Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Mildred (Frances McDormand) wanted justice.  Her daughter was raped and murdered six months ago and the police have made no arrests.  In order to remind Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) that the case is pending, she rented three accusatory billboards with the chief's name on the last.  Unsurprisingly, the news media reported the billboards.

Chief Willoughby was a competent police chief and well-liked by the citizens.  Though he would like nothing more than to solve the crime, there were no leads and no evidence to follow.  He has nothing but compassion and understanding for Mildred's point of view, but there isn't anything he can do.  On top of that, he has terminal cancer.

Deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell) was a racist bully who was completely loyal to Chief Willoughby.  He was more offended by the billboards than the chief and intended to do something about them.  One thing was to confront the man who rented them to Mildred: Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones).  This visit involved beating the man and tossing him from a second story window.  This clearly criminal behavior was witnessed by a senior officer who did nothing more than fire Dixon from the force.  Yeah, that's some justice for you.

Mildred, Willoughby, and Dixon are the three main characters and each is surrounded by support characters.  Mildred has an ex-husband (John Hawkes), a son (Lucas Hedges), a man eager to date her (Peter Dinklage), and Father Montgomery (Nick Searcy).  Willoughby has a wife (Abbie Cornish) and daughters.  Dixon has his mother (Sandy Martin).  The movie revolves around them, initially with Willoughby standing between Mildred and Dixon, but later with Mildred and Dixon coming to an accord.

Of all the characters, Dixon has the most dramatic character arc.  He begins as quite detestable but ends as a man who is seeking redemption.  Still, he should be in jail for tossing Red out the window and smacking Red's secretary in the face.  Willoughby is the only one who was likeable throughout, a really decent man who was dealt some tough cards to play.

Both Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell won Oscars for their performances.  Rockwell did an impressive job of bringing Dixon to life and making him both a terrible human being but also one who improves through adversity.  By contrast, McDormand is just a grieving mother who is acting out.  She is the same person at the end as at the beginning.

Just okay.

Convoy (1978)

Rubber Duck (Kris Kristofferson) was a trucker when the speed limit was changed to 55 miles per hour.  Between the new speed limit and the regulations on how many hours per day could be spent driving, some truckers were having trouble staying solvent.  This was made all the worse by sheriffs like Dirty Lyle Wallace (Ernest Borgnine).  Dirty Lyle used CB chatter to set up speed traps where he would let the truckers go for a bribe; that way their insurance premiums wouldn't increase.

Rubber Duck was at an Arizona truck stop when Dirty Lyle started rousting Spider Mike (Franklyn Ajaye) and threatening to arrest him.  The Duck moved to intervene and a fight broke out.  Soon, all the truckers joined into a brawl against three police officers.  The truckers skedaddled, disabling the police cars on the way out of the lot.  Soon, a line of trucks drove east across Arizona and into New Mexico and Texas.  Many others got word and soon more trucks joined.  It was a convoy!

The movie doesn't make a lick of sense.  Somehow, the states are powerless to stop the convoy and the governor of New Mexico (Seymour Cassel) wanted to negotiate with Rubber Duck.  Negotiate about what?  When Spider Mike heads home - leaving the convoy - he got arrested and jailed.  Well, he did participate in that brawl.  In response, many of the truckers went to the town where he was jailed and flattened buildings, destroyed a police car, and crashed through the jail.  Um, okay.

Now they knew they were in big trouble.  Duck suggested crossing into Mexico.  So, he led the way but all the other trucks were cutoff by an ice cream man accident.  Alone, Duck approached the dinky bridge that crossed a river - presumably the Rio Grande - but Dirty Lyle was waiting on the other side with an armored vehicle.  In Mexico?  Huh?  Nonetheless, Duck raced across the bridge and the machineguns opened fire.  The wreckage plunged into the river.  So much for Rubber Duck?

Melissa (Ali MacGraw) was a traveling photographer who had a run-in with Rubber Duck in the opening and then encountered him again at the Arizona truck stop.  She needed a ride.  Despite the brawl, she climbed into Duck's truck and became part of the convoy, often nagging Duck about the ongoing events.  She repeatedly declined offers to get out.  Like most of the other characters, she also acts like some great injustice is occurring and Duck should make demands.  Huh?

Amazingly, this was Sam Pekinpah's most financially successful movie.  Of course, trucker movies were all the rage in the mid to late 70s (e.g., Smokey and the Bandit) and CB culture was everywhere for a time.  However, the movie has not aged well.  It's thin on plot and often inexplicable.  Why are the police so stymied by the convoy?  It feels like a chunk of the movie that explained the grievances of the truckers ended up on the cutting room floor.

Mediocre.  Skip.

Drive Angry (2011)

Milton (Nicolas Cage) escaped hell because he was on a mission.  He needed to find his newborn granddaughter and save her from a Satanic cult that intended to use her as a sacrifice.  Shortly after returning to the land of the living, Milton encountered Piper (Amber Heard).  What is particularly interesting about Piper, from Milton's point of view, is that she drives a 1969 Dodge Charger.  He hitched a ride.  Of course, hell was not keen on Milton's escape and dispatched the accountant (William Fichtner) to collect him.  Can Milton find Jonah King (Billy Burke) the cult leader who murdered his daughter and planned to also murder his granddaughter while keeping ahead of the accountant?

The movie is just shoot 'em up fun with lots of gun battles, car chases, and gory deaths.  One particular fight scene had Milton actively engaging a prostitute during a gunfight.  Since Milton is already dead, he can't be killed.  All his injuries heal, given time, even the bullet through his eye.  The revenant has come for the satanic cult members.

William Fitchner steals any scene he is in.  He is quite entertaining as an officious bureaucrat from hell.  Amber Heard is unremarkable.  Yeah, she's beautiful, but her character is tacked onto the story because the writers needed a pretty woman along for the ride.  There is nothing between Milton and Piper, just a chance encounter.  Nick Cage is Nick Cage.  He hits all the usual beats and proves to be a serviceable, run-of-the-mill hero.

Mindless popcorn fun.

J'Accuse! says Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden has recently been on a tear on X, accusing the media of ignoring the financial shenanigans of the Trump children where they had blasted the previous president's son for the same; that would be him, by the way.  Yes, he had that sweet no-show gig on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings in Ukraine, which looked a bit fishy.  It looked even shadier when Vice President Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees to from Ukraine unless Viktor Shokin - a prosecutor investigating Burisma - was fired.  Sure, there may be a lot of nuance in here, but that looks bad.  Also, the nuance, if there was any, was not reported.  Then there was his art career while Joe Biden was president.  It was amazing how valuable his paintings were during Joe Biden's presidency and then the bottom fell out when he was not.  What exactly were the buyers buying?  Then there is the laptop, but there is no similar scandal with any of the Trump children, so let's skip that.

Hunter's Accusations:

1. Vulcan Elements, a defense startup backed by Donald Trump Jr., secured a $620 million loan from the Pentagon.  Ha!  Where is the outrage?  Why is this not plastered across every newspaper and news program like Hunter's crackpipe?  Let's look a little deeper.  Donald Trump Jr. has a stake in 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm.  No, he is not the CEO or on the board of directors.  Nor does he have a controlling share in the company.  1789 Capital has invested in Vulcan Elements.  1789 Capital does not own Vulcan Elements or have a majority shareholder position, but merely owns a part of the company.  So, a company that Don Jr. has shares in bought shares of another company that got a loan from the Pentagon.  Oh, what a scandal.

2. Israeli Drone Manufacture (XTEND) is going public through a merger.  Both Eric and Don Jr. are attached to the $1.5 billion deal.  War profiteering!  As with the Vulcan Elements case, the link is not so direct.  American Ventures, another venture capital firm, put $150 million into the merger, thus being 10% of the whole.  American Ventures is a branch of Dominari Holdings Inc.  Don Jr. and Eric have a combined ownership of 12% of Dominari.  Moreover, Don Jr. has a stake in Unusual Machines - another drone manufacture - that is also invested in the merger.  Again, the Trumps are attached not because they are driving this merger but because they have investments in the companies responsible.

3. Jared Kurshner and Ivanka Trump have acquired a wildlife sanctuary in Albania where they plan to build a luxury hotel.  That's a scandal?  In the western world today, BANANA is the rule.  What is BANANA?  Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.  Recall, there was the long-running debate about drilling for oil in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because nature and stuff.  The refuge is the size of South Carolina, but a few hundred acres to drill for oil would spoil the region.  Good grief.  The same is true of the Albanian coast.  Sazan Island has plenty of room and the suggested coastal region is mostly dotted with orchards.  This same story could be told of ANY builder anywhere in the western world; the environmentalists always oppose developers.

The Trump children are just pursuing the same sort of business dealing that their father did prior to his presidency.  They are investors, builders, and deal makers.  Are their efforts benefited by the fact that their father is president?  Almost certainly!  However, Hunter Biden's efforts benefited ONLY because his father was vice president and then president.

In any case, the reason the press isn't delving into these stories is because they don't stand scrutiny.  The one sentence accusation may sound damning, but the deep dive reveals them to be no big deal.  The very idea that the press is covering for Trump where it savaged Biden is ludicrous.

Mocha Dick

In 1838, a whaler sailed along the coast of Chile and came to Mocha Island.  There, they spotted a whale.  Quickly deploying whaleboats, the men rowed toward the whale only to discover that it was the infamous Mocha Dick, a white sperm whale of immense proportions that had a multitude of harpoons rusting on its back.  Eager to take the whale where so many others had failed, they tried their luck.  And failed.  The harpooner had made a bad cast and the whale vanished as night fell.

The following day, the whaler spotted a herd of whales and quickly paddled into the midst where the hunt began.  They took a calf and its mother.  Then, Mocha Dick appeared.  The first mate took the harpoon himself and his cast was true.  Mocha Dick dove so deep that the rope attached to the harpoon was almost exhausted.  The back and forth with the whale was exhausting but the first mate lanced Mocha Dick at the fin and shortly the whale was done.  Finally, someone had defeated the infamous whale.

The account of the whale was printed in The Knickerbocker by J N Reynolds in 1839.  Though probably exaggerated by the man who told Reynolds the story, there was indeed an albino whale that had haunted the ocean for 20 or more years.  The short story starts slowly with the author and several men gathered around for dinner.  At length, and despite interruptions from a seal hunter who claimed seal hunts were more exciting, the first mate tells the tale of Mocha Dick.  This was the inspiration for Herman Melville's classic work, Moby-Dick.

One of the funniest things about the story is all the units of measurement, many of which are arcane or obsolete.  They spot whales a league off the port.  The whale dove 50 fathoms.  Now it was several furlongs away.  They closed to 5 rods.  The whaleboat was now only a cable away.  They were reduced to 3 flakes of rope.  Mocha Dick was so big that he would fill 100 barrels.

Highly recommended.

Creature Commandos

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) has received intel that Circe - a sorceress from Wonder Woman's home island of Themyscira - has traveled to Pokolistan to assassinate Princess Ilana.  Waller decided to dispatch General Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) with a band of 'creatures' to protect the princess.  Why creatures?  Congress has shutdown the Suicide Squad program, forbidding Waller from sending humans on such high casualty missions.  The creatures - none of whom are quite human - are a work around.  There are 5 creatures:

The Bride (Indira Varma) is the Bride of Frankenstein.  She has 'lived' for 200 years and spent much of her time fleeing the monster, Eric Frankenstein (David Harbour).  She is strong, tough, and anti-social.  She is also the leader of the creatures when Flag is absent.

G. I. Robot (Sean Gunn) is, as the name states, a robot.  He was deployed during World War II where he killed Nazis.  He is obsessed with killing Nazis.  His arms conceal machineguns with which he kills those his teammates identify as Nazis.

Weasel (Sean Gunn) is a human-sized weasel-like creature.  He's basically an animal.

Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk) is a walking radioactive man whose skeleton is always visible through his translucent body.  He can burn through anything with his touch, often graphically killing opponents by melting their faces.  Yikes.

Nina (Zoe Chao) is a female creature from the black lagoon.  She had a rare lung defect that her scientist father 'fixed' by screwing with her DNA.  Now she's aquatic with green skin and gills.

Most episodes have the story of the present as well as an origin story for one of the creatures.  Though all of them are in prison and thus available for Waller to dispatch, some of the origin stories indicate that they were wrongly incarcerated.

The dull-witted and lovestruck Frankenstein was frequently funny, but often quite dark.  He was only too happy to murder anyone in his way.  There is a montage of the Bride and Frankenstein encountering each other throughout the years, her always running and him always chasing.  The guy won't take a hint after 2 centuries.

Overall, it is entertaining.  Not exactly superhero stuff and quite similar to the Suicide Squads and Peacemaker.

Democrats Against Democracy

Yet again, the Democratic Party has ejected the party's chosen nominee.  Graham Platner, whose Nazi tattoo did not discourage Maine voters from voting for him, has become even more toxic since the primary.  Or has he?  No, this, like the 2024 Presidential Election, is a reaction to polls.  When it was clear that Joe Biden was going to get creamed in the general election, the Democrats 'convinced' him to withdraw and then selected an equally flawed candidate to replace him.  Now Platner, the second notably Democrat candidate this year to be brought down by sexual assault accusations (i.e., Eric Swalwell), has been jettisoned by his party and the party will select a new candidate.  You know, democracy.

Bill Clinton had a lot of baggage in 1992, including serial infidelity and a rape accusation (i.e., Juanita Broaddrick), but the polls said he was a winner, which he was.  Bill Clinton's sex life was less of a threat than his smoking marijuana.  "I didn't inhale," is a more memorable line, perhaps because Billy Crystal riffed on it during the Oscars.  But then there was Barack Obama, who documented his membership in the weed-smoking Choom Gang in one of his biographies, and it was hardly a blip.  He had an America-hating pastor, ties to a Weather Underground terrorist, and questions about his citizenship.  Not a problem.  He polled well.

Democrats will toss losers over the side in a heartbeat but stick with seriously flawed candidates if the polls look good.  If Platner was still polling well, the excuses for his behavior would be flowing.

In Defense of General Pierce

In 1852, Franklin Pierce was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party.  As the Whigs had nominated General Winfield Scott, attacks on Pierce's military service became a popular topic.  Democrat newspapers soon responded to the attacks by publishing the accounts of fellow soldiers who held Pierce in the highest regard for his military service during the Mexican War.  Fellow veterans Major Isaac Stevens, Colonel Noah Smith, Colonel J F H Claiborne, Major General James Shields, Major Oscar Winship, General Gideon Pillow, Colonel Francis Wynkoop, Lt. Richard Drum, Lt. George Bowers, and Lt. Col. Benjamin Roberts each provided an account of Pierce's gallantry and meritorious service in Mexico. 

Though Pierce had not been a soldier beyond serving in the New Hampshire state militia, he volunteered for the Mexican War even though it was unpopular in New England.  He was briefly the commanding Colonel of the 9th Infantry Regiment, but President Polk elevated him to Brigadier General.  He arrived in Vera Cruz in June 1847 and, in July, he led 2500 soldiers to meet General Scott at Puebla.  He handily overcame the guerrillas that sought to impede his column's progress, even having his hat shot off his head during an engagement at the National Bridge.  Upon reaching Puebla, he proved popular among his fellow officers and worked well with General Scott.  In August, the army moved into the Valley of Mexico.

During the Battle of Contreras, Pierce led his men through a rocky and uneven area - a lava field - when his horse startled from Mexican artillery.  The horse fell on him, injuring his leg and knocking him unconscious.  General Scott suggested that he refrain from leading his men the following day and instead recover.  Pierce refused.  Believing that it might be the last battle of the war, he needed to be present to offset his embarrassing horse fall.

During the Battle of Churubusco, he had himself tied to his horse and set out to cut off the Mexican retreat.  His horse was soon stuck in a ditch.  Getting free of the horse, Pierce hobbled toward the objective but, overcome by pain, he feinted again.  That he was not laid low from gunfire, shrapnel, lance, or sword but rather his own inadequate horsemanship led to the nickname of 'Fainting Frank.'  He did not partake in later battles of the war.

There is no questioning Pierce's bravery.  He had demonstrated his willingness to expose himself to enemy fire and ride into combat.  His great misfortune was how he was injured.  Would the Whigs be able to convince the nation that Pierce was a coward?  Not by a longshot.  In the 1852 election, Pierce crushed General Scott, winning 27 states to Scott's 4.  Sadly, Franklin Pierce proved to be a better general than president.

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

US Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway (Clint Eastwood) had been in the Corps since the 1950s and was nearing mandatory retirement.  Reassigned to Recon Marines, he found an undisciplined collection of dissolute Marines; Gunny Highway set to work forging them into an elite fighting force.  However, he had to contend with Major Powers (Everett McGill), a professional paper-pusher who disliked Highway's checkered past.  Then there was the issue of Tom's ex-wife, Aggie (Marsha Mason), who was dating a man who hated Marines.  Tom was reading women's magazines for relationship advice with a notion of getting back together.  At length, the invasion of Grenada in October 1983 tested his Marines and provided Highway with a final taste of combat before his retirement.

There are points when the movie shines and others when it drags.  There are some great bits.  One memorable one was that t-shirt matching during PT.  That the goal post seemed to move each time was fun.  Improvise, adapt, overcome.  Heck, I remember hearing that from friends in the Marines.  The battle in Grenada was surprisingly bland and included goofball A-Team silliness, such as driving a bulldozer (wow, handy that it is on the side of the road and available to the Marines) at an enemy machinegun position where the bullets ping against the raised blade.  Yeah.  But it wasn't raised high enough to cover the driver.  Lucky the Cubans didn't aim a little higher.  Well, this isn't a war movie, it's a dramedy?

Though the movie is set in 1983, the title refers to a battle fought during the Korean War (1950-53) by the US Army, not the Marines.  It is revealed that Highway won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the battle and that he had been in the Army at the time.  A thumbnail sketch of the battle is offered by Sergeant Major Choozoo (Arlen Dean Snyder), who was also a veteran of the battle.  Well, that's good to know.  Are there flashbacks?  No.  This is just to establish Highway's bona fides.

Just okay.

They Will Kill You (2026)

Asia Reeves (Zazie Beetz) spent more than a decade in prison after shooting her father in a parking lot while trying to escape his abuse with her younger sister, Maria.  The intervening years have toughened her and provided time for a guilty conscience to grow.  Her father had survived and her sister was once again in his custody.  Now she wanted to reconnect with her sister, but she had vanished into a mysterious building - The Virgil - that hosted the wealthy.  Stealing the identity of a new employee, she infiltrated the building.  Then the creepy residents attacked!  Luckily, she was prepared; she had brought a shotgun and a machete.

Very like Ready or Not, Asia must survive the night against a host of residents while also locating her sister, Maria (Myha'la).  Among the homicidal tenants were Sharon (Heather Graham), Kevin (Tom Felton), and Lily Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette).  I did not initially recognize any of them.  Tom Felton is best remembered as Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter.  Heather Graham's career peak was probably in the late 90's as Rollerskate Girl in Boogie Nights or Felicity Shagwell in Austin Powers II.  As for Patricia Arquette, she was most famous in the 90's, but I recall her role Boyhood.

The movie is one long action-packed rollercoaster ride and one must suspend disbelief to the extreme.  Yes, the story is ludicrous but fun.  Despite the blood and gore, this is quite comedic, sort of like the Evil Dead movies & series.

Good popcorn fun!

America 250

Where this should be a celebration that the United States has persevered through a quarter millennium, it is more often an excuse to attack President Trump.  The most noteworthy incident is the reflecting pool.  It has long been a problem that multiple presidents have addressed - including Obama, but it has never risen to the level of criticism as now.  There has been vandalism in order to foil President Trump's efforts to repair a leaking national landmark before today's historic anniversary.  How did monument repair become so controversial?

The issue is that too many Americans are no longer proud to be Americans, especially when there is a president of whom they disapprove.  Too often, America's failings and faults are taught while its goodness and virtues are ignored.  Prior to 1988, when high school students were asked to identify famous Americans from history who were not presidents, answers such as Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, or Paul Revere were common.  However, that has switched.  Today's students are likely to answer Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, or Rosa Parks.  Of course, all of these people are famous Americans, but why the change in emphasis?  This was not by accident.  That second list shows that the emphasis is now about slavery and civil rights.  Yes, America has faults, a laundry list of them, which are rolled out on a regular basis to denigrate the country.  It used to be balanced by the greatness of America, but that has faded over the last 30 to 40 years.

People living in Western countries are more likely to learn the negatives about their country than the negatives of others.  Americans know the warts and all of America, but virtually none of the negatives of China, Cuba, Venezuela, or Iran.  Inevitably, knowing what is bad about your country but not the failings of others will diminish one's opinion of it in comparison to others.  Frequently, when asked what other country is better, a ludicrous answer like 'China' will be offered.  Look at the highspeed trains!  But the thing is, people vote with their feet.  If they can get to a Western country, they do.  People with direct knowledge of these other countries flee to the United States and don't leave.  They know the truth.

The United States is the greatest country in the world.  It is unfortunate that too many of its citizens do not know that.

Happy Independence Day!

Margin Call (2011)

In 2008, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) was working on a report about serious financial issues at a New York investment bank when he was laid off.  On his way out the door, he offered a thumb drive to Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), a junior member of the risk management team and offered the warning to 'Be careful.'  Sullivan was a rocket scientist who found that the pay was much better in banking.  He spent the evening working on Dale's research and filling in gaps that required his technical skills.  The results were grim.  Though it was late at night, he called his supervisor, Will Emerson (Paul Bettany).  Emerson reviewed the data and called his supervisor back to the office.  Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) called in Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) and Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), who in turn summoned the CEO, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), at 4 in the morning.  The mortgage-backed securities were a threat to the bank's solvency.  Could the bank divest itself of these worthless securities before the market discovered what Sullivan's research had determined?

The story takes place over a 24-hour period, giving a glimpse of how the 2008 Crash unfolded.   Where The Big Short gave a view of the overall crash, this looks at only one bank and its efforts to avert bankruptcy.  The characters don't get a lot of development as there are so many.  Quinto is playing Spock here, an analytical character who provides advanced knowledge with which his superiors will make decisions.  Yes, a role he had already perfected.  Bettany is a charming rogue and the top trader at the bank, something of a cynical nihilist.  Strangely, he is a rock upon whom both juniors and seniors rely.  Impressive.  Kevin Spacey plays the manager of the trade floor and the man who must sell worthless securities before the market realizes they are worthless.  Can he do that?  Is that ethical?  Jeremy Irons dominates when he arrives, offering insight on how an investment bank survives and what justifies dumping worthless product on customers.

Highly recommened.

Letters from Mexico

In March 1848, the Polk Administration provided a vast collection of correspondence related to the ongoing war in Mexico.  The letters included reports from the field, communications between the generals and the War Department, troop counts, financial reports, general orders, administration of martial law, and many other topics.  The letters provide details about the workings of the army, the jealousies among commanders, difficulties involved in fielding volunteer troops, and a close-up look at the personalities of the generals and officials.

Volunteer troops had a huge impact on the conduct of the war.  Initially, they were brought in for only 3- or 6-month tours.  Later, that was extended to 1-year and finally they were required to sign on until the end of the war.  As these troops were typically raw recruits, training was required.  The troops were sent to Camargo or Meir on the Rio Grande before finally being deployed.  By the time the volunteers were seasoned and competent, it was time to send them home and a new wave of neophytes replaced them.  As such, military victories were often not exploited.  General Scott crushed the Mexican Army at Cerro Gordo in April 1847 but then was unable to drive onto Mexico City until August because most of his volunteers left in May and June.

The squabbles among and between the generals and the Polk Administration are embarrassing.  Winfield Scott comes across particularly badly in his letters.  Though he certainly had cause to believe the administration didn't have his back, he proved to be paranoid, acting as if the administration was trying to make him fail.  On the other hand, Zachary Taylor came off well.  Though there is a clear current in his correspondence that he viewed himself as mistreated by having his army transferred to General Scott, he was not a whiner and comported himself professionally.  Of course, he had William W. S. Bliss as his adjutant, a man of tremendous ability who managed the general's paperwork.  The letters do not offer the homespun sound of Taylor.  Scott wrote or dictated his letters and it shows.

One humorous exchange was between Scott and General Gideon Pillow.  Initially, Scott wrote to Pillow and requested that he 'correct' his account of a recent battle.  Pillow had arrogated to himself credit for several aspects of the battle.  It comes as no surprise that Pillow was later arrested by Scott, who demanded a court martial.  With all this bickering among the generals, it's a wonder that the war was won.

Scott's most dramatic letter was in answer to his recall.  He composed a laundry list of mistreatments he had received from the Polk Administration.  Indeed, from his perspective, it looked as though the President wanted him to fail.  However, his claims sounded surprisingly convincing.  Was Polk trying to sink his lead general and thus lose the war?  The reply from War Secretary William Marcy was devastating, answering most - though not all - of Scott's claims, often disproving them with copies of Scott's reports.  Ouch!

Highly entertaining for those interested.

Freedom of Which Religion?

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams

When the First Amendment was drafted, the United States was almost exclusively Christian.  Many of the states had an established religion and religious tests to hold office.  New England was established by a persecuted religious group who fled England two centuries before: The Puritans.  Pennsylvania was founded by a Quaker.  Virginia was Anglican.  The Scotch-Irish of the Carolinas were Presbyterians.  The Founders were aware of the diversity - being themselves members of the various denominations of Christianity - and also knew of the catastrophic wars that had torn through Europe.  In fact, Europe still had state-established religions.  The First Amendment addressed that directly, offering a live and let live solution to the frequent hostility among the various flavors of Christianity.  However, they never considered Hinduism, Islam, Voodoo, Satanism, or various other faiths.  Why would they?  And that was an oversight.

Islam is not compatible with the US Constitution.  If a majority of the citizens of the United States were to become Muslim, the Constitution would necessarily be discarded as against the Koran and failing to adhere to Sharia.  Remember, when the First Amendment was adopted, Islam and Christianity had been at war for more than a thousand years.  Islam was anathema to Western Civilization.  Why would anyone think that Islam would be openly integrated into a Western nation via an 18th Century amendment written for the governing of a universally Christian country?

Obviously, the history here is irrelevant.  The Supreme Court will not limit what religions are covered by the Freedom of Religion clause.  Well, maybe Pastafarianism.  The Founding Fathers did not foresee a time when uncontrolled migration would change the religious landscape.  Case in point, the huge influx of Catholics in the 19th Century was tumultuous because the US was a Protestant country.  This saw the rise of Nativism, which was an anti-Catholic movement in the mid-19th Century, most notably against the Irish.  Why would a different version of Christianity be such a problem?  Because they held allegiance to a foreign prince: the Pope.  As late as JFK - the first Catholic president - there were concerns that the Pope would determine US policies from Rome.

Western Civilization is dependent upon Christianity.  It is one of the primary foundations.  If it goes, so goes Western Civilization.  The West needs to prevent incompatible belief systems from taking hold.  It may be too late for some Western nations.

Citizen Vigilante (2026)

Somewhere in Europe, a mother shopped with her son.  As they left the store and walked toward home, a black man with a knife stabbed the mother in the neck.  She bled out on the ground.  Michael Sanders (Armie Hammer) was an American who had come to Europe upon his father's death.  He found the situation intolerable and was only too happy to explain how things should be.  Though he owned rental property, he refused to let the government use any units to house immigrants.  He lectured a trio of rowdy youths about proper behavior, warning them to clean up their act; the next time he met them, there was no warning.  Judges who released criminals became his targets.  Then there were the criminals themselves; he was not forgiving.  Much of the populace celebrate his vigilantism and he is regularly discussed by the evening news.  Chief Henry (Costas Mandylor) was determined to end his reign of justice.

As a Uwe Boll film, it is badly made.  The same scene will be filmed from three angles and he will use the complete footage.  For example, the cop approached the door and set an explosive charge on the lock.  Different angle, the cop approached the door and set a charge on the lock.  Third angle, the cop approached the door and set a charge.  At another point, several police are mowed down in automatic gunfire.  It looked like 2 dozen men were killed but there were about 8 bodies on the floor when the action ended.  Yes, different angles again.  Then there is the non-linear filming.  At another scene, the police are carrying out bodies from an apartment building.  What is this about?  It is the site of Sander's massacre of a Muslim family, which proved to be the finale of the movie.  Boll must be trying to ape Pulp Fiction.

The news reports are astonishingly wooden, as if the female newscaster was reading the script for the first time.  Because much of the acting is wooden, Hammer comes across as an old pro.  Of course, it isn't a demanding role.  Sanders is intensely serious and takes no guff.  He explains to most of his victims why he is punishing them and how they deserve it.  He is Death Wish and the Punisher mixed together.  Mandylor proved to be bland, speaking with an unidentifiable 'European' accent.  The rest of the cast are unknowns and have tiny roles.

The point of this movie is the message.  Citizen Vigilante is an answer to the dramatic rise in crime across Europe and the various governments unwillingness to address it.  One of the storylines in the movie echoes a real incident: a 14-year-old girl was raped by 7 teens who were given suspended sentences.  Sanders claims that he will provide justice until the populace learns to provide it for themselves.

The movie is poorly made, poorly scripted, and full of holes, but the message is explosive.  Where most movies and TV shows will paint the white majority as a bunch of intolerant racists and the immigrants as entirely worthy, this movie flips that narrative.  The movie is a call to arms, a demand that the politicians reverse course, and perhaps a standard for the abused populace to gather behind.

Recommended.

Perry Mason

The day after Christmas in 1931, an infant, Charlie Dodson, was kidnapped for a ransom of $100,000.  Though the ransom was paid, the child was dead. The police suspected the child's father.  However, his alibi checked out and the child's mother was arrested and charged.  The kidnappers were discovered dead in a murder-suicide scenario.  Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) had been having an affair with the lead kidnapper.  E. B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) had accepted the case when the father, Matthew Dodson, was accused.  However, Matthew's father, Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick), was unwilling to foot the bill for an adulteress.

Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany) was a radio preacher with a nation-wide following.  Herman Baggerly was a supporter of her ministry, and the Dodsons were members of the church.  Alice involved herself in the case, much to the irritation of the church fathers and her own mother, Birdy McKeegan (Lili Taylor).  Curiously enough, the lead kidnapper and Emily's lover had been an accountant for the church.  It is noteworthy that Sister Alice is largely based on a real person, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), a radio preacher based out of Los Angeles.

Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) was a divorced father, a dishonorably discharged officer from the Great War, a failed dairy farmer, and a private eye living a hand to mouth existence.  He is a man with few friends and spends much of his time depressed or drunk, often both.  He has the emotional self-control of a toddler who wants his mother to buy a toy at the store.  He is only too happy to cheat, if that is what it takes to get his way.  "There's what is legal, and there's what is right."  Perry is E. B. Jonathan's investigator, who more often argues with his boss; it is a wonder that E. B. put up with him.  This Perry Mason is a foul-mouthed slob.  The number of F-bombs dropped might compete with a Tarantino film's use of the N-word.  This guy is an interesting character, but he isn't Perry Mason.

Della Street (Juliet Rylance) was E. B. Jonathan's secretary, though she spent most of her time arguing with her boss, quite similar to Perry.  She must be repeatedly reminded to answer the phone.  Della lived in a boarding house; one of the other boarders, Hazel (Molly Ephraim), is her lover.  Yes, Della is a lesbian; must get that representation in there.  Oh, Assistant DA Hamilton Burger is also homosexual; don't want to leave the fellas out.  It turned out that Della did most of the work for the law firm and expects to be a partner in a couple of years.  Really, E. B. proved to be an empty suit with an over-inflated ego.

As a Depression-Era show, one expects a downer soundtrack.  Such is delivered.  There is a repeated melody that signals sadness and depression.  There are no breaks in the gloomy setting, just one long tale of woe and dread.  It's a miracle that there were not more suicides among these characters.

The trial, which serves as Perry Mason's first as a lawyer, is ludicrous.  DA Maynard Barnes (Stephen Root) pinned his entire case on the fact that Emily was having an affair with the kidnapper.  He proved beyond any doubt that she was an adulteress, therefore you must find her guilty of murdering her child and sentence her to hang!  Not only is his case thin on evidence, he knows the detectives on the case were corrupt; heck, he demanded that the detectives eliminate anyone who knew too much.  Yes, the whole justice system is rotten to the core.  Half of the stuff that Perry and his fellow investigators, Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham) and Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), uncover proved to be inadmissible.  Sure, that's nice for the audience to see the full story but it helped the case not at all.  Then there was the imaginary cross-examination of the actual killer that harkened back to the Raymond Burr series.

Excellent cast, a terrific film noir setting, this had lots of potential.  However, it should have been some original character, not an origin story for Perry Mason that changes all the characters.  Watch Spider-Noir instead.

And Hormuz is Closed Again

Well, that didn't last long.  The US cannot prevent Israel and Hezbollah from fighting, but Iran won't keep the peace unless their proxy is safe.  There are too many moving parts in the Middle East to maintain the fragile peace.  If we aren't going to bomb Iran into the stone age, then it will just be another Afghanistan or Iraq.  Neither of those have turned out well.  Keep an eye on the nukes, bombing as needed, and protect US shipping.  Otherwise, let the region find a balance.  Beyond preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, this isn't our problem.

Juneteenth

Happy June 19th, the day that Democrats in Texas were finally forced to free their slaves.  Yes, the Republicans - the party begun to oppose slavery - accomplished the mission only a decade after the party's founding.  The Democrats spent the next century trying to prevent blacks from equality.  Not until LBJ did the Democrats change tactics and ''embrace" equality while simultaneously accusing Republicans of doing all the things they had done for a century.  Today, you will find many ill-educated people who think Jim Crow and segregation were Republican policies and Lincoln was a Democrat.  This miseducation is not accidental.

Juneteenth, brought to you by the Republican Party.

Controlling the Labels

Phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.

Merriam-Webster

A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity, or situation. It is a type of anxiety disorder. A person with a phobia either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or endures it with great anxiety and distress.

Harvard Medical School

A phobia is an irrational fear of something, a mental illness to be treated.  It is no accident that the word Islamophobia was coined for the very purpose of undermining critics of Islam.  This is 1984 Newspeak in practice.  By the very term, it has been determined that any reasons cited are irrational.  By contrast, those oppose to Judaism are anti-Semites.  They may be bigots, but they aren't irrational.  Labeling your opposition is terrific, if you can make the label stick.

Is it irrational to be against Islam?  Look at the grooming gangs in Britain.  Look at the 9/11 attacks.  Look at the invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023.  The Quran itself calls for the subjugation of all non-Muslims.  It is entirely reasonable for non-Muslims to show concern.

In the case of abortion, each side has sought to pin the other with a negative name while describing themselves in a positive light.  Those opposed to abortion declare themselves to be Pro-Life and their opponents as Pro-Abortion.  By contrast, the other side claims to be Pro-Choice and accuse their opponents of being Anti-Choice.  Neither has succeeded in defining the other.  As all these labels are well-known, you can immediately determine the leanings of anyone writing on the subject based solely on the labels being used.  Handy.

Opposition to Islam should be anti-Islam, not Islamophobia.  Disagreeing with the precepts of a religion should not lead to a faux mental health diagnosis.  This is a term to shut people up.  Of course, when it doesn't work, violence is often the next step (e.g., Salman Rushdie, Theo Van Gogh, Charlie Hebdo, etc.) to silence critics.  Yeah, nothing irrational or illogical in fearing Islam.  It is mere pattern recognition and self-preservation.

I Stand Corrected

No sooner do I predict the Iran War to be an inescapable quagmire that will drag on than a peace deal is announced.  What are the details of this deal?  From what has been revealed so far, Iran will immediately open the Strait of Hormuz and the United States will end its blockade of Iranian ports.  Iran further agrees not to pursue nuclear weapons, which includes and agreed upon verification regime.  On paper, that sounds great.  Not to be a wet blanket, but this is just a temporary deal, like maybe until the end of Trump's Presidency.  Much as Obama's deal didn't survive Trump, Trump's deal won't survive the next Democrat, unless it is formalized in a treaty that the Senate approves.  Of course, there is also Iran, which is likewise going to test US resolve after a few months of 'peace.'  Remember, the Vietnam War ended with a South Vietnam and a North Vietnam, but two years after the peace, the north swept away the south and the US embassy was embarrassingly evacuated by helicopter.  There was no will in the US to save South Vietnam.

Though not optimistic about the longevity of this deal, it does give President Trump a win and wraps up the Iran War well-before the midterms.  Now the news can go back to complaining about the economy, ICE, and the Epstein Files.

Gandahar (1987)

On the bizarre world of Gandahar, automatons are sweeping the landscape and petrifying people.  They collect the statues and carry them away through a mysterious dimensional gate.  Ambisextra (Glenn Close), the leader of the Council of Women and mother of Sylvain (John Shea), dispatched her son to investigate the strange metal men.  During this odyssey, he met Airelle (Jennifer Grey), whom he rescued.  Then he encountered the deformed, a race of men who all have different deformities and often special powers; one of them spoke of a prophecy that would be fulfilled in a thousand years.  They show him the dimensional gate.  He sailed on the ocean and found what appeared to be a massive brain; this was Metamorphis (Christopher Plummer).  Like the deformed, Metamorphis claimed to be the result of Gandaharian scientists who unleashed powers they did not understand.  The brain freely told Sylvain that he would not be susceptible to the poison that Sylvain carried for a thousand years.  So, he put Sylvain into stasis.

A thousand years later, Sylvain awoke in a desolate Gandahar, but soon met one of the deformed.  Metamorphis was now decrepit and dying.  To stave off death, it had generated a gateway to the past through which it was importing Gandaharians to feed upon.  Sylvain administered the poison and fled with as many Gandaharians as he could back through the time portal, to his own time.  And the world is saved.  Huh?

The world of Gandahar doesn't make much sense.  Why does Ambisextra have wings on her head?  And what is with that name?  In a world where scientists are making giant brains and messing with DNA to create the deformed, why does Sylvain find himself traveling by pterodactyl?  The deformed are dressed like cavemen.  They do live in caves, but again, this world has scientists.  The time travel stuff works, but feels unnecessary.  So, the brain doesn't start attacking Sylvain's era for a thousand years, so Sylvain has to travel to the future to stop a threat attacking today.  Right.  So, for the rest of Sylvain's life, he could travel back out to sea and have conversations with Metamorphis.  The more interesting question is why weren't there Gandaharians for Metamorphis to devour in the future?  Not a question that was asked.

This is only the 3rd French animated film I have watched and it fits nicely into the weirdness.  Fantastic Planet (1973) was much stranger though it has a similar aesthetic.

Mediocre.  Skip.

A 'Short' War

The current war with Iran started on the last day of February.  After an intense bombing campaign of six weeks, the war entered a ceasefire, which was supposed to last one week and give Iran time to negotiate an end of the hostilities on terms acceptable to the United States.  Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz.  The US responded by also blockading the Strait of Hormuz.  Now, two months later, the ceasefire is still active, though it is interrupted by potshots in both directions.  President Trump has insisted that talks are ongoing and a deal is close.  Iran is mum on the subject.

Trump was hoping for a short war, a quick smackdown that brought Iran to heel and ended its quest for a nuclear bomb.  Not so long ago, George W Bush wanted a short war with Afghanistan, a quick smackdown that resulted in the extraction of Osama bin Laden and his brethren.  That didn't go so well.  The problem is that the opponent is not a rational actor.  A rational leader would act to preserve the nation.  The Mullah's are religious fanatics who believe that death will lead them to paradise while compromise with the infidel will lead them to hell.  Moreover, they know that Trump has a time limit.  This is a country that has slaughtered tens of thousands of its citizens and hardly care if the US would kill an equal number or more.  Just like Afghanistan, they only have to wait until the US loses will and retreats.  Without an army on the ground, the only option is to flatten the infrastructure.  Of course, that will hurt civilians, which is why it hasn't already been done.

What to do?  First, no ceasefires unless the other side requests it.  Furthermore, the time limit must be respected.  Either we do a deal in a week or the bombing resumes.  During the Mexican-American War, the United States repeatedly granted ceasefires after winning a big victory.  The result: Santa Anna spent the time rebuilding his army and fortifying his position to fight again.  What does one suppose Iran is doing at the moment?  Certainly not engaging in peace talks that will bear fruit.  No, this is just a delay.

Next, you can't bomb them into peace.  In the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were willing to suffer massive casualties and knew, in the end, the US would tire of killing them before it could achieve victory; they were right.  Iran is likewise willing to suffer casualties.  They cannot be bombed into submission.  Try a different tact.

Regime change is required.  As mentioned, the mullahs are religious fanatics who are going to be very difficult to bring to peace talks.  Iran's next-door neighbor is Afghanistan, where the Taliban beat the United States by waiting 20 years.  You think Iran didn't learn a lesson from that?  And there was regime change in Afghanistan.  Can the Shah's son be installed in Iran?  Probably not.  Can a civil war be triggered?  Maybe.  During World War II, the US dropped single-shot pistols on France to arm the resistance.  Reportedly, efforts to arm Iranian resistance by way of the Kurds failed; the Kurds kept the guns for themselves.  Drop some care packages with grenades and pistols, weapons that would be superfluous to the IRGC but a godsend for rebellious Iranians.

It is time to capture and fortify Kharg Island.  Reportedly a major hub for Iranian oil exports, it would make a fine US base, our Guantanamo in the Persian Gulf.  The island would immediately become a bargaining chip if negotiations happen.  Additionally, an island can be defended by the navy, which can easily prevent Iranian troops from landing and retaking it.  Between capturing this oil depot and blockading oil shipments in general, Iran will starve for money.  However, Iran has foreign benefactors who will likely channel enough money to keep the country afloat until America surrenders.

Okay, last idea: the bust the place up strategy.  Years ago, during one of President Bush's nation building fiascos, R Emmett Tyrell suggested this tactic.  Since you can't build a nation, tear down the offending one.  He likened it to a barroom brawl where all the tables are busted the mirror over the bar shattered, the bottles broken, and so forth.  Afterwards, those who caused the destruction depart and the bar owner is left to clean up the mess.  It could be a long time before the bar reopens for business.  It might even go under.  Some call this the Bomb 'em to the Stone Age technique.  However, this one will result in huge waves of refugees and, knowing Europe, they will accept them all and hasten the formation of Eurostan.

Unless Trump has some aces up his sleeve, this looks like a stalemate.  Sure, on the one hand, the Iranian nuclear threat has been crippled and continued vigilance will keep it that way.  On the other, the US is once again stuck in an ongoing Middle East conflict with no clear path to exit.

Spider-Noir

It was 1933 in New York City and PI Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) was hired to find a man.  The man, Addison, proved to have a superpower: he could burst into flames.  Strangely enough, more such super-powered individuals surfaced in NYC.  These 'monsters' were soon in the employ of Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), the crime lord of New York.  In response to the growing crime, newsman Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris) called for the return of the Spider.  The Spider had been a superhero in the city, but he vanished five years ago.  Reluctantly, the Spider (Nicolas Cage) returned.

The Spider has allies.  Of course, Robbie has long known that Ben Reilly was the Spider and also why he stopped being the Spider.  Ben has a secretary, Janet Ruiz (Karen Rodriguez), who bemoans the dearth of clients and frequently threatens to quit.  However, she is a loyal friend and performs a lot of the legwork for Ben.  Then there is Frankie (Cary Christopher), a street urchin with sticky fingers.  Ben can count on the kid to watch his back, keep an eye on people, and do odd jobs.

Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), a lounge singer at Silvermane's bar, is the femme fatale.  Everyone has eyes for her.  Flint Marko (Jack Huston), one of Silvermane's enforcers and also a super-powered villain, is deeply in love with her and jealous of a growing connection she has with Ben.  Of course, she is Silvermane's kept woman, though there never appears to be anything physical between them.

The 8-episode Amazon series explores how Ben got his powers and why he stopped using them, his clashes with Silvermane, Silvermane's goons and super-powered thugs, his relationship with his allies, and his attraction to Cat.  The setting is well-realized, giving the look and feel of a movie from the era.  There is illicit drinking, Hoovervilles, down on their luck veterans of the Great War, and even a movie clip of James Cagney.  Cage is often manic, showing that Ben isn't comfortable in his skin.  His assumed characters are a bit hammy, not really carrying off the Mid-Atlantic accent and frantic speaking pace one associates with Depression Era movies.  Also, Cage is too old for the role.  He was great as the animated version of Spider-Noir, but the live action is more demanding and he's obviously 20 years older than he should be.  I was reminded of Marlowe, another noir film that cast actors too old for their roles.

The inevitable defeat of Silvermane was disappointing.  Gleeson makes for a good villain and has plenty of presence to show he is the alpha in the room.  Indeed, his final scene undercut everything that preceded it.  That's all it took?  Really?  Maybe there was a message in that; villains are never as hard to overcome as you might imagine.

In Casablanca, The Third Man, Chinatown, and the like, our hero doesn't get the girl.  No, she leaves with another man, abandons him, or dies.  Such is the case here.  However, their final meeting is unusual; it subverted expectations, but was also unnecessary.  In any case, Li Jun Li fills out her sleek dresses nicely and strikes the femme fatale poses well.

Great popcorn fun and recommended.

The Entirely Predictable LA Vote Count

After the primary election for mayor in Los Angeles, Spencer Pratt held a strong position in 2nd place.  Should that hold, he would face incumbent Mayor Bass in the general election.  Of course, only 63% of the ballots had been counted.  Here were the preliminary results:

Today, June 7, with 83% of the ballots counted, Nithya Raman has overtaken Pratt and is now the likely challenger in the general election. Here is where it stands:

That 20% batch of votes skewed alarmingly toward Raman.  Between the two charts, the three candidates accumulated an additional 205,437 votes.  How did each candidate do within this recent batch?

That's quite a swing.  Raman had been running at 64% of the votes that Mayor Bass was receiving.  However, over these last 200,000 votes, she has outpaced Bass by 9%.  How peculiar.

That Pratt's portion of the mail-in ballots dropped to 20% was unsurprising, but that the division between the two Democrats would shift so drastically is curious.  What would it look like if the split between Bass and Raman had continued?  Leaving Pratt with his 42K new votes and just splitting the remaining 163K between Bass and Raman by the same split as the first chart, we get the following:

Raman would have closed the gap by 22K, but not have surpassed Pratt.  She would still be in third place.  It would have been something like this:

When one considers how California outlawed voter ID (Senate Bill 1174) in 2024, let's say I am not confident in the results of this count.  That, in the wake of the Palisades Fire, the citizens of Los Angeles think that it is best to stay the course is hard to swallow.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

Joseph Stalin

Oh, Now I Understand

Any regular reader of this blog will realize that I have read a great deal about the Mexican-American War.  One thing that has repeatedly puzzled me was the treatment of Nicholas Trist, the man who negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.  Here was a man who had been a personal secretary for Thomas Jefferson, a private secretary for Andrew Jackson, and the number two man at the State Department.  Nonetheless, President Polk excoriated the man.  Why?  Trist comes across as such a reasonable fellow and yet so many figures of the time hated him.  What gives?

Recently, I started reading some primary documents, notably the correspondence between General Winfield Scott and Nicholas Trist.  When Trist arrived in Vera Cruz, General Scott was already in Jalapa in the wake of his victory at Cerro Gordo, so Trist was forced to correspond with general until he could tag along with a supply train to the Mexican interior.  It is hard to describe just how full of himself Trist is when reading his letters.  In one particular letter, his average sentence was 57 words long.  The average sentence.  The longest proved to be 224 words.  One sentence.  Here it is:

Now, sir, in reply to this, all I have to do is to deliver to you— as I hereby do in writing—(and this for the second time, unless my first letter was far more enigmatical than I believe it could seem to any honest men, who, upon their conscience and honor, should be called to respond to the questions, whether you had or had not, in this instance, been guilty of a wanton contempt of orders; and whether this offence had or had not been aggravated by the character of the pretenses under which the contempt was indulged in, and the contumacy sought to be covered up)—I have, I say, sir, to deliver you this message from your commander-in-chief, the President to of the United States, to wit: “When the communication, bearing the seal of the Department of State, and addressed ‘to his excellency the minister of foreign relations of the Mexican republic,’ shall be placed in the hands of the general-in-chief of the United States army in Mexico, it is the will, order, and command of the President of the United States, that the said communication shall forthwith be transmitted to its destination under flag of truce; which flag of truce is to proceed from the head-quarters of the army, and is to be a flag of truce from the general-in-chief.  

This one sentence is more than a fifth of the entire letter.  The tone is consistent throughout.  Trist berates General Scott like one might a willful child.  This is the sort of letter that could convince the recipient to challenge the writer to a duel.  After reading the letter, I had a strong dislike for Trist.  Trist's correspondence with Secretary of State James Buchanan contains similarly overlong sentences, though not the insults.  Ah, now I see.

A Force of One (1979)

In a coastal California city, a pair of vice cops were found dead.  The injuries are such that the police concluded that an expert martial artist killed them.  As such, Detective Mandy Rust (Jennifer O'Neill) went to a local dojo to interview Matt Logan (Chuck Norris), the current Karate champion who happens to live in the community and was training to defend his title in an upcoming competition.  Furthermore, the chief wanted the vice cops to take martial arts training, which Matt provided.  Soon, more vice cops were found dead as the drug problems worsen.  Even Matt was attacked by a masked martial artist, but he was able to defend himself until the assailant fled.

Chuck Norris essentially played himself.  Matt Logan is a Karate champion who runs a martial arts studio.  Interestingly, one of the trainers at the dojo is Anderson, who is played by Chuck's real-life brother, Aaron Norris.  Matt has an adoptive son, Charlie (Eric Laneuville).  Notably, his real-life son, Mike Norris, had a cameo as a pizza delivery kid on a skateboard. The dojo secretary, Harriett (Lisa James), clearly wants to date Matt, but he and Detective Rust are seeing a lot of each other, not all of it professional.

Jennifer O'Neill was a strange choice for the lead.  She had cut her hair quite short for a previous movie and it is basically a buzz cut here.  She doesn't give the vibe of a hardened cop.  Nonetheless, she got top billing.

There is plenty of martial arts action.  The villain's muscle, Sparks (Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, a Karate champion), trounced the 4 vice cops, ambushed Matt, later fought Matt in the championship match during the competition, and had a epic showdown with Matt in the finale.  Indeed, he did more onscreen fighting than Norris.

Though there is a lot of promise in the story, the script is mediocre.  The story drags along and the characters don't develop.  The romance between Matt and Mandy gradually goes nowhere.  There is an effort to explore both the martial arts competition and the drug world, blending the two into a single narrative; does not work well.

Just okay.

Ballerina (2025)

Young Eve (Victoria Comte) sat in the hospital with a glass-encased ballerina in her lap; there was blood on her and the glass.  Earlier, she had been with her father when armed men attacked.  They were led by The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne).  Her father fought until he was mortally wounded but succeeded in getting her away from the men.  Now she was alone.  Then Winston (Ian McShane) arrived and offered her a future.  He delivered her to the Director (Anjelica Huston) of the Ruska Roma.  Now she would train.

Twelve years later, Eve (Ana de Armas) had learned to dance, to shoot, and to fight.  She felt she was ready.  The Director agreed and dispatched her on a mission.  Success.  A tattoo was etched to her back to mark her success.  Two months later, she stood before a broken mirror and pulled a shard of mirror from her shoulder.  Then, she took a picture of the dead man and made her way out of the bathroom, stepping over multiple bodies on the way.  Oh, she's lethal.  As she left, she was attacked, but she kills her assailants.  One of them had the same mark as the men who killed her father.  The Director told her to forget it.  She could not forget it.

From here, the movie becomes one long series of gunfights and brawls.  Story, dialogue, and character development are unnecessary.  The plot of Electra avenging her murdered father is as old as literature; it needs no development, just execution.  The problem is the suspension of disbelief.  That she is an expert with a gun, knife, or sword is not a problem.  However, once she gets into an unarmed brawl, it's just silly.  During her training, the movie tried to inoculate against that, explaining that she had to set the terms of engagement to her advantage; that is, don't try to beat a wrestler by wrestling him.  Good advice.  Then she gets into physical brawls.  Sigh.  The amount of punishment she suffers during her extended fights are beyond what John Wick suffered, and it was a stretch for him.

Though the fights are well-choreographed and exciting, Eve's fight skills vary widely depending on what has been choreographed.  For instance, during a lull in combat, she came across the barista who server her coffee.  She's not a threat, right?  Wrong.  A battle commenced and was quite a challenge for Eve despite having a gun and a knife.  Later, Eve was faced with six men with assault rifles; no problem, she had a katana and sliced and diced the bunch of them.  Wow.  Lucky that she didn't have to face 6 unarmed baristas there instead.

The villains are stupid.  Despite having communication, the villains never converge.  They just wander the streets like video game NPCs who wait for Eve to show up and kill them.  She is on their turf, a town where she has never been and doesn't have a map, but she is always surprising them.  Where John Wick was on the run and being chased, these guys know exactly where she is headed: to kill the Chancellor.  How about we put the Chancellor in a non-bulletproof car to extract him but drive through the part of town where she was last reported?  Sound like a good plan?

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) makes a couple of appearances.  First, his dealings with the Director (John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum) are partly replayed and Eve briefly interacts with him.  Later, he arrived in the town where she was running rampant with instructions to neutralize her lest a war between Ruska Roma and the Chancellor was triggered.  When one considers how easily he subdued her, repeatedly, it is a wonder that she was such a threat to this town.  Nonetheless, it was cool to see John Wick in action again.

The movie ends with Eve receiving word that she has a $5 million bounty on her head.  Here is an opportunity for a sequel in which Eve must fight wave after wave of assassins, repeating the career of John Wick.

Eve is entirely too good after a couple of months in the field.  She, like Rey (Daisy Ridley) from Star Wars, is just naturally better than everyone because reasons.  Her backstory is too bland, especially compared to John Wick.  He had his dog killed and his car stolen.  That's original.  He left the life for a woman who soon died of cancer.  Yeah, that sucks.  He had years of experience where he earned his reputation as the top killer.  By contrast, Eve wants to avenge her dad.

"Hello.  My name is Eve Macarro.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die!"

Old hat.  Then there are the interesting twists that are wasted.  Oh, look, this assassin that we've been seeing around since Prague is actually her sister.  Whoa.  Maybe they will team up and...  she's dead.  Sigh.  Well, good thing we included that in the movie.  I never got invested in Eve's journey and was kind of indifferent whether she succeeded or not.

Worth watching to see the old gang from the John Wick movies, but otherwise a skip.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

During WWII, the British were having a hard time in the war thanks to the submarine warfare of Germany.  They discovered a weakness in the U-boat fleet; air filters.  If they could destroy enough air filters, it would hamstring the German U-boats' operations.  The Germans were sailing out of Fernando Po, a Spanish-held island off the coast of Africa.  Spain was neutral, so attacking German ships in port was an act of war.  Brigadier Gubbins (Cary Elwes), codename M, knew just the man for the job: Augustus 'Gus' March-Phillips (Henry Cavill).  Gus agreed to the mission but only if he could pick his team.  One of his choices was unavailable, as he was in a German camp.  No problem, we'll rescue him on the way.

The team is split in two parts: Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez) traveled to Fernando Po openly, while Gus and his crew of commandos travel by sailboat.  Heron owned a bar on Fernando Po and collaborates with the British.  Marjorie was an entertainer and tasked with seducing the sadistic Nazi commander, Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger).  They were to scout the area and provide intel to the sailboat team.  Gus and crew had run-ins with both a German ship and a Royal Navy ship, both of whom wanted to stop them.

The movie is jam-packed with action.  Explosions, stabbings, shootings, hacking with axes, extreme archery, and even some fisticuffs and wrestling.  There is no shortage of blood and death.  What there is a shortage of is danger.  Even in the most dire circumstances, it never feels like the characters are threatened.  The crack team of commandos kill vast swathes of Nazis and rarely suffer a bruise.  In the final battle, one character took a bullet to the shoulder.  Ooh, that must sting.

Though based on a true story, it comes off as an over-the-top action extravaganza.  First, Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson) is like a force of nature that just rips through Nazis like a hot knife through butter.  He kills multiple Nazis with a single arrow, clears the lower decks of a ship with an axe, slices, dices, and stabs Nazi sailors without suffering any injury other than a shirt stained with blood.  Is he some sort of superhero?  Marjorie is supposed to be the femme fatale who uses her wiles and sexuality to distract and seduce.  Of course, she's also the best shot, embarrassing the locals that Heron has recruited.  Luhr, who had been hyped as this nasty and formidable boss, was dispatched with ease.  Sigh.

There are some fun bits.  Ian Flemming (Freddie Fox) is M's adjutant.  When he said, "Fleming, Ian Fleming," I chuckled.  For those not in the know, Ian Flemming wrote the James Bond books and served in British Intelligence during World War II.  According to the IMDb Trivia, Gus March-Phillips was an inspiration for Bond.  Cavill, Ritchson, and Henry Golding have great chemistry, making a fine team.

As far as spy movies go, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was better.  Still, this was good popcorn fun, as most Guy Ritchie films are.

Thelma & Louise (1991)

35 years after it was released, I finally got around to seeing this film.  Meh.  Let's expand.

Thelma (Geena Davis) was unhappily married, and Louise (Susan Sarandon) was an overworked waitress.  As luck would have it, Louise's boss was in the midst of a divorce and would have to sell his cabin in the woods.  In the meantime, he was allowing all his staff a turn.  The two women set out, though Thelma has wildly overpacked for a weekend getaway.  Against Louise's wishes, they stop for drinks at a roadhouse.  Inevitably, a man hit on Thelma.  Harlan (Timothy Carhart) made a concerted effort to get Thelma drunk and, while dancing with her, spun her until she was about to be sick.  Oh, let's get some air outside.  BTW, Harlan's a rapist.  Of course, by the time she is bent over a car in the parking lot, one can't help but think Thelma is the dumbest woman on the planet.  How naive can you be?  Luckily, Louise arrived with a gun and saved Thelma.  Then she shot Harlan to death.  Well, he deserved it.  So, let's get in the car and race away!  Oh, Louise isn't much brighter than Thelma.  Great.  Thelma wanted to go to the police.  Nope.  New plan: let's flee to Mexico!  They are in Arkansas and want to flee to Mexico, but Louise absolutely, positively will not drive in Texas.  Sigh.  Okay, we'll drive through Oklahoma to New Mexico and somehow overshoot to Arizona.  However, they didn't bring enough money.  Louise calls her boyfriend, Jimmy (Michael Madsen), and convinced him to wire her money to Oklahoma City.  On the way, they meet the charming and handsome J.D. (Brad Pitt), who Thelma wants to bring along.  Seriously!  Did you learn nothing from Harlan?  Though J.D. claimed to be a college student looking for a ride home, he later admitted to being a robber on parole.  Well, in that case, come into my room and let's get it on.  OMG!  Thelma, you can't be this dumb?  Louise had entrusted the money from Jimmy to Thelma's care and, surprise, surprise, J.D. absconded with it.  No problem at all.  Thelma took the gun and held up a local convenience store, repeating the spiel that J.D. told her.

Hal (Harvey Keitel) had been investigating Harlan's death and wanted to talk to Thelma and Louise.  When he saw video footage of Thelma's robbery, he reassessed from witnesses to suspects.  As they had crossed into Oklahoma, it was now a matter for the FBI.  The manhunt - womanhunt - was on!

The two are finally cornered near the Grand Canyon.  Unwilling to surrender, they drive the car off the cliff to plunge into the canyon.

Of course, I knew the ending, so that was no surprise at all.  The surprising thing was how every man they encountered along the way proved to be a lech, a thief, or a rapist.  At every turn, they made the worst decision that led them to their inevitable doom.  Now that I've seen it, I don't understand why it was so popular.  But I am not the intended audience.

Skip.

The Octagon (1980)

In France, a diplomat exits an embassy and gets in his car.  He has hardly departed through the gate when a pair of assassins kill him and most of his entourage.  One of the assassins was killed.

In the USA, Scott James (Chuck Norris), his pal AJ (Art Hindle), and AJ's girlfriend attended a dance performance.  Both Scott and AJ looked admiringly on the lead dancer, Nancy (Kim Langford).  Scott asked her out.  At dinner, Scott talked about Nancy's dance style, which incorporated martial arts; Scott is a martial arts champion who has retired from fighting.  Nancy explained that her brother was into martial arts.  Oddly, she asked about the assassination in France.  Scott took Nancy to her house and stepped into a ninja assault.  Ninjas had killed Nancy's family and killed her almost as soon as she entered the house.  Scott fought and defeated them.  Afterwards, he thought it was impossible.  The ninja were gone.  There were only two people who could train ninja: him and his brother!

Flashback: Scott (played by Mike Norris - Chuck's son) and Seikura were raised by Isawa (John Fujioka) and trained as ninjas.  Though one was Japanese and the other American, they were raised as brothers.

McCarn (Lee Van Cleef) called upon Scott and brought up the ninja issue.  McCarn was something of a private contractor in the field of killing terrorists.  Could Scott lend a hand?  Scott declined.

Despite his insistence that his brother could not be training ninja terrorists, the evidence repeatedly indicated otherwise.  Would he have to fight his brother?  First, he would have to locate the secret training camp rumored to be somewhere in Central America.

In the third act, Scott entered the octagon, a building that served as the training center for the ninjas.  Of course, Scott proved adept in overcoming it.  One of his best fights on film took place, where he fought Kyo (Richard Norton - a Karate black belt and friend of Norris) the ninja enforcer.

This movie began the ninja craze of the 1980s.  The following year, Sho Kosugi began his string of ninja movies: Enter the Ninja (1981), Revenge of the Ninja (1983), Ninja III: The Domination (1984), and the hilariously campy Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985).  He also starred as the villain in the TV series, The Master (1984), which starred none other than Lee Van Cleef as the titular master.  In 1985, Michael Dudikoff took up the ninja mantle in American Ninja (1985).  Amazingly, he was raised by a Japanese ninja played by John Fujioka!  How many young Americans did he train in Ninjutsu?  Dudikoff returned in American Ninja 2 (1987).

There is more story than required.  There is also a vast array of characters for an action film.  As far as ninja, these are not the best.  These guys just wear black clothes, not the particular gear that would become a staple of later movies.  Then again, a lot of these 'ninja' are just terrorists from around the world who attended a training camp for a month.  Hardly ninjas.

The weakest part of the movie is Scott thinking.  While Chuck Norris has a pensive look, his voice echoes his thoughts.  The movie would improve greatly without the echoing voice over.

Good popcorn fun and recommended.

The Covenant (2023)

Master Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) was in charge of a squad of men who scoured Afghanistan for weapons caches.  They might be operating as a checkpoint on a road, patrolling through towns, or even going to remote sites to investigate.  Of course, they needed an interpreter.  The last one having died, Kinley hired a new one, Ahmed (Dar Salim).  Their working relationship was soon strained as Ahmed frequently made decisions contrary to Kinley's instructions.  However, that this tended to achieve the stated goal kept Ahmed on the payroll.  That he saved the team from an ambush also added to his value.  During one interaction with a local source, the team learned of a weapons cache in the hinterlands.  They set out.  Though the operation went well initially, wave after wave of reinforcements attacked while the team awaited support.  Kinley and Ahmed found themselves separated alone in the Afghan wilderness and unable to call for support.  Could they get back to base before the Taliban found them?

The movie is told in three parts.  It starts with Kinley and his team operating in Afghanistan.  After the fight at the remote weapons store, it becomes a survival story with Kinley and Ahmed fleeing Taliban pursuit.  The final part sees Kinley trying to get a visa for Ahmed so he can be extracted from an increasingly hostile Afghanistan

The movie has some good action scenes and certainly has some tense moments, but it is mostly dull.  That the two main characters don't get along is important as far as the overall story but makes the pair less fun to watch.  Their conflict isn't the buddy cop humor arguments, but just oil and water not mixing.  Toward the end they have mutual respect and some light moments, but it's a long slog to get there.

Just okay.  Obviously, Guy Ritchie or Gyllenhaal fans should see it, but otherwise this is skip.

An Artillery Officer in Mexico

Robert Anderson, best remembered as the commander of Fort Sumter at the beginning of the Civil War, was a captain in the 3rd Artillery Regiment.  He was stationed in Tampa Bay when he received orders to go to Mexico.  Where others kept journals, Anderson was a prolific writer of letters.  Those to his wife were collected and printed in 1911.

The letters begin in November on the very day that his wife departed by carriage from Tampa Bay bound for her father's estate in Georgia.  Anderson spent the next month or so packing, selling, or donating all their belongings.  Though he had moved aboard the John Potter - a brig that would transport him and his company to Tampico - in December, it did not leave port until January.  The trip to Tampico was uncomfortable.  He arrived in Tampico in the last week of January and spent several days aboard ship until it could enter the harbor and lodgings ashore were settled.  The entire month of February was spent in Tampico and Anderson relates the adventures of Col. De Russy.  By the end of the month, he feared that Colonel Gates - commander of the 3rd Artillery - would retain his company to garrison Tampico.  He dodged that fate and sailed to Veracruz.  Here he was in his element, commanding one of the batteries during the siege.  After the city was taken, he was stationed at the famous fort, San Juan de Ulua.  It was a flee-infested mess.  Happily, his division set off for the interior a week later.  His company was not engaged at the battle of Cerro Gordo.  Over the following months, he was stationed in Perote Castle, Tepeyahualco, and Puebla.  In August, the army moved on Mexico City.  He was seriously wounded during the battle of El Molino del Rey.  Just over a month later, he was sent back to the United States to recover.

Anderson spends most of his time telling his wife about his daily life in the various places he stayed, the accommodations, the men he socialized with, the food he ate, the cost of food, the oddities of Mexico, and most especially his desire to rejoin his wife.  The letters are more of a travelogue than a military campaign record.  This is a very devout man who closes most letters by praising God.  He refers to his letters as 'chats' with his wife and is always eager for mail to arrive or to have an opportunity to send mail.  He numbers his letters so that she can know if she missed one.  Once deep into Mexico, he warns her that the mails are often intercepted.  The letters were generally sent as a packet, with many days detailed before being sent.

Anderson is a man who does not seek praise or favor but often feels he has been overlooked.  He is occasionally miffed to see comparative novices getting high rank in newly formed regiments while established officers are not considered.  He is no fan of President Polk, viewing him as a politician of the worst sort.  On the other hand, he has the highest of regard for General Winfield Scott.  The clash of personalities within the military is often on display in the letters.  Anderson was more partial to Ethan Allen Hitchcock than William Jenkins Worth.

Anderson was 41 when he set foot in Mexico.  His wife, Eliza, was 19.  She was the daughter of General Duncan Clinch.  Anderson died in 1871 and his wife died in 1905.  His daughter discovered the cache of letters and, after redacting purely personal details, had them published.

Interesting but not for everyone.