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.

What's on TV?

From the folks who brought you ID4 and ID4.2 is GEOSTORM. All I expected was great CGI and that is what I got. The story is lame and the dialogue is absurd. ID4.3 is in preproduction despite the fact ID4.2 was a costly flop. And a bore. 

Which brings me to: SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY, which is underperforming at the box office. At a final cost of between 250 and 300 millions dollars it must gross at least half a billion to even come close to breaking even. Ron Howard took over direction after the amateur clowns originally hired got the axe after trying to make a comedy. The joke was on them. I have not seen SOLO. I expect I never will. 

 I managed about 20 minutes of HBO's FAHRENHEIT 451. Some black guy who is supposedly well known played Guy Montag. Guy does his work broadcast on TV with American watching everything he does. He has a flame thrower that delivers a flame with the narrow accuracy of a Remington 700. He's a boxer who delights in pummeling newly discovered book readers. “That that, four eyes!” He hates ebooks. As far as I watched, no books were torched, but computers burned to cheering crowds, most who watched the burning images projected on the glass sides of high rise office buildings. There was no sign of Clarisse. I fled this disaster as Guy and his macho man captain were telling a bunch of schoolkids the Bible was the one OK book they could read. As far as I watched, the Hound was missing. The show was enough of a dog. 

 Finally, I arrived at THE CIRCLE. Minor role for Tom Hanks, who must have not read the script. The little chick who was in the Harry Potter films starred and I am somewhat under impressed by her presence and acting ability (reshoots were required to make her more appealing to the audience). The story is; Big Brother has arrived, but it is OK, because MS/Apple (whatever) is Big Brother. Bill Paxton's final film. He plays Glenne Headly's husband. She died shortly after the film's release. They both left us far too young. 

How could I forget? THE GHOST IN THE SHELL. It had the great looking Scarlett Johansson as a robot. Lots of robots in this mess. Yeah, something about robots in a future Japan. I am not clear of what it was about. I only watched because of Ms Johansson.

New Director. Trumpster's Pick

At a White House press conference today, President Trump appointed Barney Fife as the new director of the FBI. When a reporter told Mr Trump Fife was a fictional television character, the president stormed out of the room shouting the reporter was creating fake news in an attempt to discredit the nominee. Sean Spicer later told the assembled press fictionality did not prevent the new director from carrying out his duties . Fox News commentators expressed support for the president.