The Devil’s in his Druthers

All a man of God can do

When the Devil’s in his druthers

Is breathe

And walk the line.

Is breathe and walk the line.

—–HT

 

‘You put me here. You made me do mad things. I could have conqured Europe… all of it. But I had women in my life.’

—–King Henry, The Lion in Winter

 

I am very old

And I strive for that place

beyond action and reaction

Beyond rage and remedy

I at my age

Leave people where I find them

In the circles

Where they are lost

Or are found.

I lack the desire to change anyone

Or to be changed.

I have only the desire to find a path

And walk it

Well.

—-Where I Find Them

 

 

5 Entertaining TV Shows ruined by awful final seasons!

5. BEING HUMAN (BBC) – Do not watch the last season

4. BETTER CALL SAUL – Just writes itself into blandness. I regret watching the whole show, that is how poor the ending was. Don’t even start watching this show. The only reason this doesn’t make #1 on this list is it was good but never great. It didn’t fall from as high or dissapoint as much as the three shows above it.

3. ELEMENTARY – This is actually better than the BBC series SHERLOCK for almost 5 full srasons. Derailed by the last few episodes of season 5. A massive mistake. Stop warching before the last few episodes of season 5.

2. LONGMEYER – Got extended a couple seasons too many. Makes the miain character into an unlikable pain going into last 2 seasons.

1. HELL ON WHEELS- The last couple of seasons are so awful I had to fast forward through much of the socalled writing and acting. Just horrendous. Stop warching at the cliffhanger ending of Season3. They literally lost the ability to write or plot after that.

Movie Trailer and Poster of the Day : THE CREATOR (2023)

I can’t tell you the last year I saw this many absolutely EXCELLENT and EXCITING movie trailers, but 2023 really is shouting it to the rooftops that… CINEMA is back.

Now these movies may end up being masterpieces or awful, time will tell. But judging just on the trailers…. THEY ARE LOOKING PROMISING.

THE CREATOR (2023) IS TODAY’S TRAILER that haS me really HYPED for the FILMS IN 2023:

 

I don’t love this poster, it is picturesque enough but doesn’t really give a sense of the movie. However the trailer on the other hand does foretell a stunning future landscape of man and machine, and the calamity that waits at the heart of that meeting. This is a well worn cautionary ground, as old as Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, but here with enough of a visionary twist to make me very excited.

And the movie trailer is ever more timely and potentially prophetic, especially with Elon Musk going full mad scientist (and I say that being a shareholder and a fan of much that Musk has done, but in regards to AI and these humanoid robots… it is potentially the proverbial road to hell, paved with good intentions)  saying he wants to produce more robots than people (he’s talking 10 billion robots, multiple robots per household).

Somehow quietly we are on that dangerous ground that 19th and 20th century writers speculated on. We are on that cautionary road, to that much warned of destination, and the time to get off that road, choose another, saner path… is quickly running out.

The trailer makes me think on all these things, that marks it as a very good to great trailer. Trailer Grade; B+.

 

Watch this Not That : THE LEGACY (1978) US 1:85 Cut vs UK 1:33 Cut Blu-ay movie comparison!

 

Got the chance to check out 1978’s THE LEGACY story and script by Hammer Studios go to writer, Jimmy Sangster, starring a shockingly young Sam Elliott, and directed by Richard Marquand. I will go into a review of the movie in an upcoming entry. This time out I wanted to discuss the version of this film to watch.

Available on a very nice Indicator Blu-ray, you have two viewing choices on this welcome release. The UK 1.33:1 version, and the later US 1:85:1 version.

While the uninitiated would immediately gravitate to the so called wide-screen version, I know from experience with previous films (that were not originally shot in widescreen) that you typically get with these “widescreen” editions, simply the picture butchered… to give you a widescreen look; while in reality you are losing a tremendous amount of data, valuable atmosphere and storytelling, on the top and bottom of the picture.They are fake widescreen films.

Most notorious example of this would be the “widescreen” version of the otherwise excellent Warner Brother’s Blu-ray of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

The widescreen version of that film should be avoided, watch instead the 4:3 or 1:33:1 version of that film, available on that same Warner Brother’s Blu-ray and you will be able to see the WHOLE film, not a butchered widescreen version sold to stupid fad jumping audiences, who can’t judge for themselves quality from the lie of quality (I’m looking at you 4K) 🙂 .

This is analogous to the movie poser, or so called expert, elevating all subtitled films and denigrating all dubbed films, not realizing that it matters how well it is done.

There are a lot of situations where I prefer the subtitled film. I like hearing the original language, or the intonations.  I would say the majority of the time, I gravitate to the subtitled version. However, there are also situations where the dubbed version is the better way to go. I think particularly for comedies or dramas, where a lot of information has to be relayed in conversation, a good dubbed version is the way to go.

The dubbed version of DRUNKEN MASTER II is way superior to the subtitled version. A more recent example the dubbed version of SWEET HOME is superior to just the subtitled version, the voice actors are great and impart additional info, not in the subtitles. I would say as a whole dubbing for films has gotten vastly better in the last couple of decades, and a lot of this is due to Netflix. They put the money into top-notch dubbing and it shows, and other platforms are following their lead.

So just as we have to do our homework determining whether dubbed or subtitled, that same homework has to go into determining whether the 4:3 or wide-sceen is the correct way to view a particular movie.

Again I’m not talking about true widescreen films, ones shot in scope, I’m talking about pictures that were retrofitted afterwards, chopped up, to look widescreen, and be sold to meet the widescreen craze of the day.

 

Thankfully that is not quite the case here. Yes you are losing data at the top and bottom of the screen, but you are gaining data on the sides, and the data you gain in the US edition, is more significant than the data you gain in the UK edition. I’m saying the storytelling, what is in the shot, works better in the US version than the UK version. There is true widescreen storytelling added here, while the UK version looks odd, and not composed.

Also the US version has been remastered, and looks great in High Definition, whereas the UK version has obviously not been remastered, and looks almost VHS quality.

So to my surprise, the version to watch is definitely the Widescreen US version, available on the Indicator Blu-ray. Get your copy here!

Read of the Day : THE MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR

HIEROPHANT – The Shower of Sacred Things

I think with THE MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR writer Ram V and artist Filipe Andrade show themselves as Hierophants, showers of sacred things.

 

A wonderful, and in places touching and poignant read. Waited a while to read this series till it was all collected in this slim but impressive oversized hardcover, and it has proved itself worth the wait. It ends perhaps not as strongly as it begins, an understated wrap-up, but perhaps that is life.. and death.

Recommended.

 

Get your copy here.

7 [SEVEN] Times The Movie was Vastly Better than the source material or original novel!!

“And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport. Protesting me! Spitting! Calling me a baby killer and all kinds of vile crap. Who are they to protest me? Huh? Who are they? Unless they been me and been there, and know what the hell they’re yelling about!” FIRST BLOOD (1982) One of the great diatribes in cinema history, and Stallone at his most impactful. And it is a quote that I feel resonates with me deeply, in this cancel-culture, social media times.

 

 

GLENGARRY GLENROSS better than the play, with scenes created just for the film.

FIRST BLOOD (1982) -Better than the novel, which had a protagonist not sympathetic at all but was truly a madman. More horror tinged. Whereas the film gave us a protagonist we could see the humanity in, and ourselves in. Just a great film, from an ok novel.

AVENGERS- The film elevated a clunky superhero concept, of its age comic tropes, into one of the most enjoyable and successful films of its year, and one of the cornerstones of a cinematic empire.

MANHUNTER – Michael Mann’s sophomore film, is arguably still my favorite of all his films, and just improves on every bit of the novel RED DRAGON, particularly the ending, which is heads and shoulders better in the film.

BLADE RUNNER (1982)- Uses the short story as a spring board into this now generational sci-fi examination on what it means to be human. A great film.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN – Elevates Stan Lee’s comicbook short story, and the novel it inspired, into loftier and more mythic definitions of what it means to be. A great film.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY – Billy Wilder and Dashiel Hammett working together created one of the great screenplays of all time, elevating Cain’s terse novel, into something with the power to move. Something superior.

Movie Posters of the Day!

And all those arm and legs and heads chopped off , shall come together at the latter day and cry out… we died in such a place

I am a simple, flawed human being.

A bit archaic, and outdated, and calcified and old-fashioned,and more than a bit biassed if all  my standing up meets all my falling downs.

I am sexist.

In that while I am all for free love, and choice, I ultimately believe in 2 sexes, a man and a woman. Whether she and she, or he and he, or he and she. I believe in two sexes.He and She. The attempt to make this center, somehow the abomination… doesn’t work for me.

And your indecision, or confusion, is yours, God keep you and bless you, but I don’t change my use of pronouns, not for you… and not for the world.

We are allowing the confusion of the extreme, to define the conversation of the accepted. And that way lies in madness. No society in the history of the world has every survived the destruction of its center, its base.

And America is no exception

I believe a family is at the crux, a man, a woman, children. I’m not saying its the only type of family, I’m saying it is the center, and we need a center. We need rules, however arbitrary, commonalities, to build a culture on. Driving at 16. Legal at 18. Drinking at 21. We need these standards if only to have something to define against.

I think the nonsense bills that some Democrats and some Republicans are sneaking in under the guise of LBGQT+ is really godawful child abuse of children, foisting choices of gender assignment and choice on children. No those are choices for adults. At those formative years, when they are already a mess of chemicals, is not a time for any child to be making even more choices. They are children because we as adults should provide a structure, not more confusion. Now if in the fullness of time, when they are legal, they seek to part from that center, that foundation, that’s fine. But you give a child stability, a center, not your confusion, and your insecurities.

Too much of these LBGQT+ laws are nothing more than prison culture, 30 years later, made mainstream. The actions of the damaged extreme, if not opposed, becomes the accepted.

Again I don’t care who you love, as long as it is between consenting adults. I do care that policy is being made by the voices of the damaged and confused, and no society can survive, making the interests of the most volatile, the most important.

We need the center. We need stability.

And without it, this nation is doomed.

If That makes me a racist, I’m okay with that. I tend to see race differently than most. I tend to believe we are one race, the human race. Blessed with a variety of colors, and ethnicities, and languages, and factions, but just one race.

And I am racist in that I will oppose any person, any party, any agency, any government that will have the human race… going backwards.

So I am not above…

I am not above rage

And I am not above intolerance.

I try as much as I can to be above hate. And blind unforgiving rage.

Always aware of the truth of the proverb, that those the Gods would destroy they first make mad.

So somedays, I have to hold my breath. I have to hold my breath, and be very still, and very quiet, and let the winds of wrath not settle in, not leak in, not creep in.

Because some days,it is all I can do… not to be very mad indeed. And God knows, America has too many certifiable people to begin with. One more raging fool is not what the world needs.

We need people who can think, before acting and during acting. Who can think about more than themselves.

Children are dying on my watch, on your watch, on our watch.

Children are dying, and people who logically have the power to step this revolving door of madness, by making it costly for these types of atrocities to happen… our government…. in 2005 signed a law making gun manufacturers not liable, not financially touchable, not concerned.

And in the 18 years since that law’s signing the gun manufacturers have gotten richer and mass shootings more prevalent.

I’m a gun owner. A responsible one. I see no problem with stricter laws to make it harder for people who are less responsible, from getting access to weapons of mass destruction. I see no problem with holding culpable gun dealers and gun manufacturers who perhaps fail to use sufficient checks and balances, who are proven in a court of law to be negligent.

Back in 2005, 65 representatives voted to give Gun Manufacturers immunity from monetary responsibility, which is the only responsibility corporations ever really understand. These 65 people, rather than representing the people who voted them into office, and gave them their nice paying jobs, instead used their position to reduce the rights of the very citizens that elected them, and to put the American people at the mercy of Gun Manufacturers.

Which is to say beyond all mercy.

And now children are dying, because 65 people chose for us to do less to save children, and to do more to profit gun manufacturers.

I want you to see their names. Names have power. And bad votes should be remembered. Culpability remembered. And bad laws, repealed.

 But that can only happen if we look at the bad law. And the bad representatives who put us here. These representatives and these states failed us 18 years ago by passing this abomination of a law drafted by

	Sen. Craig, Larry E. [R-ID] (Introduced 02/16/2005)

Senator Larry Craig’s abomination of a bill has been making it easier for mass shootings in America to continue, by giving corporations no financial incentive to care one way or the other. Were I him, every mas-shooting would weigh on my head, every life lost, every limb maimed. But were I him, I would never have drafted such an abomination to begin with. As if the Gun Manufacturers bought a politician to draft a bill for them.

He is culpable. As are the following representatives and states. It now behooves us, to rectify the failing of a possibly bought congress, by repealing a seemingly bought law.

YEAs —65

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Burr (R-NC)
Byrd (D-WV)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

I leave you with these words from Sandy Hook Promise:

“Each school shooting touches every community across the country and strikes fear into the hearts of parents and children, wondering if they might be next. When will we finally address this epidemic of violence and take action? Undisputed evidence shows that gun violence is preventable, yet instead of using the solutions available to us like Secure Storage, Extreme Risk Protection Orders, Magazine Limits and teaching how to Know the Signs, we move into debate, rhetoric and saying “now isn’t the time”. For the children and adults killed today, in Nashville and in cities across the country, the time is over and we are too late. Our national trauma, anger, and fear must embolden our resolve to take action to end these violent acts. We must reject the notion that gun violence is inevitable – it is preventable – but we must be courageous and take action.”

read the whole comment here.

And read from Gifford here.

FIVE Times Marvel Omnibus Standard Editions looked way better than the more Exclusive Direct Market Editions!

Movie Trailer of the Day : DANGER ONE (2018)

 

Just became aware of this film today through a trailer I came across. (Looking at that screen-grab, I can’t possibly think what made me intrigued enough to view the trailer. :). )

The trailer looked very entertaining, seemingly the movie that Michael Bay’s AMBULANCE didn’t deliver. (I am not a Michael Bay basher, I am a fan of several of his films and think films such as BAD BOYS, and 13TH HOUR are brilliantly directed, however AMBULANCE leans hard into the issues and complaints regarding his film-making, chaotic and plotless camera motion and abusive quick cut editing. His visuals in this movie work against the storytelling, rather than with it. His camera movement not only nausea inducing, but worse, storytelling absent.) Based on the trailer, DANGER ONE moves to my ‘Check Out’ list.