October 7th

It has been two years since the attack that started the current war between Israel and Hamas.  Except for that first assault by Hamas, it has been a one-sided war.  Hamas never stood a chance, and they knew it.  As usual, there have been constant calls for ceasefires and ending of the war.  That is not how wars end.  In World War II, the US required surrender from the Axis powers.  Germany didn't get to sue for peace after D-Day.  No, they had the choice of surrender or continued warfare.  The same was true with Japan.  Either surrender or the bombing will continue.  Hamas has refused to surrender.  Nor have the Palestinian people overthrown their bellicose leaders.  You do not get to start a war then cry timeout when it goes badly for you.  Ergo, the war continues.

Clearly, Hamas will not surrender, thus the war can only end when Hamas is no more.  Is that even possible?  It is quite a strategy that Hamas has and may yet succeed in letting them rebuild for the next attack on Israel.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)

Harry Street (Gregory Peck) lies in a cot on the savannah beneath Kilimanjaro and ponders his life.  He finds now a good time to ponder as he is dying.  His wife, Helen (Susan Hayward), is upset by his dire prediction and fretful that it might be true.  Ignorant or uncaring of his wife's feelings, he blathers on about his impending death from gangrene before nodding off.  His mind travels back to his youth and the first girl whose heart he broke.  His drive to be a successful writer meant that he had to experience as much as he could.  He would be a wanderer.  In Paris, Cynthia Green (Ava Gardner) caught his fancy.  She was the love of his life, if only he had realized that sooner.  In fact, he met Helen on account of she looked like Cynthia.  So much left to write and so little time.

Harry is thoroughly unlikeable.  He is a worthless cad, a man blind to all that is in front of him.  He is so eager to absorb experiences about which he can write but learns nothing from his extensive experience with women.  Of course, the women aren't much better.  Cynthia is too afraid to tell him she's pregnant but brave enough to tumble down a staircase to miscarry.  Countess Liz (Hildegard Knef) is noxious, showing that Harry has terrible taste in women.  Or, more likely, he is willing to endure wealthy women.  Indeed, Helen is rich.  Has Harry parlayed his moderate fame as an author into several gigs as the kept man of affluent women?

The role did not suit Gregory Peck.  Harry is a lowlife, while Peck has the stature of an upstanding citizen of high morals.  Despite having been a heavy drinker in life, he offers unconvincing evidence of it in acting.  Serious and stern were Peck's bread and butter in acting.  Foolishness and high spirits are unconvincing.  Really, he comes across as a mediocre actor here.  There is something to be said for typecasting.  I was reminded of Arabesque, another film where he did not fit the role.

Skip.

Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

The Meg is back, and he has brought his little friends!  It has been five years since Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) fought the Meg.  In the intervening years, he married Suyin, Suyin died, and he is now the single father of teenaged Meiying (Sophia Cai).  He has also taken up the fight against oceanic polluters, performing wildly dangerous feats to provide proof to the authorities.  With his good guy character firmly established, the story can begin.   There is a captive Meg in a grand enclosure.  To make things more interesting, it has birthed several more Megs.  Yeah, it's fine, because they are training them.

Of course, going to the trench where the Meg was found is routine these days.  However, on this particular trip, the submariners discovered a secret mining operation!  Secret!  Sure.  The miners are not at all happy about this and set about killing Jonas' submariners.  Inevitably, the minisubs are rendered useless and the reduced number of submariners must walk to the mine.  So, they had suits that would withstand this pressure?  Okay, fine.  They manage to infiltrate the mine but are trapped. To save the day, Jonas swims from an airlock to another airlock.  No suit!  He's just that tough.  Sigh.

When the surviving submariners return to the surface, they must face armed mercenaries as they race toward the mainland.  Once there, the meg's little friends - doglike dinosaurs who prove quite good at running on land despite millennia spent deep beneath the ocean - charge through a beach resort, killing whomever they catch.  Sigh.

Once again, Jonas is called upon to kill the Meg.  No, make that three Megs.  No problem.  He has 4 explosive-tipped hastily-made javelins that he can fling at a Meg while he races around the bay on a Jetski.

The Meg was fun.  This is garbage.  Clearly, Li Bingbing (Suyin) read the script and asked that her character be killed off.  Statham should have gone the same route.  Hard pass.

Penny Dreadful (Season 1)

Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) is a famous explorer.  However, his trekking into deepest darkest Africa has been put on hold while he seeks his daughter, Mina Harker.  Mina has been abducted by something foul and supernatural.  As such, Murray has assembled a team of specialists to face the threat.  Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) has a way of knowing things, a sensitivity to the spiritual.  Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnet) is an American marksman who happened to be on tour in England when Miss Ives recruited him.  He has a dark and mysterious past, but proves to be a stalwart ally.  Sembene (Danny Sapani) looks to be an African tribesman with deadly knife skills who serves as Murray's butler.  There must be a story here, but it is not revealed.  Finally, requiring a doctor to examine the corpse of a vampire (?!), Murray recruits Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway).  Can this band of heroes find and rescue Murray's daughter?

Of course, there are other figures in London.  Frankenstein's creature (Rory Kinnear) demands a mate that will be like him.  Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) has taken an interest in Miss Ives, Ethan, and even Ethan's lover, Brona (Billie Piper).  There are many subplots to allow development of every character.

Here is what The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen could have been.  Penny Dreadful creates an excellent blend of dark horror with calls to Dracula, Frankenstein, and Doran Gray.  Entertaining and engaging.  Highly recommended.

End of Watch (2012)

Los Angeles Police Officers Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Michael Pena) were in hot pursuit.  Suddenly, the car they are chasing crashed into a fence.  The suspects jumped out and opened fire.  Taylor and Zavala shoot back, killing the suspects.  Back at the police station, Taylor filmed himself while getting ready for the day.  He was taking classes for law but chose filmmaking as an elective.  As such, he has a camcorder with him most of the time.  The two officers have only just returned to duty; it is SOP for officers involved in a shooting to be taken out of rotation while the incident is reviewed.  It is clear that Taylor and Zavala are the hotshots of the department.  The story follows them, much of it viewed from Taylor's camcorder or the bodycams on the officers.

This is like a long episode of Adam 12 with a lot more gunfire and profanity.  Beyond the comradery of the two cops, the story follows their relationships as well.  Taylor and his new girlfriend, Janet (Anna Kendrick), get the most attention.  There are also the ongoing clashes with a brutal and violent drug cartel that has expanded into L.A.  The movie is at sometimes light and fun but also has extremely dark and violent moments.

Good popcorn fun.  Recommended.

Another Shutdown

In his first term, President Trump presided over two shutdowns.  One lasted for 3 days and the other for a record-breaking 35 days.  Here is yet another opportunity to determine which agencies are really needed and which can be disbanded.  Do we really need the Department of Education.  It was only created in 1979 and education outcomes were better before its creation than since.  It has already undergone some trimming, but elimination would save more money.  What about the Department of Housing and Urban Development?  Another relatively new agency (1965), it doesn't appear to have improved that which it was created to oversee.  If the agency hasn't found a way to prevent urban decay and homelessness despite billions in funding and 6 decades of experience, maybe it isn't possible.  Oh, but how much worse would it be without HUD?  Let's find out.  Department of Labor should be abolished.  Another money pit that generates regulations that discourage job creation.  Department of Transportation is yet another government expansion from the 1960s.  What does it do?  They show up after a train derailment or a plane crash and grandstand.  As if the companies wouldn't endeavor to prevent such incidents themselves; derailments and plane crashes are terrible for profits.  Oh, but it makes it appear the government is doing something.  We'll regulate against derailments and crashes.

The US has a $37 trillion national debt and thinks it doesn't need to cut anything.  Even with the government 'shutdown,' the debt is still growing.  It is time to look at the successes of Argentina's pruning of its bloated government and the benefits that have followed.

Django (1966)

A lone man trekked through a muddy landscape, dragging a coffin behind him.  Though he carried a saddle, he had no horse.  Eventually, he stumbled upon several Mexicans whipping a woman.  Why?  No sooner had he spotted the horrific scene than the Mexicans were gunned down by five red-scarved men.  Were they to be her rescuers?  Maria (Loredana Nusciak) was a prostitute who had been a favorite of Major Jackson until she fled to the Mexicans.  Jackson hated Mexicans, killing them whenever he could.  Jackson's men - who all wore the red scarf - had been sent to execute Maria.  Before the men could burn Maria on a cross, Django (Frank Nero) finally revealed himself.  Jackson's men offered to put him in the coffin he dragged.  He gunned them all down.

The small town located near the Mexican border was almost completely abandoned.  Only Nathan's Saloon and Brothel was still active.  Everyone recognized Maria and suggested she leave immediately.  The same advice was given to Django.  He declined.  He was out for vengeance and would not leave until he had it.

Though entertaining, the story is ludicrous.  Django is a veteran of the Civil War, having fought for the North.  Unsurprisingly, Major Jackson fought for the South.  It is implied that Major Jackson killed Django's finance while Django was away.  Why else is he so obsessed with Jackson?  In any case, it is probably the late 1860s or so.  In his coffin, Django has a belt-fed machinegun.  Yeah, that didn't exist yet.  Worse, the belt with bullets hangs out of both sides of the gun and never feeds.  It appears to have unlimited ammo.  The gun is pure nonsense.  The setting must be in western New Mexico because the Mexican-American border isn't the Rio Grande, but Django mentions Pecos as a place to buy another machinegun.  The streets of town are always muddy, but it never rains.  Also, the mud is always fresh.  When Django leaves in the morning with his coffin and boots, the mud on both is still wet.

The movie is just a variation of A Fistful of Dollars (1964), which itself was a Western retelling of Yojimbo (1961).  Considering the number of Django-titled films, I expected more from this.  What made this so popular?  It was viewed as extremely violent for its time and is rated as one of the best Spaghetti Westerns not directed by Sergio Leone.  As an odd sidenote, Django was named after Django Reinhardt, a jazz guitarist who had a crippled hand; by the end of the movie, Django has two mutilated hands.  Strange.

Just okay.

Superman (2025)

On a frozen landscape, Superman (David Corenswet) plummeted from the sky and crashed into the hard-packed snow.  He was bloody and beaten, having suffered his first defeat in battle.  He summoned Krypto, his dog, with a whistle.  The dog dragged him to the Fortress of Solitude.  Oddly, the fortress was inhabited by numbered robots - Four (Alan Tyduk) is the lead robot - who immediately tended to Superman's wounds.  Though far from fully healed, he left to resume his battle with the Hammer of Boravia.  The Hammer offered only a skirmish before withdrawing.  Recently, Superman had prevented a war between Boravia and Jarhanpur, thus the payback by the Hammer.  Superman's independent tinkering in foreign policy didn't please the Pentagon either and provided an excuse for Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) to move against Superman.  As the government knew they could not contain Superman, it outsourced the task to Luthorcorp.

This is a very different Superman movie than usual.  The immediate appearance of Krypto the superdog was a first.  The Justice League - here tentatively called the Justice Gang - is up and running.  In fact, it predates Superman, who has only been on scene as a hero for 3 years.  The Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) is the leader of the gang, which also has Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi).  The staff at the Daily Planet is larger than expected (i.e., lots of characters with speaking roles) and included Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Cat Grant, Steven Lombard, and at least one other guy.  Lois already knows that Clark and Superman are the same person; they are currently dating.  Lex also has an extensive band of minions, most of them are human and computer jockeys.  However, there is also girlfriend Eve Teschmacher, and a couple of supervillains: Ultraman & the Engineer.  Then there are the add-on characters like Metamorpho, Jonathan & Martha Kent, Malik Ali the random citizen and Superman supporter, and President Vasil Ghurkos of Boravia.  So many characters.

DC has done this before.  Marvel has such a huge headstart in the cinematic universes that DC keeps trying to make a phase 2 or phase 3 movie when they haven't made the foundational movies.  Worse, it doesn't link with the existing movies.  Where are the crossover characters from Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and so on?  There is a cameo of Peacemaker (John Cena), but that's all I noticed.

How does Metropolis still exist?  During this film, the city is attacked by the Hammer of Boravia, suffers an attack from a Kaiju (think Godzilla), sees some giant jellyfish battling the Justice Gang, is ground zero for Superman's fight against Ultraman and the Engineer, and finally gets ripped in half by an expanding tear in the fabric of space.  No chance I would live here.

Considering the level of destruction, the portrayal of Superman saving people, dogs, and even squirrels was goofy.  Nonetheless, I like that David Corenswet is a return to the generally well-adjusted and cheerful Boy Scout rather than the grim and depressed Henry Cavill.

Too busy.  Too much background noise.  However, it was fun to watch.

Return of the War Department

President Trump has signed an executive order renaming the Defense Department to the War Department.  For most of American history, it was the War Department.  In 1949, it was changed to the Defense Department, presumably to be less hostile sounding.  Of course, since the change, the US has generally lost wars.  Defense is a passive term.  You stand behind your castle wall and hold off the attackers.  That's defense.  By renaming the department, we linguistically dumped half of the mission: offense.  Is it mere coincidence that we've lost wars ever since?  Probably.

Pete Hegseth becomes the first Secretary of War since Kenneth Royall in 1947.  Three presidents have served as the War Secretary - James Monroe, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft.  Let's see how things go with a War Department for a few decades and hope things improve.

Road House (2024)

Frankie (Jessica Williams) arrives at an arena where two men are having a bare knuckles brawl, a poor man's UFC fight.  She needs a fighter.  In walks Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal).  The victor of the previous fight throws in the towel rather than fight Dalton.  Clearly, he is the man to hire.  He declines.  Instead, he ponders suicide by parking on a railroad track.  He opts against that too.  Dalton arrived in the Florida Keys to accept Frankie's offer.  He moved into a crocodile-haunted boat at the dock and cleaned out the riffraff from the bar.  However, the riffraff proved to be tenacious and increased despite Dalton's success.  Eventually, Knox (Conor McGregor) arrived to force Frankie to sell the Road House.

Dalton is a pleasant fellow and shows concern for those he is about to pummel.  Before trouncing a band of ruffians, he made sure there was a hospital nearby.  In fact, he drove them to the hospital.  Violence is a last resort.  He has a lot of experience with violence.  He is a former UFC Champion.  Gyllenhaal is good in the role.

Conor McGregor goes over the top in every scene.  Knox doesn't use brakes; he crashes to come to a stop.  He crashed a sports car into motorcycles, another car into a tree, and a truck into the Road House.  Does he have a driver's license?  Doubtful.  He has crazy eyes and an overexaggerated swagger when he walks.  He dialed it up to 11 whenever he was on screen.  For a minion, he caused his employer more trouble than he was worth.

The movie has its moments.  It also has a lot of plot holes.  Why would a UFC fighter know how to build a remote-activated bomb?  Does Charlie give every random guy who gets off the bus a copy of her book about Fred the Tree?  Why didn't Frankie mention that there were offers to buy the Road House?  The reason she needs a serious bouncer is kept secret from the bouncer.  What kind of idiot demands to be shaved with a straight razor on a boat on choppy water?  That was a terrible introduction for the villain, painting him as a blowhard dork.  He never recovers.

Just okay.

UK in Collapse

A Scottish girl - only 14 years-old - has gone viral by displaying a knife and an axe to a migrant.  Of course, she was arrested soon after.  The question becomes, why was a migrant following a teenaged girl and her 12-year-old sister?  And filming them with his phone?  Why would a teenage girl carry weapons at all?  Rapes in Scotland have tripled in the last 20 years, from 924 in 2002 to 2,897 in 2024.  Stories of grooming gangs have been mostly ignored by the government lest the open borders policy suffer from the bad publicity.  The UK has failed to protect its girls and this particular girl has taken her defense upon herself.  Tragic.

Coincident with this incident, the English have started a campaign of flying the St. George Cross throughout England.  While flying Ukraine flags and Palestinian flags was supported and protected by the government, the English flag has been taken down or painted over.  It is a sign of bigotry and intolerance.  Really?  The English can't fly the English flag in England?  Here is an obvious case of the government attempting to dissolve the people and import another.  London, the capitol city, is majority foreign.  England has been conquered by a hostile power, and the English are only now catching onto the fact.

Flag Burning

President Trump has signed an executive order directing the DOJ to prosecute flag burners.  Interesting.  As it happens, I remember when the Supreme Court declared flag burning to be an exercise in free speech and generally accepted the ruling.  However, there has been something of a double standard on this topic.  Burn the US flag and most people yawn.  Burn a Koran and government officials come out of the woodwork and vociferously denounce such sacrilege.  Leave tire tracks on a rainbow crosswalk and outraged voices denounce the offender.  Yes, a Florida man (of course) did a burnout on an LGBTQ crosswalk and found himself charged with crimes.  No free speech here?  Should flag burning get equal treatment to tire tracks on a painted street?

Even with the court being more conservative than it was in 1989 when the flag burning ruling was handed down, it isn't going to side with Trump.  He knows that.  However, as a matter of public relations, do you want to be the guy who is upset by protesters burning the American flag or indifferent to it?  Yeah, even when the court overrules him, he wins.

Looking at the practical side, it is generally illegal to start fires in public.  In response to Trump's EO, a protester lit an American flag on fire in Lafayette Park near the White House.  Shortly after, he was arrested.  Was it for flag burning?  Not exactly.  That he started a fire in the park was illegal; it didn't matter that it was a flag.  Enforcing laws against starting fires in public spaces - where such laws exist - could be a route to jailing flag burners.  It's like how the government got Al Capone for tax evasion.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Kate was at Heathrow with plans to fly to Norway.  The man in front of her at the ticket counter proved to be a massively built though apparently dull-witted fellow and not owning a credit card to book his flight.  Growing increasingly frustrated, Kate offered to buy his ticket.  Then it turned out he didn't have a passport.  No sooner had she abandoned her trip to Norway than Heathrow exploded!

Dirk Gently slept through the urgent ringing of his phone.  Eventually, the repeated phone calls ended and he was able to slip back into a pleasant sleep.  When he finally awoke, he realized that he was late for an appointment with a paying client!  That explained the phone ringing!  How to explain his lateness and still get paid?  He made his way to the client's home and was troubled to see so many police cars parked out front.  His client was inexplicably dead in a basement locked from the inside.  Suicide?  Unlikely.  His decapitated head was sitting on the record player.  The situation was clearly impossible, which was just the sort of mystery Dirk liked.  If only he had a paying client.

Odin, the All Father of the Norse Gods, has retired to a mental hospital where his linen sheets are changed frequently and he lives in comfort.  Annoyingly, Thor had demanded a challenge in Valhalla, which was going to interrupt Odin's joyous retirement.  Yes, it turns out that the gods still exist though they have not adapted to the modern world.  Most of them are tramps wandering the streets.  In fact, until very recently, Odin had been one such tramp, but he sold off the power of the gods for a clean bed and fresh linens.

Dirk proves to be a hapless oaf, a man who puts immense effort into avoiding small tasks until they became insurmountable.  The most obvious example of this was his fear of opening his refrigerator for discovering what might have become of the contents.  It hadn't been opened in months and his cleaning lady had likewise avoided opening the refrigerator.  Funny?  Not really.  He was so determined not to open it that he bought a new refrigerator and had the old one hauled away, unopened.  In the course of the day, he managed to get his nose broken, his hand clawed by an eagle, twist an ankle jumping out of a window, rip his coat, crash his car twice, and get run over by a motorbike.  Is this an effort at slapstick?  Dirk was quirky and mysterious in the last book, here he is mostly an idiot who literally crashes into the solution to his questions.

Thor is a lot of fun.  He is full of godly fury and has an epic temper-tantrum to clear his mind.  He's usually gruff and laconic, but his interactions with Kate are fun.  His punishment of having to count all the stones on the beaches of Wales was rather funny, especially when he refused to say how many.  "Count them yourself!"

As for the mystery, it really isn't explained.  Like in the last book, Dirk's great solution - if there was such - takes place off screen.  What happened to get Odin back to his linens and Thor on his way to Norway?  The end is very abrupt and unsatisfying.

Skip.

Gerrymander

Based on the 2024 election results, there are 21 blue states and 29 red states.  The blue states account for 206 seats in the House of Representatives.  The red states account for 229.  Of course, there are Republican Congressmen from blue states and Democratic Congressmen from red states.  How does that break down?

Now let's talk gerrymandering.  The idea is rather than let the voters pick their representative, the representative picks the voters.  This allows for safe seats or splitting strongholds of the other party into bite-size chunks that can be overwhelmed and digested by the ruling party.  Depending on how the districts are drawn, the dominant party can greatly weaken the opposition.  Let's look at some examples.

Illinois (blue) has 17 congressional districts.  In 2024, the state votes 43% for Trump and 54% for Harris.  How many Republican congressmen are there from Illinois?  Three.  That is 17% representation.

Texas (red) has 38 districts.  In 2024, the state went to Trump by 56% to 42% vote.  How many Democrat congressmen from Texas?  Thirteen.  That is 34%.

California (blue) has 52 districts and broke heavily for Harris: 58% to 38%.  Republicans hold 9 of the 52 seats, or 17%.

Many states are difficult to gerrymander.  Several only have 1 congressman (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming).  The smaller states - 4 congressional districts or less - are mostly unremarkable.  That eliminates 21 states from the list, leaving 14 blue states and 15 red states.  Here is the new breakdown:

First thing to note is that there were no Republicans in the smaller blue states, but there were 5 Democrats in the smaller red states.  Interesting.  In a red state, representation is 71% Republican vs. 29% Democrat.  In a blue state, it is 73% Democrat to 27% Republican.  Not a big difference.

Harris carried blue states by an average of 55% to 43%.  Trump carried red states by an average of 58% to 41%.  Trump performed better in blue states than Harris in red states and yet, the House was on a razor's edge.  

The blue states have done a far better job of gerrymandering than the red states.  If the Republicans adopt the same strategy, they will gain seats.  Having already gerrymandered the blue states, there is little the Democrats can do to counter it, other than complain.  That 34% representation in Texas might soon drop to the level of an Illinois or California.

In the near future, perhaps an unbiased AI can draw districts that don't create ludicrous zigzag patterns that weave through various counties and cities to generate a safe seat for the dominant party.  For the time being, a party would be foolish not to gerrymander.

Jim Lovell

Jim Lovell had been one of the New Nine astronauts in 1962, which included John Young, Ed White, Pete Conrad, Frank Borman, and Neil Armstrong.  Lovell's first flight in space had been with Frank Borman on Gemini 7 in December 1965.  In 1966, he went back to space on Gemini 12 with Buzz Aldrin; this was Aldrin's first trip to space.  In 1968, he joined Frank Borman and William Anders on Apollo 8 for the first flight to the moon.  The famous picture of Earthrise was taken on this mission.

Though slated to command Apollo 14, his crew was bumped forward to Apollo 13 on account of Alan Shepard's perceived unreadiness for the mission; Shepard's last mission was 9 years earlier.  Lovell was one of only 5 astronauts who had been on 3 missions at the time; he had spent 3 weeks in space so far and would be the first to make a 4th trip.  A walk on the moon would be a perfect capstone to a stellar career.  Instead, it proved to be the successful failure that saw NASA overcome an array of challenges to bring the astronauts home safely.

Lovell was portrayed by Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 (1995) and Tim Daly in HBO's From the Earth to the Moon (1998).  Both the movie and the series are highly recommended.

RIP

Twixt (2011)

Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer), a horror author noted for witch stories, arrived in a small town for a book signing.  The decline of his career was demonstrated by the venue: a hardware store that happened to double as a bookstore.  He only signed one book.  Sherrif Bobby LaGrange (Bruce Dern) is a fan, as well as an aspiring writer.  He had an idea for a book titled The Vampire Executions.  Hall politely declined to be a co-author.  However, when the sheriff offered a chance to visit the morgue and the victim of a murder, Hall consented.  The corpse of a young woman with a stake through her heart laid on a gurney.  Maybe she was a vampire, the sheriff suggested.  Hall also learned that Edgar Allen Poe once stayed in the town.  He eagerly visited the ruins of the old hotel and saw the plaque.

Edgar Allen Poe slept here

Duly impressed, he checked in for the night at the local motel and fell into a restless sleep.  The ruined hotel, the murdered girl, and talk of vampires intermingled in a dark dream.  Here, he met Virginia (Elle Fanning) - the murdered girl? - and visited the hotel - which was open for business - and had dark history of a dozen murdered children.  In the morning, he investigated the dream only to find many truths in it.  As such, he agreed to co-author a book with the sheriff and made multiple trips into dreamland to further investigate the various crimes with the help of Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin).

For an 80-minute film, it has far too many characters, too many plot threads, and too scattershot a storyline.  Coppola was trying some experimental filmmaking and it clearly doesn't work.  Virginia proves to be a stand-in for Hall's tragically killed daughter, for Poe's dead wife, and for the child who escaped the previously mentioned murder of a dozen children only to be buried alive like in a Cask of Amontillado. The ending is entirely unsatisfying.  Is Flamingo (Alden Ehrenreich) actually a vampire or just some Goth poser?  Does the devil live in the 7-faced clocktower?  Is the sheriff the serial killer that he is supposedly pursuing?  Let the audience decide.  The important thing is that Hall has a mental breakdown about the death of his daughter, thus 'dealing' with the tragedy.

Joanne Whaley - who was Kilmer's ex-wife IRL - plays his shrewish wife here.  Yikes!  How much of these interactions are acting vs. re-enactments?

Skip this one.

One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)

Sometime in the 1920s, Lord Edward Southmere (Derek Nimmo) had gone to great efforts to smuggle a microfilm containing Lotus X out of China, wearing ludicrous disguises and resorting to dangerous routes.  When back in England, he allowed his guard to drop only to find himself hotly pursued by members of the Chinese embassy.  He avoided capture long enough to hide Lotus X at the Natural History Museum.  While at the museum, he had a chance encounter with his one-time nanny, Hettie (Helen Hayes).  So it was that Hettie took up the task of recovering the Lotus X before Hnup Wan (Peter Ustinov) could.  While Hettie and her band of nannies sought to find the microfilm in the dinosaur skeleton, the Chinese opted to steal the entire skeleton.  Would the Chinese recover Lotus X or was that secret to be revealed to the English?

The movie is a goofball Disney comedy that pits hapless Chinese agents against a platoon of British nannies.  Of course, craziness ensues.  The highlight of the film is the dinosaur skeleton on a lorry being driven through the foggy streets of London as the Chinese give chase.  A British big game hunter (Jon Pertwee) sees the dinosaur and instantly joins the chase to bag the biggest game of his life.

The movie has not aged well.  The Chinese are played by British actors with cringeworthy makeup.  Bernard Bresslaw, who was six feet seven inches tall, is embarrassing as Fan Choy.  Clive Revill also has a terrible makeup job as Quon.  Peter Ustinov may have parlayed this role into Charlie Chan some years later.

I saw this in the theater as a kid and remember being disappointed how the hero - Lord Edward - kept getting sidelined.  Heck, he was hardly in the movie after the first 5 or 10 minutes.  Nonetheless, I had warm feelings about it until recently rewatching it.  It does have a surprising number of unexpected stars.  Joss Ackland plays a Texan visiting England.  Roy Kinnear is the baffled police superintendent who must respond to reports of a dinosaur traipsing through London.

Skip.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

A 4th Wall Break Too Far

Wade (Ryan Reynolds) attends his birthday party with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), Blind Al, the lesbian X-Men, and others.  He appears to be truly happy, despite the obvious cheap hairpiece.  But there is a knock on the door.  A band of armored goons have arrived to take him away.  His universe - an unremarkable timeline in the scheme of things - is marked for deletion unless a great hero can be found.  No, not Deadpool.  Deadpool knows just the guy: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman).  He uses a plane-hopping gizmo that he stole from the TVA (Time Variance Authority) to find a suitable Wolverine.  Mostly, he finds tragic, comic, or dead versions of Wolverine.  Finally, he locates a sad excuse for a Wolverine, but it's the best he's going to get.  Rejected!  Off to the void with you.  In the void, a variety of characters - heroes and villains - from abandoned Marvel series appear.

The movie leaps into the multiverse with glee and proposes an agency that determines the viability of each subverse in the MCU.  This allows the movie to grab characters from a variety of Marvel hero movies who were not part of the modern Marvel-verse.  For instance, Blade (Wesley Snipes), Elektra (Jennifer Garner), and the Human Torch (Chris Evans) all appear as characters that pre-date the MCU.  Laura - AKA X-23 (Dafne Keen) - also returns, providing a second callback to the tragic conclusion (apparently not) to Logan's story.  Though it is entertaining and funny, it proves to be too much.  Deadpool is no longer Deadpool, he is Ryan Reynolds playing Deadpool.  Yes, that is part of the schtick of Deadpool, but a little bit goes a long way.  This movie is one extended fourth wall break, piling the ludicrous upon the more ludicrous.  Again, it is fun as it goes, but it was something of a letdown.  With a multiverse of endless possibilities, it becomes difficult to care about this particular universe.  A lot of this feels like ad lib bloopers tied together as a movie.

The fights between Wolverine and Deadpool are overdone.  We have two characters with amazing healing factors mean they can't die.  One fight is fine.  The second is just pointless and makes the characters appear stupid.  Sure, it's played for laughs.  In the big fight where all the former characters get their opportunity to shine, they do.  In fact, they all kick butt and it is completely one-sided.  Apparently the villains weren't that tough.  Meh.

Again, I enjoyed the film while I was watching it, but it was like eating a box of cookies in one sitting.  Too much sweet and not so satisfying afterwards.  Nonetheless, recommended.

The Northwest Indian War

In the Treaty of Paris (1783), the British ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States.  The area included what would eventually be the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.  The native tribes in the region had fought on the side of the British during the Revolution and were thus viewed as enemies to be pushed aside for a wave of settlers.  The British still supported the tribes.  To strengthen their position, the many tribes joined into the Western Indian Confederacy to fight as one against the encroaching Americans.  It proved a very effective tactic.

Along the Ohio River, clashes between the Western Confederacy and settlers were common.  More than a thousand settlers were killed in the region, and it became a priority for the newly inaugurated President George Washington.  He would need to send an army and choose a commander.

Brigadier General Harmar

He dispatched Josiah Harmar, a veteran officer of the Revolutionary War.  General Harmar assembled an army of 1,400 soldiers (320 regulars, and 1,133 militia) at Fort Washington (Cincinnati) and set out on October 7, 1790.  Major Hamtramck set out from Vincennes with 330 soldiers to provide a distraction, splitting the enemy forces.  A threat of mutiny by his militia men required Hamtramck to withdraw, but he did draw some warriors away from Harmar's army.

On October 19th, General Harmar sent Colonel John Hardin with 180 militia and 30 regulars to determine the enemy strength and raid a village.  The force was lured into an ambush which resulted in the death of most of the regulars and 40 militiamen.  Harmar's army had been burning villages and crops along the way, so he viewed his mission as complete despite Hardin's defeat.  He ordered a return to Fort Washington.  On the 21st, his scouts reported a force of Indians in the area.  Wanting to both avenge the losses suffered by Colonel Hardin and to prevent attacks on his return march, Harmar planned an attack.  He divided his army into four and set them to attack at dawn of the 22nd.  The surprise was lost almost immediately, the detachments did not move to properly support one another, and the Indians easily outmaneuvered the Americans.  129 men were killed and 94 wounded.  Harmar's army was trounced and could only retreat, leaving their dead on the battlefield.

The campaign proved to be the worst defeat suffered by an American army against Indians.  Harmar was court-martialed but cleared of wrongdoing.  His mission had been a success even if the battle had not gone well.  Despite being cleared, he was removed from command and a replacement was selected.

Major General St. Clair

Arthur St. Clair, another veteran of the Revolutionary War, was instructed to set out during the summer months.  He didn't leave Fort Washington until October.  He had 600 regulars and a constantly shrinking number of militia as desertions took a heavy toll.  Nonetheless, St. Clair marched to war.  There were skirmishes along the way that further drained his army's strength.  On November 3, 1791, the army camped on hill near the Wabash River.  Having failed to erect any defensive works or post sufficient sentinels, the army was taken by surprise when Indians swept into the camp while sharpshooters killed officers and artillerymen to prevent an organized resistance.  The battle soon turned into a rout as the survivors fled with haste to Fort Jefferson, nearly 30 miles south.

The army, which had numbered about 1000 soldiers at the time of the battle, was crushed.  656 soldiers were either killed or captured and another 279 were wounded.  It was the worst defeat ever suffered by any American unit.  One quarter of the US military had been erased that day.  St. Clair wanted a court-martial to clear his name, but Washington demanded immediate resignation.  Washington then appointed St. Clair as governor of the Northwest Territory.

A bad situation had become much worse.  The British, who had been supplying and supporting the Northwest Confederacy were eager to strengthen this buffer state between the US and Canada.  Washington needed a better general, a more competent army, and improved logistics.

Major General Wayne

"Mad" Anthony Wayne had proven himself as one of Washington's best generals during the Revolutionary War.  Washington called Wayne out of retirement and dispatched him to the Northwest Territory.  Wayne did not rush and nor could he.  The recent disasters made recruiting more difficult.  Moreover, he intended to make extensive use of skilled woodsmen who could counter the guerrilla tactics of the Indians.  He proved to be a harsh disciplinarian, but his competence reassured the newly formed Legion of the United States.

Wayne spent much of his time maintaining the existing forts, building confidence in his men as they convoyed supplies to the forts - such as Fort Jefferson - that projected force beyond the Ohio River.  In 1793, Wayne led 300 men to the site of St. Clair's defeat.  Bones still littered the battlefield.  In January 1794, Fort Recovery was built on the site and garrisoned.  The British saw signs of a new campaign and built Fort Miami (modern day Toledo, OH).  Wayne responded by calling up the Kentucky militia and preparing a campaign.

Fort Recovery was put under siege in June but held off the massive assault.  By the middle of August, General Wayne had marched the Legion up the Maumee River to face the might of the Northwest Confederacy.  On August 20, 1794, the Battle of Fallen Timbers proved to be a short but decisive battle.  Wayne burned everything in sight, right up to the walls of Fort Miami.  The British had declined to provide sanctuary for the fleeing Indians and dare not engage the Americans; they were not authorized to start a war.

Following the battle, the Treaty of Greenville (1795) acquired most of Ohio for American settlement and signified the end of the Northwest Indian War.  The Jay Treaty (1796) provided for the withdrawal of the British from forts in the Northwest Territory.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Richard MacDuff, a computer programmer, attends the Coleridge dinner at his old college, St. Cedd's, with his advisory professor, Reg Chronotis.  Reg has a horrible memory but proves to be a genial fellow with a talent for parlor magic.  After the dinner, they return to Reg's on-campus lodgings only to discover a horse in the upstairs bathroom.  Hmm.  Suddenly, Richard remembered that he had promised to take his girlfriend, Susan, to the dinner!  As Reg's phone was out of order, Richard rushed off to find a phone.  She did not answer so he left an ill-considered message.  He immediately regretted the message and set out to break into her apartment and erase it before she could hear it.  As it happened, Susan had become infuriated by Richard's forgetting her and thus went out with the odious Michael Wenton-Weakes, a wealthy scion with no talents beyond moping about his misfortunes.  Elsewhere, Gordon Way, who happened to be Susan's brother, Richard's employer, and the cause of Michael's most recent misfortune, was driving to his cottage and talking on his car phone.  He was recording a meandering message on a variety of random subjects on his sister's answering machine when the boot of his car bounced open.  Pulling over and leaving the phone on the passenger seat, he opened the trunk only to be blasted by a shotgun.  He was quite alarmed to be dead.  Despite being a ghost, he continued on to his cottage.  Eventually, Dirk Gently - one of Richard's college acquaintances - stepped in to untangle the evening's events.

While reading the novel, I was most reminded of some Dr. Who episodes.  As it happens, the two episodes were written by Douglas Adams.  How interesting.  The story is often difficult to follow as early events are not yet interconnected.  What is this dark tower on a desolate planet in the midst of a muddy valley and what is the cause of the explosion?  Why does this peculiar door keep appearing in unlikely places?  How could a sofa get into a stairwell and then be impossible to remove?  How did the horse get in the bathroom?

Overall, an entertaining book and very much unlike what I had expected.  Dirk doesn't look like either of his onscreen incarnations.  Of the two versions, Stephen Mangan is far closer to the mark than Samuel Barnett.  The book feels rushed at the end, and I didn't follow the conclusion.  One moment, the characters have 2 minutes to save humanity and the next chapter they are in Georgian England to have a conversation with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Yes, of course, it is so obvious.  After having followed the ruminations of a horse in a field and the efforts of a Dodo bird to get fed some nuts, the resolution felt very rushed and vague.  The book ends with "To be continued...", so perhaps this was intentional.

Tippecanoe and Tyler Too

In 1840, William Henry Harrison was running for president.  As such, a biography was published about his life.

The Life and Times of William Henry Harrison, by S. J. Burr.

The book is just over 300 pages, which includes 29 chapters on his life and a 30-page appendix with correspondence written by Harrison or received by him from notable figures.  Of course, Harrison was 67 years old during the 1840 campaign and would expect to have a very full biography.  However, it does seem to focus on certain parts of his life while offering almost no insight to others.

Chapter 1 offers the essentials of his parentage, birth, education, and joining the military.  He was appointed as an ensign by none other than President Washington!

Chapters 2 through 7 detail the Northwest Indian War (1785 to 1795).  Harrison served as an aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne and doesn't arrive on scene until latter half of 1791, in Chapter 3.  Yes, Chapter 2 is background for the war.

Chapters 8 through 14 detail his time as the Governor of Indiana (1801 to 1812).  He had been appointed to the post (it was a territory, not a state).

Chapters 15 through 17 cover the events surrounding the Battle of Tippecanoe.  This 1811 battle would become the slogan for his presidential campaign almost 3 decades later.

Chapters 18 through 25 are concerned with the War of 1812.  Harrison was a Major General in the west during the war and won the Battle of Thames in Canada.

Chapters 26 through 28 cover his life from 1816 to 1840.  His career in the Congress (1816 to 1819), Ohio Senate (1819 to 1821), US Senate (1825 to 1828) and posting as an ambassador to Columbia (1829) are the highlights.  Such impressive highlights that his censure by an Ohio paper for one of his votes somehow dominates a chapter.

The last chapter sums up his career and character.  Also, there is a tale where his carriage was mobbed by his fans in 1836.  Yes, he was a rockstar before rockstars existed.

In 1840, his campaign slogan was 'Tippecanoe and Tyler too!'  John Tyler was his running mate.

The biography reads very much like the campaign document that it is.  Here is a modern-day Cincinnatus who is called out of his retirement to save the Republic.

Van Buren vs. 4 Whigs

In 1824, Henry Clay was Speaker of the House and one of four Democratic Republicans running for president.  The others were Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and William Crawford.  Clay correctly predicted that no one would win the majority, which would throw the election of president to the House of Representatives.  As Speaker, he liked his odds of being selected there.  His plan was ruined when he placed 4th and the House could only consider the top three candidates.  Drats!

Twelve years later, Henry Clay's nascent Whig Party was pitted against Jackson's Vice President, Martin Van Buren.  The Whig Party was only a couple of years old and Clay - who had the best name recognition - chose not to run in 1836.  Instead, hearkening back the 1824, the Whigs fielded a slate of candidates, each running in states where they had the best chance at winning.  All they needed to do was prevent Van Buren from winning a majority of the electoral votes, which would let the House pick from the top contenders.

William Henry Harrison, who had largely vanished from politics more than a decade before, proved to be the most popular of the Whigs, winning 7 states and 37% of the popular vote.

Hugh White, a senator from Tennessee, won 2 states and 10% of the vote.

Daniel Webster, the famous orator and senator from Massachusetts, carried his home state and 3% of the vote.

Willie Mangum, yet another senator, carried South Carolina.  This was odd as he was the senator for North Carolina, which voted for Van Buren.

Despite the number of candidates arrayed against him, Martin Van Buren won a majority of the votes, nearly 51% and carried 15 states.

Though the gambit didn't pay off for the Whigs, they did discover which of their candidates they should run in the next election.  William Henry Harrison, Hero of the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe and noted General from the War of 1812, had shown the most nationwide support.  It was thus no surprise when he was selected as the sole Whig candidate to face Van Buren in 1840.

Funding a Riot

The current riots in LA, which will soon spread nation-wide, are planned events.  Someone is funding them.  Pallets of bricks don't just happen to appear at the scene of a 'protest' where there isn't any construction.  Drivers don't arrive with supplies of high-end masks to protect from tear gas without someone footing the bill.  Both the governor and mayor are in league with the funders.  This 'protest' is designed to thwart the entirely lawful enforcement of immigration law.

During the Obama presidency, the state of Arizona was miffed that the government wasn't enforcing immigration law.  Arizona passed a law to allow it to enforce the border.  The Obama administration sued Arizona and won.  Border enforcement is a federal responsibility.  States don't get their own immigration laws.  California doesn't get to opt out of ICE enforcing the law.

The Trump-Musk Break-Up

From strong allies to mortal enemies in nothing flat.  Elon does not approve of the Big Beautiful Bill that continues to spend the country into bankruptcy and Donald isn't so keen on the sudden disloyalty from one of his top supporters through the campaign and early administration.  The spat quickly elevated and now has Musk claiming that Trump is on the Epstein List, thus explaining why it still hasn't been released.  Yes, this break-up has gone nuclear.

I am highly doubtful that Trump is on the list.  If he was, the Biden Administration would surely have released that snippet of the list along with any damning pictures and video.

Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981)

Lee Chan, Jr. (Richard Hatch) was an aspiring detective and a well-established klutz.  His ability to suffer cringe-inducing slapstick silliness knew no bounds.  Worse, he was engaged to marry Cordelia (Michelle Pfeiffer), who proved to be his equal in uncoordinated pratfalls.  Lee worships his grandfather, the great detective Charlie Chan (Peter Ustinov).  As a series of bizarre murders have plagued San Francisco, the police chief (Brian Keith) has summoned Charlie Chan to consult on the case.  The chief is an ill-tempered hypochondriac who spends most of his time yelling.  Lee's grandmother, Mrs. Lupowitz (Lee Grant), is desperate to spend time with her grandson and convince him that detective work is not for him.  Often, she fondles and caresses her husband's urn, explaining how she needs him.  His murder by the Dragon Queen (Angie Dickinson) was detailed in a black and white flashback.  Yes, Charlie Chan solved the case.

The mystery is hardly a mystery and the comedy is atrocious.  Charlie Chan spends most of his time making fortune cookie observations and marveling at the incompetence of his grandson.  When the climax arrives to reveal the killer, Charlie exposes most of the characters for this or that, all of which is meaningless.  Great, the chauffeur is an African prince.  So what?  This character is not really confined to a wheelchair.  Impressive deduction, but meaningless.  The big twist - such as it is - was revealed earlier to a casual viewer.

Despite an excellent cast, this movie is barely watchable.  Skip!

Mickey 17 (2025)

Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) was surprised to wake up.  He found himself at the bottom of a snow-covered crevasse on the planet Niflheim.  How could he get out?  Luckily, his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) arrived.  Timo was surprised that Mickey wasn't dead yet; he had only come looking for Mickey's weapon, which was on a ledge above.  Leaving Mickey to his fate, Timo left.  How did he come to this?

Mickey and Timo had borrowed money from a shady character to launch a business.  It had failed spectacularly, and the lender intended to recoup his losses by carving the pair of them into pieces with a chainsaw.  In order to escape this fate, Mickey and Timo signed onto a colony ship bound for a distant planet.  Where Timo had a skill that earned him a spot - the waiting list was long, Mickey did not.  He volunteered to be an expendable.  He was given all the dangerous work.  If he died, a newly printed clone would take his place.  So far, he had died 16 times, making his current incarnation Mickey 17.

Mickey has a girlfriend, Nasha (Naomi Ackie).  The colony ship is led by Ken Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a buffoonish congressman who lost his election so he paraphrased Davy Crockett: "You can go to hell -- I'm going to Niflheim."  His wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), is no smarter that her dull-witted husband, but she encourages him in his stupidity.  Yes, this is supposed to be a dark comedy, but the idiocy of these villains is pathetic, not funny.

It was hard to like Mickey.  He comes across as a hapless victim.  The laughs are few and far between.  Mickey falling naked out of the printer because no one put the print tray in place proved to be a repeated joke.  Oh, so funny.  Ugh.  Some of the world building was cool, notably the explanation of how cloning was outlawed on Earth and how the only exception for cloning was if the previous incarnation was dead, thus Mickey's loophole for regular resurrection.  Of course, Mickey 17 surviving the fall into the crevasse and returning to the colony ship resulted in a multiples violation.  The Nasha and the Mickeys demonstrated stupidity in trying to resolve this issue before they could get caught.  Ugh.

Disappointing.  Skip.

Biden has Cancer

It has been reported that President Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones.  Was this only discovered since he left office or has this been kept under wraps for longer?  Back in 2022, President Biden claimed that he had cancer that had been caused by oil refinery pollution in Delaware.  Was this a case of the President going off script, but revealing something that was true?  Has he had cancer since 2022?  If the White House and the media were so busy keeping signs of senility out of the news, what are they odds that they also opted not to talk about a cancer diagnosis.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (season 2)

Season 1 concluded with Dirk (Samuel Barnett) and Ken (Mpho Koaho) captured by Black Wing, a government agency that sought to contain people who had supernatural powers.  Todd (Elijah Wood) and Farah (Jade Eshete) were on the run, trying to avoid being swept up by Black Wing while also seeking to locate Dirk.  Amanda (Hannah Marks) and Vogel (Osric Chau), the last member of the Rowdy 3, were likewise on the run and searching for the rest of the gang.  Somehow, most of them are drawn to a small Montana town where strange things are happening.

Farah meets her brother at a sailing ship in the middle of a field.  No one knows how the ship got there as there is no navigable waters for miles around.  Todd has a run-in with Sheriff Sherlock Hobbs, who is entirely too friendly.  Meanwhile, the local pariah, Suzie Boreton (Amanda Walsh), witnesses her boss's murder.  She was on the brink of being murdered when Bart (Fiona Dourif) arrived to kill all the thugs.  Though Bart thinks she maybe should kill Suzie, she desists on account of her time with Ken; Ken often counseled against killing.  Moments later, Bart regretted her decision to not kill Suzie.  Suzie blasted her with a wand!

In the land of Wendimoor, the Dengdamors and the Trosts are on the brink of war.  Panto Trost, the greatest swordsman of the land, sought the witch of the woods who would allow him to fulfill the prophecy by locating Dirk Gently!  In this fairy realm, strange creatures exit, pink is a natural hair color, and the wizard (John Hannah) is the bad guy.  Soon, Panto finds himself in Montana and teams with Bart.  Conversely, Amanda crosses into Wendimoor to become the wood witch's apprentice!

Though entertaining, this is not nearly as good as the first season.  Our titular hero is a whiner.  Oh, how he whines and cowers and quakes.  It is really hard to like Dirk.  Since there was a holistic detective and a holistic assassin, how about having a holistic actress?  Yes, there is Mona Wilder.  She has the ability to play any part, and she means any part.  She played a chair for 6 years.  Oh, she's a shapeshifter who claims to be able to transform herself into something as big as an aircraft carrier.  The entire dimension of Wendimoor was created by a holistic creator.

This story does not tie neatly together like the first season.  It does end with some interesting twists that change the dynamic between some characters.  The show was not renewed for a third season.

Just okay.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

Civil War Veteran Hogan (Clint Eastwood) was riding through Mexico when he heard a commotion.  He dismounted and looked over a rise to see a trio of men pushing a mostly naked woman among them.  Well, that just wouldn't do.  He intervened by killing the trio.  He was quite shocked when, once she was dressed, she proved to be a nun!  Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine) was also a Juarista out to raise money to fight the French.  As such, Hogan's plan of handing her off to a French patrol was nixed.  As it happens, Hogan was in Mexico to assist the Juarista cause, but he was less than keen on having a nun - especially a pretty nun - around.  The more time he spent around her, the less she seemed like a proper nun.  However, she always had a reasonable explanation for this aberrant behavior.

Clint plays his usual Western anti-hero, though he adds a dash of romance.  His interactions with Shirley are fun and funny.  Much of the fun is that Hogan doesn't know how to interact with her, nor can he get rid of her.  Though she plays her role well, Shirley is a hard sell for a Mexican.  She looks not at all Spanish and is entirely too pale for such a climate.  That said, Sara is a great character, and MacLaine imbues her with just the right combination of reverence and sass.

The scenery is terrific, but much of it is nowhere near the putative setting.  The story is set near Chihuahua, but a lot of filming was done south of Mexico City.  As for the French, they didn't look French.  According to IMDb, the director sought to save money and cast a bunch of no-names for all the roles other than Clint and Shirley.

After the US Civil War concluded, the United States took more robust measures against the French intervention in Mexico, selling tens of thousands of rifles to the Juaristas and threating US action against the French.  The movie Vera Cruz also took place during the French invasion of Mexico.

Good popcorn fun.

Still a Rookie?

Though I have never watched the show, I noted that The Rookie, with Nathan Fillion, is in its 7th season and apparently has been renewed for an 8th season.  Shouldn't the show be renamed?  Generally, you're only a rookie for your first year.  Was the naming of the show just a lack of confidence.  What are the odds this thing gets a second season?  Clearly, better than expected.  That was the danger of such a title.  There was a webcomic called The Noob, which is a common name for a new player.  However, it isn't very long before the character no longer qualified as a noob.  Now what?  Can't very well change the name now.

Looking at this, I strongly advise producers of a Western TV show to avoid the title of Greenhorn.  Don't title a show about college students, The Freshmen.  Donald Trump was able to get away with The Apprentice because it was a new group each year.  

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (season 1)

In Seattle, Todd Brotzman (Elijah Wood) is a hapless bellhop who awakens to find his landlord demanding the rent.  The landlord is so furious that he wrecks Todd's car with a hammer.  Having taken the bus to work, Todd asked his boss about getting paid early.  Instead, his boss dispatched him to address some issues.  On the way up to the penthouse, he saw the most alarming thing: himself.  Yes, it was him wearing a fur coat and with a black eye.  The other Todd looked at him, then dashed out of sight.  And then the day got weirder.  In the penthouse, he found three corpses that appeared to have been killed by a shark attack.  One of the three victims was Patrick Spring, a noted millionaire whose daughter happened to go missing recently.  After the police told him not to leave town, he returned to his apartment where a stranger was breaking in through the window!  The intruder introduced himself as Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) and said he was on a case; he's a holistic detective.  Todd threw him out, but like a bad penny, Dirk kept showing up and demanding that Todd was his assistant.

Elsewhere, Ken (Mpho Koaho) is an electrical engineer who does contract work.  On this particular day, he was working for a bald tattooed man.  Then Bart (Fiona Dourif) arrived with a machete and killed the bald man.  Ken fled for his life.  Bart stopped trying to kill Ken when he explained that he was not Dirk Gently.  Ken found himself as Bart's captive as she hunted for Dirk and killed seemingly random people along the way.  Bart claims to be a holistic assassin.

It turns out that everything is connected.  The universe has a flow to it that both Dirk and Bart can feel.  Pulled into the orbit of these holistic agents, Todd and Ken begin to sense this flow and get caught up in it.  There is no escaping the interconnectedness of everything.

A very different take on the source from the last Dirk Gently series (2010).  Where Stephen Mangan's Dirk was eccentric in such a way that absolutely baffled his sidekick, Richard (Darren Boyd), Barnett's Dirk is more of a helpless oaf stuck in a river current that takes him where he needs to go regardless of his ideas on the subject.  He only shines when the plot requires some exposition, at which point he becomes a Sherlock Holmes of keen deduction.  His jumpy, cowardly, anxiety-ridden demeanor adds to his victim of fate rather than captain of it.  He does not have the aptitude for his chosen profession.

Overall, the series was a lot of fun and managed to tie together a vast number of storylines into a neat package.  It ends on a cliffhanger to prep for the second season.  Recommended.

Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

After the events in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs have mostly become a part of nature again worldwide.  There are instances of illegal breeding and even giant locusts.  Wait, what?  Giant locusts?  What's this?  Yes, the big issue now is that giant locusts - the size of cats - are wiping out crops that aren't grown with a particular seed brand.  Wow, that's not suspicious.  Now to catch up with all our characters.  Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is still working as a dinosaur-rights activist.  Owen (Chris Pratt) is a cowboy - maybe a dinoboy - as he wrangles dinosaurs.  Together, Claire and Owen have adopted Maisie (Isabella Sermon), who they have kept sequestered in a forest cabin far from town.  Elsewhere in the world, Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) visits Alan Grant (Sam Neill) at a dig in Utah.  She has been in contact with Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who has invited her to the BioSyn compound in Europe.  Excellent, now our story can begin.

A band of mercenaries have found the remote cabin and absconded with Maisie and Blue's baby raptor.  Oh, yeah, Blue lives in the nearby forest and visits from time to time.  Claire and Owen contact Franklin Webb (Justice Smith) who now works for the CIA.  Of course, he does. He gives them the skinny on where Maisie might be headed and tells them not to get involved.  So, they are on the next flight to Malta.  Duh!  In Malta, programmable raptors chase after Owen as he rides a motorcycle through the streets.  Meanwhile, Claire browbeats Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise), a freelance pilot who flies a hunk of junk, into helping recover Maisie.  As she happened to witness Maisie's arrival and departure from Malta, she agrees.  Convenient.  Off to the BioSyn Institute in Europe!

During all this, Ellie and Alan have arrived at the BioSyn Institute and meet Lewis Dodgson.  Dodgson was a very minor character in the original film as the guy who gave Nedry (Wayne Knight) the phony shaving cream can to store dinosaur DNA samples.  Wow, nice callback.  Next, they reconnect with Ian.  Ian suggests that Ellie and Alan go to a restricted level and get a sample of locust DNA.  Okay.  What was wrong with the DNA from the locusts caught earlier in the film?  I must have missed that.  Also, why hasn't Ian gotten it?  Of course, it turns into a fiasco.  Luckily, the number two man at BioSyn, Ramsay Cole, is on their side.  What?  Why didn't HE get the sample?  This is just one clumsy effort to bring back the original trio for a swan song in the series.  And why again are we having giant grasshoppers in a dinosaur movie?

Out of the blue, the movie introduces Maisie's mother, Dr. Charlotte Lockwood (Elva Trill).  Though she died more than a decade ago, it turns out that she was good friends with Ellie and made plenty of home movies that demonstrate how she was a genetic scientist who was deeply involved in the dinosaur project.  Also, she was born with a genetic defect that was going to cut her life short but she really wanted to be a mom so she impregnated herself with a clone of herself - that would be Maisie - but not before correcting the genetic defect.  Well, of course.

Dodgson proves to be a Bond-like villain who had a lair that conveniently self-destructs with alarming ease.  The astonishing incompetence is baffling.

The movie is really odd.  Why are dinosaurs running around in the snowy forests of the northwest?  Reptiles are not fond of the cold.  Are these warm-blooded dinosaurs?  Did I miss that?  More likely, the makers thought it would be cool to have dinosaurs trudging through the snow.  Sigh.  Along that same line, Europe seems like a terrible place to have a dinosaur sanctuary.  There just aren't any remote tropical islands anymore.

The movie hits all the standard tropes of a Jurassic Park/World film.  In many cases, it just repeats some old ones as an homage to the original.  Yeah, okay.  Whatever.  This is a long (2 and a half hours!) movie that has way too many characters and an extremely weak storyline.  Skip.

The Pride and the Passion (1957)

1810, Spain

Napoleon has defeated Spain and placed his brother, Joseph, on the throne. During their retreat, the shattered remnants of the Spanish Army abandon the largest cannon in their possession. Royal Navy Captain Anthony Trumbull (Cary Grant) lands in Spain with plans of retrieving the giant cannon, both to aid the British efforts against Napoleon and to keep it out of the hands of the French. With the Spanish Army in disarray, he finds himself bargaining with a shoemaker turned guerrilla leader, Miguel (Frank Sinatra). Miguel agrees to assist the captain in recovering the gun, but insists it is used to liberate Avila before it can be transported to the British. Trumbull reluctantly agrees. There follows a series of adventures as Miguel's band of guerrillas battle French patrols and recruit help along the way. More importantly, Miguel's girlfriend, Juana (Sophia Loren), falls in love with the dashing British officer. Will she stay with Miguel or leave with Anthony? This is the most important question of the film.

The story is ludicrous. The idea that these guerrillas can haul this titanic gun across the countryside while not being noticed by French cavalry patrols is silly. That the French did find them in a canyon at one point and proved unable to capture the gun was unbelievable. When the gun is finally emplaced before the walls of Avila, the French just look on in amazement but don't take any offensive action. Nope, we'll just wait here on the walls. When the wall is breached, do the French have cannon ready at the breach to mow down the Spanish guerrillas? Nope.

The love triangle is no more engaging. Miguel is hard to like and Anthony is Cary Grant! Despite some great headliners in the cast, none of them give a noteworthy performance. Sinatra is bland and boring, doing little more than reading his lines off cue cards. He is not helped by a script that has him moping about Juana's growing attachment to Anthony. Some alpha male you are, buddy. Grant is similarly hampered by a clunky script that sees him lovestruck and perhaps joining this silly campaign just to stay near Juana. Though Sophia Loren did not speak English at the time and had to deliver her lines phonetically, she gets the best role here. Of course, she is the object of everyone's affection. Exactly why this woman is following the guerrillas is unclear, but she often feels like the 3rd in command.

Mediocre. Skip.

Mr. Inbetween (Season 1)

Ray Shoesmith (Scott Ryan) is a criminal, a hitman, who otherwise has the regular problems of an average working Joe.  He's divorced but has visitation with his daughter.  He has a girlfriend who works as a medic.  He has a best friend - also a criminal - who he constantly bails out of troubles of his own making, often humorously.  He attends meetings for anger management because he 'bashed a bloke.'  Of course, he saw nothing wrong with bashing the fellow, who fully deserved it.  Such a view does not impress the counselor.  Though Ray comes across as an amiable, even friendly, guy, woe to those who provoke his ire.  He is a cool customer when conflict arises.  Not only does Ray face threats of death with equanimity, but he has more tricks up his sleeve than even professional rivals can counter.  He recognizes that he is a criminal, but he also knows the 'work' will get done with or without him.  He has a strong sense of honor, frequently protecting innocents, but having no compunction about punishing the guilty.

The show takes place in Australia, which apparently has a bigger criminal underground than one would expect.  In any case, Ray is never short of people who need killing.  One curious thing is that Damon Herriman plays his primary employer, Freddy.  He had done so well in the role here that he got an almost identical role in The Bondsman with Kevin Bacon.  Scott Ryan is spectacular as Ray.  He has a unique face, putting him in the category of Steve Buscemi or Willem Dafoe.  Not a typical leading man.

The first season is only 6 half-hour episodes.  It has a terrific conclusion that got me wanting more.  Good popcorn fun and recommended.

Defund NPR & PBS

There is no shortage of media in the United States today.  When I was a kid, there were 7 TV channels and PBS.  That was a lot.  I remember visiting my grandparents and they only had 4 channels.  In those days, you could argue that the government should subsidize some programming that would not be aired on the limited stations.  That is not true now.  We have a glut of programming on a vast array of topics.  Niche programming abounds.  If you can't find your thing on TV, the internet - YouTube, Hulu, Rumble, and so on will have it.  Government-funded media was always questionable and is now just wasteful.  Any programming that has a sufficient audience will find private media to air it.  There is no reason for the American taxpayer to subsidize programming for anyone.

Taking Chance (2009)

It is April 2004 when the story opens with an ambush in Iraq.  It is only the audio over a black screen.  Back in the US, Marine Lt. Col. Mike Strobl (Kevin Bacon) is a number cruncher at Quantico.  His job is to review troop allocations and make recommendations.  Casualties are high in Iraq, but Lt. Col. returns to his wife and kids every night.  He's safe while other Marines were giving their lives.  While reviewing casualty reports, he notes that one Marine was from Colorado, near the town where he himself had grown up.  The Marine was PFC Chance Phelps.  Strobl volunteered to escort Chance home.

The process of returning the deceased to their relatives is very particular.  Honor is due the deceased at every stop on the journey home.  Strobl stood at attention and saluted as Chance was loaded into the plane and when he was removed from the plane.  He had to retain Chance's personal effects (a watch, a medallion, dog tags) on his person at all times, not even allowing them to pass through the X-ray at the airport.  He was moved that others joined in his respect for Chance along the way, offering thanks to him as an escort and condolences to Chance's family.  Strangely, the hero of the film is Chance and Strobl comes to know him by taking Chance home.

The movie is a powerful tearjerker, a somber reflection on the sacrifices made by a young man still in his teens.  Kevin Bacon is outstanding in the role, showing deep feelings despite maintaining a mostly stoic expression.

Highly recommended.

The Bondsman

Hub Halloran (Kevin Bacon) arrived at an abandoned motel to catch one of the Earl brothers.  It turned out that the brothers knew he was coming and set a trap.  They killed him!  To his great surprise, he awoke with a slit throat.  Why wasn't he dead?  Then the phone calls started from Pot O' Gold.  He was back from the dead for a purpose: he was now a bounty hunter in the employ of the devil.  His Pot O' Gold supervisor, Midge (Jolene Purdy), explained that Hell is basically a prison and sometimes there are escapes.  Escapees possess humans.  The only way to send them back is to kill the human they have possessed.

Hub isn't a lone wolf in his efforts.  His mother (Beth Grant) is his boss and she finds out about his new job when he does.  Of course, his mom is more interested in why he went to Hell rather than his new job of demonslaying.  Hub is coy on that subject, declaring it a mistake.  Hub's ex-wife, Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles), stumbles upon him in action against a demon and joins his efforts.  He roped his teenaged son, Cade (Maxwell Jenkins), into serving as a lookout on another instance.  Ex-con and Maryanne's boyfriend, Lucky (Damon Herriman), knows something dark is happening and wants to protect Maryanne and Cade, whatever measures that might require.

Though Hub accepts his new role, he thinks there must be a loophole, a way to get out from under his misdeeds.  He spends a lot of time plotting against Lucky rather than hunting demons that are clearly working as part of a greater plan.  His mother tells him that pride is what led him to Hell and he still hasn't mended that.

The series is available on Amazon.  It is only 8 episodes long and each episode is only 30 minutes.  Yeah, this is easy to binge in a single sitting.  The gruesome deaths of demons and their victims is often over the top, reminding me of Death of a Unicorn.  Good popcorn fun!

The Woman in the Yard (2025)

Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) lives on a farm with her two children, Taylor and Annie. The family is recovering from a tragedy; David (Russell Hornsby), Ramona's husband, died in a car crash. Ramona is still wearing a brace on her leg and uses crutches to navigate the house and yard. On this particular day, Taylor reported that the power was out. Worse, her phone is dead. To add to their troubles, there is a strange woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) in the yard. She is veiled and dressed entirely in black. She even had a chair to sit on. Curious, Ramona confronts the woman.

"Today's the day," the woman stated. She even said that Ramona had called her and she had now come.

Rattled, Ramona returned to the house and locked all the doors. However, as the day wore on, the woman came closer to the house despite never seeming to move. Her shadow cast farther than it should and in directions it shouldn't. The explanations for the woman and the background of the family are revealed as the story unfolds.

The initial reaction to the strange woman in the yard was inexplicable. Taylor is a teenager who is both taller than and more mobile than his mother, but she sequesters him in the house like he was a toddler even before a threat is revealed. The family has 2 cars, one that was wrecked and the other won't start. How have the kids been going to school since the accident? Do they go to school? Is it a weekend? Is it summer break? The powers of the woman are related to her shadow. Somehow, Ramona knows this. How? Ramona is an artist, though she hasn't been doing much painting since moving from the city.

Though it has several jump scares and a few hair-raising instances of terror, the movie proved to be merely so-so. Skip this one.

Deepwater Horizon (2016)

In 2010, Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife, Felicia (Kate Hudson), drove together to the heliport.  He was leaving for a 3-week stint on the Deepwater Horizon.  At the heliport, he met James "Mr. Jimmy" Harrell (Kurt Russell) and Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez), who were also going to the Deepwater Horizon.  A pair of BP executives were included as well.  As the helicopter hove into view, Mr. Jimmy was surprised to see a ship near the platform.  That generally indicated that the well was ready and the platform would travel to a new site shortly.  When the helicopter landed, he briefly conferred with a test team who did not give satisfactory answers to Mr. Jimmy.  What was the situation?

Mike and Mr. Jimmy found Don Vidrine (John Malkovich), a BP Executive, in a good mood.  This particular site had been running over cost and beyond schedule, but he was now certain that the well was ready to hand off to an oil extraction platform.  They could move to a new site.  Mr. Jimmy was doubtful and wanted a test.  The test was inconclusive, but Vidrine was confident.  Though the Deepwater Horizon was owned by Transocean, it was currently leased to BP.  Jimmy deferred to BP's decision.

As it turns out, the well was not hunky dory.  In fact, it was a timebomb that exploded, sending pressure and oil into the platform with destructive force.  The oil soon caught fire and more explosions wracked the doomed platform.  Could they cap the well?  Could they even escape the platform?

The movie opens and closes with the testimony of the actual crew, including Mike and Mr. Jimmy, neither of whom look much like Wahlberg or Russell.  As with the investigation that followed the explosions, the movie pins the blame on BP.

Though true, this is a disaster movie right out of the 1970s.  I was reminded of The Towering Inferno as everything exploded and everyone fled the spreading fire.  Mike proves to be the central character who ties the story into a clean narrative.  Wahlberg does a great job.  Russell is excellent as Mr. Jimmy and Malkovich is terrific as the supercilious executive who is humbled when his claims are proved wrong.

Mostly good popcorn fun, but the conclusion is mostly a downer.  Is this a movie for entertainment or is it a documentary?

Signalgate

The Atlantic journalist Jeffery Goldberg somehow found himself included in a Signal chat among high-ranking officials of the Trump Administration.  As such, he gleaned information about an attack on Houthi rebels that would take place shortly thereafter.  Clearly, this is a serious data breach, a security failure, a clear case of 'loose lips sink ships.'  So, how did the attack go?  Without a hitch.  Whew.  Dodged that bullet.  Now, let's make sure we don't invite reporters to the next chat.  That is not how the press is playing it.

No, Trump needs to fire Secretary Hegseth for using Signal to communication.  He needs to fire Mike Waltz for adding Goldberg to the chat.  Someone needs to be fired for this incident that resulted in no negative consequences other than embarrassment to the 2-month-old administration.  By contrast, when 13 Americans were killed during the Afghan withdrawal, billions in military equipment abandoned, and allied Afghans fell to their deaths from departing aircraft, these same folks didn't call for Secretary Lloyd Austin or Joint Chief Chairman Milley to be fired.  Interesting.

By and large, the press is a wing of the Democratic Party and will spin any story to best favor the Democrats.  That such a big deal is being made of Signalgate shows how effective the Trump Administration is so far.

Due Process for Illegal Immigrants

In response to Trump's wholesale expulsion and deportation of illegal immigrants, the democrats are crying out for due process.  Apparently, these illegal entrants should be allowed to stay - at our expense - until we can give them a court date.  And what is going to happen at that court date?

Judge: Are you a US Citizen?

Immigrant: No

Judge: Do you have a green card or visa?

Immigrant: No

Judge: Clearly, you do not have a legal right or permission to be in the US.  Deportation order is hereby upheld.

What a waste of time and money to go through this.  Once someone crosses the border, the US is now obligated to pay for a public defender and a court date to shove them back to the other side?  Imagine if someone moved into your backyard and you couldn't just kick them out.  Nope, you need to wait on a court date and let a judge permit you to kick them out.  Ludicrous.  Asinine.  Of course, even in the above example, there will be demands for appeal.  Craziness.  This is a strategy that will lead to bankruptcy just trying to get the trespassers out of the country, and that is the point.  The other side wants to make it as expensive as possible to return illegal aliens to their home countries.  Why are they so keen on keeping illegals in the US at the expense of the American taxpayer?

Death of a Unicorn (2025)

Ridley (Jenna Ortega) and her father, Elliot (Paul Rudd), drove through pristine mountains en route to a lodge.  They were to spend the weekend with the Leopolds.  During the drive, Elliot was distracted and struck an animal on the road.  To their shock and amazement, the animal proved to be a unicorn!  It was not dead.  When the horn began to glow, Ridley touched it.  She had a vision of creation.  Oh, the wonders!  She snapped out of it when blood hit her face and her father beat the unicorn to death with a tire iron.  "You were having a seizure," he explained.  Though Elliot sought to hide the incident from the Leopolds - his employers, it was soon revealed.  Moreover, the unicorn blood appeared to have healing properties.  Odell Leopold (Richard E Grant) owned a pharmaceutical company; the unicorn is a godsend.  His wife, Belinda (Tea Leoni), and son, Shepard (Will Poulter), are likewise ecstatic.  Researchers arrived within the hour.  Ridley had seen tapestries at the Cloisters in New York which told the story of unicorns.  By the very discovery of a unicorn, that story took on new meaning.  She interpreted it very darkly.

This is a campy horror film.  Despite their equine figure, they have teeth like a wolf.  These are carnivores, not herbivores.  Though traditionally white, these unicorns change color depending on mood; their hide is very dark when hunting for humans but quite bright when dashing along in the sunlight.  Rather than work with horses, the unicorns are mostly - possibly entirely - CGI creations.  As their blood has magical healing properties, they are understandably hard to kill.

Ridley had a mark against her with that nose ring and made things worse when she broke out the vape.  Though the heroine of the movie, she comes across more as a scold than the voice of reason.  Paul Rudd is stuck with a bland and barely likeable character.  He's a coward through most of the movie and generally a pushover.  Richard E. Grant plays Richard E. Grant, which is quite fun.  If he was drawn as a cartoon character, Odell would have dollar signs for pupils.  Tea Leoni matches Grant's greedy nature, but is generally uninspiring in her role.  Will Poulter is over the top as the rich son with a history of drug use; his experimentation with unicorn parts is hilarious. Grind down horn to snort like cocaine, smoke like tobacco, or use as an additive to whatever he is drinking.

Not a great horror film, but still entertaining.

Baffled (1972)

Racecar driver Tom Kovack (Leonard Nimoy) was well in the lead when he suddenly had a vision.  He saw a manor house in England and a screaming woman.  The vision ruins his concentration on the racetrack.  He spun out and crashed.  Luckily, he was not injured.  Later, during an interview, he detailed the vision to the reporter.  Michelle Brent (Susan Hampshire) was watching and she quickly realized that Tom had psychic powers.  She asked him to travel to England and save the screaming woman.  He viewed that as ludicrous.  However, when he had another vision which saw him falling from a cliff into the sea, he reconsidered, especially since he awoke on the floor covered in sea water.

Actress Andrea Glenn (Vera Miles) traveled to England with her daughter, Jennifer.  They planned to meet her long estranged husband at a manor house owned by Mrs. Farraday (Rachel Roberts).  Much to Jennifer's disappointment, he was not there.  Or is he?  Jennifer begins to act strangely and Andrea becomes deathly ill.  Worse still, efforts were made to kill both Tom and Michelle.  As Tom and Michelle investigate - often with Tom's clairvoyant talents, they discovered that occultism and psychic powers are being wielded against Andrea, her daughter, and themselves.  Can they counter this hidden villain before one of them is killed?

This was made as a pilot for a potential series and even ended with Tom having a vision that required them to travel to Paris next.  Much as I like Leonard Nimoy, he was not the best choice for the role.  Perhaps that is because I've typecast him as Spock.  Susan Hampshire plays both love interest and sage of psychic powers.  If this had launched into a series, how long would her schtick of explaining clairvoyance and the occult have been valuable?  The series would doom Tom to being an eternal noob with regards to powers that he had and she did not.  The villain (Mike Murray) had a small role but managed to be both slimy, creepy, and scary.  He looked like an evil version of Michael Palin.

Just okay.