James B. Harris

The New York Times has a review of a new bio of Kubrick.   The reviewer takes the opportunity to take shots at Pauline Kael (as if, how dare she say anything negative about 2001!), and poor Tom Cruise for his performance in the dreadful Eyes Wide Shut (people have apparently forgot Kubrick's late night phone call to Lee Ermey. "He told me it was a piece of shit". Kubrick blamed it on Cruise and Kidman.  What a guy).

The reviewer reveals when the Great Stanley first conceived of EWS, he considered Bill Murray for the lead.  I can well understand that, considering Murray's stunning dramatic performance in 
The Razor's Edge.

But Kubrick's new legend does not include his partner in the early films, James Harris, despite the fact he produced, and was a writer on The Killing, Paths of Glory, and Lolita (the Nabokov screenplay was unfilmable.  I read part of it, as much as I could take.).  He also worked on the
Dr. Strangelove screenplay, before he departed to direct The Bedford Incident, which was pretty good.

When Kubrick died, entertainment “journalists” fell all over themselves to get comments from Steven Spielberg, who by all accounts knew him only over the telephone.  Harris's phone never rang.

Close Encounter of the 3rd Kind

Ruthless Reviews presents: I Love a Mystery! Follow our tireless critics of the A-1 Detective Agency as Jack, Doc and Reggie ferret out the best, and worst in movies. Sponsored by Pee Clean, “never fear the pee police again, use, Pee Clean and have clean pee!”

Your host:

So fellas, tonight we have a blast from the past. Steven Spielberg's second and much anticipated film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Well, Doc, Reggie, Jack, is it cinema?

Doc and Reggie burst out laughing: Cinema? Cinema! What the hell.

“Pardon me Mater, but I am going to the

 cin...e...ma... "

Knock it off and talk about the damn movie.

Ah, well, this is a ...movie... about some outer space UfO flyers who want to make friends, but like want to get to know us better as people. Longer than a minute date, but shorter than a long walk in the rain.

Jack: I think you are missing the most reverent aspect of the show. The theme is timely. The government knows all about the visitors from out there, beyond, but the Deep State, in the form of the, Air Force, FBI and very likely; and I say this with all the Fear and Loathing it deserves, the C.I.A. Cover it up going to any and all lengths to conceal the truthiness. Maybe even the D.E.A. Those guys have their fingers in everyone's pie.

The cover-up by Deep State begins the movie when an airline pilot, perhaps even carrying Mulder and Scully, is harassed by a UFO, playing skytrain chicken. Cluck, cluck.

So, traffic control asks if the pilot wants to report the near mid-air crash by the overly friendly ETs, he's like, Hell no, like I need that Deep State grief! (What a pussy.)

Then we go the Mexican desert that the UFOer use as a dumping- ground/chop-shop for all the stuff they stole.

A bunch of Deep State operatives emerge from SVUs and find an old wino sleeping one off, who tells the head guy, a Frenchman who runs around the world collecting UFO stuff for the Deep State, the sun came out the night before and sang to him. The Frenchie looks like, yeah, someone spiked the old fart's Night Train with mescaline.

But, the Big Surprise is the appearance of the a bunch of Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber, lost in the Bermuda Triangle , oh so many years ago. Lost? Ha! Stolen by the UFO flyers more like it. Now they have finished their joyride with US government property, they dumped 'em in Mexico, looking better than they looked on the showroom floor. Anybody see the pilots? Huh? Did you even look?

The insurance company is going to come down hard on this one.

Then, the action moves to:

Muncie, Indiana!

What a wonderful name,

Named for Muncietown, of Delaware County fame.

Muncie, Indiana, as a Shakespeare would say,

Trips along softly on the tongue this way--

Muncie, Indiana, Muncie Indiana, Muncie, Indiana,

Let me say it once again.

Muncie, Indiana, Muncie, Indiana, Muncie, Indiana,

That's the town that "knew me when."

(With apologies to Meredith Wilson)

Where three year old Barry Guiler lives with his single mom in a big scary old farm house. The UFO people decide to put the snatch on the kid right under his mom's nose, so they magically animate, the Hoover, and TV and (especially the just adorable little monkey playing the cymbals!) all the kid's toys that causes him to dive through the doggie door attempting to escape the racket. The child is torn from his mother's arms.

The mom is left screaming and crying of despair while the UFOer escape in some cloud cover. They intend to study the hapless three year old like a prize pig at the county fair.

"The Invaders! A Steven Spielberg Production. Starring Richard Dreyfuss as electrical maintenance worker, Roy Neary.

"The Invaders, alien beings from a dying planet. Their destination: the Earth. Their purpose: to make it their world. Roy Neary has seen them. For him, it began one night looking for a downed power line on a lonely country road. They mess with the electrical system in his truck. rattle county mailboxes and shake a railroad crossing signal. Monstrous! A least they did not follow him home and steal his kids.

(With apologies to Quinn Martin Productions)

“This is nuts!” declares Roy.

Yep, the whole wacky adventure begins with RoyBoy chasing after three midsized UFOs followed by a really cute little forth one tagging along. They jump the toll both at the Ohio line.

The purpose of all this madness is to put a huge phallic symbol in the minds the witnesses to the UFOer shenanigans.

Meanwhile, the Deep State crowd travels around the world retrieving stuff like cargo ships the UFOer stole for some happy-horseshit excuse of studying us. The witnesses have actually been invited to a meeting at Devils Tower (the phallus) in the state of Wyoming (first state to give women the franchise!). The Deep State, using geometric logic and a Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, discover the location of the big, Witness v UFOer meet.

The Deep State goes to any lengths, stopping at nothing, to prevent the witnesses from attending the meet, but the plucky few elude the Deep State minions and arrive just in time to see the legendary Mother Ship, which looks like a flying top hat the size of the state of Maine, disgorge little Barry and the hundreds of people the UFOer kidnapped and kept from their friends and families for decades in order to, “get to know them better”.

The head UFOer, who looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy as spokesmen for a new commercial diet product as a former fatty, is followed by what appears to be little kids dressed for a UFOer themed Halloween party.

They make nice with a stupefied Roy, smiling a toothless grin at him like Uncle Hector who lives up on the Ridge.

Roy is chosen as Deep State ambassador to the UFOers and marched into the huge flying top hat which we see is largely empty (which begs the question: what is all at cargo space going to be used for???). It flies off to the planet Who Gives A Damn in the Black Eye Galaxy.

OK boys, what did you think of it? Somebody wake-up Jack.

Doc: this is a movie about a bunch of ETs that harasses airliners, steals ships and aircraft, kidnaps and holds for decades hundreds of people, including children, and we are supposed to think they are good guys?

Reggie: It's called, The Spielberg Touch.

That solves that mystery of that ET Cargo Cult.

Good Night!

John Wick 3

For reasons I can not explain, I actually went to a theater and paid good money to see John Wick 3. What critics are calling a great action film, I call a confused, repetitious mess with a laughably absurd premise. Basically the same fight scene over and over for what seemed like three hours. One hundred and thirty one minutes, holy christ.

It was preceded by a series of alike trailers of violent action scenes of a single theme. The only creativity, none on the stories or dialogue surely, was in new wildly creative stunts.

Keanu Reeves is a bit long of tooth to be playing an assassin/superbeing, all but immortal. With his

long stringy hair and puffy face, he looked more like a hippy gone to seed than a famous uber/killer.

Lords of the Quora Ring

I discovered a social website called Quora, conceded and operated by a few crypto fascist  computer geeks who are not slaves to the idea of freedom of thought.  For instance, it seems you must have read the Lord of the Rings and hold in the the same esteem as the Holy Grail meant to King Arthur and that crowd.  Here, I offer an example:

Do you think the "Lord of the Rings" movies adequately tell the story when compared to the novels?

John Welsh, former X Ray Tech

Answered Apr 4

Not having read the novels, I can not offer an informed opinion.

My answer, this answer you see above, was collapsed for being in violation of Quora policy of ‘’be nice, be respectful’’.  I an only conclude not having read LotRs is out of policy. It is not nice to Quora not to have not read LotRs.  

Pretty weird, I am sure you agree, but well, there it is.

You have been warned.

The Age of Vulgarity

Years ago my younger siblings enjoyed seeing the same film over and over. The musical Damn Yankees was a biggie on the playlist, and curiously, High Noon. I understand the tradition has been continued by youngsters of today. Disney animated films are always popular. These days young adults enjoy seeing the same film over and over in the form of comic superhero movies. They are all the same in story and vulgarity. The coarseness appeals to the barely educated youth of today. They are however, extremely expensive to produce. Yesterday, for the first time since its release in 1985, I saw Out of Africa. It is long, slow and beautiful to look at. It was about something. It is a true story about people who actually lived and lived interesting lives. There is an elegance about it. There is nothing elegant about superhero movies. They bring a coarseness to society. They degrade Western culture. They are a symbol of the Age of Vulgarity. And then people wonder that Donald Trump was elected president.

Spiking Oscar

After reading this morning’s post mortem analysis by the most respected columnists no one ever heard of, but are to a person (formally, a man) experts not only on the art of cinema, but the Academy Awards and the monolith that is the Academy in thought, I dialed up Roma. They assure me Roma is the best film of the year, in addition perhaps the best film ever made. The Best Film award was awarded to Green Book, they claim, as part of a racist whitewash.
 Only noted Spike Lee authority, Spike Lee, had the moral courage to give a ‘’no comment, next question’’ when asked about Green Book. Considering all of the above, I gave a look at Roma. I think I say can it is possibly the most boring film I have ever seen. During the half hour I could stay with it, it consisted largely of a lockdown camera recording the activity of a housekeeper as she goes about making life easier for her employers, a family of white people. She is clearly an Indian. I watched until she and a date ended up in a hotel room, post date. The nude boyfriend runs through a marshal arts routine while his his pecker flops up and down. Exult. 

 Spike Lee took his bad manners and angry black-man act to the ceremony, dressed as a chauffeur, complete with cap. Color purple. Apparently his head was cold as he kept the cap on throughout the entire broadcast. As you may recall Spike did not approve of Clint Eastwood making Bird, about Charlie Parker, a musician he admires. Spike thought is was just not right for a white man to make a film about a black man. Spike is not racist, at least according to him. Then there was his criticism of Flags of Our Fathers, a film about the Marines and the corpsman who raised the flag over Mt. Suribachi. It matters not to Spike none or the Marines or the sailor were black, although one of the jarheads was a Pima Indian. In Letters From Iwo Jima not one of the Japanese soldiers was black and that really pissed off Spike. Spike is untroubled by history. He is also ignorant of history. 

 Spike Lee’s status as a sawed-off little creep is for him a moral and ethical decision, not an accident of birth.

First Man down

OK, FIRST MAN, the story of Neil Armstrong and his first steps on the moon is, how do I put it? A goddamn bore. Unless you like seemingly endless close-ups of the actor playing an unresponsive Armstrong. More than once I thought the video had paused for no reason. It reminded me of, dare I say it? BARRY LYNDON. You can forget about establishing shots. Action is seen through Amstrong's eyes. The take-off from Earth, the moon landing and the ascent from the surface. I can hardly believe the man who’s directed LA LA LAND directed this snoozer.