My Top Movies for 2016....

plus some occasional notes... "Hail Caesar", Its an industry dominated by comic book options,schlocky uplift and video games, and mocking that trend sometimes requires that we dress up George Clooney as a Roman Centurion in a 1953 religious epic.... "10 Cloverfield Lane", You get the impression that John Goodman's phone doesn't ring much anymore with anything particularly challenging. So it was kewl to see him dominate the storyline in what could have easily been a M. Night Shyamalan knock off. "Weiner", Timely portrait of Anthony Weiner, horndawg & pathological narcissist and the numbing effect that has on his very necessary network of enablers. "Tickled" David D'Amato, notorious alleged on line vellication fetishist and stalker, gets his 15 minutes of malign fame. Since we are in the early stages of uploading our very minds into the internet, it seems appropriate to start making documentaries about our entirely curated "self presence" on line...and the weaponization of the same. "Bad Moms" I Laughed My Ass Off...I make no apologies. Mila Kunis & Kristen Bell need to be a new all estrogen comedy team, a'la Laurel & Hardy. I don't care if they are "Bad Lawyers", "Bad Manicurists" or "Bad US Representatives"....its all good to me, those dame got TIMING. And timing is in short supply these days. "Don't Think Twice" Best comedy I saw all summer hands down, caught the improv experience perfectly and the even more subtle process of "Plateau-ing" in your chosen field as well. "Florence Foster Jenkins" Best Movie About a Tone Deaf Opera Diva I've seen since Dorothy Commingore did "Citizen Kane". "Hell of High Water", If the scripts for The Star Trek Franchise Keep Tanking (and I think they will given that Regression to the Mean Rules Hollywood Like Tamerlane Ruled Central Asia) Chris Pine is gonna NEED to keep this movie on his Highlight Reel to Remind All and Sundry He Can Really Act. "The Lovers and the Despot". Dictators can be defied...Love Can Win Out Against The Whole World....and yes this was really a documentary. "The Beatles: Eight Days a Week" This was nothing revelatory, indeed at this point what would constitute a revelation about John Paul George and Ringo anyway? No I put this on my list simply because the famous Shea Stadium Concert (all forty minutes of it) was digitally remastered and included "as is". And THAT proved a revelation, none of those guys could hear their own music or themselves singing to say nothing of Ringo's Beat above that almighty adulatory din and STILL they didn't miss a note!! Practice Counts is my big takeaway.... "Arrival" Simply put the only other science fiction movie I saw this year that spoke to me, it got a little garbled and sentimental towards the end but kept its focus relentlessly on the "big picture" how do we communicate, indeed why do we do it....? Besides Amy Adams is often in bad movies but she is seldom bad herself in any bad movies.

I've Often Wondered....

At what point during the "table reads" for the original Star Wars Trilogy did the Late Carrie Fisher (herself a writer of no small acuity) start guffawing helplessly at the stilted dialogue? I'm thinking she was on her best behavior during "A New Hope" but after that the throttles were wide open. A lot is being made of Carrie Fisher's indomitable Princess Leia (who is the object of pursuit in two films but is accorded a solid chance to snuff a bad guy in the third albeit infamously clad in a brass bikini), her main breakthrough as a character is a refusal to be sidelined or entirely overshadowed by Obi Wan or Yoda or Han vs Luke vs Darth Vader. Well what of it, it was 1977 and as always a very sexist primitive time, any pushing of the gender envelope was welcome. I've always maintained that one of her funniest turns was what was otherwise a featured cameo in "The Blues Brothers" as John Belushi's incensed ex fiancee whose attempts to kill Joliet Jake take on a definite Wile E. Coyote like dimension. Fisher was smart (when she wasn't getting drunk high or indulging mayhem), she knew she'd run up against a wall of Princess Leia typecasting at the tender age of 25....so she got straight and switched over to writing and became a noted script doctor & author, she "Zenned the Typecasting" so to speak. I always liked that about her....anyone else would have been "MegaFested" and drowsed away the days selling her signature for $20.00 a pop. Not Carrie she staked out her ground and defended it to the last... And now she is gone and her mother Debbie Reynolds as well not a full day later. 2016 is an evil year with evil consequences and it is never a good thing when Our Heroes take Flight to Valhalla En Masse....its a Dark Portent Indeed.

BTW Isn't it funny how Christmas Time is

The ONLY time of year you hear Burl Ives on the Radio??? To say nothing of Gene Autry and or Alvin & the Chipmunks....

Van Williams AKA "The Green Hornet" is Dead

(Thats him on the Left BTW....:) Always an impossibly handsome man (The "Rob Lowe of the 1960's"), Williams stumbled into the whole Batman-driven superhero craze of 1966 playing a completely paradoxically straight and unhumorous crimefighter. Sadly "The Green Hornet" only lasted one year and is chiefly remembered for launching Bruce Lee's career, but let take a moment to recall that today's stern uncompromising Masked Avengers all owe something to Van Williams. It should also be remembered that Williams was likely the first TV superhero of the modern age to get shot in the line of duty. Check out the Green Hornet Episode "Bad Bet on a 459 Silent" for the details, suffice to say getting a wanted masked vigilante to the hospital when he stops a bullet is a serious damn chore. Lets also note that very scenario was pirated virtually word for word by the Seth Rogen Green Hornet adaptation about which I will pass over in sacerdotal silence. In life Williams was courtly charming, a pleasant presence on the comicon circuit and always willing to remember his castmate and friend Bruce Lee with fondness & warmth. If Williams felt overshadowed he never said anything about it, indeed on that mark he was a Gentleman thru and thru. He will be missed One Season Wonder or Not.

Channel Zero Returns Tomorrow Night!!

In these dark & perilous times, Channel Zero wishes to Manfully Step Up and Say: "HAPPY 126th BIRTHDAY GROUCHO MARX!!" And to mark the occasion we will be fairly wallowing in Groucho's robust television legacy ncluding his 1965 guest host stint on "The Hollywood Palace" featuring a Reunion with his favorite comic foil Margaret Dumont, South African Diva Miriam Makeba & a rock-n-roll duet with his daughter Melinda Marx. Also on the bill, Groucho's infamous appearance on "Whats My Line" in which the famed comedian reduces a staid 1950's game show to mirthful ruins. Plus a Surprise or Two….   The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) Friday October 21st 8pm (sharp!) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma. 617 625 5700 Admission: $7.50 (cheap!) I don't know if Groucho and his brother's invented improv but they certainly made heavy use of it thru their careers. Groucho in particular had no fears of spontaneity whatsoever,years of touring in vaudeville had sharpened the act's collective and individual response times to an absurd degree. Allegedly when The Marx Brothers were starring in "Animal Crackers" it was a truism on Broadway that you could see the show twice a week and never was it played the same way. Groucho, Chico, Harpo and yes even Zeppo would improvise extensively night after night. That comes from a place of fearless built on experience... These days we have clowns who aspire to The Imperial Purple, lets take a moment to remember a real comedian who aspired only to a crown of "wow gags".

Channel Zero Returns Tomorrow Night!!

In these dark & perilous times, Channel Zero wishes to Manfully Step Up and Say: "HAPPY 126th BIRTHDAY GROUCHO MARX!!" And to mark the occasion we will be fairly wallowing in Groucho's robust television legacy ncluding his 1965 guest host stint on "The Hollywood Palace" featuring a Reunion with his favorite comic foil Margaret Dumont, South African Diva Miriam Makeba & a rock-n-roll duet with his daughter Melinda Marx. Also on the bill, Groucho's infamous appearance on "Whats My Line" in which the famed comedian reduces a staid 1950's game show to mirthful ruins. Plus a Surprise or Two….   The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) Friday October 21st 8pm (sharp!) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma. 617 625 5700 Admission: $7.50 (cheap!) I don't know if Groucho and his brother's invented improv but they certainly made heavy use of it thru their careers. Groucho in particular had no fears of spontaneity whatsoever,years of touring in vaudeville had sharpened the act's collective and individual response times to an absurd degree. Allegedly when The Marx Brothers were starring in "Animal Crackers" it was a truism on Broadway that you could see the show twice a week and never was it played the same way. Groucho, Chico, Harpo and yes even Zeppo would improvise extensively night after night. That comes from a place of fearless built on experience... These days we have clowns who aspire to The Imperial Purple, lets take a moment to remember a real comedian who aspired only to a crown of "wow gags".

Zimmerman in Stockholm....

Congrats to Bob Dylan for grabbing off the Nobel Prize for Literature....well deserved indeed. So does this mean that the Late Phil Ochs is in line for a Posthumous Pulitzer? And doesn't John Lennon deserve some consideration from one of these tentpole awards?? On a serious note I am sure that Dylan's address in Stockholm might make for interesting prose give a lifetime dedicated in service to the muse of poetry....but that creaky little voice of his....I'd sooner they hired almost anyone else to read it...The Late Gary Owens might've been a better choice in that regard. :) KIDDING I KID Congrats Bob!

The Suicide Squad (2016)

wasn't bad, I rather enjoyed it thanks to the sturdy shield of low expectations. That having been said the end of the film is utterly incoherent (but thats par for the course in this film genre at this point, can anyone out there summarize Lex Luthor's plan in "Batman versus Superman"? Did HE even understand it??) and relies almost completely on Will Smith's still vital charisma and Margot Robbie's willingness to bounce off the walls to carry the day. But what th' hell, at least this one worked....like I said low expectations and I did manage to see it at the Drive In (and on a rainy night too I "parted the storm" in drive in parlance) that undoubtedly helped. Hell the best movie I've seen so far in this benighted summer has been "Don't Think Twice" which is still playing around town in various venues, its the story of the decline and fall of a NYC Improv Comedy Group but whole scenes were very evocative of our experience running the Channel Zero Repertory Film Series.... That and "Bad Moms" are probably the two best movies I've seen since May....its been a bad summer otherwise for movies but I begin to repeat myself.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

I'm calling it folks, this was a TERRIBLE movie, confusing, loud, incoherent, the villain was disposable with a moribund gimmick, in two hours of action there was maybe five minutes of authentic science fiction in what is supposed to be The Tentpole sci fi Franchise of All Time. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto both phoned it in & looked bored by it all as well, Karl Urban at least put some skin in the game but he can't carry a film this misbegotten, no one can quite frankly. The movie's one other saving grace was the sturdy notion held over from the original series that whatever old clunker of a starship Kirk is on, instantly becomes the bad-ass fightingest ship in the Starfleet. And I hate to say this cuz' he is a talent, but I think Simon Pegg should stick to writing comedies....this was not his best work by any means. Its been an awful summer for movies overall, "Ghostbusters" was funny enough (McCarthy & Wiig are a natural comedy team IMHO) but it fell afoul of weird gender resistance, frankly the best movie I've seen this summer was "Bad Moms" and that was a pretty predictable exercise. Well Hell, Hollywood went into a death spiral two full years ago it just hasn't shot down the drain yet, they can't even pander to our basest urges anymore with any success....bad karma indeed.

Why A Documentary About the Paranormal?

A better question might be, why NOT a documentary about the Paranormal, especially when it is locally produced, locally focused and has never had a proper Boston Premiere.... We here at Channel Zero have been looking for quite some time for a local "artisanal" film we could screen something that was NOT some overwrought drama shot in front of a Boston Skyline. "The Bridgewater Triangle" has got everything in that regard, ghosts, aliens, Satanic Rituals, Missing Persons even Bigfoot Sightings. Whether you are a believer or a skeptic, you have to admire the filmmaker's embrace of what amounts to an "Alternate History" of the South Shore. Moreover after twenty one years of doing screenings all over Metropolitan Boston, Channel Zero is pretty much all about giving everyone "Their day in Court." And we'd also like to thank the producers Aaron Cadieux and Manny Falamore for agreeing to a Q&A session after the screening, they will also be manning a merchandise table as well. So please, bring your questions...ESPECIALLY if you have ever had an encounter with any of this phenomena. "The Bridgewater Triangle" (2013) screens.... Friday July 22nd @ 8pm (Sharp!) The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma. 617 625 5700 Admission $8.50 (cheap!) “They Are Here! And They Are On The South Shore!”

Channel Zero Returns This Friday!!

With a Local Documentary Premiere: "The Bridgewater Triangle" (2013) On the South Shore of Massachusetts there is a vast alleged locus of paranormal phenomenon known as “The Bridgewater Triangle”! From Bigfoot Sightings to Encounters with Extraterrestrials,with a Haunted Swamp & Alleged Satanic Activity, the area around Rehoboth, Freetown & Abington seethes with Unexplained Uncanny Incidents! Local filmmakers Aaron Cadieux & Manny Falamore Present All The Evidence in this Unique Locally Produced Feature Length Documentary! Friday July 22nd @ 8pm (Sharp!) The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma. 617 625 5700 Admission $8.50 (cheap!) (The Producers will have a merchandise table at the screening and will be available for Q&A afterwards) “They Are Here! And They Are On The South Shore!”

N.N. R.I.P.

At the height of her tenure on "The Adventures of Superman", you could have dropped a cinderblock on her head, and Noelle "Lois Lane" Neill would not have so much as cocked an eyebrow. She played it all absolutely straight regardless of underwritten scripts, spotty SPFX or rushed production methods. The woman simply never broke character ever, today's actresses could learn a thing or two on how to commit to a performance no matter how daunting the challenge. She got that training coming up The Hard Way as a pin up model (real popular in WW2 nudge-nudge), a drudge in poverty row productions and still later a contract gig at Columbia where she ground on in Serials, and it was at Columbia where she fortuitously cast as the movies first Lois Lane in the two Kirk Alyn Superman serials. And that was her ticket to ride, for when Superman was passed off to George Reeves there was a need for a new Lois after the first season's actress Phyllis Coates moved on to better things, there stood Noelle, tanned rested and ready from the git go. But the show was a real generator of typecasting, Reeves likely died from it in 1959, Jack "Jimmy Olsen" Larsen wisely drifted into writing and producing...Noelle tried her hand at journalism before settling into a "Lois Emeritus" status. It suited her, the woman was uncommonly nice and pleasant in a grandmotherly way, perfectly adapted to the comic book convention circuit. I met her briefly down in New Jersey maybe fifteen years ago, she was hawking a self published book of memoirs (a canny way to monetize her autograph, a gimmick pioneered oddly enough by her former castmate Kirk Alyn in the 1970's) and exuded friendliness and charm in a venue given over to KISS Fans, Amateur Klingons and the occasional Juggalo. She will be missed, like Jack Larsen Noelle Neill was blessed with longevity to remind us all that whatever tabloid sensation clings to the memory of George Reeve he was in all things a nigh perfect castmate. Well what the hell, so was she in every way....Class Like That Will Always Be Missed.

Star Spangled Clamor....

I have Carly Carioli from yesterday's Globe to thank for reminding me that Igor Stravinsky once came within an ace of being fined in Boston for imposing an "illegal" arrangement on the National Anthem back in the 1940's. Apparently it is STILL a law on the books in the commonwealth criminalizing any bid to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" as part of medley, as dance music or with any undue embellishments. Stravinsky was gonna debut his own arrangement of the "Star Spangled Banner" in Boston during WW II, one he THOUGHT was easier to sing til' the local rollers leaned on him hard, Igor elected to conduct the traditional BSO version no doubt with some understandable ruffled feathers. Now as it happens I've heard the Stravinsky arrangement and it's perfectly fine a few high notes are rationalized and or dropped thats all....but poor Igor misunderstood one important and unique thing about the USA, we derive something unique and powerful from our inherently unsingable National Anthem. Other countries have national anthems far more bombastic and tuneful, veritable hymns to Power Glory and Eternal National Greatness, if you listen to any of them, you get a distinct "whistling past the graveyard vibe" if not outright National Reaction-Formation. "We Must Be Great, Our National Anthem Attests to It With A Mighty Booming Chorus!" in other words. Not the USA, we didn't even have one until 1931 and we picked the most discordant unsingable musical mishaugas on the list....yay for us, we don't need to act out in patriotic song. However, the current statute as described Citizen Carioli in yesteday's Globe is superfluous cultural overreach on the part of the Commonwealth's criminal code. It must be defied via civil disobedience...Therefore I intend to hold auditions in the near future for a band I like to call "The Bangtail Yap Orchestra" which will be planted on a traffic island in Davis Square Somerville to play a little ditty I call "The Star Spangled Shimmy", something I hope will be the Dance Craze of the Age! Happy Fourth of July....anyone out there who is virtuoso with a tin bucket and big ass spoon, drop me a little note....

Ali Is Dead...The Heaven's Do Shake.

If Friedrich Nietzsche designed a Boxer, he'd be Muhammad Ali. If the American Dream with All It's Light and Dark Facets has a Better Exemplar, then I don't know them.... From Louisville to Global Fame...no small trick. And he did it boxing...a mobbed up sport on it's best day...especially when he was up and coming. Just don't read any of his interviews back in his "Nation of Islam" days....very bigoted childish stuff, suffice to say Ali grew quite a bit when he and Elijah Muhammad's Son Wallace made the break to a Sunni Muslim Faith and the old man went for the Terminal Dirt Nap. But what the hell Muhammad Ali was a Natural Showman to Put P.T. Barnum (who invented Showmanship) to absolute shame....a talent for improv, a pronounced taste for doggerel and speed & stopping power in the ring. The Selective Service Never Had a Chance. For My Money a Great & Terrible Series of Lessons in the Glory and Barbaric Brutality of Boxing can be absorbed just by watching all the Ali-Joe Frazier Fights and then the "Rumble in the Jungle" between George Foreman and The Champ. At the very least you can see the apex of Ali's sheer Will to Power and the Origins of His Parkinson's Disease. But I give him credit, Ali never ducked a fight, no "Bum of the Month Club" for him....even if he kept at it long after common sense dictated a quiet bail out. But he was the very embodiment of the American Dream....three wives, a super lawsuit to end all lawsuits, a Fight with Superman, a partnership with Howard Cosell,a cataract of opinions, and fight after fight....what is more American Than That??

There is a rumor going around...

That the Somerville Theatre MIGHT hazard fortune and sacred honor on a 70mm Film Festival This Fall....apparently their repertory screenings in 70mm have proven popular what with their unbeatable giant indoor screen and all. So I'd like to make a few random suggestions for said festival... 1.) "The Boston Strangler"(1967) I have deliberated avoided this movie on home vide simply because the split screen cinematography demands a big screen venue. 2.) "The Battle of Britain"(1969) Gotta have a nice loud air-combat movie from an era when air combat movies demanded procurement of real pilots and real fighter planes. 3.) "Waterloo" (1970) starring Rod Steiger. My Favorite Holiday Movie and you gotta have a nice loud Rod Steiger movie its practically a statute in the Commonwealth. 4.) Either..."Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", "Doctor Doolittle" or....dare I say it "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"...I mean if we think we need a kid's angle here. 5.) "Westworld" one of those pre Star Wars sci fi movies than never seems to rate revival..... 6.) "High Plains Drifter" (My fave Clint Eastwood Western absent "Unforgiven") Now mind you my technical ignorance runs true and deep I have no idea if any of these movies are available in 70mm but hell a guy can dream, I'm sure the Somerville Theatre can wreak profitable havoc with "Jaws" "The Godfather" and "Rollerball" for poetry and jazz.

The Boston International Film Festival was a Hoot!

In particular I'd like to congratulate John McGuinness the stalwart Director of "A Padded Envelope from Madrid" and Gawaine Ross the film's Leader Actor (working next to Orson Welles, Not Bad!) for all their superlative work and contributions on the road to Festival Glory. If I have a main takeaway from both our screenings it is that there is something about the acronym "U.F.O." even when used in an facetious context that flips a big old knife-switch in people's heads. We ended up answering a lot of entirely earnest questions about extraterrestrials and flying saucers at our post screening Q&As. Not question one about Orson Welles....and yet the whole film was a short of birthday for his "One Hundredth Birthday" in 2015. Bruce Lee teaches us that all knowledge is in the end self knowledge so my big revelation from the BIFF is that flying saucers instantly lower people's inhibitions like straight whiskey....otherwise how to account for entirely unselfconscious questions about pan dimensional beings skulking our lonely highways late at night? That must be pondered over time, once again though kudos and props to Messr's McGuinness & Ross, so glad they tracked me down and pried a script out of me, health to all their endeavors they are worthy collaborators.

"A Padded Envelope from Madrid"

Back in 2004, when Channel Zero was literally chased out into the streets of Brookline by the Coolidge Corner Theatre, I remarked to my co-curator, that if this kept up we'd have to start making the movies ourselves.... and so some twelve years later Channel Zero has produced it's first film, "A Padded Envelope from Madrid" which is an official selection at the Boston International Film Festival next weekend! I admit to writing and acting as executive producer but without the assistance of Director John McGuinness and our redoubtable on screen talent Gawaine Ross, the damn thing woulda never have come off. To them I am grateful. Admittedly, "A Padded Envelope from Madrid" is only seven minutes long....but hell we have to start somewhere I guess... What the film is otherwise is a mystery for lack of a better word "A Timely Warning of an Alien Invasion? A Hoary Old War Story? A Lost Television Pilot from a Great Auteur...or perhaps Something Else?" "Fact, Fiction or...Something Else?" "A Padded Envelope from Madrid" screens Saturday April 16th at 11:30am at 26 West Street Boston MA (just off Downtown Crossing) tickets at the door are 12.00 or can be ordered on line at www.BostonIFF.org you can also see program information on the other films on the bill with our own unique effort. There will also be an encore screening on Sunday at 3pm with a selection of other short films. (same venue never fear) We've crossed a great divide here after twenty one years, we hope you can join us next weekend....and see the results of our work. Meanwhile, Check Out Our Trailer (cuz every seven minute film deserves a trailer)

Batman v. Superman: The Dawn of Justice (2016)

Y'know Zack Snyder, the director of the above motion picture is at the end of the day, a scavenger. He made his bones relentlessly cherry picking the payoff scenes from Alan Moore's graphic novel "The Watchmen" (regardless of common sense or continuity)and then watched the money roll in like a lethal Tsunami. Thats the exact same approach he takes to "Batman v. Superman" except this time he has two and a half interminable lugubrious hours to sample neary thirty years of "iconic" storylines. The result is incomprehensible (I think Lex Luthor was behind it all or else the Hollywood Foreign Press Association) and the box office is all the same rock solid. In short, I couldn't figure out Lex Luthor's plot one bit but then again clearly neither could he.... I actually was pleasantly surprised by Ben Affleck I thought for sure he'd done this movie to leverage some directorial project down the line, but whatever his reasons he seems to "get" a Caped Crusader on the cusp of Middle Aged Decline. Ditto Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman who makes a graceful credible amazing amazon, you could almost forget she is essentially shoe horned into the climax for no reason than to pad out the running time to an "Epic" 2.5 hours. I'm calling it on Henry Cavill's Superman though, the man is a jobber, he looks the part all right, akin to an Alex painting of The Man of Steel but his acting component is pretty unspectacular. He has no chemistry at all with Amy Adams' Lois Lane which is a sordid waste of a good actress and her notable chops. As for Jesse Eisenberg....that kid is amazing he finally took Lex Luthor the Mad Scientist's Mad Scientist and made him fidgety and annoying. "Doomsday" (a DNAlien by way of Krypton shoe-horned like ever other touchstone Easter egg from the DCU) looked unfinished a vaguely cheap looking although the three way fight between him, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman was rousing enough I guess. But if you took out all the tedious dream sequences and convoluted rubbish you might have a passable ninety minute film but nobody makes ninety minute superhero movies anymore. My own personal theory is that Zack Snyder fired two rounds from a double barreled twelve gauge shotgun into the script and bade his writers connect the plot holes however they must.... I didn't loathe "Batman v. Superman" as much as I hated "Man of Steel"....but that is pretty much a confession of defeat on my part. DC is making millions off of my favorites and I couldn't care less. Nice work Zack....

Why A Noir Double Feature?

This is one of those genres that gets regular repertory screenings locally, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" must screen at least one a year somewhere in The Hub. So Channel Zero decided to take the genre in hand and try and revive some truly obscure noir titles, the sorts of movies that The Brattle or the Harvard Film Archive might overlook. Both are worthwhile institutions to be sure, but Channel Zero has an economy of scale that the majors cannot necessarily exploit, so why wouldn't we bring up something deep from the well of undeserved obscurity?? Its an odd genre anyway, it mostly has a lot of highbrow enablers which is odd because the noir cinema milieu is dark conflicted, ambiguous and very very working class. The protagonists are boxers, seedy insurance salesmen, threadbare detective and the occasional cop who is sweet on the wrong dame. Moreover, Forget Hitchcock and Preminger, Classic Film Noir was the bread and butter of Hollywood's Schlock Houses, Producer's Releasing Corp (Bela Lugosi's last legit studio gig), Columbia (the Three Stooge's nominal paymasters) or Republic (the studio that invented the Singing Cowboy Picture), Noir pictures were primarily "Programmers", redoubtable B Pictures designed to anchor a double feature. They were otherwise a good home for a decade for directors like Edgar G. Ulmer, performers like Linda Stirling (mostly known for her Jungle Girl Serials) or aspirational blondes in a death spiral like Barbara Payton or wandering character players like J. Carroll Naish. A madder tea partei cannot be invented. So of course a gritty crime double feature immediately suggested itself to us....and what a double feature Jimmy Cagney's ONLY directorial effort ("A Short Cut to Hell") and a solid Lawrence "Reservoir Dogs" Tierney gangster movie....and all of it dripping with the requisite atmosphere that once made "Cahiers D' Cinema" go into sheer spasms. We are taking a real chance on Friday Night, it's a big player genre to be sure, please tell your friends...

Channel Zero Returns Next Friday Night at 8pm....

CHANNEL ZERO PROUDLY PRESENTS A Classic Film Noir Double Feature! (our first double feature in sixteen years!) "A Short Cut to Hell" (1957) and… "The Hoodlum" (1951) A Short Cut to Hell (1957) directed by James Cagney. This is the Famed Actor's only Directorial Effort! A taut punchy crime thriller about a twitchy hitman who gets paid off in stolen money & plots revenge on his former employers! and…. The Hoodlum (1951) Tarantino's fave, Lawrence "Reservoir Dogs" Tierney stars as a ex-con who takes a straight job as a means to reassemble his old gang and pull off an armored car heist!! We will also be screening the trailer to our first film "A Padded Envelope from Madrid" which is now an Official Selection at the Boston International Film Festival!! Tell Your Friends! The Somerville Theatre (screening room) Friday March 18th 8pm (sharp!) Admission $8.50 (cheap!) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma (617) 625-5700

Oscar Picks etc...

Predictions are meaningless thats why they are so much fun, so for the records here is my "will win should win" breakdown in the big categories tonight. Best Picture: Either Spotlight or The Revenant. Both are bravura efforts, Spotlight the more earnest film, the Revenant is a biarchy tour 'd force between DiCaprio and Tom Hardy but it is a survival story up against a big social issue film. Lacking in Big Profile Limey Disease Porn, it comes down to these two. Me, I'd love to see "The Martian" win the big, it remains the only sci fi movie that spoke to me this year, with a strong performance from Matt Damon. "Mad Max: Fury Road" is also nominated...but at best Charlize Theron deserved a Best Actress Nod...the film itself basically runs out of ideas at the 80 minute mark and Tom Hardy phoned it in lets face facts. Best Actor: Matt Damon deserves it, DiCaprio seems likeliest to win although Eddie Redmayne is nominated and Brits vote in a spoilerish block for any jobber who was born in the UK. Best Actress: I have to be the only man in the USA who liked "Joy" so I'm with Jennifer Lawrence who is a sort of "Female DiCaprio" i.e. an actor with a popular base and solid box office record who nonetheless has serious chops. Alas "Joy" will gat no heat this year....so I say that spoilerish block goes for Charlotte Rampling. Actor in a Supporting Role: Tom Hardy from "The Revenant" as I suspect that film might have a minor sweep tonight, but Sly Stallone deserves it, that man has made Arm Wrestling Movies its a career fraught with setbacks and he will never be in that room again. Actress in a Supporting Role: I am hoping Jennifer Jason Leigh can sneak thru a British Actor Surge that is split between Kate Winslet and Alicia Vikander....yeah we are down to that. And "Inside Out" deserves the Best Animated Feature Oscar hands down....all the best acting in the last ten years seems concentrated in Pixar Features.

My Top Ten Movies of 2015

Tough year movie wise I didn't get out as much as I'd a liked and it is not like the studios send me screeners or anything.... Welcome to Me starring Kristen Wiig all but overlooked little comedy about a spectrumy veterinary nurse who hits the lottery and tries to conquer television. Its not perfect but it made me want to see more projects written & produced by Kristen Wiig. Archie's Betty: Orson Welles tried to solve the mystery of William Randolph Hearst, Gerry Peary's self produced documentary confines itself to figuring who inspired the Archie Comics Character Betty Cooper.... Trainwreck: If she doesn't end up following John Belushi's example to the bitter end, Amy Schumer might be the one to finally bust the gender barrier in raucous r-rated comedies, she is a stand up who can write and act, those are the necessary qualities in American Comedy Films... Best of Enemies: Gore Vidal versus William F. Buckley a veritable war in heaven between opposing elites and elitists....best documentary I saw all year. Black Mass: Johnny Depp's comeback as Whitey Bulger it's the first time I've seen Depp's real face in a decade da sumbitch can act in a straight part I mean WHO KNEW?? The Martian: starring Matt Damon best science fiction movie I saw all year, good spectacle good acting...everything big ticket sci fi should be at the movies. The Bridge of Spies: I've always thought the 1960 U-2 Spy Plane Incident needed it's own film adaptation and it takes a Steven Spielberg AND a Tom Hanks to deliver on something like that.... Spotlight: In the words of the late Orson Welles "It's All True" (except the parts about BC High....) Joy: Jennifer Lawrence is fast becoming one of those actresses who can indeed be in bad films, but she is seldom BAD in bad films....besides I liked David O. Russell's conceit to lightly fictionalize Joy Mangano's rise to glory on the Home Shopping Network and anyway for once the family unit came in for some just criticism.... The Hateful Eight: "TARANTINO IS BACK BAY-BEE!!!" If there is a takeaway this year is that I came down in favor of studio product for the most part...it was that kind of a year...whut kin I say?

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015)

I Liked This Movie...I did not love it, I'm not sure a Star Wars sequel is possible that would fully engage the enthusiasm I had for the whole mishaugas back in 1977 when I was ("gulp") fifteen years old. Of course the generally positive experience is strongly tempered by the fact that the whole stupid franchise has been so painfully compromised by the infamous George Lucas driven prequels that the bar has been set unnaturally low...almost anything J.J. Abrams turned in would have been an improvement. Which is funny...because in some ways he does a weird mirror image of his reimagination of Star Trek, there he bolding recast and reimagined the Federation Universe and then was content to connect the dots with mediocre scripts that largely ignored referencing the original cast (save a poignant benediction from the Late Leonard Nimoy). Here Abrams is much more reliant on the as many of the original players as can be patched together & thrown up on the screen in the hopes that the new cast can acquire the lustre of the originals via osmosis. It might work...but it depends on relationships and motivations getting explained down the line, and this is J.J. Abrams who is almost a great director save for his maddening tendency to fall back on safe secure tropes and plotlines...in other words he might not come thru at the end of the day. Which is a shame I like Daisy Ridley's Rey ( a scavenger turned Force Adept whose lineage is...sigh....obscure and ominous), she might evolve into the kick ass female the franchise desperately needs but I suspect at the end of the day Abrams won't take the chances to deliver the franchise over to that character. As for her lineage....I suspect she is Luke's abandoned daughter (just as Luke was abandoned in infancy) and she is being set up with her eee-vil cousin for a showdown somewhere in the numberless sequels to come. That is IF Abrams doesn't chicken out and he may well do that as his record gives me little cause for hope. Well...I've indulged enough spoilage for one blog post...let me just say it was great to see an visibly aging Harrison Ford suit up once more as the perpetually in over his head Han Solo. And let me just observe in a broad general way that there is nothing like a Good Talking Too From Dad to Get A Kid In From Off a Ledge or off a teensy little catwalk. :)

"The Hateful Eight" (2015)

Someday when the Critical Establishment stops crying into their beers about The Death of Film Criticism....they are gonna wake up and realize that improbably enough Quentin Tarantino was and is, Samuel L. Jackson's very Muse. Because somehow Jackson seems incapable of turning in a bad performance in any capacity in a Tarantino even if it's a featured cameo or a voice over....the wonders just issue from the Man. Granted at the end of the day, Tarantino is what they used to call "An Actor's Director", ergo an auteur with the dual gift for casting the right artists and then extracting their very best on film. And Tarantino can do that miracle with established players like Jackson, aging icons like Bruce Dern, he even has a special talent for rescuing the once celebrated from obscurity (John Travolta, Jennifer Jason Leigh)...hell the man came within an ace of making Stunt Woman Zoe Bell into a legit movie star....and he may yet push her into the ranks yet! AND THAT is my experience with "The Hateful Eight" in a nutshell it's a superbly cast carefully paced cinema experience lovingly shot on 70mm panavision...its currently playing in a "RoadShow" capacity with an intermission and no previews at the Somerville Theatre, SEEK OUT that configuration for the maximum enjoyment. This is a bracing return to form, a real performance driven western action-drama and real step up after the plateau experience of "The Inglorious Bastards" & "Django Unchained"....both were good films but neither broke any creative grounds at least as far as Tarantino is concerned as an artist. There is a lot of palaver out there about the too free use of "The N Word" especially in this film and in "Django Unchained" but in both cases Tarantino is revisiting racist cultures and doesn't ask us to forgive or overlook any of their particular sins....physical or rhetorical. Which is funny to me in a grim way because "The Hateful Eight" seems mired in female-abuse Jennifer Jason Leigh is repeatedly beaten thrown out of stage coaches, shot at, roughed up, verbally harangued and otherwise traumatized....but then 1878 was a sexist ugly time and Tarantino is not celebrating that aspect of the culture, he seems fairly horrified by it quite frankly. My other big takeaway is the really explicit amount of gore, in truth Tarantino has never been a gore hound (despite an undeserved reputation in this area). Nevertheless this time where the entire cast is trapped in a Wyoming Road House during a blizzard the sheer confines literally compel a classically Hershel Gordon Lewisian approach to gunshot trauma. Score one for Tarantino for figuring out that unpleasant little fact. In short I loved it, I loved the presentation the whole seemingly languid exercise, Tarantino is a friend to cinema my only complaint is that he seems hell bent on composing bookends to vanished genres ("Epic Blacksploitation, "Panavision Color Westerns", "ShitHouse Americans Kicking Ass War Movies")...I'm starting to wish he'd try to work his way back to a contemporary context. On the other hand....if he has more like "The Hateful Eight" up his sleeve, then Quentin stay in the past, don't come back take a second look at Biker Movies and Beach Party Musicals!! Have At It!

$tar War$....

The Eternal Cycle for All Star Wars Sequels is as Follows: Hype, Mega Hype, Omnipresent Hype, Toxic Hype, Disappointment. *** And then there is J.J. Abrams who brilliantly recast Star Trek and created a whole new milieu and look for that franchise and then hedged his bets with two scripts that aren't worth watching twice let alone archiving on your smartphone. I think, at the end of the day it'll be the same thin with "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"....just sayin'.

The Peanuts Movie (2015)

Liked it, didn't love it, funnier than I expected even if it seemed disjointed despite the nominal focus on Charlie Brown's hapless pursuit of the Little Red Haired Girl. What I did enjoy thoroughly was the air combat sequences, it is surrealism worthy of Salvador Dali when Snoopy leads a squadron of Sopwith Camels aloft against the Red Baron from atop his red dog house. My only other observation is that Linus seemed somewhat in the background, normally he is Charlie Brown's only reliable confidante since the rest of the cast treats the "Round Headed Kid" so abominably....I kept waiting for Linus to quote Friedrich Nietzsche or at least C.S. Lewis.... Ah well there will be sequels no doubt...the movie is making mad phat moolah time enough to move Linus to center stage...

I guess Steven Spielberg is right...

when he asserts that comic book movies will eventually saturate the mediaverse and lose their appeal like westerns. He is right, in the long run. However it is worth pointing out that all up "adult westerns" had a very strong twenty six year run if we reckon the phenom from 1939 and "Stagecoach" thru 1973 and "High Plains Drifter". So I agree while it feels like a bubble...but it main last a quarter century....

Strandbeests....

My mind is not easily blown, its a result of seeing "2001 A Space Odyssey" at an impressionable age. Be that as it may Theo Jansen's "kinetic sculptures" the "Strandbeests" definitely blow my mind. They walk, sense water, they evolve after a fashion, feed and store fuel (compressed air) and look like a Steampunk Dream of robotics powered by sails. The Strandbeests are literally HG Wells' martian tripods which evolved out of culture that knew nothing of The Wheel....everything is delicately articulated, one holds one's breath when the Strandbeest is set into motion....if Doctor Frankenstein was an artist, he'd be Theo Jansen. The Peabody-Essex Museum is hosting this exhibit thru the end of December, sell the house, sell the car do whatever you must to see it!

Rumor Has It that the Harvard Film Archive

is gonna run the second part of their Orson Welles Retrospective in December, which is at last my best hope of see "The Stranger" on the big screen at long last. If the HFA was smart they'd check their diaries for the screenings that got snowed out and re-run those films (Hint "The Trial").... :)

Why Welles?

Channel Zero has an admitted "Thang" for Orson Welles, his life, his legacy, his unique style, all of it. We freely concede he has many many contemporaries in the pantheon of Great Film Directors, but none exceed him as a storyteller of rare power and skill. And his life, with all the Wellesian setbacks and catastrophes, self induced and inflicted from without is a living narrative on the sheer power of ambition and the vital necessity of staying true to oneself. Because at the end of the day what is Orson Welles' real sin? None of his movies made enough money to give him John Ford/Alfred Hitchcock class leverage over the studios. The audience wasn't there so the accountants claimed. Which is ironic because Welles held his audiences in the highest regard he thought they deserved the very best he could offer, he thought well of their patience, sense of humor and appetite for the offbeat. In Death, his faith in his audience is completely vindicated regardless of the tortured production story behind say "Touch of Evil". Because truly today's Orson Welles audience is literally tomorrow's filmmakers....in the and end Welles won the argument hands down. So tomorrow night, Channel Zero is pleased and proud to screen what is admittedly one of Welles' lesser efforts "The Orson Welles Show" a self directed self produced 1979 pilot to a proposed late night talk show hosted by Himself. Don't for a moment think this format was somehow beneath Welles, he hosted almost the exact same program on the radio back in the 1940's and did pretty well by it all told. Besides between the poetry reading the magic tricks, punchy banter, The Muppets and his guests Angie Dickinson & Burt Reynolds the whole format is ineffably "Orsonian" in character. And besides that, Channel Zero has come into possession of a sort of "Wellesian Artifact" from the 1950's (duly preserved on DVD) which is a very short film one indeed that we can guarantee has never ever screened in Boston Ma. SO PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS... Channel Zero can survive anything we were once chased out into the streets of Brookline after all....but we can't bear the thought of Letting Down Orson Welles and his Legacy! "The Orson Welles Show" (1979) The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Square Somerville MA Friday October 2nd 8pm (sharp) Admission a mere $7.50

Channel Zero Returns to the Somerville Theatre, Friday October 2nd!!

2015 is Orson Welles’ One Hundredth Birthday! To Mark the Occasion Channel Zero is screening “The Orson Welles Show” a 1979 talk show pilot directed by & starring The Great Auteur Himself featuring Burt Reynolds, Angie Dickinson, The Muppets and Jim Henson as his guests. This proposed talk show may well constitute Welles’ last completely realized directorial project & was a sincere effort by The Auteur to bring fresh ideas to the Late Night Talk Show Format! Plus a few surprises in a definite “Wellesian Vein…” The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Sq Somerville Ma Friday October 2nd 8pm (sharp!) Admission: $7.50 (cheap!) 617 625 5700 Channel Zero, Boston’s Most Obscure Award Winning Repertory Film Series!

Jack Larson R.I.P.

The actor who single handed elevated "Jimmy Olsen" from cameo status to featured co-star in the Superman mythos, Jack Larson has died at the age of eighty seven. Never has a performer so lightly and expertly escaped the bounds of typecasting as Jack Larson who effortlessly segued into writing producing and directing in the theater after his seven year stint as "Superman's Pal". Larson piled up enough accomplishments in other areas of show biz that he was always able to bear the burden of "Olsenishness" very lightly, he didn't need to sell his autograph to survive he could play paterfamilias to the Superman fanbase sans worry or woe. Along the way to "Grand old Man of DC Comics", Larson did something pretty amazing his goofy trouble-prone characterization of Jimmy Olsen was deemed so central to the TV show's popularity that he inspired a comic book "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" which had an impressive nineteen year run on the spinner racks. And I swear, Jack Larson that out and proud playwright lived a good long life in part so he could remind people that scandal, a tangled personal life & mysterious death aside, George Reeves was still a very nice man and a princely castmate. Or as he once told a rapt audience at the Brattle Theatre (on the occasion of Superman's 60th anniversary) "Jimmy Olsen has been good to me, so I am going to be good to Jimmy Olsen".

"Black Mass" (2015)

I've finally come to the conclusion that the elusive "Boston Accent" never sounds right in the movies not because the actors can't do it, but because we Bostonians don't get it right ourselves. So once I concede that I can sit back and relax and enjoy "Black Mass" for the sheer vicious confirmation that Whitey Bulger (Johnny Depp)really was in the end a treacherous thug who never killed anyone who was in a position to give him a fair fight. That and credulous former FBI Agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) who is really the last of the Southie kids who believed all that shit about honor and tribal loyalty as his alleged key informant Whitey Bulger went on a city wide criminal rampage. Yup the whole stupid story is there baldfaced for all to see, it might not play in Peoria but it resonates here by Ghod...right down to Depp's Bulger who struts around South Boston in a belted black leather jacket like he is Rotwang the Mad Scientist from "Metropolis". And what da hell, "Black Mass" has brought Johnny Depp back from the dead, this is a fifty year old actor last seen playing "Tonto" the Lone Ranger's Faithful Indian Scout. What he will do with his resurrection is an open question...likely something self destructive & inane like a remake of "The Wizard of Oz"....but if Depp wanted to stick with Bostonians he'd do worse than a big biopic of notorious 19th super criminal Adam Worth...

BatRequiem....

Let the record show that the late Yvonne Craig, back in her Batgirl Days, was a skilled practitioner of the Art of Running in Spike Heels. Likely she took the secret to her grave.... *** Ah but Batgirl was a true pioneer, DC Comics's first all-up super heroine on TV. Watching the show today she seems quick to get her tongue in her cheek and give the aud a very knowing look indeed even as Adam West & Burt Ward occasionally stray into oinkerish territory. That and her almighty physical poise, Yvonne Craig could throw out her hip at a veritable ninety decree angle and still look dollsome and perfectly balanced. One gets the impression that Yvonne Craig was a bit of a thwarted comedienne but the usual wife-girlfriend fodder would have never have engaged her enthusiasm. Otherwise Yvonne Craig (who was a former professional ballerina) was an able journeywoman actress with a preposterously long list of TV credits on her resume having worked with everyone from Tommy Kirk to James Coburn and even a very young Davey Jones. TV back in the 1960's was strange incubator indeed, where else could Yvonne Craig work with future Oscar Nominee Bruce Dern on an Episode of "Land of the Giants"? Last year the big news on the super hero front was the long delayed release of the Batman TV show to DVD, we saw quite a bit of Adam West and Burt Ward and nothing of Ms. Craig and guess now we all know why. Ah but today's actors could learn something from Yvonne Craig, chiefly the subtle art of looking like you are having a grand old time fighting crime while gunning around town on a lace trimmed Harley Davidson..... Despite the fact that the producers never ever let Batgirl throw a punch at a villain she was still in the vanguard of Equal Rights. A lot of young girls starting writing themselves more heroic narratives on the basis of what they got off of Batgirl's single season on "Batman". That downstream effect is always the most telling and the most fraught with change. Yvonne Craig will be missed, peace to her ashes, succor to her loved ones.

"Jurassic World" (2015)

I was profoundly Impressed with Bryce Dallas Howard and her ability to outrun a tyrannosaurus rex in high heels & a pencil skirt. Other than that I had to check the calendar to make sure it was really 2015 out there and not 1955 as seemingly postulated by the film's producers....

The Big Literary Flap This Summer

is of course the paternity and worth of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" the alleged sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird". I'll skip over all the handwringing over the Fate and Characterization of "Atticus Finch" in favor of the simple observation that sometimes the mark of a Global Literary Classic is a Truly Dubious Sequel. And I can say that as someone who has read 's nominal sequel to "Inherit the Wind" "The Gang's All Here", which is otherwise a play that delves deep into the dramatic possibilities of the Harding Administration. Ever heard of "The Land of Mist"? Conan Doyle's sequel to "The Lost World"? His bumptious Professor Challenger goes from dinosaur hunting to mewing over the revealed truth of spiritualism. The biggest literary damp squib of 1926 and very much the "Go Set a Watchman" of it's time. And this is to say nothing of "Let Em' Eat Cake" a direct musical sequel to "Of Thee I Sing". Said follow up apparently features among other things singing & dancing fascists years before "The Producers". I haven't see "Let Em' Eat Cake" (not for lack of trying) or "Bring Back Birdie" (sigh...YES a sequel to "By By Birdie") but they both spring from a strange cataract where creativity and perhaps the lure of sure money glitter gush and intermingle. "The Land of Mist" I think I can pass over there are limits even to my advocacy for the underdog misbegotten sequel. So in a way be glad, the outrage attending on "Go Set a Watchman" only redoubles the worth of the original. And if that doesn't work I invite everyone give some reconsideration to "Shock Treatment" the infamous 1981 sequel to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show".

Channel Zero Proudly Presents "Sing Boy Sing" (1958)

1950’s Teen Idol Tommy Sands stars as a rising rock-n-roll singer who comes under intense family pressure to give up stardom & become a rural Preacher! It is the Pulpit vs Pop Music! Featuring Edmond O’Brien, Lili Gentle, Nick Adams & a classic rock-n-roll soundtrack! Also featuring short subjects from local film maker John McGinniss! The Somerville Theatre (Micro-cinema) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma Friday July 10th 8pm (sharp) Admission: $7.50 (cheap!) (617) 625-5700 Why Tommy Sands? Why this film? Rock-n-Roll was young brash and the upstart's upstart in 1958, very controversial and already hard at work creating it's own stereotypes & cliches. Tommy Sands (who was signed by Colonel Tom Parker at the age of fifteen) is the very embodiment of that process, a musical malleable country boy rocker who yearned for stardom, he was literally Elvis Presley's first true impersonator a harbinger of hip thrusting sequined Incubai to come. Ah but if Elvis passed thru Hollywood on his way to Mount Olympus (a throne next to Marilyn Monroe surely), Tommy Sands fell short, got married to Nancy Sinatra (it had to be love, what man in his right mind would want Frank Sinatra as his Father in Law??) and then vanished into the ghetto of sixties TV guest star roles. But in "Sing Boy Sing" we have a good solid musical miniature portrait of A Hollywood Studio's Amusing Ambivalence towards a rising style of music in part hyped by other corporations. One the one hand they wanna crash in on this crazy kid's stuff on the other hand they are just concerned enough to want to defang the alleged monster. Thus we get Tommy Sands playing a nice likable preacher's grandson who is himself "conflicted" over his fame as a rocker. To say the least Tommy Sands is literally playing himself here...which is why his acting stands up reasonably well against Nick Adams histrionics and Edmond O'Brien's beetlebrowed Bluto act. Anyway Channel Zero just wanted to reach back to when Rock-n-Roll first starting literally thinking about itself and indulge a little counterprogramming along the way, drop y if you've had your fill of CGI Saurians.... :)

Sir Christopher Lee, 1922 to 2015, Rest in Peace.

There are some actors who literally perish from their typecasting, George "Superman" Reeves certainly did, others let is burden and cripple them despite their manifest talents Bela Lugosi being a good representative example in this category. And then there are actors like the late Christopher Lee who enthusiastically EMBRACE the typecasting and strive to use it to the very best advantage. Lee had a staggering filmography over the course of fifty years with a good share of junk ("Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace") to outright weirdness ("The Return of Captain Invincible")and even a dose of peplum ("Hercules in the Haunted World"). But if Christopher Lee stumbled into some bad movies he himself is rarely bad in them, the man had a singular talent he could not be corrupted or dragged down by mediocrity. Along the way Sir Chris also managed a true horror film trifecta playing Count Dracula, The Frankenstein Monster and The Mummy a record only bested by Lon Chaney Junior (who was All That AND The Wolf Man as well)... Always welcome in any film he did, never a bore, never miscast Christopher Lee literally caught the last train out of Horror Star-dom. He made it all work for him and managed to keep his marriage intact through-out. And what the hell, he made literally the single greatest exit in the history of sound film, at the very climax of "The Face of Fu Manchu" (1965), when the evil Doctor's plan is thwarted and his secret hideout is blow up Lee is seen superimposed over the conflagration resplendent in his Dragon Robes and intoning in that priceless baritone "The World...Shall Hear From Me....Ahhhhgainnnnnn!!!"

Archie's Betty (2015)

I give Gerald Peary credit, he has managed the implosion in the film criticism market with aplomb reinventing himself as a Professor of film Studies and now lately a director of documentaries. And he wants to spend three years tracking down the real life inspiration for "Betty Cooper" (from Archie Comics) who the hell am I to judge? Gerald Peary is unique, he is a comics fan with no abiding interest in super heroes, his tipple from boyhood was Archie Comics. Hence this his current documentary which among other things explores the career of Archie Comics artist Bob Montana who grew up it turns out in Haverhill Ma and likely based a lot of the characters on his friends at the local high school! And from there Peary traces the inspiration for blonde Betty Cooper to one Betty Tokar, the ninety four year old Hungarian widow of the Police Chief of Perth Amboy New Jersey. The detective work seems pretty definitive & Peary's narration is breezy the whole concoction though is more akin to a "Essay Film" focused as much on the director's lifelong relationship with Archie an his universe as it is on the career of Bob Montana and the quest for "Betty Cooper". Nevertheless the facts are all there and Ms Tokar's claim to being the perpetually lovelorn Betty Cooper's avatar seems as secure as it can be given the slippery committee driven nature of comic book artistry. I think though, Peary have hit on something here, there are literally dozens of good stories from the golden age of comic books begging for documentary treatment. the Rise and Fall of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Who Really Created Batman? or even good long sit down with Ramona Fradon one of the few women artists who date back to the golden age of comics and that just off the top of my head. Anyhow the ICA is screening this film twice more on June 14th I advise all and sundry to check it out....

H 6 v2

RUN don't walk down to the Suffolk Modern Theatre (located atop the ruins of the Combat Zone on Washington Street in Downtown Boston) to see Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part Two, ably directed by Shakespeare & Company's own Tina Packer. *** I won't try to hide it, I love Henry the Sixth, Part Two, part of the appeal lies in the repulsive portrait of the scheming English Nobility and their endless cabals and schemes against their hapless inept but goodhearted King Henry...one could easily infer that Shakespeare Had It In for ambitious aristocrats. Quite literally every single character in the course of this sprawling two and a half hour play comes to a sad or violent end from Monarch down the most inauspicious Knight. Its not quite as relentlessly violent as "Titus Andronicus" with it's thirty plus gruesome homicides, but Henry the Sixth has the same grim tone and waiting in the wings like a grinning incubus is arch hell hound himself Richard the Third. Yes it is a long play with a convoluted plot, but like any good renaissance schemer, Director Tina Packer knows how to impart celerity to her proceedings, the production just seems shorter and so much more intense by some directorial alchemy only known to Her and perhaps her best creative Grand Sire Orson Welles. And I'd also like to take this opportunity to decloset myself a bit and declare; I Love Jack Cade he is one of Shakespeare's most inspired creations, a blusterly authoritarian would be revolutionary leader whose plan for England's reformation includes abolishing money and burning down the grammar schools. Cade is himself nothing but the dupe of the power-hungry Duke of York who hopes to use the uprising as a means to depose Henry and Seize Power. This is Shakespeare neatly illustrating Edward Luttwak's famous dictum that their are revolutionary leaders whose rebellions do nothing except hold the bridle that some glittering Generalissimo may Mount Up and Ride. Allyn Burrows is superlative as the overburdened Duke of Gloucester (Henry's defacto First Minister) but his turn as Jack Cade has a sort of Strangelovenian glee to it. Given all this and the sheer amount of fun I had watching one Shakespeare's less well known histories I'd like to renew a public plea for Tina Packer to please direct Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" As Soon As Possible. Her reputation is made, the Actor's Shakepeare Project has a vast amount of talent on hand and Boston needs a definitive staging of Marlowe's Faustus...think about it Tina Now Is The Time, This Is The Moment.

Happy Birthday Orson Welles

One Hundred Years Young as of Today! Y'know Orson there are maybe a dozen or so directors, worldwide whose total filmography in and of itself a complete film school education, and you are one of them, shit you may be first in line. That pre-eminence comes at a terrible cost, lost and or abandoned projects litter your resume from a filmed record of your stage adaptation of "Moby Dick", to your last unfinished film "The Other Side of the Wind". I can honor your memory by extolling your movies or pine away for one of your lost or missing projects, but I've done all that already. No the best way to enhance your legacy is help someone else get their dream project realized. Like maybe John McGuiness, one of Channel Zero's occasional collaborators who has been working for years on a Holocaust Documentary, like Orson, he needs "End Money" to finish up his film, Unlike Orson he has recourse to Kickstarter to stimulate funds. I know John to be a serious and able man, he needs short money doesn't seem so far fetched that he can't dig up the remaining funds on line, click on the link and if it seems worthwhile make a contribution. He is a tenacious man who talked with some truly tenacious people, death camp survivors, the very guarantors of our civilization. The footage looks promising...Just like "It's All True" except now WE can make something happen instead of hoping for some studio to come to it's senses. Film and filmgoing must become democratized if the cinema is to survive, projects like this with their open fundraising appeal to the public can make that happen. Think about it.

Channel Zero Returns to the Somerville Theatre Friday April 10th @ 8pm

With a screening of: "The Perils of Pauline" (1967) Pamela Austin Stars as Cinema’s First Action Heroine in this Colorful High Camp Pastiche of the Classic Serials from the Swingin’ Sixties! Costarring Pat Boone as her fearless fiancée and Terry-Thomas as Pauline’s Lecherous Nemesis along with a Police Line Up of Memorable Character Actors! Friday April 10th @ 8pm (Sharp!) The Somerville Theatre (Micro Cinema) 55 Davis Square Square Somerville Ma. 617 625 5700 Admission: $7.50 (cheap!) Why screen "The Perils of Pauline" (1967) ? Because it is a unique cinema artifact from a brief era in Hollywood when everyone was trying to duplicate the colorful, campy success of the Batman TV Series. There were sitcom superheroes like Captain Nice, Mister Terrific as well a proposed pilots for Dick Tracy and yes even Wonder Woman (both of which were screened at the very first Channel Zero event twenty years ago BTW). The Producers of "The Perils of Pauline" decided to emphasize Batman's "cliffhanger gimmick" and cast the dollsome Pamela Austin (known for her work in commercials mostly) with Pat Boone as her square-ass boyfriend (taking a break from the usual ne'er do wells and beatniks Boone usually played) and the buffoonishly ineffectual Terry-Thomas as the villain. The campy pilot never sold, but the resulting material was deemed strong enough to form a stand alone film that is itself crammed with some of Hollywood's best character actors, everyone is in this movie, Kurt Kasznar, Leon Askin, Vito Scotti, Billy Barty, Edward Everett Horton and even June Foray manages to contribute some voicework! Hell this is psychotronic cinema at it's best and most obscure, why wouldn't we screen it??

Richard III AKA "Crookback Richard"

last of the Plantagenets and late King of England, was finally laid to rest this week with Full Pomp and Circumstance having been duly dug up from underneath a parking lot after he lost the Battle of Bosworth in fourteen something-or-other. His Majesty was buried....according to the Anglican Rite despite the fact that Richard was a nominal Roman Catholic, indeed his Monarchy came and went decades before Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. You'd a thought, Richard's bones might have been at least handed over to the Franciscan Friars for stately reburial (they having allegedly concealed his body the first time)...but no the Archbishop of Canterbury presided without anyone in the U.K. turning an eyebrow. This is a muted example of the Catholic-Protestant schism in England that was rage on and off up to Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden in 1702. It is also an ironic inversion of Machiavelli's famous Dictum from "The Prince", in this case "The Religion of the People Shall Be the Religion of the Prince".

Requiem for the West End Kid...

It seems incredible that Leonard Nimoy is dead. Despite his age and recent ill-health he is one of those select few among actors who is utterly ubiquitous in the popular memory thanks to millions upon millions of "Star Trek" re-runs on UHF stations back in the 1970's. He was right up there with Adam West, Burt Ward, Lynda Carter or even Billy Mumy faithfully & reliably there every weekday at 4pm or so. He was so inexorably imprinted on my memory in That Role, that I can recall being shocked to see him in other parts smiling most naturally....all very UnVulcan-like. He was in the end, an actor who after some discontented pushback decided to embrace the Mister Spock typecasting and Make It Bleed Money. It also rare for an actor to revive an iconic part forged in relatively youthful days and add new depths to the character sans the slide into self parody. For a performer who had a long journeyman's pedigree in episodic television, Nimoy was clearly the most "methody" of the original Star Trek Cast...this stood him in good stead when it came time to feign mind melding with foam rubber or perhaps strumming a futuristic lyre all with a perfectly composed Mug. But then I've always had a profound respect for actors like Leonard Nimoy who made the typecasting work for them, the Boris Karloffs' and Betty Whites'of this world, their phone rings and rings right up until the end every time. And to think by all accounts his father (a barber in Mattapan so I read) wanted Nimoy to take up the accordian thinking he'd never lack for work as a performer....

Oscar Predictions...

(More like....Oscar Prejudices quite Frankly) Best Picture Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole "Birdman" was for better or worse the only film nominated that spoke to me as a fifty year old man....I wish it well. Best Actor: Michael Keaton – Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Deserves it, suffered for it, will likely never be in the room again. Although the rumor is a sizable collection of English Academy Members united behind Eddie Redmayne he might just pull off a coup at the last minute, otherwise Cooper, Cumberbatch & Carell are all out of position. Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon – Wild (as Cheryl Strayed) This is why I call them prejudices, Reese will be skunked by Julianne Moore, but I wanna stay to true to my whims. Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons – Whiplash (as Terence Fletcher) Again suffered for it, deserves it, did the work for it...Norton might make it a tight race although in a perfect universe Ruffalo would be right in there at the last minute as well. Best Supporting Actress Laura Dern – Wild (as Barbara "Bobbi" Grey) Again a prejudice, Dern has labored a long time in the vineyard, likely she won't win (I'm guessing Arquette will grab it off fuh real, Streep been too many times to the Oscars an the rest are Able Fledglings...) As for "Best Director" that is too many prejudices for me to pick....:) Anderson would be Poetic Justice, Iñárritu would be Restorative Justice...and Linklater a cunning Plea Bargain by a slick small town lawyer played by Pat Buttram. So figure Linklater....:)

"Whiplash" (2014)

I wanted to like "Whiplash" a lot, really I did, and before I go any further I wish to laud all the performances, Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons (who deserves the Oscar nomination in every way) even down to Melissa Benoist in the thankless role of the hapless girlfriend. They all done good believe me. But... I had one of those revelatory movie experiences halfway through, the thought more or less slammed into me, to the effect "J.K. Simmons is torturing poor Miles Teller to make him into a kind of Suffering Jazz Drummer Messiah...All so the poor schnook can tour the USA playing thirty one seat venues in front of an aging and shrinking audience that simply hasn't figured out how to steal his music on line for free". If Simmons REALLY wanted to torture the kid he should have made it clear that his youthful passion for Jazz will inevitably into a quaint time consuming second job that will literally drain the joy from his life. And with that, the Movie Imploded Completely. It was supremely well acted, but the premise was almost hilariously flawed from the git-go. And anyway what is our cultural obsession with torment as the only path to excellence? The Ancient Greeks held that happiness was a function of the full use of one's powers along lines of excellence, here in the USA we have come to believe that excellence is impossible without a long tortured apprenticeship full of physical and psychological agony. Thats why these "drill instructor" characters (J.K. Simmons, R. Lee Ermey etc etc) never get second guessed in almost any drama or comedy...ever notice that? Its a sign of insecurity....just sayin'.

Channel Zero Returns Friday February 20th at 8pm Sharp!!

Join Us when we screen: "The Pueblo Incident" (1973) Starring Hal Holbrook, Richard Mulligan & James Hong This is an Ultra-Rare TV historic dramatization of the 1968 seizure of the intelligence ship, USS Pueblo, by North Korean Armed Forces & the brutal treatment of the crew during their year of captivity as depicted via flashbacks during the 1969 Senate investigation. The Somerville Theatre (micro-cinema) Friday February 20th 2015 8pm (sharp!) 55 Davis Square Somerville Ma 617) 625-5700 Admission: 7.50 (cheap!) Trust us North Korea really doesn’t want you to see This True Story! Channel Zero, Now in Our Twentieth Year and the Adventure is Just Begun!

My Top Movies for 2014...

"Her", Spike Jonze needs to make MORE science fiction films and if they revolve around people in heavy romantic entanglements with their smartphones, so much the better. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" Wes Anderson believes in Irony the way The Pope believes in Transubstantiation...and Anderson will dish it out any way he can, subtle heavy handed, silly...and if along the way he makes a great comedian out of Ralph Fiennes then it is all for the good. "Jodorowski's Dune" This might be THE BEST science fiction movie I saw all year which was nothing more than an exhaustive documentary about Alejandro Jodorowski's attempt to make a movie out of Frank Herbert's SF novel "Dune" back in 1975. The film would have been an eccentric catastrophe but Good Lord What a Production Notebook! Fading Gigolo The only thing cooler than casting Woody Allen as a Pimp is casting John Turturro as a Brooklyn Gigolo. Snowpiercer Loved it, I'll never dismiss Chris Evans ever again, even if he decides to wreck the Doc Savage franchise I will always forgive him because he starred in Snowpiercer. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes I dunno, somehow 2014 despite a plethora of shitty tentpole franchise super hero flicks and fantasy extravaganzas still managed to squeeze out a really really good SF movie like every three months or so...this one is doubly memorable for being a sequel but a robust one in every way...what can I say sometimes remakes work. "Lucy" While we are at it, Luc Besson should make nothing but science fiction movies with Scarlett Johansson...I'd watch them both tear into a revisionist Flash Gordon all done from Dale Arden's perspective. "Art and Craft" I love fakes and phonies, and this documentary on Art Forger Mark Landis is amazing because the poor sod gets away with his forgeries because he has never made a dime off them! He DONATES carefully executed simulacrums to museums out of a spectrumy need for approval. Fascinating story. "St. Vincent" I don't care if Bill Murray has done better work elsewhere, JUST GIVE HIM THE DAMN OSCAR!! "Birdman or the Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance" If you love this movie, chances are you are a man over the age of fifty, and its about time someone did something for me and my homies. "The Homesman" Tommy Lee Jones can just play grizzled drunken cowboys for the rest of his life and sooner or later the rest us (much as was the case with the late John Wayne) will finally catch up to him creatively speaking. "Nova Express" This is a shout out to director Andre Perkowsky who apparently is allowing a ninety minute version of his projected three hour long adaptation of the novel by William S. Burroughs to circulate....STOP RIGHT HERE DUDE!! You got it right the first time, the select readings from the novel, the surreal stock footage this movie is perfect as is!! Don't push your luck! "Foxcatcher" I have a dreamy dream that the Best Actor Oscar is a dogfight between three avowed comedians, Steve Carell, Bill Murray and Michael Keaton...can't say who I'd root for....after all, when are those three ever gonna be in that room ever again? "Wild" I love survival stories...and if Reese Witherspoon wants to make a movie about swimming the English Channel in January...I Am There. My only complaint about this flick is that clearly thousands of dollars were spent trying to make Ms Witherspoon look worn, filthy, fetid & dirty....all of it wasted. "Big Eyes" No one is ever gonna accuse Tim Burton of being subtle...but then again this could have been a sort of comical "Female Ed Wood" film but for a subtle performance from Amy Adams who turns everything into a plea for artistic integrity even for hacks (who need it most of all).

Unfinished Business for 2014, "Gotham" briefly reviewed...

I wanna like "Gotham" I really do...but sans the Caped Crusader (who is here depicted in his boyhood by some unmemorable little twerp)all we have to carry the series is the young Detective James Gordon who is fated to become Batman's most Ardent Enabler, Police Commissioner Gordon. Here is my point it is counterintuitive, so brace yourselves....Who The Hell Gives a Rat's Ass about James Gordon OR his Goddamned Back Story? I know I don't. It is akin to entire big budget television series devoted to the Amazing Adventures of Inspector Lestrade or the Action Packed Saga of Miss Moneypenny. Otherwise....Gotham seems to be a well cast show whose creative high point will be a sort of scherzo on "The Sopranos" with nascent big name super villains instead of New Jersey Mafioso. The concept does nothing for me but we have "Smallville" to thank for the notion that super hero shows WITH NO SUPERHEROES IN THEM are inherently popular and profitable.

George Clooney has a point

when he says that we have just allowed a Foreign Despot (Komrade Kim Jong Un of the North Korean People' Democratic Republic) to terrorize Sony to the point where they have pulled Seth Rogen's latest comedy "The Interview" from distribution. He makes the entirely sensible observation that is an ominous example of the abrogation of the First Amendment at the whim of the same Komrade Kim, Dictator of North Korea. Lets get something clear here, we've been letting The First Amendment get awfully shopworn and tattered lately, between the Patriot Act, NSA eavesdropping and certain practices favored by Hollywood Studios to curry favor in authoritarian markets (exp. the remake of "Red Dawn" where the bad guys went from Chinese to North Korean in the blink of a pixel thus ensuring the ongoing tolerance of the Middle Kingdom for said film's producers). It simply fell to Kim's Despicable Regime To Take the Next Step and really administer a beatdown to Sony...and you know what? WE LET IT HAPPEN! Listen...all of the first amendment intersects with pure commerce, a certain amount of free speech is therefore created in order to make someone somewhere a pile of money, nevertheless THAT SPEECH MUST NEEDS BE PROTECTED AS MUCH AS THE POSTINGS OF THIS OBSCURE BLOG!!! And we didn't do that. We let Sony chicken out along with the theater chains...on nothing more than a threat. I don't know what is going to happen on the Korean Peninsula, my only policy thereon is simple "Make Sure Our Word is Good and Our Powder is Dry", more than that may not be possible at this juncture. I do know however that we cannot allow a foreign despot any veto over our First Amendment Rights no matter how commercially driven they may be, any more than we should allow the NSA to snoop in our emails or permit predator drones to kill US Nationals on Foreign Soil. ALL these things degrade the law and our protections under the Bill of Rights....we've built up quite an arsenal it's the wonder of the world, I do not give Komrade Kim long odds on the battlefield if he wants to test that notion...but lets start protecting the First Amendment here at home with the exact same ferocity.

Forcibly Commended...

Last week at the Annual Meeting of the Boston Society of Film Critics, Channel Zero was voted a Commendation for our nigh twenty year long commitment to repertory film screenings and offbeat movies in general. That is All Well and Good, Channel Zero is duly grateful, after twenty years of Genteel Obscurity (and too many venues to count) we could use a little positive press attention. Thanks to everyone who spoke up on our behalf and who voted for us.... However if'n you look at that link, the Award Winner on the repertory circuit locally is The Harvard Film Archive, like across the board! Clearly we are gonna need to Punch Above Our Weight if we ever hope to move up in the ranks. :) Still it is as good a time as any to pause and reflect hard to believe all this started on VHS in the bowels of the now departed Liberty Cafe in Central Square... Now look at us, twenty year older and still clinging to the side of the same damn burning lifeboat. :)

"The Flash" Tuesdays 8pm The CW

I wanna like this show, "The Flash" is one of those dependable B-List DC super heroes who single skill set (super speed) is endlessly shoe-hornable into almost any conceivable comic book challenge. And then there is The Flash's rogue's gallery, maybe not as notorious as Batman's, but a dependable collection of one-trick ponies, mad scientists and at least one sentient gorilla...better known more popular super heroes get by with worse for antagonists (COUGH Spider-Man COUGH!) Alas the nominal star of this show, Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash....is a little too short and a little too young looking to pull off forensic scientist for the local PD. That is a minor quibble. my main beef lies in the show's odd structure which mandates that it is a very very formulaic super hero show (that draws A LOT from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer) until the last five minutes when Barry Allen's trusted mentor Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) does some secretive heavy handed thing to indicate to the aud that He May Not Be On The Side of Righteousness. Its all very ominous and mysterious but you have to wade thru fifty minutes of Nothing New to get there. Then again what do I apparently this show is cleaning up in the ratings producer Greg Berlanti is a new wunderkinder of TV with three hit shows this season ("Arrow" and "The Mysteries of Laura" being the other two) with more on the way.

I think my favorite movie this fall has been "Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" (2014)

I'm not numb to the film's drawbacks (languid pace, a solid turn by Emma Stone that is also frustratingly superfluous, Ed Norton's on and off lisp)...But Every Middle Aged Man has that god-awful Birdman voice in his head berating him, telling him he could be A God and Fly Above the Rabble If Only He Could Stop Getting Old! For that moment alone, Michael Keaton deserves an Oscar Nomination.

Art And Craft (2014)

"Take Me to the Movies!!" barked the Jungle Girl from the safety of a vine outside my kitchen window. "And why should I do that Oh Princess of the Treetops?" japed I. "Because I can summon Pteradactyls, Tigers and the General Counsel's Office of the Department of Fisheries!" needled the Blonde Vine Swinger. And so we went to the movies, that is the problem with Jungle Girls, they are Perpetually on the Bum. *** Mark Landis has a psychosis...he produces painstaking copies of museum quality artwork (sometimes by very transparent means) and then donates them gratis to all sorts of museums and galleries thru out the Southwest. Because he has never accepted so much as a penny for his rampant compulsive fakery, Landis has never yet been indicted for fraud despite the fact that he routinely makes his donations under an alias (at one point he impersonates a Jesuit!) and is saddled with a spectrumy personality that makes PeeWee Herman look like the Godfather of Soul. Per this exhaustive documentary, Landis lives in a cluttered condo spending his days faking everything from religious icons to Dr. Seuss drawings. And to me, as a thwarted artist of some vintage it is an ineffably sad story, because Landis has genuine talent, he is part of that mystical minority of art lover who can gaze at a masterpiece and really get something out of it. Alas though, his talent is completely dominated and ultimately nullified by his copy-and-donate psychosis, indeed it seems clear to me that he cannot express his deepest artistic impulses any other way. You see this sometime in the farthest corners of what is "geek culture" extremely able costume designers or talented writers of fan fiction who are content to simply replicate with exactitude other people's fantasies. In Landis' case talent that could bring him gallery shows or a respectable position in an advertising agency or a king hell head start on an outlaw artist run...is instead making donations of fraudulent art simply to feel the love. That in turn ties into the perpetual credulity of museums they wanna believe badly amidst all the commerce that attends on the art world in the essential goodness of the gratis donation. So in a way, whenever Landis pulls off this scam two compulsions are being satisfied.

"Left Behind" (2014)

There is a strange circularity to the Affairs of Men. Consider Nick Cage and Ben Affleck, a scant ten years ago Cage was still at the top of his game commanding twenty million dollar paydays...Ben Affleck was mired in junk like "Pearl Harbor" and "Gigli"...his career well on it's way to becoming a punchline. Now today, the exact reverse, Cage is reduced to doing Xian Revenge Porn (Xian Revenge Porn that is a REMAKE of a Kirk Cameron Baptist Revenge Fantasy) while Affleck opens in the biggest movie of the Fall ("Gone Girl") when he isn't cavorting on some soundstage as Batman. What happened? Who knows? This sort of shit happens all the time in Hollywood...It is just sad to see an actor with Cage's props corrupting his talent in such a seedy boring vehicle...Is he that desperate for the money? "Left Behind" isn't a good movie, it's cheap looking and rigid Xian post apocalyptic fantasy that mostly plays out as an airline disaster movie....Cage looks thoroughly humiliated in all his scenes. The actress playing his daughter (the inevitable Kiwi Cassi Thomson) has some chops though, she might have a career going forward but her agent needs to be waaaa-ay more discerning her projects...The kid is twenty one, her career can still be saved. The rest of the cast are well meaning nonentities likely attached to the film for reasons of religious sentiment. I have one question about The Rapture (the sudden disappearance of "The Saved" prior to the arrival of the Anti Christ)...babies all disappear (cuz they are innocent I guess) but their mom's many of whom, fed them, clothed them, protected them, sacrificed for them....they stay behind to get eaten by the UN Security Council or Chicago Community Activists or something? In a word...misogyny.

Joan Rivers: An Autopsy

Let the record show that in the end, Joan Rivers lived and died a convinced and committed Monarchist. In that she fervently believed in the Ascendancy of Taste, Style, Olde Fashioned Glamor and Charisma as exuded by an Elite Aristocracy of Hollywood Notables...and very likely in her heart of hearts she believed in the semi divinity of Ron & Nancy Reagan. A comedian though, can never be a convinced Monarchist, they run the risk of becoming mere Court Jesters. Joan's solution to this was simple and elegant she cloaked her Royalist Pretensions completely by becoming The Comedienne Who Never Apologizes for Her Caustic One Liners. This was sheer brilliance, reaped all sorts of some undeserved street cred from her fellow comedians (a famously undiscerning lot)and made her millions. Of course, I have to note....that the mental institutions of this country are full of people who never ever apologize for their behavior. Just sayin'. Joan had a similar move with her pro-gay rhetoric that won her a profitable constituency and very successfully cloaked her otherwise conventional wingnut politics. And so there she lies, Joan Rivers, Glamor Worshipper and GOP Camp Follower...uncloseted at last. Well now maybe her Daughter Melissa can escape Sidekick Status & stop going to those terrible 3rd rate plastic surgeons her mother foisted on her....poor girl is starting to look like she was carved from low grade wood. And no I'm not apologizing for that one. Toodles!