Month: July 2018

Trump vs the Silly Season

photog Current Events, Humor, Trump , , , , , , , ,

Dramatis Personae: President Trump – (PT);

Vice President Pence – (VPP)

Scene 1- 8am White House West Wing; Oval Office

 

PT – Mike.  Mike.  PENCE!!!!  Where the hell are you?

VPP – Right here Mr. President.

PT – Mike, I can’t take it anymore.  That rat Cohen talking to Mueller is the end.  I’ve got to pull the plug on that stiff.

VPP – Mr. President, that could be a disaster for the mid-terms.

PT – I don’t care.  I’ve had it with this nonsense.  Once I fire Mueller I’ll have him indicted six ways to Sunday for all kinds of crap we’ve already got on him and then I’ll be able to get going on important stuff like that bill to move the UN from New York to Newark.  It’s such a subtle difference in pronunciation that no one will notice until the carjackings start piling up.

VPP – But Jeff Sessions said he’d resign if you fire Mueller.

PT -Who cares?  He’s utterly useless.  I had to order him to discontinue Comey’s phone plan four times before he finally got around to it.  Besides I’ve got a great new Attorney General lined up already.  And he’s between gigs so we’ll get him cheap.  Steven Seagal.

VPP – But Mr. President, isn’t Steven Seagal under investigation for rape?

PT – He’s assured me that it’s fake news.  Besides he was a sheriff down in Texas so he knows about the law.  With him as the AG we’ll finally start cleaning out the swamp.  We’ve discussed what kind of prosecutions we can get against CNN reporters who try to ask questions without being picked by me to speak.  He figures that a ten-year sentence would be fair.

VPP – Wait, no!  You can’t do that.  Freedom of the Press is in the Bill of Rights.

PT – This has nothing to do with Freedom of the Press.  It’s about jumping ahead in a line.  No one likes a line jumper.  The American people hate a line jumper and they will applaud the punishing of line jumpers.  I’m hoping I can get that worm Jim Acosta to talk out of turn.  Seagal says he’ll personally make the arrest by body slamming Acosta to the ground and tossing him out of the ring, I mean the Press Briefing Room.

VPP – Mr. President, please trust me, there is no court in the country that would even consider prosecuting reporters for shouting out a question out of turn at a press conference.

PT – Mike that’s just the kind of defeatist thing that JEB! or Romney would say.  Now Seagal is due here in a couple of hours so be ready to brainstorm with us.

VPP – But I’m sure he’s about to be indicted.

PT – Fine.  I’ll just pardon him and we can move on.  Now we’re gonna want to decide whether to just fire the whole FBI or also terminate all those alphabet soup agencies, you know, the CIA, the NSA, blah, blah, blah.  You know clear out all those losers.

VPP – Mr. President, that’s impossible.  Those agencies are critical parts of the law enforcement and security apparatus.

PT – Mike, you sound a little hysterical.  I think you should take a few weeks off and see if this job is for you.  If you’re not up to the challenge I hear that Chuck Norris is between gigs, except for that infomercial for the exercise machine with Christy Brinkley and those other old losers.  We could probably get him cheap and he could help Seagal drag Acosta down to the lock-up.  I figure they could even rough him up a good bit before handing him over to the police.  Acosta has said some pretty mean things about me in the past.  It would serve him right if they tuned him up a little bit.

VPP – Sir, this is insane.

PT – Look Mike I’m bored.  Something’s got to give.  Either you figure out how to end this Mueller thing right away or I’m bringing in Seagal.

VPP – Very well, Mr. President.  Fire Mueller and accept Jeff Sessions’ resignation.  I guess we can trust to your luck to get us through the ensuing Impeachment Trial.

PT – That’s the spirit Mike.  After all Bill Clinton was impeached and it didn’t stop him did it?

VPP – Wow.  That’s a stunning sentiment.

PT – Cheer up Mike.  If worst comes to worst you’ll be President.  That won’t be so bad will it?

VPP – Actually Mr. President, after serving with you for the last year or so, I’m not sure I want to be President anymore.

PT – Suit yourself.  If Norris isn’t available there’s always Dolph Lundgren.  I hear he’s between gigs and we could probably get him cheap.  Oh wait he’s a russky that wouldn’t look good.

VPP – Actually he’s Swedish.  He just played a Russian in Rocky IV.

PT – Whatever.  Now get me Sly Stallone on the phone.  I hear he’s between gigs and we could get him to be FBI Director for almost nothing.

VPP – Oy vey.

The Silly Season

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Humor, OCF, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews, Trump , ,

It’s officially the summer doldrums both on the web and in the real world.  I remember an old science fiction short story called the “Silly Season” that had as a premise that during the summer doldrums newspapers were so starved for real news that they would publish any kind of nonsense just to fill space.  Apparently the Martians knew about this too so they flooded the news with UFO sightings throughout the silly season for several years running.  This had the effect that the papers and their readers became so completely fed up with reading these accounts that when the real invasion began everyone ignored the initial news stories for so long that the humans were conquered before they could react.

That is how I’m beginning to feel about Flynn and Cohen and Manafort and Mueller and Hayden and  Brennan and Clapper and Rice and McCabe and Comey and Page and Stryzk and Rosenstein and, and, and!!!

I am completely and utterly fed up with hearing about these idiots.  I just can’t decide who is playing whom.  Is President Trump about to be dragged off in irons or is Comey and the whole lot of them headed for Guantanamo Bay?  Either way I just can’t care anymore about any of this stuff.  In fact, I can’t even care enough to make a Trump vs. —– parody about it.  The only thing I can think of is to have a parody where he is bored to tears about it.  That seems reasonable.

So anyway, sorry for the lack of output.  But let’s face it, the silly season is in full swing.  If only there were some way to get the Kanamits to load all of the Deep State swamp creatures into the saucer and send them off to that big smorgasbord in the sky.  That at least would be worthy of a parody.

31JUL2018 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day, Uncategorized ,

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Marcus Aurelius

The Films of Alfred Hitchcock – Part 4 – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) – A Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , ,

This review is of the earlier British version of the film.  Simply stated, in my opinion, it’s the better film.  No disrespect to Jimmy Stewart or Doris Day but the 1950s version is not even close to the original.  Once again Hitchcock gives us a tale of everyday people colliding with the world of spies.  In this story there is an international plot to assassinate a foreign leader.  And an English couple who accidentally become entangled in it are forced to choose between stopping the killing or getting their kidnapped daughter back alive.

The film opens up in the Swiss Alps where Bob and Jill Lawrence along with their young daughter Betty are involved in some sporting competitions.  Jill is a competing in a skeet shooting match and sometime during the games they have befriended a French downhill skier named Louis Bernard.  After the competitions they all attend a dinner and dance party.  During the party Louis is fatally shot but he manages to tell the Lawrences that he has a secret message that must be given to the British Consulate.  Bob finds the message in Louis’ room but before he can inform the consulate he receives a message telling him to say nothing if he ever wants to see his daughter Betty alive again.  She’s been kidnapped.

So that’s the setup.  And it takes the rest of the movie for Bob and Jill to figure out the message and find the spies without the help of the police.  In between there are homicidal dentists, sun-worshipping churches and classical music performances at the Albert Hall and most importantly there is Peter Lorre as Abbott.  He will be the only actor familiar to American viewers and he is definitely the highlight of the movie.  Of course, he’s the head villain and the most interesting character in the film.  Being Peter Lorre, he is palpably creepy but at the same time not completely unsympathetic as a character.  His dealings with the Lawrences are strangely cordial, almost friendly, as if it’s all just an unfortunate business situation and there are no hard feelings.  And he can inject a touch of humor into the film such as in a scene where Abbott has left the hideout and gone down to the street to talk to the police.  When the gang hears a police whistle blowing they suspect the worst has occurred.  Hearing footsteps approaching they pull their guns.  When Lorre opens the door, he sees the guns and he puts his hands up and smiles playfully at his gang as if to say, “Well, you’ve got me.  Now what?”  It’s just a throwaway moment but it does provide a human touch to the character and gives an extra dimension to the scene.

The climax of the film is a protracted gun battle between the London police force and the spy ring.  Hitchcock really went to town with this scene and the bad guys start off with a fusillade of lead that seemed more appropriate in a World War II machine gun battle.  The merry mayhem goes on for a good little while and forces the police to raid a hunting store to obtain high powered rifles to compete with the weaponry the bad guys are sporting.  I guess Hitchcock can be seen here to be one of the fathers of the action film.

What I especially liked about this film is the way Hitchcock adds in the little touches that aren’t central to the plot.  During the gun battle the English police officers commandeer the surrounding buildings and watching them interact with the tenants and order them around in their own homes was very interesting not because it advanced the story or included characters that would be seen again but because it was humanly interesting.

I like the British Hitchcock films because I think they’re more grounded in the real world that he came from.  The common people seem a little more real than his later attempts at bystanders and incidental characters as if they were based on real individuals he had known.  Hitchcock is known for his crime films and these mundane bits don’t seem to belong in that genre but to the contrary, I think it’s the mundane but authentic elements in a story that make it feel real and that gives it impact.  Otherwise it becomes just fantasy.  Well anyway that’s my opinion.