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 a 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.