser and the purple-haired shrew is a great heroine.  In Enola Holmes, young Enola proves to be smarter than her brother, Sherlock.  In the new incarnations of Star Trek, James Kirk is a blundering oaf and Spock is a beta male to his girlfriend, Uhura.  In the TV versions of Star Trek, it turns out that Spock had a smarter and more capable sister, Michael Burnham.  Scooby Doo is absent from the revival that is titled Velma; in this version, Velma is Indian (i.e., ancestors from India), Shaggy is black, Daphne is half-Asian, and Fred is a pathetic straight white male.  In Masters of the Universe, He-Man is killed right out the gate.  Gee, that's like killing off James Bond in a Bond film.  Oh, yeah, that happened too.  In England, movies and TV are colonizing the past to make it more acceptable to modern audiences.  Winston Churchill was portrayed as black on stage.  In Mary Queen of Scots, there were black soldiers and black nobles throughout England and Scotland in the 14th century.  Anne Boleyn was a black woman.  The most recent Great Expectations is multicultural though still set in 19th century.  Kenneth Branaugh's two appearances as Hercule Poirot have changed the racial makeup and attitudes of the 1930s.  The latest version of Doctor Who, we discover that the real first doctor was not William Hartnell, but a black woman.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is here.  The past is being rewritten, just not in quite the way George Orwell predicted.

Crossplot (1969)

The movie opens with a couple, Sebastian and Marla (Claudie Lange) on a bridge in London.  A car arrives and deposits two men at one end of the bridge and then continues to the other end where two more men exit.  Sebastian starts to panic.  Luckily, a jeep full of hippies drives across the bridge and Marla climbs aboard, taking the newspaper that Sebastian was carrying.  Sebastian is caught by the four men and tossed to his death over the bridge.

The following day, Gary Fenn (Roger Moore) is romancing a lovely blonde when his watch alarm buzzes.  He's late!  Quickly dressing, he dashes to his car - a sporty red convertible - and races across London.  He uses an electric razor as he goes.  Forced to duck behind cover lest his boss spot him arriving late, Gary smuggles himself into his office.  He has a presentation for a big client this morning.  Gary is an advertising executive.  The presentation goes well and Mr. Chilmore (Bernard Lee) just wants to see the model in a layout in the next 48 hours.  And this is where Gary's life goes awry.  He had selected the lovely blonde for the model but discovers that Marla Kogash's picture is in the file!  Rather than hire the model he had in hand, he must now find Miss Kogash.  No sooner has he found her than efforts are made to kill or abduct her.

There are a couple of rival factions who both want to get their hands on Marla.  First, there are the peaceniks led by Tarquin (Alexis Kanner).  These proponents for peace show up regularly, demanding peace.  Notably, they are protesting a visit by President Maudula, an African potentate.  Then there are the mysterious plotters, who try to undermine the peaceniks.  When the full extent of the plot is revealed, it is clever, but the players are unexpected and provide little more than an offhand comment to explain why.

Mostly, this is one long chase movie with the occasional pause for exposition.  This is Moore's transition from The Saint to James Bond, an action-packed thriller with espionage undertones.  Just okay.

Shout at the Devil (1976)

Zanzibar, 1913.  Flynn O'Flynn (Lee Marvin) is seeking to get funding for an ivory expedition.  His backer predicts it will fail until Flynn suggests flying a British flag and having an Englishman as captain.  Under those circumstances, he will provide funding. So it is that Flynn arranges to strand Sebastian Oldsmith (Roger Moore) by stealing his money and his ticket to Australia.  When Oldsmith tries to explain to the hotelier that he cannot pay the bill, Flynn graciously offers to pay.  Flynn and Oldsmith strike into German East Africa to poach some ivory.  Though chased by the local German administrator, Fleischer (Rene Kolldehoff), they manage to escape into the Indian Ocean.  However, now the SMS Blucher, a German warship, rams their boat and sinks them.

From here, the movie follows the exploits of Flynn and Oldsmith as they attempt to get rich at the expense of Fleischer.  Flynn has a loyal but mute sidekick, Mohammed (Ian Holm).  He also has a daughter, Rosa (Barbara Parkins), who is soon having an affair with the handsome Sebastian.  When the war starts, Fleischer crosses the border to do away with Flynn once and for all.

Loosely based on the true story of the sinking of a German warship, the movie is more of a revenge story.  Flynn and Fleischer have a longstanding rivalry that soon entangles Oldsmith.  Each wants the other dead and, through the movie, manage to kill a lot of each other's followers.  African porters and soldiers are nameless canonfodder on both sides.

The pacing is inconsistent and the tone swings from bloodthirsty murder to comedic drunkenness.  Moore in blackface is entirely unconvincing.  Marvin is his usual entertaining self and his performance alone makes the film worth seeing.

Just okay.   

The War with Mexico, Volume I

In 1919, Justin Smith published his Pulitzer Prize winning The War with Mexico.  Volume I covers the various causes of the war and then the various battles up to Buena Vista (February 22-23, 1847). A thoroughly researched book, Smith offers some well-supported arguments.  He opens by detailing event in Mexico from the war with Spain and the various efforts at self-government in the wake of independence. Of particular note, Mexico exiled many Gachupines, people from Spain.  This does not seem unusual in the wake of a war of independence from Spain but the Gachupines were the entreprenuer and educated class.  Ejecting them left the economy crippled.  Soon, other foreigners (e.g., British, French, American, etc.) moved in to mine the resources of Mexico.  The Mexican government sailed from one disaster to the next, often suffering the latest revolution that brought a new 'president' to power.  The judiciary ruled in favor of whomever offered the greater bribes.  This situation did not sit well with foreign powers who saw citizen's stripped of their property or imprisoned on trumped up charges.  In 1838, France invaded to settle financial disputes; this was the Pastry War where Santa Anna lost his leg in battle.  Like the other countries, the United States had suffered similar troubles with Mexico, but there was the counterbalancing issue of Texas.

One of the most interesting things that Smith details is the Texas border.  In the Adams-Onis Treaty (1819), Spain surrendered Florida and claims to Oregon in order to secure its claim to Texas.  In the wake of the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the US held that the Rio Grande was the border while Spain argued that the Calcasieu River was the border.  Thanks to the treaty, the border became the Sabine.  Therefore, the treaty recognized the Province of Tejas as extending from the Sabine to the Rio Grande.  When Texas became independent, this definition was the default.  However, Mexico argued both that the Nueces was the border of Tejas and that Tejas was still a province of Mexico.  Nine years of independence tended to nix the later argument and US prior claims to Tejas disputed the former.  As Mexico clearly could not govern the region, the US wanted to settle outstanding claims.  The US would pay any claims that American citizens had against Mexico and also pay for the land.  Mexico declined.

Polk had set out to determine both the northern border with Canada and the southern border with Mexico in his term.  With England, he entered into brinksmanship to get the border set at the 49th parallel.  A deal was struck.  He used virtually the same tactic with Mexico and there was war.  Where England looked at the issue on the basis of economic interest, Mexico had viewed it with national pride.  Had Mexico worked with the same thought process as England, there would have been no war.  Though Santa Anna had boasted that he would march on Washington if there was war, this was nonsense.  He had been unable to subdue Texas.  However, Mexico was compared to Spain during the Napoleonic Era.  The US would be unable to win in much the same way that France found Spain to be a quagmire.  Mexico could afford continual defeats and still not lose the war.  Eventually, a new president would be elected in the United States, anti-war sentiment would grow, and the border would be settled where Mexico wanted it.

The book concludes with the battle which Santa Anna pinned his hopes upon: Buena Vista.  He had assembled an army vastly larger than Taylor's.  He very nearly succeeded.  The battle was a draw.  Luckily for Taylor, a draw credits the defender.  Santa Anna made haste to face Winfield Scott's invasion, telling a tale of victory as he rode far ahead of his retreating army.  He had American banners and canon as symbols of his success.

Outstanding book with footnotes galore.  Highly recommended.

Anecdotes and Letters of Zachary Taylor

The book opens with a brief biography of Zachary Taylor, from his birth in 1784 to his nomination for the presidency in 1848.  It offers a thumbnail sketch of his involvement in the War of 1812, his time on the frontier, his success during the Seminole War in Florida, and finally his four victories (Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterrey, and Buena Vista) in the Mexican War.  As it was published prior to the 1848 election, he was not yet president though he was the Whig nominee.

The book then becomes a series of vignettes that detail events in the Mexican-American War.  Most of them detail incidents that occurred in the northern theater where Taylor was in command.  However, many of them cover events that happened during General Winfield Scott's campaign from Vera Cruz to Mexico City.

The book then concludes with a series of letters from Taylor to his various supporters throughout the country in the run-up to the 1848 election.  Early letters proclaim his willingness to stand for election but humbly submitting that others must be better suited to the task.  In later letters, he offers his opinions on issues of the day and shows a reversal in his desire that Henry Clay should be the Whig candidate.

Though filled with interesting events from the war, the book has no narrative.  In his two previous books, vignettes would appear at the end of the chronological narrative, adding interesting events that were coincident with the narrative.  Here the vignettes are a hodgepodge, not offered chronologically or even organized by region.  One might detail something that happened on the Rio Grande in 1846 while the next mentions something about the Battle of Cerro Gordo in 1847.  Also peculiar, the book is authored by Tom Owens, the Bee Hunter.  The Bee Hunter was a humorous tale written by Thomas Bangs Thorpe about a man, Tom Owens, who was at the top of his game in the sport of hunting bees.  This seems a strange book in which to credit it to his fictional hero.

This is the weakest of Thorpe's books covering the Mexican-American War.  Occasionally entertaining and frequently interesting, it lacks anything to make one turn to the next page.  As with his other books, this is long out of copyright and can be downloaded.  Not for everyone.

My Newest Book

 

Here is the brief biography I wrote for my college term paper at Iowa Western Community College in 1993.  I've also included reviews of books, movies, and such that cover the Antebellum Era.  It is only available via Kindle at this point; not long enough to make a paperback.

The Saint (Series 6)

Simon Templar (Roger Moore) returns for a final season, in color!  As usual, Simon encounters someone in trouble in the opening and must teach the villain the error of his, or occasionally her, ways.  One of the most notable things is that it is very dangerous to be a friend of the Saint.  All too often, his friends are murdered and he must set out on a path of vengeance.  Oddly, there are a couple of sci-fi episodes, one with a giant ant and another that involves cryogenics.  This series also had a pair of 2 parters that were converted into movies.

The Fiction-Makers: Simon attends a movie premiere with the leading lady on his arm.  It is an adaptation of an Amos Klein novel.  Klein's agent hopes more novels are adapted but fears for the author.  Would Simon act as bodyguard?  Simon goes to the address and is surprised to discover that Amos is a woman (Sylvia Syms).  It is her nom-de-plume.  Oddly, her real name is never mentioned.  No sooner has Simon arrived than the two of them are abducted.  Waking in an English manor, the kidnappers prove to be a band of men who claim to be characters from Klein's novels, notably members of SWORD, a SPECTRE clone.  They have mistaken Simon for Klein.  They demand that he write the perfect plan for robbing a high-security facility called Hermetica.  Mostly ludicrous but very entertaining.

Vendetta for the Saint: Simon is in Naples, Italy when he witnesses an unusual encounter.  An English tourist greets a man, calling him Dino.  The man, Alessandro Destamio (Ian Hendry) denies being Dino and his gaggle of goons punch the tourist.  Simon intervenes to prevent any further violence.  The man explains to Simon that he and Dino were good friends after the war and knows it was him.  The following morning, Simon discovers that the tourist was murdered.  On his path to avenge the man he barely knew, he learns that Destamio is a mafia boss who has no qualms about bumping off those who meddle in his affairs.  Where The Fiction-Makers was sort of goofy fun, this is a straight thriller.  Better yet, this one was filmed in Malta, giving it a more convincing look than the typical episode.

Among the standard episodes, there was one that was a knock-off of Casino Royale (The Ex-King of Diamonds) that sees Simon join forces with a Texas millionaire named Rod Huston (Stuart Damon).  Damon's Texan accent was laughable, but the character was quite a lot of fun.  It was like a buddy action flick, something that presages Moore's next series, The Persuaders.

The Saint ends its television run on a high note.  Yes, many episodes are rehashes of common storylines.  Perhaps the greatest failure of the series is how badly the Saint fights.  With how many times he has been punched in the face and clubbed over the head, it is amazing that he didn't look more like Quasimodo after 6 years of such punishment.  He never even gets a fat lip or black eye.

Highly recommended.

Cashback (2006)

Art student Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) breaks up with his longtime girlfriend, Suzy (Michelle Ryan).  It is very ugly; items are thrown.  In the wake of this breakup, Ben finds he can't sleep.  After a week of insomnia, he gets a job at a local 24-hour grocery store, where he works the nightshift.  He offers them his bonus 8 hours and in return gets cash back.  Then follows a series of vignettes that detail his oddball co-workers.  Stuart Goodwin is the standout as Mr. Jenkins, the manager.  Sean finds that time has slowed to a crawl and decides that the best way to handle it is to stop time altogether.  Sure enough, time stops and he breaks out his sketchbook to draw the various young ladies shopping in the store.  Of course, he has to pull down their pants and hike up their shirts for a proper nude model.  Also, there are the frequent flashbacks to his youth where he encountered naked women and pornographic magazines.  Eventually, thoughts of Suzy fade and he begins to crush on Sharon the cashier.

Initially, it had seemed that the time stopping scenes were all in his imagination.  Eventually, that is demonstrated otherwise.  He goes from having a vivid imagination to being a sex offender with a superpower.  Biggerstaff is convincing as an insomniac, looking half asleep throughout the movie.  He emotes with a blank look on his face and his narration is a dull monotone.  Thanks to his time stop nudes, there is a lot of nudity in the movie, almost all of it gratuitous.  All of the comedy is thanks to his co-workers or his randy friend, Sean.

Some of the cinematography is well done.  The scene where he sort of slides back from a pay phone and lands in his bed was cool.

Overall, not worth watching.  Skip.

Condorman (1981)

The story opens in Paris where Woody (Michael Crawford) is visiting his friend Harry (James Hampton).  Woody is a comic book writer - Condorman being the superhero - who likes to test his ideas before putting them in his comics.  In Paris, he tests a set of Condorman wings by leaping from the Eiffel Tower and then crashing into the Seine.  Harry works for US Intelligence and is asked by his boss to find a civilian to delivery papers to Istanbul.  Of course, he thinks of Woody.  Woody dons the stereotypical garb of a spy and sets out.  When he meets his contact, Natasha (Barbara Carrera), he brags about being a top operative, codename: Condorman.  Then, when a trio of Turkish thugs come for Natasha, he defeats them through dumb luck.  Back in Moscow, Krokov (Oliver Reed) confronts Natasha, furious that she had gone to Istanbul without his permission, but also curious about this Condorman.  Fearing Krokov, Natasha wants to defect but only if Condorman handles the extraction.

An odd mix of goofball comedy, romance, and spy thriller.  Thanks to CIA funding, Woody has a plethora of high-tech equipment, from a machinegun cane to an old jalopy truck that turns into a rocket car/hovercraft.  Of course, his wings from the opening get a more successful use later in the movie.  It is hard to believe that this comic book artist manages to deceive a top operative like Natasha for so long.

Disney had been sure it was going to be a hit, even planning for a sequel.  It bombed.  Probably the biggest problem is the casting of Michael Crawford.  He comes across as plaintive, lacks comedic timing, and can't sell the combination of eager for adventure but also incompetent.  It has its moments but is mostly mediocre.

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Though my mother took me to movies frequently as a kid, it was very rare that my father took the family to a movie.  The first time that happened - as far as I recall - was for The Towering Inferno.  My memories are very limited (I was 7 years old).  We had gone to Fashion Island in Newport Beach and the line wrapped around the building.  My father had gone scouting toward the ticket booth while my mother waited in the line with my brother and me.  It was already dark and felt very late.  In retrospect, I suppose my parents were unable to get a babysitter and decided to bring us along.  As for the movie, the only thing I remembered was Robert Wagner putting wet towels on his head and running into the fire.  In the years since, I don't remember ever seeing the movie again.  I decided it was time.

The movie opens with a helicopter flying over the Golden Gate Bridge and landing on an immense tower.  Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) climbs out of the helicopter and is greeted by Jim Duncan (William Holden).  Roberts is the architect while Duncan is the builder.  The next half hour is spent meeting the various employees of the tower and the guests to the ribbon cutting and party.  There is Susan (Faye Dunaway), a reporter and love interest of Roberts, Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) the son-in-law of Duncan and the man who cut corners to save money on tower construction, Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) the PR guy who is having an affair with his secretary, Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) the conman with a heart of gold, Jernigan (OJ Simpson) from tower security, US Senator Parker (Robert Vaughn) who may be offering some juicy building contracts to Duncan in the wake of this magnificent tower, and many others.  Unbeknownst to most of these people, a wire shorted in a storage closet on the 81st floor and the fire is expanding.  Though urged to begin an evacuation, Duncan refused.  The fire department responds and Chief O'Halloran (Steve McQueen) takes charge.  It is now too late to evacuate the top floor and desperate measures begin.

Once the fire gets out of control, it becomes clear that the building is a death trap.  Stairways have gas leaks that detonate, blowing away several floors worth of stairs.  The sprinkler system does not work, the electrical wiring is overheating from the load, the elevators stop working, and an emergency door is blocked by spilled concrete.

The acting is generally very good.  Newman and McQueen dominate, Newman for the first half and McQueen for the second half.  The various mini-stories resolve themselves as the movie unfolds, whether that be the tragic fate of Dan Bigelow and his secretary, the rocky marriage of Simmons and his wife, the love affair of Roberts and Susan, etc.  These little side stories reminded me of the Love Boat or Fantasy Island.

The special effects are clearly dated but the movie is still entertaining.  Good popcorn fun.

Missing (2023)

Made by the same team that made Searching, the movie opens with a mention of that event on a Netflix show called Unfiction which is playing on a laptop.  The laptop belongs to June (Storm Reid), an 18-year-old who lives with her mother, Grace (Nia Long).  Her mother is going on a romantic vacation with her boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung).  After spending almost all the money her mother left for 'emergencies' on booze, June wakes up to an alarm telling her to pick her mother up at the airport.  She's late!  She waits several hours and there is no sign of her mother or Kevin.  Soon, it becomes clear that her mother never boarded the plane back to the United States and June contacts the US Embassy to get them on the case.

Though entertaining as it plays, the final solution upends the entire story.  The actions of the villain are inexplicable and the police must be completely incompetent.  How did they not know immediately that Grace never got on the plane in the first place?  You know, that whole passport thing.  Why would the police shoot an unarmed man?  Well, if he survived, he'd spill the beans and ruin the rest of the movie.  The villain is bright enough to have Grace vanish for a week, causing no suspicion, but then just blows it from there.  What the heck was happening during that week?

Mediocre.  A disappointing follow up to a much better movie.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Weird Al (Daniel Radcliffe) is rushed to the emergency room where a doctor (Lin-Manuel Miranda) desperately tries to save his life.  No, he is dead.  Just as the doctor gives up, Weird Al bolts upright and demands a paper and a number 2 pencil; he needs to write down the lyrics to Like a Surgeon.

Years before, Weird Al has a difficult relationship with his father.  That Al wants to play the accordion is unacceptable.  However, Al's mother assists his dream of playing the accordion.  After leaving home and living with several friends, Al has inspiration making bolonga sandwiches while the Knack's My Sharona is playing on the radio.  He sends My Bologna to Doctor Demento (Rainn Wilson) and it proves to be a breakout hit; Al is a star!  From there, the story really goes off the rails.  Al rockets to stardom and, like most megastars, becomes self-destructive.  He has a torrid affair with Madona (Evan Rachel Wood) that turns out badly.

Entirely unlike the real life of Weird Al Yankovic, this is hugely entertaining.  The funny twist that Michael Jackson's Beat It was a parody of Al's first original song, Eat It, was hilarious.  In this universe, Weird Al is the King of Cool.  Many of his big hits make an appearance: My Bologna, Another One Rides the Bus, Amish Paradise, Eat It, Hey Ricky, Like a Surgeon, and more.  The movie is also stuffed with cameos from such figures as Wolfman Jack, Pee Wee Herman, Elvira, Tiny Tim, Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, and more.  It is a great throwback to the early 80s.  Ludicrous and off the wall, this is nonstop comedy.

Recommended.  Great popcorn fun.

Deep Red (1975)

Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) is an English jazz pianist who is currently teaching in Rome.  On his way home one evening, he encounters a fellow pianist, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia).  While the two chat, they hear a woman shriek.  Though startled, neither goes to investigate, but Marc bids farewell.  He has hardly turned the corner than he sees glass shattering in his apartment building and his neighbor, Helga, shoved neck-first onto the remaining glass.  He rushes upstairs.  The intruder is gone and Helga is quite dead.  Soon, the police arrive and so does an intrepid reporter, Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi).  The following day, Marc feels as though he saw something in a painting that is no longer there.  Both Carlo and Gianna suggest he get out of Rome lest the murderer come after him.  He declines.  Instead, he starts an investigation of his own, consulting with Helga's associates.  To his concern, the murderer seems to know his every move and leaves more bodies, which start to implicate Marc himself as the murderer.

Here is a horror murder mystery by one of the masters of horror.  Though I very briefly considered the true culprit while watching, I instead settled on the wrong person.  There were repeated hints toward a particular wrong culprit and I didn't suspect.  Interestingly, the murderer had been revealed when Marc had rushed into Helga's apartment, this being the change that Marc sensed.  After the conclusion, I went back to that scene and there was the killer, clear as day.  Very clever.

Hemmings is fine, though he clearly can't play the piano.  Or if he could, it was badly filmed.  It was peculiar how resistant his character was to Gianna throwing herself at him.  There is often a flirty vibe between them but nothing physical, not even a peck on the cheek.  At one point, he is going to leave Rome and take her with him.  Daria Nicolodi is quite good as Gianna.  Her appearance at the crime scene puzzles the police; how did she know so soon?  She gives the impression she has a crush on Marc and often taxis him from place to place.  Though not normally a crime reporter, she is eager to get this story to advance her career.  There is a bit of 70's feminism to her character.  Carlo is an amiable drunk who has deep philosophical thoughts.  He is self-destructive with his excessive drinking.  When Marc warns that he won't last long if he continues this path, Carlo offers an indifferent shrug; who wants to last?

Though set in Rome, it was largely filmed in Turin.  The Fontana del Po is prominently featured, a stand-in for the Trevi Fountain perhaps.  As with other Argento films, blood is too red.  Of course, the name of the film is Deep Red.  Nor does blood congeal, it just remains as a red puddle.  All of the deaths are quite gruesome.

Recommended for any fan of horror films.

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) returns to his cottage to discover Captain Hitchcock (Simon McBurney) awaiting him.  Hitchcock has come from West Point and would like Landor's assistance in solving the bizarre death of Cadet Fry.  That Fry hanged himself is not a mystery; that his heart was removed after his body had been recovered was.  Landor accepts the commission.  He has hardly begun his investigation at West Point when Cadet Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) approached him to say that the person responsible was a poet.  Soon, Landor engages Poe as a secret assistant.  Then heartless animals are discovered.  Is there some Satanic Cult active near the academy?  Landor consults with Jean Pepe (Robert Duvall), an expert on the occult.  When Cadet Ballinger is found hanged and heartless, suspicion turns toward Poe.  Poe had had difficulties with Fry; worse, he had threatened to kill Ballinger on the very night he died.  Both Ballinger and Poe had been courting Lea Marquis (Lucy Boynton), daughter of Doctor Maquis (Toby Jones) and sister to a classmate, Cadet Artemus Marquis (Harry Lawtey).

Poe is well explored.  He affects a Southern gentility from being raised in Virginia.  Though born in Boston, he had grown up in Richmond, VA, from the age of 2.  Melling manages to make Poe both an ostracized oddball and yet likeable and charming.  He is shown to be bookish, fluent in French, fascinated by death, silver-tongued, and possessing a facility for deduction. Though Poe was only 21 in 1830 and Melling is 33, Poe looked old for his age.  He had once claimed to be 22 when he was only 18 and was not called on the deception.  Of note, Poe began attending West Point in July of 1830 and was expelled in March of 1831.  His fellow cadets gifted him with $170 ($5,799.48 in 2023 dollars) to help him publish Poems.

Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer (Timothy Spall) was 45 years old in 1830.  Spall is 65.  Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock was only 32, but is portrayed by a 65 year-old McBurney.  Though it is great that these historical figures weren't replaced with fictional stand-ins, casting could have been better.  Still, both did a fine job.  It is funny that the principal cast is almost entirely British.

The mystery proves to be more complex than one expects.  Reminiscent of The Sixth Sense (1999), one must reconsider the movie when Poe reveals the final twist.  Of course, upon reconsidering, there are many unanswered questions and logical stretches.  Overall, an entertaining film and definitely recommended.