Extraction II (2023)

Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) miraculously survived his injuries and is recovering in Austria when a nameless man (Idris Elba) appears at his home.  He offers him a job.  Tyler isn't interested until the man says that Tyler's ex-wife is the client.  The Radiani brothers are drug dealers in Georgia (the country, not the state).  The younger brother has been incarcerated and, thanks to the influence of his brother, his wife and children have a cell nearby.  The wife is Tyler's ex-wife's sister.  Tyler accepts the job without first consulting with Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani), who normally arranges contracts.

After 6 weeks of training, Tyler, Nik, and crew are in Georgia.  Tyler infiltrates the prison and extracts the wife, Ketevan, and children, Sandro & Nina.  Sandro, an angsty teenager, wants to know about his father.  Inevitably, the alarm sounds and the most epic series of fight scenes during a prison riot ensue.  Once out of the prison, now they must evade Radiani's goons, who have had time to intercept.  Action!  Action!  Action!

The movie has more action than story.  The villain gets a grim backstory that tells of his abusive father and drug dealing uncle.  He has grown up to be a very hard man who cannot forgive or let go.  He is more than willing to sacrifice every man in his organization for revenge.  The story of Tyler's son is expanded and his wife, Mia (Olga Kurylenko), is introduced.  Nik, who was mostly a behind-the-scenes manager in the last outing, is a field operative here.  The story does have some weaknesses, especially how blind Tyler and Nik are to the angsty Sandro.  How do you allow him to access a phone?  You would think that extraction experts would know about Stockholm Syndrome and the like.

This is a high-octane action movie.  Like its predecessor, it knows what it is and delivers a smorgasbord gunbattles, fisticuffs, car chases, and more.  Great popcorn fun and highly recommended.

Texas Rising (2015)

The Alamo has fallen.  By the order of Santa Anna (Olivier Martinez), the handful of survivors are lined up and shot, Jupitor West among them.  Emily West (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) determines to avenge her brother.  Among the dead at the Alamo, a nameless man (Ray Liotta) crawls from the ruins and kills a soldier as he escapes into the wilderness.  Meanwhile, Sam Houston (Bill Paxton) is in Gonzales with the Texas Army, which is much too small to face the Mexican army.  Though his officers and men are desperate to fight, Houston orders a retreat.  Elsewhere, Erastus "Deaf" Smith (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and his band of Texas Rangers scout the countryside to keep track of both Comanche and the Mexican Army.  At the Louisiana border, Bigfoot Wallace and Jack Hays are bound for Goliad with plans of joining the revolution.

The 5-part series follows these various characters from the Alamo through Sam Houston's election as the first president of Texas.  Liberties are taken with the timeline.  Liberties are also taken with the history.  Extreme liberties are taken with the geography.  There are no cliffs and mountains from the Alamo to San Jacinto but they are plentiful in this production.  Durango, Mexico was the wrong choice for filming.  The geography was so very wrong that I couldn't overlook it.  Just before the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texas Rangers destroy Vince's Bridge.  This did happen.  However, the bridge crosses a dry gulch here rather than a bayou.  Traversing the dry gulch is merely an inconvenience.  Also, the bridge was burned, not detonated with barrels of black powder.

The casting was mediocre.  I like Bill Paxton.  As it happens, he grew up in Texas, which is ideal for this movie.  Sam Houston was 43 during the Battle of San Jacinto while Paxton was 59.  Far worse was casting the 60 year-old Christopher McDonald as the Henry Karnes, who was only 23 at the time.  Rob Morrow (53) plays Colonel Fannin (32).  Jeff Fahey (63) plays Thomas Rusk (32).

The look of the show is washed out.  Everyone is covered in layers of dust - probably because they filmed in a desert - and there are no vibrant colors.  Who would fight for this desolate landscape?

The show fully embraces the legend of Emily West, the Yellow Rose of Texas.  The story goes that Santa Anna was distracted by a mulatto woman at the start of the Battle of San Jacinto, which led to Houston's total victory.  High Yellow was a term used to describe light-skinned blacks.  Not only does Emily seduce Santa Anna, she also seduces Houston.

There is very little effort to make this a balanced presentation.  Texans good (mostly), Mexicans and Comanche bad.  There was one point where Colonel Fannin demands to be treated as a prisoner-of-war and the Mexican officer says that he is an illegal immigrant, or something to that effect.  Nice.  Also true.  Then the officer shoots him.  That the Mexicans took no prisoners is a black mark against them.  Later, Emily asked Santa Anna if the Texians seeking independence from Mexico wasn't just like how Mexico had won independence from Spain only 15 years earlier.

Santa Anna isn't quite so clownish as he was portrayed in The Alamo, but he still comes off poorly.  His blindness to Emily's motives is a real mark against him, especially since this is a fictional side story.  It must be remembered that Santa Anna returned from exile several times and he did this based on his charisma.  Here, he often comes across as a bully.  Maybe he was with his close advisors, but he usually presented himself as a selfless patriot in public.

Lorca (Ray Liotta) is an entirely fictional character who exists as the ghost of the Alamo.  As a fictional survivor, he is out for revenge, killing every Mexican he meets: man, woman, or child.  He's the insane soldier, the extreme case of PTSD.  Like Emily, he could have been left out of the story.

Andrew Jackson (Kris Kristofferson) has an interest in the Texas Revolution and even makes plans should Santa Anna cross the US border in to Louisiana.  The most interesting part with Jackson was at the end of the series when Santa Anna meets him at the White House.  Santa Anna claims to be the Napoleon of the West.  Jackson replied by stating that Wellington defeated Napoleon, and Jackson himself defeated Wellington's troops in New Orleans.  Ha!  That's actually true.

Overall, the show is disappointing.  There is too much fiction mixed into the history to make it worthwhile.  The geography is so wrong as to ruin the series even without the fictionalized history.  The characters mostly don't develop, having weak arcs or no arcs at all.  The series ended with a promise for The Comanche Wars.  Apparently, it was not sufficiently successful to see that sequel made.

Skip.

The Kentuckian, or a Trip to New York

In The Alamo (2004), there is an early scene where Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) attends a play where he happens to be the main character.  The actor portraying him, James Hackett (Lynn Mathis), comes on stage and greets Crockett, naming him as the inspiration for the show.  Curious, I researched this play.  Sure enough, The Lion of the West was written by James Kirke Paulding in 1830 for James Hackett.  By 1833, it had been re-titled to The Kentuckian, or a Trip to New York.  It was the most popular stage play in the United States until the release of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.

The play sees Nimrod Wildfire (a thinly veiled Davy Crockett) visiting his uncle in New York City.  Nimrod's visit coincides with that of Mrs. Wollope, a widow from England who hopes to tutor Americans in proper, civilized behavior.  Of course, Wildfire speaks in hard-to-decipher jargon.  There is nothing subtle about him and he is only too eager to act first and think later.  One of the comical bits has Nimrod mistaking Mrs. Wollope's note to him to be a proposal of marriage, which he gladly accepts to her horror.

A comment in the play explains Crockett's last words in the The Alamo before he is bayonetted.

"I wanna warn you all, I'm a screamer..."

In the 1830s, a screamer was a fun, exciting, and extraordinary person.  Wildfire repeatedly refers to Mrs. Wollope as a screamer and thus explains his desire to marry her.

Here is an interesting look at 1830s America and worth reading.  Though told in 3 acts, it is quite brief and easy to read.  Recommended.

The Adventures of Jim Bowie

Jim Bowie (Scott Forbes) is riding along a road in Louisiana when he stops for a drink of water.  Suddenly, a bear emerges and moves toward him.  Efforts to scare the bear away fail and he resorts to his flintlock rifle.  It misfires.  The bear is on him and he has to fight it off with an inadequate knife.  Determined to get a better knife, he makes his way to a blacksmith he knows, Sam Black.  There are obstacles to overcome and villains to trounce before Black can forge the blade.  By the end of this pilot episode, Jim has the first Bowie Knife.

Having premiered in 1955, this series coincides with Disney's Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955).  As the second most famous Alamo defender, he was a natural subject for a series.  The show paints him as a traveling hero in the mode of many 50s Westerns.  However, this Bowie is unlike the true Bowie.  Jim Bowie was a slave smuggler and a land speculator who didn't always have the deed for the land he sold.  He settled down somewhat when he came to Texas, marrying into a prominent family.  Of course, that happens outside the time period of the show.

Being a half-hour show, the story is basic and told by the numbers.  The villains are bad, the heroes are good, and justice is done.  The soundtrack has a men's choir vocalizing a heroic tune in the background of every scene.  Behold the heroic riding of his horse, the heroic tethering of his horse, the heroic entry into the saloon!  The theme song likewise lionizes him:

Adventurin' man, Adventurin' man.

Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!

He roamed the wilderness unafraid

From Natchez to Rio Grande!

With all the might of his gleaming blade

He fought for the rights of man!

Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!

He was a bold adventurin' man!

Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!

Battled for right with a powerful hand!

His blade was tempered and so was he!

Indestructable steel was he!

Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!

He was a fighter, a fearless and mighty adventurin' man!

This is just the sort of show I might have enjoyed as a kid.  It lasted only 2 seasons, but they pumped out the shows in those days.  There are 76 episodes, many of which are available on YouTube.

Impeach Biden?

Does President Biden deserve to be impeached?  Yes.  Should Congress impeach him?  No.  With the current makeup of the House and Senate, an impeachment will go nowhere.  Looking at the case of Adam Schiff's censure, not a single Democrat voted in favor.  It was a partisan vote despite the undeniable fact that Schiff lied repeatedly and publicly about evidence of Russian collusion.  Though the House could muster the votes for impeachment, the Democrat-dominated Senate will not vote to convict.  Like both of Trump's impeachments, it will come to nothing other than a waste of time and money.

Instead, how about a censure?  Andrew Jackson was censured for defunding the Bank of the United States.  Censure Biden for weaponizing the Department of Justice, Ukraine kickbacks, failure to maintain the US border, or raising Hunter.  The possibilities are endless.  Of course, whatever is chosen, it will be a case of style over substance.  The president and the press will decry Congress for partisanship, but when the firestorm of words subside, nothing will change.  If anything, Biden will come out stronger.  Why?  It must be remembered that the media is overwhelmingly Democratic and/or left-leaning.  It is virtually impossible in that arena for Republicans to win a PR battle.

How about using the power of the purse to defund the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and the like?  Per the Constitution, all spending must originate in the House of Representatives.  Cut funding and hold the line.  I've been suggesting that course of action for more than a decade, but Congress has yet to do it.  This path would have substance.  Congress is detailed in Article 1 of the Constitution because the founders viewed it as the most important branch of government.  We the People are most reflected in the House of Representatives.  Take that seriously, Speaker McCarthy.

The Alamo (2004)

It is 1835 in Washington DC and Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) is trying to sell land in Texas.  He runs into Congressman David Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), who doesn't seem interested.  Though Crockett enjoys fame - The Kentuckian (based on him) is the most popular play around, his electoral prospects don't look good.  Some months later in Texas, the Mexican Army has been chased across the Rio Grande and the bigwigs of the Texas Revolution have met to determine what to do next.  Houston is opposed to an attack on Matamoros.  Those present strip him of his army command for his reticence to fight.  Jim Bowie (Jason Patric) supports Houston but isn't keen on Houston's order to abandon the Alamo.  Bowie's home is in San Antonio.

In San Antonio, William Travis (Patrick Wilson) is given command of the Alamo while Colonel Neill is away.  Neill expects to return long before there is any action.  Travis and Bowie do not see eye to eye.  Their constant bickering is quelled by the arrival of Davy Crockett and his Tennessee Boys.  Crockett had not been re-elected to Congress and opted to come to Texas.  He was surprised to hear the fighting wasn't over.

In late February, Santa Anna arrived with an army.  He spent the next two weeks toying with the fortress, hoping to lure Sam Houston to a battle.  Though Houston has called for troops, he doesn't have enough to relieve the siege.  On March 6, 1836, the Mexican assault begins.

After the Alamo fell, the Texians demanded that Sam Houston fight.  Instead, Houston retreated east in search of the right battlefield.  Santa Anna split his army to keep pace.  Finally, Houston found his battleground and turned to attack.  The ensuing Battle of San Jacinto took 18 minutes and ended with a route of the Mexican Army and the capture of Santa Anna.

The movie makes a serious effort to credit as many participants as possible.  Though the big three are well-known, there are many other Alamo defenders and survivors who are not often mentioned.  Susanna Dickinson, wife of one of the defenders, survived the siege and provided an internal account of events.  Juan Seguin (Jordi Molla) was sent with dispatches after the siege began and later took part in the Battle of San Jacinto.  James Bonham, William Ward, Almeron Dickinson, Micajah Autry, and several others are given their due.

Billy Bob Thornton is a very different Davy Crockett than previous interpretations.  Fess Parker, John Wayne, and Brian Keith played up the buckskins with the coonskin cap.  Thornton dresses in the style of the period and also is the first to play the fiddle.  This Davy Crockett is not so eager to fight to the death.  He comes across as a conflicted but noble man who has to live up to the heroic image of himself.  The major change that caused a lot of fuss when this was released was that Crockett survives the battle only to then be executed.  A Mexican soldier reported that this was how Crockett died.  However, this contradicts some of the survivors' accounts.  Overall, Thornton is the best Davy Crockett so far.

Jason Patric plays Bowie as a tragic figure.  Obviously, he's dying from consumption, but here we see some of his history beyond a retelling of the Sandbar Fight.  There are flashbacks to his early times in San Antonio, before his wife and children died from cholera.  He is not particularly friendly and initially takes a dark pleasure in slapping down Travis.  Patric's Bowie exudes a natural magnetism where it is easy to accept that, despite his weakened state, his words carried a lot of weight with the Alamo defenders.  One of the best things that Jim Bowie did for his reputation was die at the Alamo; he had not lived an admirable life.

Emilio Echevarria was 20 years too old to play Santa Anna.  He didn't have the charisma for the role.  Yes, Santa Anna had an immense ego but he was also charming.  With this Santa Anna, it isn't clear why anyone is loyal to him.  However, his comment where he views soldiers as expendable is true to character.  Santa Anna was never concerned with casualties, only victory.  Raul Julia was a much better Santa Anna (1987).

Dennis Quaid bookends the movie as Sam Houston.  His Houston is 'prickly' and stubborn.  Houston will have his way or not at all.  That the movie included the Battle of San Jacinto was different from the usual Alamo movies.  However, it does make for an uneven narrative.  The movie is more than The Alamo, it is selected battles from the Texas Revolution.

History buff that I am, I liked this film quite a lot.  It covers a lot of ground and the research staff was better than most.  This is an excellent telling of those historic events.  Recommended.

Schiff Censured

“...for years Representative Schiff abused this trust by citing evidence of collusion that—as is clear from reports by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Special Counsel Durham—does not exist”

Throughout the Trump presidency, Representative Adam Schiff repeatedly said that he had seen definitive evidence of Trump's guilt.  Oh, he couldn't show it to the public because it was locked in the SCIF and only a handful of people with clearance could view it, but you could trust him.  No, apparently not.  This is why you censure.

The last effort to censure Schiff went down to defeat when 20 Republicans 'defected.'  Of course, the last effort also levied a $16 million fine, which was inappropriate.  We can't have Congress fining rivals into bankruptcy.  Here we have a 'clean' censure.  If only Congress could write legislation as cleanly.

Media and Military Relations during the Mexican War

In this master's thesis, Major Metzel details the impact of the media on the military and vice versa.  He delves into several topics which made the Mexican War different from those before on account of the media.  The Mexican War was the first to see reporters traveling with the army and sending dispatches to their respective papers.  Most of the reporters were from various New Orleans papers, but reporters from the New York Sun also found their way to Mexico.  Not only did they report the news, but they also sometimes sought to influence it.  Moses Beach of the NY Sun tried to engineer a peace deal and later claimed responsibility for triggering a revolution in Mexico City.  When President Polk recalled his peace envoy, Nicholas Trist, James Freaner of the New Orleans Delta convinced him to stay, which Trist did.  The treaty that Trist thereafter negotiated was not what Polk wanted.  However, the continued bad press over the war had him accept it as good enough.  General Zachary Taylor was repeatedly lionized by media reports and was soon viewed as a contender for the presidency.  He had never had presidential aspirations but was nonetheless carried to the office in the 1848 elections.  By contrast, General Winfield Scott, who had already made a run at the presidency in 1840, was given mixed reviews by the media.  Despite being the better general, Scott was viewed as less heroic because fewer of his soldiers died in combat.  Scott had a long history with the press and was able to use it to his advantage by disseminating misinformation about his strategy.  By the end of the war, he used the media to transport news, because they were faster than the military/government mail service.

The Mexican War changed the press.  In order to get a scoop on the competition, the speed at which news was transmitted increased.  At the start of the war, it took 2 weeks for news to travel from the Rio Grande to Washington.  By the end of the war, it took 2 weeks for news to travel from Mexico City to Washington.  Several New York papers agreed to share expenses to get news from the war and created the Associated Press (AP) to accomplish this.  The AP is still in operation.

Written for those not familiar with the various personalities of the war, it sometimes drags with background information.  There is a lot of repetition with the intro - meat - outro format.  Nonetheless, this is an excellent paper and highly recommended.

Remington Steele

Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) had a love for excitement that led her to become a private investigator.  However, few clients were interested in hiring a woman for such work.  To get the clients in the door, she invented a boss, Remington Steele.  With this one change, customers lined up around the block and she, as Mr. Steele's assistant, could handle the case while he was away on some other business.  The scheme worked so well that she brought in another investigator, Murphy (James Read), hired a secretary, Bernice Foxe (Janet DeMay), and leased an office in skyscraper.  The scheme goes awry during a case to protect a valuable gem collection.  A conman and thief (Pierce Brosnan) is scouting the jewels and determines that Remington Steele doesn't exist.  He steps into the role.  Laura can't very well expose him without producing the 'real' Steele.  Besides, he's rather charming.

The interaction among the office staff is a large part of the show.  Remington and Laura are obviously attracted to one another, but she fears the consequences of succumbing to the mutual feeling.  How could she run the agency after that?  To complicate matters, Murphy is also attracted to Laura though she views him merely as a colleague.

The faux Mr. Steele is a great fan of movies and in virtually every episode he associates the current case with a movie, always offering the title, the year it was released, the studio, and often the stars. Quite often, he picks an alias that is a character from a classic movie. Occasionally, his old life intrudes with guest appearances by an old lover (Cassandra Harris - Brosnan's wife) or an old mentor (Efram Zimbalist Jr. - Stephanie's father).

Some of the guest stars of the first season went on to great success: Sharon Stone had a small role as a sister bent on revenge, Paul Reiser was a patient in a sleep clinic with narcolepsy, and Annie Potts was a hippie recalling her days of college protests a decade before.

Despite having aired 40 years ago, the show is still entertaining and relatable.  Good popcorn fun.  Recommended.

Incoherent

From this video of Senator Fetterman, it is clear that he is not up to governing.  Similar videos of President "collapsed bridge" are also plentiful.  Those who have been elected to govern are clearly incapable of governing.  Who is pulling the strings?  Are their wives doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes and only allowing their husbands to be figureheads?  Or might someone else be in charge?  In any case, those elected are not the same as those governing.

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, Or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)

The Buffalo Bill Wild West is rehearsing at their base in Nebraska.  Nate Salisbury (Joel Grey) is everywhere, directing the various acts, giving direction, and making plans.  Annie Oakley (Geraldine Chaplin) is clearly a big draw, shooting items from the hands of her shaking husband, Frank Butler (John Considine).  Ned Buntline (Burt Lancaster) lectures everyone in the saloon regarding how he discovered Buffalo Bill and, through his writing, made him a star; Nate makes it clear that Ned is persona non grata, but Ned ignores him.  Finally, we meet Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman), a hard drinker who spends much of his time in his office.

An opportunity arises to have Sitting Bull join the show.  Soon, Major John Burke (Kevin McCarthy) returns with Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) and William Halsey (Will Sampson).  Everyone mistakes Halsey - who is six and a half feet tall - for Sitting Bull.  In fact, he is Sitting Bull's interpreter.  Sitting Bull agrees to join the show only because he wants to meet the Great Father (i.e., the President of the United States), who he says will come to see the show.  Though Bill would like to stage the Little Bighorn as a sneak attack slaughter by the Indians, Sitting Bull refused.  Instead, Sitting Bull only consented to ride around the arena and be seen.  Eventually, President Cleveland (Patrick McCormick) and his new bride (Shelley Duval) arrive to see the show.  Sitting Bull seeks to ask the Great Father a question but Cleveland refuses to listen.  Soon after, Sitting Bull leaves.

Buffalo Bill comes across as a pompous oaf.  Whatever business acumen there in in the show comes from Nate Salisbury, and Annie Oakley is the true star.  Repeatedly, Bill is embarrassed by Sitting Bull.  His claim that the nearby river cannot be crossed is proved wrong.  His efforts to track Sitting Bull's party show he can't track.  Moreover, the canny Sitting Bull exposes the underhanded trick to Bill's sharpshooting.  It certainly appears that Buntline's claims that he plucked Bill from obscurity and made him famous are true.  In fact, there is some truth to that.  Buntline had been seeking Wild Bill Hickok, who didn't like Ned's forwardness and ordered him out of town in 24 hours.  Wisely complying he went looking for another hero for his novel and stumbled upon Bill Cody soon after.

Sitting Bull had met Annie Oakley in 1884 and became a fan of hers.  She was likewise impressed with him.  In 1885, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation and joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West.  He remained for 4 months.  President Cleveland married Frances Folsom on June 2, 1886.  The movie timeline does not work.

Kevin McCarthy affects a Paul Harvey voice as the MC of the show.  Normally an immaculaty-groomed actor, he was almost unrecognizable with a rugged fur coat, wide-brimmed hat, wild long hair, and immense walrus mustache.

The big problem with this movie is that it fails to entertain.  It's a boring slog that paints Buffalo Bill as an incompetent fool.  You can have an incompetent fool as the protagonist in a comedy, but this isn't a comedy.  Of course, the 70s was a time when many of the Western heroes of old were torn down.  Where Errol Flynn had played Custer as a noble hero in They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Richard Mulligan played him as a pompous oaf who richly earned his fate in Little Big Man (1970).  Of course, the truth is somewhere between those two extremes.

Despite an impressive cast, take a hard pass on this one.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

It is 1959.  A man checks into a motel and commences to rearrange the furniture, pull up the carpet, remove the floorboards, and drop a bag into the resulting hole.  He then neatly replaces the boards, reinstalls the carpet, and puts the furniture back in place.  Then there is a knock on the door.  He opens the door and let's the other man in.  The man shoots him and searches the room but fails to find the bag.

Ten years later, several people arrive at the El Royale, a motel near Lake Tahoe that happens to be right on the state line.  Half the rooms are in California, and half are in Nevada.  Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) appears to be absent-minded but is quite friendly.  Laramie Sullivan (Jon Hamm), a vacuum salesman, has stayed at the motel before and offers some background while they wait for the mysteriously absent motel staff.  Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), a singer, clearly wants to have no interaction with the others.  Lastly, a woman with attitude (Dakota Johnson) arrives and refuses to give her name.  Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), the motel's only employee, finally appears in a disheveled state.  He offers a description of El Royale that is mostly a repeat of what Laramie offered.  After that, each person is given a key to various rooms.

When the action kicks off, the story is told from the point of view of each character, often referred to by their room number.  This always involves overlapping, so that the same event might be viewed several times from different points of view.  Also, the switch from character to character often begins with a flashback that explains what happened prior to arriving at the El Royale.  Though there was trouble enough with those already at the hotel, Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth) and his band of goons arrive.  One of the people at the motel crossed him and he has arrived to settle that account.

Of course, the coincidence that all of these people should arrive at this motel on the same day is ludicrous.  Also, based on what we learn when Miles' backstory is revealed, earlier events don't make sense.  Likewise, the actions of some characters are obviously stupid as that is what the plot requires: I'm looking at you, Jon Hamm.  I guess that goes for Jeff Bridges too; you couldn't wait until tomorrow to just rent the other room yourself?  What's the hurry?  The point of view filming allows characters to misinterpret events and take detrimental action, thus triggering bad times.

Overall, an entertaining movie.  Good popcorn fun.

The Mexican War 1846-1848

In this highly-readable account of the Mexican-American War, Bauer lays the foundation of the conflict before diving into the various campaigns.  Each chapter covers a theater of war, often outlining the political events in Washington DC or Mexico City.  Roughly a quarter of the book details the campaigns of General Zachary Taylor in the north, from the Thornton Affair that finally ignited the war to the hard fought Battle of Buena Vista.  Another quarter of the book covers General Winfield Scott's campaign from the unprecedented amphibious landings at Vera Cruz to the final capture of Mexico City.  Scott's campaign saw a relatively small army march deep into a foreign country, a move which the Duke of Wellington viewed as suicidal.  That he succeeded placed him among the great military leaders of his time.  Approximately 10% of the book discusses the events in California, noting John C. Fremont's independent activities in the north with the Bear Flag Republic and the eventual arrival of General Stephen Watts Kearny.  Though California had largely surrendered without a fight, the mishandling of the occupation triggered a revolt and reconquest.  A fifth of the book discusses the political situations, both in DC and Mexico City.  As the book was published in 1975, it is no surprise that many aspects of the war are compared with Vietnam.  President Polk (a Democrat) was eager to have a short war but also needed to hamstring his generals - Taylor and Scott were Whigs - lest they become unbeatable presidential nominees.  Bauer does not neglect other theaters, offering details on the capture and revolt in New Mexico, the naval war in the Gulf of Mexico, Commodore Perry's Mosquito Fleet, the US Navy on the Pacific coast and Baja California, the two expeditions to Chihuahua, and other sundry events.

Bauer commits an entire chapter to The Failure of Graduated Pressure.  President Polk knew that Mexico was a poverty-stricken nation that had only a tenuous hold on most of its territory, especially those the US desired to annex.  Indeed, Mexico had entirely failed to reverse Texas Independence in the previous 9 years though it still refused to recognize it as independent.  As such, Polk mistakenly believed that a generous offer of money and a forgiveness of outstanding debts would be welcomed.  Nope.  And so he sent General Taylor to the Rio Grande.  After Taylor captured Monterry and secured many northern provinces, the Mexican government still would not negotiate.  With each victory, the US sought negotiation and the Mexicans became more intransigent.  Polk had used a similar strategy with the British on the Oregon boundary question and a boundary was settled without a war.  That the same didn't happen with the Mexico boundary troubled him.  He did not want a war, but he was determined to establish the US-Mexico border.

The book is quite readable, each chapter running 15 to 30 pages.  That's an ideal length to cover a chapter a session.  It is extremely well-researched and the bibliography is nearly 40 pages!  Highly recommended for those interested in the war and the various personalities of the time.

Treason Town: Cities as Traitors During the US-Mexican War

During the Mexican-American War, many Mexican cities and towns surrendered without a fight.  Not only that, is some cases the leading citizens joined forces with the Americans, effectively turning traitor.  In this paper, Kelsey Foster argues that the local concerns of the various towns overshadowed the national concerns of Mexico.  Foster demonstrates this with two particular towns: Santa Fe, New Mexico and La Paz, Baja California.

In the case of Santa Fe, the locals were fully aware of the impending invasion of an American army.  The governor requested aid from the government and also from the neighboring state of Chihuahua.  No aid was provided.  Nonetheless, a local army was raised and deployed, but when the US Army approached, the New Mexican army disbanded before any shots were fired.  General Stephen W. Kearny arrived in Santa Fe and raised the American Flag.  The locals had decided that an inevitable military loss on behalf of the Mexican nation that was more often a hindrance than a help was not in their interests.  However, when Kearny moved on to California and left US Volunteers to 'police' New Mexico, the calculus shifted.  Where regular Army troops had been a benefit, volunteer troops became a blight.  Now there was fighting in New Mexico, not for the interests of Mexico but for the local interests of New Mexico.  When the war ended, most New Mexicans chose to remain on the American side of the new border rather than repatriate to Mexico.

Where Santa Fe had weeks of warning of the approaching US Army, La Paz saw an American warship arrive in the harbor and demand the city's surrender.  Baja California was a neglected region, not having had an official communication with the central government in two years.  As such, Governor Palacios Miranda felt very little attachment to Mexico.  No resistance was offered to the Americans and, in fact, many citizens joined the Americans to fight insurgents.  Much of the insurgency was driven by local rivalries rather than Mexican patriotism.  When the war concluded and Baja California was left on the Mexican side of the new border, many of those who actively aided the Americans were forced to move to the United States.

An interesting paper, but I'm not sold on the idea of localism as painted.  Mexico was not a functioning republic, but more of a loose confederation of formerly Spanish territory.  Neither New Mexico nor Baja California had any involvement in the War of Independence (1810-1821).  New Mexico had rebelled from Mexico just a few years earlier (1837) and both Californias (Alta & Baja) were distant and mostly ignored territories.  Alta California had rebelled in 1836 and had long been neglected by Mexico, and Spain before that.  When Santa Anna abrogated the Constitution of 1824, many states declared independence: Texas, Yucatan, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Tabasco.  The national bonds of Mexico were extremely weak.  That was not helped by the capricious and rapacious nature of the series of governments in Mexico City over a short period of years.  The two cities discussed had almost no contact with the central government and thus localism was the default, rather than a balancing act.  Tampico, a major port for Mexico, also surrendered without a fight and became a hub of American activity.  Yucatan was an independent state during the war and even asked for American support for their becoming independent.  Such support was not given and it was soon part of Mexico again.  Many cities and towns between Vera Cruz and Mexico City also surrendered without a fight and cooperated with the American Army.  

Worthwhile for those interested in the era.

Scoob! (2020)

In Venice Beach, California, a stray dog steals a hunk of meat from a restaurant.  Fleeing from a bicycle cop, the dog hooks up with Norbert "Shaggy" Rogers, a lonely kid who eagerly adopts the dog and gives him a name: Scooby Dooby Doo.  Sometime later, Shaggy, dressed as Blue Falcon, and Scooby, dressed as Blue Falcon's dog Dynomutt, are out trick-or-treating when some bullies steal their candy and toss it into a haunted house.  Unwilling to risk the ghost, they are about to leave, but then Fred, Daphne, and Velma appear.  They insist on retrieving the candy, but do indeed find a ghost!  Well, not really.  The first case is solved and the team is formed.  Then follows a montage that repeats the events of the opening credits for the cartoon.  Present day, the now adult crew have a meeting with Simon Cowell, who wants to fund Mystery Inc. as a business, but he thinks Shaggy (Will Forte) and Scooby are deadweight.  The duo head to their favorite bowling alley to mope.  It is then that the bowling pins come to life and attack!

The movie isn't merely a return of the 'meddling kids.'  This is a Hanna-Barbera revival.  Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg) and Dynomutt come to rescue against the bowling pins.  Unlike the cartoon, Blue Falcon has a pilot for his jet: Dee Dee Skyes.  Dee Dee was one of the Teen Angels with Captain Caveman.  Does her appearance foreshadow the formation of the Teen Angels?  The bowling pins prove to be the minions of none other than Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs), who has a grand plan to recover his missing dog, Muttley.  Finally, all the groups converge in the bowels of a frozen mountain where an ancient race of cavemen still live, Captain Caveman (Tracy Morgan) among them.  Of course, I watched all these characters as a kid, so it was entertaining to see them all return.

Fred (Zac Efron) comes across as something of a doofus.  Though the leader in the cartoon, he has morphed into the butt of jokes.  Though described as the 'tank' of the crew, he fails every time he is called upon to be the tank.  Velma is the brains of the outfit, as is usual in her modern incarnation.  Like Fred, Blue Falcon is also a doofus, but that is in keeping with the cartoon.  All bluster and bumbling while Dynomutt, Dog Wonder saves the day.

Fun, especially for those who watched these shows on Saturday mornings back in the day.

What is a Woman? (2022)

The controversial film from last year is now available on Twitter.  Matt Walsh declares that, though he thought he knew what a woman was, some doubts have arisen in recent years.  In order to clarify, he set out on a quest across the country and even around the globe to find out What is a Woman? 

Among those he asked to define a woman were academics, participants of a Women's March, doctors, politicians, and even random people on the street.  Most of those asked either could not give a definition or refused to give a definition.  One politician ended the interview rather than provide any answer to the question.  Those who did give a definition tended to provide a circular one: a woman is someone who identifies as a woman.  This reluctance to pin down a definition is tied to the rise in transgenderism.  To provide a biological answer would be to exclude transgender women from womanhood.  Walsh interviews a transgender man who paints a grim picture of his experiences.  He also addresses the issue of transgender women participating in sports.  One woman - interviewed anonymously - detailed her experience of being displaced in sports by transgender women.  Why an anonymous interview?  She feared being labeled transphobic, which would stain her forever.  Opposition to transgender athletes has been labeled bigotry by many.  Also covered is the debate over pronouns.  Walsh talked to Jordan Peterson on this subject, who rose to prominence on that very topic.  At the end of the film, he still had not been provided with a definition for a woman, so he asked his wife.

"Adult human female."

It is noteworthy that among his interviews were a transgender man - who claimed no knowledge of how women feel - and a transgender doctor whose specialty was transgender patients.  As such, he didn't only talk to those who had negative experiences with transgenderism.  Most of those he interviewed were on the transgender side of the debate.  However, it should be noted that Walsh and Daily Wire edited the film; a skilled editor can flip the meaning of almost anything through clever cuts and remixed questions and answers.  He also has some dramatizations of himself, which was silly.  Even so, recommended to those interested in the view of trans-opponents.

Shoot the Sun Down (1978)

The story opens with some background.  It is 1836 and the area around Santa Fe is dominated by Navajo and Apache, who are killing each other as well as settlers.  The towns in the area are dominated by corrupt Mexican soldiers.  However, Americans are proving to be successful traders.  It so happens that three groups arrive in Santa Fe.  There is the captain (Bo Brundin) and his woman (Margot Kidder).  She puts on the airs of a lady while he claims to be a former ship's captain who now hopes to earn money by trading with the Indians.  There is scalphunter (Geoffrey Lewis) and his three underlings: Angel, Conquistador, and Delaware.  He claims to hunt buffalo, but is really - as his name exposes - a scalp hunter.  The Mexican government pays for Indian scalps and he's eager to collect.  Lastly, Mr. Rainbow (Christopher Walken) is on his way to Texas to join the revolution.  Unusually, he is armed with a revolver, which is a new invention at the time.

As the principal characters interact, motivations are exposed.  Most importantly, the captain has a treasure map and a nugget of gold to go with it.  Scalphunter wants to steal the gold for himself.  The woman is not the lady she pretends to be.  Mr. Rainbow is a deserter because he got tired of slaughtering Indians for the army.  This explains why he saved a Navajo (A Martinez) from a well-deserved beating by a bunch of men he was cheating at dice.  From Santa Fe, the principals soon find themselves at an abandoned village where they must work together against marauding Apache.

Regarding the setting, it gets some things right and others wrong.

• The Patterson Revolver was first available for sale in late 1836.  Mr. Rainbow is indeed carrying around a Patterson, which impressed me.  However, the gun only fired 5 shots though it is shown firing 6.  Also, it was a single-action revolver, meaning the hammer needed to be manually cocked before you can pull the trigger.  Therefore, his opening gunfight with the trio of bandits was incorrect.
• Mr. Rainbow claims to be coming from San Francisco.  There is no San Francisco in 1836.  It was called Yerba Buena.  However, he may mean San Francisco Bay.
• California was also in rebellion during this time, but that came to nothing.  Mr. Rainbow is therefore accurate in this observation.
• Jefferson Davis was never a captain.  He resigned from the US Army in 1835 as a First Lieutenant.  During the Mexican-American War, he raised a volunteer regiment - the Mississippi Rifles - and was its colonel.
• Indentured servitude was still legal, though it had largely been replaced by slavery in North America.
• One of scalphunter's goons called Mr. Rainbow a Gringo.  The term has not yet been invented.  It was coined during the Mexican-American War (1846-48).
• Scalphunter's goons are playing rock-paper-scissors.  This is a Japanese game that didn't migrate to the West until the 20th Century.
• Sunbearer is using a modern bow rather than an authentic Navajo bow.
• The Mexican government really did offer bounties for Indian scalps.
• The Golden Wheel of Montezuma would be immovable with the people on hand.  It looked to be at least 4 feet in diameter and at least 6 inches thick.  If it were pure gold, it would weigh 15 tons or so.  That rope they used to lower it onto the wagon was laughable.
• The Journey of Death - a noted stretch of desert in New Mexico - appears in the film.  While the characters are passing through, they are said to be within 3 days of Santa Fe.  Socorro - the nearest point of the Journey - is 140 miles from Santa Fe.  A wagon might go 25 miles in a day.
• Mr. Rainbow states he is going to Fort Alamo in Texas, painting the impression that he will be one of the defenders who dies there.  It is 700 miles from Santa Fe to San Antonio.  He cannot arrive in time for the Battle of the Alamo.  Besides, his gun was unavailable during the battle (Feb-Mar 1836).  This may just be a case that his news is old and he will arrive long after the Texas Revolution has been won.

There is plenty of potential in the story, but it is poorly handled.  There is a lot of talk, but not so much action.  This is a slow-moving western.  Though most of the cast is fine, Christopher Walken was a strange choice.  He doesn't have that hard-as-nails loner quality to him.  He looks much too boyish for a man who has seen too much killing.

Mediocre.

Travel in America in the 1840s

This YouTube short provides a look at travel in the 1840s.  It opens with our unnamed narrator, who is working as a blacksmith's apprentice in New York.  A stagecoach arrives that it in need of repair, which the blacksmith does.  On that very coach is a letter for the narrator that summons him to Illinois.  He pondered the idea of trekking west alone through the wilderness but rejected the idea.  No, the obvious route was the Mohawk Valley via the Erie Canal.  The following day, he rides with the stagecoach to a point nearest the Erie Canal.  He hikes to the canal and then lucks into a job as a mule boy.  The mules walked along a path beside the canal to tow the barge.  Upon arriving in Buffalo, he found a job as an assistant fireman on a steamship.  Here, he fed wood into the boiler to keep the boilers steaming.  Upon arriving in Detroit, he had earned enough money on his trip that he could pay for train travel.  For those going further west, a wagon train was the obvious choice.

Here is a brief overview of travel by steamship, canal, stagecoach, and train in the 1840s.  Recommended.

Rick and Morty - Season 6

Having narrowly escaped the destruction of the Citadel (season 5 finale), Rick and Morty are floating in space aboard an unpowered habitat.  Rick narrates his final thoughts, which Morty fails to record.  Luckily, Space Beth arrives.  Returning to Earth, Rick attempts to repair the portal gun.  Instead, Morty, Jerry, and Rick are sent back to their home dimensions.  It is up to Beth, Space Beth, and Summer to get them back.  From here, the series takes a somewhat different turn.  With the portal gun disabled, Rick and Morty are stuck in their current dimension.  The show riffs on Diehard, Star Wars, Jurasik Park, superhero films, King Arthur, and more.  Each of the major characters get an opportunity to shine, including the usually maligned Jerry.  The episodic adventures also have an arc in which Rick has a lead to the Rick who killed his wife.  The finale promises that season 7 will concern the hunt of Evil Rick.

Good popcorn fun and recommended!

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

Hidden away in a lab, Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) is a chemist with great plans.  Of course, his employer is entirely unaware of his plans and is thus horrified upon discovering how much money has somehow been funding his research.  As luck would have it, he is finally successful, but no one cares.  He is tossed out on his ear and his successful experiment is dumped in the nearest sink.  Undeterred, Sidney finds employment in the loading docks of another company, using his foot in the door to acquire another lab for his experiments.  Through a misunderstanding, he does just that with the company's endorsement.  His research proves highly explosive but finally successful.  He has created a nigh-indestructible fabric that will utterly change the textile industry.  Not everyone is happy about his invention.

Daphne Birnley (Joan Greenwood) is engaged to Michael Corland (Michael Gough), an executive with the company that fired Stratton, and the daughter of Alan Birnley (Cecil Parker), the owner of the company where Stratton has had success.  Daphne is taken with Sidney, seeing him as a brilliant mad scientist who refuses to sell his formula so it can be deep-sixed.  As his research took place primarily in two companies, they argue who should really get credit.  Meanwhile, the bigwigs of the textile industry are on their way to put the kibosh on this new fabric.

Rarely a laugh out loud type of comedy, it is immensely entertaining, nonetheless.  Alec Guinness is outstanding as the idealistic and somewhat bumbling scientist.  Joan Greenwood has a great arc where she is initially determined to torpedo Stratton's research but is eventually his greatest ally.  She positively smolders with her smoky voice and sultry stares.  She gives a film noire feel to this oddball comedy.  Cecil Parker is excellent as the business owner who is out of his depth with this new-fangled technology.  There are many bit players who do a lot with their roles.  Of interest, those who oppose Sidney's miracle fabric make a really good case, not some throwaway strawman argument.

Great popcorn fun and highly recommended.