As You Should Surely Know By Now -
Conrad makes notes of newly-released films by writing down their titles when he spots them, usually as they whiz by on the side of a bus, and then reviews them as only BOOJUM! can. Which is to say, arbitrarily, going on the title alone and with no regard for either truth or common sense, because both of those aspects are boring. I've not done any reviews for ages, weeks and weeks now, so a bit of a backlog has developed, which I intend to partially deal with in this Intro. This serves two purposes: it lessens the backlog and removes the need to come up with an entertaining yet educational theme for the Intro. Art!
Conrad is ANGRY!
Yes, even angrier than usual
Yes, gentle reader, I am looking at YOU! Because you, and people like you, have been watching this cinematic swill in sufficient numbers for them to keep making these films. Hollywood does not make sequels to films that fail to break even. TFATF 9, on a budget of $200 million, made $726 million globally, before rentals or streaming fees are taken into account, so it may well get up to $1 billion <does Doctor Evil pinky thing>.
THIS IS NOT GOOD!
<short pause as I get the power lead>
"The Little Mermaid": I think this is an example of what they call 'Creative Bankruptcy", this finny farrago being a live-action version of the animated Disney film, which Your Humble Scribe had to endure as Darling Daughter had a copy of it. Said original only came out 30 years ago, it's not like people will have forgotten it because they remember when you could have a night on the town and a taxi home and still have change from a tenner. Art!
Conrad doesn't like the look of her. There's just something about her face that seems peculiar. And no, I'm not commenting on the colour of her skin. Frankly, considering that she's half-human and half-fish, her melatonin content is the least of her problems. Plus, it looks suspiciously like she's singing, and we all know, don't we, that CONRAD HATES ALL MUSICALS.
"John Wick 4": This seems to be Keanu's swan-song in this role, which is a good thing, as he's getting on a bit, and is only 3 years younger than Conrad. Your Humble Scribe thoroughly approved of the first one, because Our Titular Hero wasn't a superman, he got injured and bled and nearly ended toes-up. Plus his fighting style was eminently believable, which is partly due to the director, Chad Stahelski, being a stuntman and stunt director originally - see "V For Vendetta" for his work. You couldn't hold a candle to it <ahem>. Art!
Yeah, Keanu and I - no longer spring chickens
Rather to my surprise, The Critical Drinker, who usually hates everything, gave this one a qualified thumbs-up. Qualified, yes, yet still a thumbs-up.
I am also aware that it's been out for a couple of months, which puts the lie to 'The New" in this evening's blog. Sue me, I explained that we had a backlog.
"Murder Mystery 2": Conrad wasn't aware there was a MM1, so the promotion people ought to be fired for slacking on the job. Conrad, seeing the poster, cynically thought it was bound to be an attempt to cash in on the appeal of Jennifer Aniston whilst she's still relatively hot and comparatively wrinkle-free. And with Adam Sandler? Gotta be a rom-com of sorts. Although he has proved he has actual acting chops. Art!
I called it - Jen's got her legs out.
From the looks of it, set in Paris. Totally a rom-com. With dead bodies.
"Victory In The Desert" By Adrian Stewart
Conrad has the feeling that he's already read and reviewed this work years ago on BOOJUM! but I can't be bothered to go looking for it. Art!
There's your problem right there. That's an M4 HVSSE8 Sherman, which never served in North Africa, a minor detail that only hair-splitting pedants like me will appreciate.
In terms of content, General Auchinleck is portrayed as a kind of pantomime villain, who could only have been worse if he'd actually been in the pay of the Axis. He was, in real life, clean-shaven, but Ol' Adi paints him as a Victorian vaudeville villain tweaking the ends of his moustaches.
There are also some pretty egregious omissions. No photographs, presumably because getting photographs mounted in a book costs money. No maps. Apparently You The Reader are intimately familiar with the topography of North Africa in 1942. Nor is there an index, again presumably for cost reasons, because an indexer costs money.
Yes, it's going to a charity shop.
Now We Both Know
Conrad has recently finished watching 'Nobody', where the hero may be bad-bottom, but once again he's not superman and he gets bloodied, beaten, stabbed - which he seems to walk off in a few minutes - and shot. Art!
Conrad, being differently-oriented, wanted to know who did the incidental music on the soundtrack. Art!
David Buckley is who, an expatriate Brit long settled in South Canada, with a long and impressive pedigree in film and television music.
<comfort break>
"The Sea Of Sand"
Sarah has just read, with mounting dismay, that the two Italian survivors she fought against the bio-vores with had both been killed later in the Second Unpleasantness, thanks to documents gifted into the TARDIS by the Time Lords.
Sarah dropped the paper to the
floor, feeling stricken.
‘They
died! After going through all that we
did, and surviving the bio-vores, and they died!’
The Doctor picked up a
slip of paper from beneath the typed sheet.
‘You
missed this,’ he said softly, passing it to Sarah.
This
was a much smaller piece of card, with an embossment and lots of red ink.
“Father: Capitane Lucio Mario Dominione
Mother: Maria Donatella Dominione
Christian
Name: Angelina
Surname: Dominione
Date
of Birth: 18/2/1944
ISSUED
BY ORDER OF AMGOT NAPLES 21/2/1944”
‘Oh! A birth certificate!’ realised Sarah. ‘So – he went back to Italy. He got married and had a daughter.’ Her tone lightened a little. A child, something positive to come from this
particular adventure.
‘If
he was in the Co-Belligerent Forces, he was fighting alongside the British in
the Eighth Army. Must have volunteered
to fight,’ mused the Doctor. ‘Bit
ironic, really – ending up alongside the men he’d been fighting against.’
He
caught the look in Sarah’s eye.
‘Now,
now, Sarah. They didn’t die in
vain. Together they helped to save Earth
from a pestilential alien threat.’
There's more, of course, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what.
One For The Kit-Bashers Out There
No! Nothing whatsoever to do with "Game Of Thrones" and Mister Harrington, although there are a lot of murky politics in the background of this one.
For your information, a 'kit-basher' is a modeller who makes up their own unique vehicles by combining parts from other model kits. Art!
I
A couple of kit-bashes by Richard, the darkly sardonic Welshman now retired to Spain, the jammy sod. He's p
ANYWAY let me put this photo forward. Art!
This is one of the mighty <cough cough> AFVs that the Ruffians are now fielding in Ukraine. It's a T-55 tank chassis - from the mid-Fifties - with an S-60 anti-aircraft cannon from the early Fifties stuck on top. And the Ukes are due to get M1A1 Abrams from South Canada.
There's a line from 'Band Of Brothers' that comes to mind: "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!"
Finally -
Hmmm, we don't do Politics round here, unless we can squeeze a few visitors out of it it's world-crushingly important, but Conrad cannot help but be tickled at Prez Zed on his global visits to other countries. This Sceptred isle, France, Germany and now Japan. A positive globe-trotter. Art!
Meanwhile, guess who's confined within the borders of Ruffia forever, unless he wants special accommodation in The Hague?
 |
| - and he's not happy about it*. |
* Good!
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