Marlowe (2022)

Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger) arrives at the office of Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) and asks that he locate her lover.  Nico Peterson (Francois Arnaud) is a props man at Pacific Pictures and has suddenly gone missing.  Marlowe accepts the case and soon discovers that Nico Peterson was killed in a hit and run accident.  When he reveals this to Clare, she knew that when she hired him.  However, she saw him alive in Tiajuana a week ago.  When he leaves, he is confronted by Dorothy Quincannon (Jessica Lange), who is a former film starlet, filthy rich thanks to her deceased husband's oil money, and Clare's mother.  Peterson was killed just outside an exclusive club run by Floyd Hanson (Danny Houston).  Nico was reportedly pursued by a pair of Mexicans with murder in their eyes.  He was also in debt to a noted criminal, Lou Hendricks (Alan Cumming).  As a former investigator for the LA DA, Marlowe has contacts with the police, notably Detective Joe Green (Ian Hart) and Detective Bernie Ohls (Colm Meaney).  Both of them let Marlowe do the breaking and entering that will eventually crack the case.

To its credit, it has a convoluted plot that Raymond Chandler might spin.  The body count is high.  The Valentines Day Massacre was nothing when compared to the death toll of a Marlowe investigation.  There are so many characters with clashing goals and interests.  The man behind the scenes - the big villain who steers the drug trafficking and prostitution that are revealed - proves to be a character who has a very small role and is hardly impacted by the events of the story.  Based on The Black-Eyed Blonde by John Banville, this is not actually a Raymond Chandler story, just a sad imitation.

Everyone is much too old, by like 25 to 30 years too old!  The movie takes place in 1939 when Marlowe should be in his mid to late thirties but is played by a 70-year-old Liam Neeson.  Diane Kruger is in her mid-40s as the femme fatale but, according to the dialogue, Marlowe says "You're half my age."  Clearly, the script expected an actress around 20 vs. a Marlowe of about 40.  The nonsense continues when Dorothy states that Nico is "too old" for her daughter.  Um, Kruger is 9 years older than Arnaud.  Maybe do some adjustments to the script to take account of the actual casting rather than the anticipated casting.  You have to give the actors credit for delivering the lines with a straight face.  Marlowe and Hanson are veterans of the Great War, which was just over 20 years earlier, meaning they would have been in their late 40s at the time; that would be the age of career military men, not conscripts.  Jessica Lange's character had a movie career which has stalled.  She is 72!  Hollywood didn't become a motion picture hub until 1912, when - let's do the math - she was 45!  Why was Jessica Lange cast?  Really, Diane Kruger should have played Dorothy and some young actress played Clare.  Marlowe (70), Green (58), and Ohls (69) repeatedly talk about who has a pension and who doesn't.  This is a stupid conversation for men of this age.  If this movie had been made in 1997 with this same cast, it wouldn't have been so ludicrous.

It is no wonder this movie bombed.  Skip.

The Riddle of the Sands (1979)

In 1901, Arthur Davies (Simon MacCorkindale) is sailing his yacht along the Frisian Islands on the German coast.  Another yacht takes note of him and soon a young lady arrives to invite him for dinner.  She is Clara Dollman (Jenny Agutter), a German girl who speaks excellent English.  Arthur accepts the invitation and meets Clara's father and step-mother.  Herr Dollman is particularly interested in Davies' activities and reacts with something like alarm when Davies reveals that he is mapping the islands and sandbars.  Davies is convinced something peculiar is afoot and sends a letter to his old school chum, Charles Carruthers (Michael York), who speaks fluent German and has a junior post in the foreign office.  Carruthers is an aristocrat and, as such, is immediately put-off by Davies' tiny yacht.  Moreover, he thinks that Davies has no reason to be suspicious of Dollman.  However, he changes his view when he also provokes alarmed reactions from German officers.  What are the Germans doing?

The movie is something of a spy thriller, with the two young Englishmen poking their noses where they don't belong.  There is a good story here but it comes off mostly dull in this telling.  Davies' growing relationship with Clara is not allowed to flourish once Carruthers arrives.  Clara is left as a side character with little to do and only interacts with Davies in Carruthers' presence: awkward.  Davies and Carruthers should have been fused into one character, especially since most of the excitement sees one or the other infiltrating a factory or fleeing soldiers or fighting sailors.  The chemistry between the two is good and their banter is fun, but it distracts from the thriller aspects of the story.  Rather than opening and closing narration, the movie should have bookended the story with the discussed Royal visit between Kaiser Wilhelm (Wolf Kahler) and King Edward VII.  Open all cordial and jovial before Edward gets a stern look where he says they must discuss something.  Insert the action of Davies and Carruthers.  Return to the meeting where Wilhelm is now pale.  Show, don't tell, especially in a movie.

The most interesting thing about the movie is that it was based on a 1903 book, which warned against a German assault on the English coast.  More than a decade before the Great War, Erskine Childers saw conflict coming between the two nations.

It is just okay.

Yasuke (2021)

In 1579, a black man from Africa arrived in Japan with an Italian Jesuit.  The very idea of a man with black skin so intrigued Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) that he wanted to meet this man.  Yasuke's original name is lost to history but this was the name he used in Nobunaga's service.  He became an armed retainer of the most powerful daimyo (feudal lord) of the era.  In 1582, Nobunaga was assassinated and Yasuke found his way to the heir.  And there ends the historical record of Yasuke, the black samurai.

The Netflix series picks up the action 20 years later.  Yasuke works as a fisherman in a small village when he is recruited to escort a young girl, Saki, and her mother, Ichika, to a special doctor.  En route, they are attacked.  It turns out that the girl has magical powers that could tip the balance of power in Japan.  Despite his desire to be a humble fisherman, Yasuke finds himself becoming Saki's protector and once again involved in the power struggles of Japan.  Yasuke proves to be the greatest of all the samurai, a natural talent who can only be defeated by those wielding dark magic.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of dark magic at the moment.

Though supposedly taking place at the beginning of 17th century Japan, the characters are ludicrous.  There is a robot!  Really?  The evil Catholic priest, Abraham, wields magic like some Dungeons & Dragons wizard.  Among Abraham's band of mercenaries are the futuristic Japanimation battle robot, a Russian warrior woman who turns into a werebear, an African witch doctor with arcane magical powers, and a scythe swinging lady assassin.  Yeah, this looks so much like historical Japan.

The heart of the series is the connection between Yasuke and Saki.  Though he views himself as her protector, it is often she who protects him.  Her magical powers increase through the series and she becomes a major power despite her youth.

The anachronistic presence of a wise-cracking battle robot and the other out of place mercenaries served to destroy the setting.  Why go to the effort of placing the adventure in a particular historical time if you are going to completely upend that setting with the inclusion of these oddities?  The flashy and ridiculously powerful magic unleashed by the greater forces at play made the soldiers and samurai merely a sideshow.  It was somewhat reminiscent of Avatar the Last Airbender.  Sokka may have been a fine swordsman, but he was no match for even a minimally skilled bender.  An army without benders vs. one with benders is doomed.  That goes for this show too.  As such, the central character is often just an observer.

Mediocre.  Skip.

Generation Kill (2008)

Kuwait, 2003: The 1st Recon Battalion of the 1st Marines are preparing to invade Iraq.  Evan Wright (Lee Tergesen) arrives to accompany 2nd platoon of Bravo Company during the invasion.  The Marines are not exactly keen on having a reporter along but he is soon accepted.  Second platoon is commanded by Lt. Nate Fick (Stark Sands), but Wright is assigned to the Humvee commanded by Staff Sergeant Brad "Iceman" Colbert (Alexander Skarsgard).  Lt. Col. Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando (Chance Kelly) is a hard charging marine and quite eager to get his men "into the game" with plenty of action.  When he has an officer meeting, he invariably tells the men that they aren't being aggressive enough.  The narrative follows two aspects of the war.  First, there are the various battles, skirmishes, and encounters with the Iraqi fighters and civilians.  This is pretty one-sided, as the marines utterly dominate the battles and only have 1 interpreter to converse with non-combatants.  Second, there is the esprit-de-corps - or lack of it - of the marines themselves.  Questions of competence, issues of morality, second-guessing of tactics, and so forth are frequent topics of discussion.  The marines also trade insults and unflattering nicknames.  Despite their battlefield dominance, the behind-the-scenes action paints the officer corps as a mixed bag of good officers and incompetent ones.  Also, the marines often find they need to scrounge for equipment, be it batteries for their night vision goggles, lubricant for their gun turrets, or even food.  The rule is that the marines 'make do.'  To demonstrate the 'make do' ethic, one of the marines who lost his helmet finds himself wearing a motorcycle helmet for a while before upgrading to a helmet taken from an Iraqi soldier.

The series primarily follows Team 1 of the 2nd Platoon and is even more focused on the Humvee in which Evan Wright is riding.  During the driving scenes, the driver, Corporal Ray Persons (James Ransone), babbles incessantly while Iceman stares out the window at the passing Iraqi landscape.  Ray is the standout character who steals many scenes with his humorous banter and frequent singing.  In the backseat, Wright occasionally asks a question or - during battles - sits wide-eyed and silent.  There is also Lance Corporal Trombley (Billy Lush), who is perhaps too eager to shoot someone.

Despite being a series about war, it was light on action.  Sure, lots of things blow up, Iraqis get shot, and bullets ricochet off the vehicles, but it doesn't impact the characters.  They are inured to this from their time in Afghanistan and that insouciance makes the action seem more like annoying inclement weather than a dangerous firefight.

This is no Band of Brothers.  It offers a narrow glimpse of the Iraq War and a brief biography of a score of marines during a two-month window.  Just okay.

Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow (1963)

In the 1770s, Doctor Christopher Syn (Patrick McGoohan) is a vicar in a small town on the English coast.  The town is known as a hotbed of smuggling and a masked villain called the Scarecrow leads this band of smugglers.  Dr. Syn is the Scarecrow.  King George III is so annoyed with the loss in tax revenue that he dispatched General Pugh (Geoffrey Keen) to crush the smuggling ring.  Pugh knows his business and uses a variety of tactics to turn the smugglers against the Scarecrow.  However, each of his strategies is countered by the clever Scarecrow.  It is hardly any surprise that Dr. Syn is an excellent chess player.

This Disney feature is based on the novels by Russell Thorndike, though McGoohan's portrayal of the character makes him much less of the anti-hero from the source.  Though most of his band of smugglers have no idea who the Scarecrow truly is, he has two confidants who do: Sexton Mipps (George Cole) and young John Banks (Sean Scully).  Mipps has a roguishness about him and it is only thanks to Dr. Syn that his natural inclinations have been turned to noble use.  Mipps is a regular at the local tavern and knows all the local gossip.  John Banks is the teenaged son of Squire Thomas Banks (Michale Hordern), the kind-hearted magistrate of the town.  As such, he provides vital news to the Scarecrow.

McGoohan is impressive in the dual roles of Syn and Scarecrow.  Where Syn is serene and scholarly, Scarecrow is gruff and sharp.  It reminded me of Christian Bale in Batman Begins.  However, the personality and mannerism gap between Syn and Scarecrow is much greater than that between Bruce Wayne and Batman.  Great job by McGoohan.  It comes as little surprise that this was one of his favorite roles in his career.

Good popcorn fun and recommended.  It is available on YouTube.

Tomorrowland (2015)

The movie opens with a dark monologue from Frank Walker (George Clooney), who paints a picture of inevitable doom.  However, his introduction is repeatedly interrupted by a woman off screen who thinks he is being excessively gloomy and also isn't starting at the beginning.  He starts again.

In 1964, young Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) arrives in New York to attend the World's Fair and show off his invention, a jetpack!  Doctor David Nix (Hugh Laurie) is unimpressed as the jetpack does not work and, if it did, would have little benefit.  Nix sends Walker on his way.  Frank has hardly walked away when a young girl, Athena (Raffey Cassidy), announces that she likes Frank.  She chases after Frank, gives him a pin, and tells him to follow her.  He gets on a ride and, because he is wearing the pin, it takes him down a different tunnel that leads to Tomorrowland.  Tomorrowland is an invitation-only alternate dimension where the smart people have created a high-tech utopia.  Frank has hardly arrived than a giant robot makes his jetpack work and he flies through and about the futuristic buildings and structures.

Fast forward to today (i.e., the near future) and Cassie Newton (Britt Robertson).  Casie - who was the off screen voice in the opening - has been sabotaging efforts to dismantle the NASA launch site at Cape Canaveral.  She has dreams of being an astronaut, but the US is shutting down its ability to go to space.  The sabotage has not gone unnoticed and her next effort is foiled when she is arrested.  After being bailed out of jail, she finds that a pin is among her belongings.  However, when she touches it, she is instantly transported to a wheatfield on the outskirts of Tomorrowland!  Or is she?  As she walks, she bumps into the wall.  Athena, who has not aged a day since 1964, provided the pin to lure Casie into her grand plan.  From this point on, Casie finds herself hunted by robots from Tomorrowland and must somehow get to Tomorrowland to save the world.

The movie has a message that mankind is ruining the Earth.  Casie is the only person in the world who has both the innate technical know-how and upbeat optimism to prevent Armageddon.  However, as it works out, her real contribution was to jar Frank Walker from his apathy and get him to save the world.  Really, Casie is mostly along for the ride, a catalyst to get the story rolling and a 'normal' person to provide the audience with a window into this bizarre high-tech universe.

Mostly disappointing.  It has some good moments, but it provides mostly uninteresting characters in an unlikely setting.  Also, for a Disney film, it was off-putting how the robots would just disintegrate random people.  Yeah, murder robots aren't cool and shouldn't be played for laughs.

Skip.

Everything or Nothing (2003)

James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is in Tajikistan to recover a Soviet suitcase bomb before it can be sold.  He tricks the buyer and seller into believing a double-cross is in progress and then uses the confusion to snatch the suitcase and retreat to his extraction point.  Cue the opening credits and theme song!

Returning to England, Bond reports to M (Judi Dench).  She immediately dispatches him to rescue Dr. Katya Nadanova (Heidi Klum), a scientist who specializes in nanotechnology.  With new gadgets and vehicles provided by Q (John Cleese), he sets out for Egypt.  Bond infiltrates and destroys a nanotechnology lab, pursues an armored train, battles his old adversary Jaws (Richard Kiel), and escapes with Dr. Nadanova.  Bond has hardly returned to England than M sends him to find Agent 003, who has gone missing in Peru.  Here, Bond tangles with the main villain, Diavolo (Willem Dafoe), a former KGB agent.  He also meets the main Bond Girl, Serena St. Germaine (Shannon Elizabeth), a geologist.  New Orleans and Moscow are other settings for the action.

A walkthrough of the entire game is available to watch on YouTube.  Though the game makes use of the actors for all the dialogue, that mostly proves to be just a line here or there.  This is not a talky game and the demands on the actors are minimal.  Oddly, both M and Q get a lot of dialogue as they direct Bond during each mission, as he has a constant uplink with them.  There is a lot of action.  The gunfights are extensive as Bond clears levels.  The car chases are long and plentiful.  The body count is astronomical.  Bond has the opportunity to drive/operate a variety of vehicles.  There's a motorcycle, an SUV, a racecar, a sports car (same one from Die Another Day), a helicopter, and a couple of tanks.

One really creepy thing was that the villain's plan for New Orleans was to destroy the levies and flood the city.  Why is that creepy?  Because 2 years after this game was released, the levies broke and the city was flooded.

The walkthrough is 3 hours and the player has not clipped out the bits where he saved the game.  Also, he's not particularly good at the game.  Sure, he got to the end, but he seldom uses his gadgets - in fact, some he never used - and mostly played as a standard 3rd person shooter.  Also, he missed most of the 'Bond Moments' where the game would show a cutscene of awesome action.  Nonetheless, it was a fun story that serves as Brosnan's 5th and final outing as Bond.  Only worth watching if you are also a fan of 3rd person shooter games.

Gunbus (1986)

Luke (Jeff Osterhage) and Barney (Scott McGinnis) are bank robbers in the southwest United States who use way too much dynamite to bust open safes.  After having left a series of flattened banks in their wake, their luck runs out.  Sneaking into an impressive-looking bank, they encounter multiple gunmen awaiting them.  As World War I is currently being fought in Europe, the pair are forced to join the military and sent to the front.

In France, the pair are marching along in uniform with rifles slung on their shoulders when a German bomber approaches.  The thing is ludicrously immense, a building in the sky with 4 bomb bays and a two-story cockpit with a giant wheel for steering, like on a ship.  Yes, this is Steampunk WWI.  While everyone else takes cover, Luke and Barney set aside their rifles and scrounge through their rucksacks for revolvers.  The pair then proceed to shoot down the bomber by killing the pilot.  Gee that was easy.  Taking advantage of the confusion, the pair jump into an abandoned truck and drive away.  Yes, our heroes are now deserters.

They stop outside an officers' club but they aren't officers.  However, a pair of drunkards wander out of the club and the deserting duo have an idea!  Soon, the two aviation officers enter the club and buy drinks all around.  Apparently, they got to take their ill-gotten bank robbery money with them to Europe.  After entirely too much drinking, Luke bets one of the real aviation officers that he can fly a plane.  Early the next morning, Luke and Barney find themselves in a Vickers FB5 (AKA Gunbus) which Luke pilots into the air.  Of course, he has no idea where he is going and cannot find his way back to the airfield where he took off.  Instead, he crashes into another airfield.  The commander there considers shooting them until they tell him about the bomber they shot down.  It so happens that he is hunting the Moby Dick of the German military, a gargantuan Zepplin that dominates the sky.  Luke and Barney are only too happy to go hunting for it.

Like the ludicrous bomber, the Zepplin is steampunk-inspired and way too big.  It has a submarine aspect to it where it hides in the clouds and peeks at the landscape through a downward facing periscope.  Silly.  Like a battleship, it has multiple anti-aircraft cannons and many machinegun emplacements.  Unlike the real airships of WWI, this one doesn't use altitude to its advantage.  The planes of WWI could not fly high enough to shoot down the giant gasbags, which was why they were used as bombers.

The British and French lack the steampunk aircraft until the final confrontation.  Fritz (Ronald Lacey) is the mechanic at the British airfield and he has built a variety of ludicrous flying machines.  With their normal planes destroyed by the Zepplin bombing the airfield, the flyers must resort to the crazy creations of Fritz that are hidden in the nearby woods.  Who knew a model T could fly?

Extremely campy oddball Western.  It was titled Sky Pirates for the US market.  This is one of those bad movies that prove to be fun anyway.  Just okay.

Grumpy Old Men, 2024 Edition

This week, both Trump and Biden have secured the nomination of their parties by accumulating over half the delegates available.  When the conventions start, they each already have more than 50% of the voting delegates to prevent a brokered convention.  Now, they just have to be around for the convention.  Biden (81) and Trump (77) are not spring chickens.  We have the oldest president ever running against the 3rd oldest president ever (Reagan is currently the 2nd oldest).  Whoever wins, he is destined to be the oldest president ever.  If Biden, he retains the title.  If Trump, he will surpass Biden by the end of his term.

Maybe we should have an amendment that says you cannot be in government after the government-established retirement age.  If Social Security states that the retirement age is 67, then you leave government at 67.  The nice thing about such an amendment is it would be hard to break.  Those who want to remain in government would have to raise the retirement age for the whole country, which will be a hard sell.  This age limit should go for elective offices, appointed positions, and even everyday bureaucrats.  Yes, even the Supreme Court.  Out the door.  Go back home and suffer under the rules you have inflicted upon the rest of us.

Yesterday (2019)

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is an aspiring musician in England who has finally come to the conclusion that he will never be able to make a living as a musician.  Despite Ellie's (Lily James) reassurances that he should carry on, he decides to put up his guitar and get a real job.  While biking home from this fateful decision, there is a world-wide power outage for a few seconds.  During that brief flicker of darkness, Jack is hit by a bus.  He awakens in hospital with two missing teeth.  To celebrate his release from hospital, Ellie bought him a new guitar; the old one didn't survive the accident.  Just to test it out, he plays a Beatles' song: Yesterday.  Everyone is floored by this terrific song.  Jack thinks they are pranking him.  However, the joke goes too long.  Searching on Google later, he can find no record of the Beatles having existed!  He also finds there is no Coca Cola or cigarettes!  And so begins his career as the greatest songwriter the world has ever seen and skyrocketing fame.

Light and entertaining, this is a fun comedy.  Ed Sheeran plays himself and is an early booster for the rising talent of Jack Malik.  The songwriting duel between the two is terrific, especially since the audience knows that Jack has an unfair advantage.  It was also funny to see how difficult it might be to reassemble so many lyrics just from memory.  Then there is an appearance of an elderly John Lennon (Robert Carlyle) who did not form a band and lived his life in England.  Imagine that.

Good popcorn fun!

The New 3/5th Rule

Back in the 1780s when the Articles of Confederation were failing the newly independent United States, a constitutional convention was called.  The putative plan was merely to amend the Articles to deal with recent troubles.  Instead, a new constitution was composed.  One of the difficulties was that the southern states had sizable slave populations.  Slaves were property and thus, it was argued, shouldn't be counted in the population.  As representation in the House was going to be based on population, the South didn't like that plan.  Of course, the North didn't think slaves should get the same representation as citizens.  What to do?  The two sides agreed to the 3/5th compromise.  Thus, a state with 50,000 citizens and 50,000 slaves would be allocated House seats as if the population was 80,000 people (100% of the citizens plus 60% of the slaves).  This compromise allowed the South to keep pace with the far more populace North for decades.  Though the 3/5th rule is still written into the Constitution, the 13th Amendment - which abolished slavery - ended it.

Today, a new means of inflating representation in the House has been developed.  Though it would seem obvious that the purpose of the House of Representatives was to represent the interests of the citizens, such is not quite the case.  The huge influx of illegal aliens - or undocumented workers, if you prefer - has inflated some regions.  In 2018, it was estimated that 11 to 12 million "unauthorized immigrants" were in the United States.  That was about 3% of the population, or 14 seats in the House of Representatives.  Now, if this 3% was evenly spread across the US, the representation would be a wash.  But they are not evenly spread.  According to this 2019 story, most of them live in 20 metro areas.  By having a large illegal population, a state can gain a House seat or two.  Within the state, the balance of representatives will tilt toward the metro areas, disenfranchising the rural areas and smaller cities.  It should be noted that several million more illegals have immigrated into the US over the last 3 years.

Though there are financial costs to hosting illegal aliens, the political gains are clearly enough to have the majority of politicians turn a blind eye.  Illegal immigration is so unpopular with the citizenry that Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 by campaigning on it.  He may win in 2024 by campaigning on it again!

Much as it was wrong to allocate representation to slave states through the 3/5th rule, it is also wrong to grant sanctuary cities and states more representation because they flout US law.  Citizenship should have benefits.  If Dieter from Germany happens to be attending the University of Iowa, that does not mean that he should count toward Iowa's number of Representatives in the House.  Incentives matter and right now the incentive is to give more representation based on population rather than citizens; politicians are responding to those incentives by opening the borders.

King of New York (1990)

Frank White (Christopher Walken) is released from Sing Sing Prison.  A one-time bigwig in the drug trade, he looks to resume his old position.  His chief enforcer, Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne), has already cleared away some Columbian drug dealers.  Clashes with Chinese drug dealers soon follow.  Detective Roy Bishop (Victor Argo) knows that White is responsible and tries to intimidate him into better behavior.  No go.  Two of Bishop's cops - Gilley (David Caruso) and Flanigan (Wesley Snipes) - decide that more extreme measures are needed.

There is not a lot of story here.  Gangster released from prison returns to his criminal ways, clashes with cops and other gangsters, lots of gunfights, and lots of people die.  The visuals are good, but the car chase is much too long.  How can that many bullets be fired and none of them hit?  There are no characters to like.  The gangsters are obviously bad but so are the cops.  In one confrontation between White and Bishop, White explains how everyone he kills has it coming.  In fact, he is the lesser evil.  Someone is going to be selling drugs; why not him?  After all, he has been funneling money to the financially troubled hospital in Harlem.  He's a businessman.  Interesting view.

For fans of the genre, this might be worth seeing.  I found it mostly boring.  Gangster movies just don't do anything for me.  If everyone dies, that's the happy ending.

Skip.

Alliances Led to World War

Prior to the First World War, many of the European countries collected into alliances.  France, the UK, and Russia formed the Triple Entente in 1894 while Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Triple Alliance.  This balancing act of alliance was in order to discourage war.  However, when a Bosnian Serb separatist killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo, a domino effect of the alliances saw Germany invade France.  Had the alliances not been triggered, the war might have been between Russia - which viewed itself as a natural ally of the Slavic Serbs - and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Today, we have NATO.  NATO was established in the wake of World War II and was specifically meant to be a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Europe.  The war which had begun with the intent of freeing Poland from the Germany Nazis and the Soviet Communists, ended with the Soviet Communists in control of Poland, half of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Balkan countries.  Western Europe was understandably concerned that the Soviets might keep going.  However, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and all the captured Eastern European countries resumed independence.  West and East Germany reunited.  NATO should have had a party and closed shop.  Instead, it decided to expand.

The once defensive alliance was now marching toward the borders of - not the Soviet Union - Russia.  The anti-Soviet alliance has become the anti-Russia alliance.  The anti-communist alliance is now opposing a country that is no longer communist.  The opportunity for a new balance to be struck has been squandered.  The new Russian state saw that its old enemies from the USSR days remain its enemies.  Worse, they are expanding toward the Russian border.  Oh, but trust us, we will stop once we've added every state except Russia into the anti-Russian alliance.  We continued to treat Russia as the enemy and, predictably, Russia offered resistance to NATO encroachment.  Unsurprisingly, western media has painted Russia as the aggressor in all of this.

Putin is a dictator, a throwback to the czars, but he is not the Soviet Politburo bent on spreading communism around the world.  Europe no longer needs us to protect it from Russia.  Russia has a $5 trillion economy while the EU has a $25 trillion economy.  Russia has 150 million people vs. the EU at 450 million.  Why are we defending Europe when they have the resources to defend themselves?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has outlived its purpose.  It has been over 30 years since the end of the Soviet Union.  Time to close up shop.  As it is, further NATO expansion is going to lead to a war between the West and Russia.  Let's not have that war.

Super Tuesday Fallout

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have each trounced the competition on Super Tuesday.  Trump won every contest except Vermont, while Biden won all but American Somoa.  With Vermont, Nikki Haley was bolstered by Democrats who voted in the open primary.  Jason Palmer defeated Biden in American Somoa by a vote of 51 to 40.  Yeah, not a big turnout and basically meaningless except as a funny footnote.

As of today, Nikki has suspended her campaign and Trump is effectively the nominee.  Both Trump and Biden should have their nominations officially sewn up by the end of the month.  The rematch is coming but now both candidates have presidential records to compare.  With illegal immigration as an issue, Trump wins that topic by a wide margin.  The economy is trickier since there are positives and negatives to examine from each of their presidencies.  With Trump as the nominee, Biden's age becomes less of an issue, though his mental health stays on the table.

Will 2024 be a repeat of Grover Cleveland or William McKinley.  Grover Cleveland ran twice against Benjamin Harrison, losing the first time but winning in the rematch.  William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and beat him again in the 1900 rematch.

I Agree with Jimmy Dore?

Though I rarely find myself agreeing with Jimmy Dore, he makes a great point here:

We should not be surprised that the government that infected black men with syphilis and then didn't treat them to see what happened (Tuskegee Syphilis Study) would also experiment on its citizens with an untried 'vaccine' to protect them from an illness that was mostly harmless to anyone under the age of 60.

Distrust of the government is why we were supposed to have a limited government.  The government long ago broke free of those limits and has become, in many ways, tyrannical.  Where is the American version of Javier Milei?  Our government is desperately in need of pruning with a chainsaw.

Supreme Court rules 9 - 0 in favor of Trump

The Supreme Court has struck down Colorado's effort to remove Donald Trump from the ballot on account of a 14th Amendment violation (i.e., engaging in insurrection).  Even the liberal justices on the court (Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) found the arguments presented unconvincing.  Those who hold to Colorado's (and Maine's and Illinois') arguments for removing Trump are clearly suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome.  They are so anti-Trump, they will embrace lunacy to oppose him.  If you think SCOTUS ruled incorrectly in this case, you need to do some self-reflection.

Much as various apparatchiks around the country have sought to disqualify Trump from running for office again, deep staters have used lawfare to attack him.  With a bipartisan consensus on the court against the first group, how confident are Democrat partisans that the deep staters are honestly pursuing Trump for crimes rather than just abusing their power?  Clearly, SCOTUS has ruled that Colorado abused its power.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Lord Acton

Shoot the Messenger

This video from Tim Pool is troubling.  It does appear that the Biden Administration is going after its enemies with the full force of government, not unlike what Vladimir Putin has done.  Lawfare is being used against opponents, most notably Donald Trump.  The FBI can arrest an actual journalist who reported on January 6th, but has been yet unable to locate the guy who planted pipe bombs.  Interesting.  The government is governing against the people, which is best shown by the open borders - which it repeatedly states are secure - and the rising crime which too many DAs have declined to prosecute.  The Venezuelan illegal immigrant who is on camera beating a NYPD police officer was not only released without bail, but charges have been dropped!  But the FBI have time to arrest a reporter who is critical of the administration.  Something is not right here.

The Biden Administration objects to the news and has opted to shoot the messenger.

Glory (1989)

Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is a captain in the US Army at the Battle of Antietam.  While leading his men toward the Confederate lines, he is wounded and left on the battlefield when the Union forces retreat.  He awakens to see John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman), who is digging graves for the dead.  While being treated for his injury, he learns that Lincoln is preparing the Emancipation Proclamation.  Back in Boston to recover, Shaw is offered command of the proposed all-black regiment by Governor John Andrew (Alan North).  Shaw accepts and a regiment is recruited.  Among the recruits are John Rawlins, Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher), Jupiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy), and Silas Trip (Denzel Washington).

The 54th has many obstacles to overcome before it can be sent to fight.  First, they must learn to march and shoot.  Then there is the trouble in getting uniforms and other gear.  The constant concern is that black soldiers will be left to do manual labor rather than actual fighting.  Eventually, the regiment heads south and is assigned to foraging duty with an undisciplined all-black regiment under Colonel Montgomery (Cliff De Young).  Determined to be sent into battle, Shaw uses his family contacts to make it so.  The 54th fights its first engagement at Grimball's Landing.  For the finale, Shaw volunteers for the Forlorn Hope against Fort Wagner which is protecting Charleston Harbor.

Denzel Washington won his first Oscar for this role and it is clear why.  He brings Silas Trip to life, a former slave who both wants to fight yet doesn't hold much regard for whites, even those who have been dying to free those like him.  He is all callouses and scar tissue, a man who basks in the disdain of his fellows.  However, the growing comradery with his tent mates and the recognition he receives for his bravery in battle transform him.  The prickly loner has become a valued member of the regiment.  He is now a man at peace with himself as he faces a grim battle ahead.

By contrast, Matthew Broderick is a peculiar choice.  He does the youth part just fine, but there isn't much edge to him.  Even when he seeks to be forceful, it comes across almost as pleading.  Often, it felt like he acted entirely out of duty rather than an inner fire for abolition.  He did not seem like a man who would volunteer for a suicidal charge into the guns of Fort Wagner.  Sure, if he was ordered to do it, he would, but he didn't strike me as a man to volunteer.  Though the lines were forceful, the delivery was wishy-washy.  Of course, maybe this is how Shaw was.  Broderick was Director Edward Zwick's first choice for the role.

Andre Braugher is quite good as Thomas Searles, an idealist who grew up free in Boston and finds the rigors of the army more difficult than expected.  As a friend of Colonel Shaw, he feels suddenly abandoned thanks to rules against fraternization.  Considering his later work in cop dramas, this role was out of character for him.  Then again, this was his first role!  An excellent performance and a well-realized character.

If the movie had been nothing but the banter and comradery amongst Freeman, Washington, Braugher, and Kennedy, it would have still been a great movie.  The chemistry among these characters is terrific.

Though the movie gets the history generally correct, there are issues.  First, the regiment was almost exclusively recruited from the free blacks living in Massachusetts, not escaped slaves.  Most of them should have been more like Andre Braugher's bookish Corporal Searles rather than Denzel Washington's belligerent Private Trip.  Many of the soldiers were recruited by Frederick Douglass.  In fact, two of his sons joined the 54th and one of them, Lewis Henry Douglass, was the sergeant major.  Therefore, John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) should have been replaced by Lewis Douglass.  Though Freeman is absolutely terrific in the role, it is peculiar that a fictional character was inserted rather than the historical one.  The only non-fictional member of the 54th is Colonel Shaw.

Overall, a good film that shows the 54th from the perspective of its first commanding colonel.  The 54th wasn't done after the 2nd Battle of Fort Wagner but that is where this story ends.

The Gumball Rally (1976)

Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) is distracted while sitting in a board meeting.  Ignoring the man who is delivering a report, Bannon uses his phone.  When Steve "Smitty" Smith (Tim McIntire) at the other end answers, Michael says, "Gumball."  Soon, multiple phones ring and the word 'Gumball' is repeated.  No sooner is the word given than the receiver rushes out the door.  The various folk assemble in New York City and plan to race to Los Angeles, namely the parking lot of the Queen Mary.  The time to beat is 34 hours, 11 minutes!  The main competitors to follow are Bannon in his Cobra and Smitty in a Ferrari.  Smitty has hired an Italian driver, Franco (Raul Julia), to give him an edge.  However, there is a snag.  Lieutenant Roscoe (Norman Burton) has been trying to stop this crazy race and he is confident he will get them this year!

This is an ensemble cast so the story bounces from character to character.  This is mostly about the funny moments for each team as they traverse the United States.  It is often slapstick silly, especially the antics of the mad Hungarian motorcyclist or Gary Busey's Camaro Team.  Some bits reminded me of The Great Race (1965).  Of course, this movie inspired the later Cannonball Run movies.

The movie is based on the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, a race that was run several times in the 1970s until it was shut down by a real-life Lt. Roscoe.  However, the Cannonball Run Challenge continues.  The most recent record (according to Wikipedia) is 25 hours and 39 minutes.  This saw three men in the car with lots of James Bond-like gizmos to allow them to evade the police.  At an average speed of 110 mph, smokey will give chase!

Good popcorn fun.