Mladen and Del review ‘Extraction’
Image courtesy of Netflix.
“Extraction” Starring Chris Hemsworth, Bryon Lerum, Ryder Lerum, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Shivam Vichare, Randeep Hooda, David Harbour, and others. Directed by Sam Hargrave. 116 minutes. Rated R. Netflix.
Mladen’s take
Think of “Extraction” as a John Wick movie with two John Wicks. The film is as good as “John Wick Chapter 3,” which was less good than “John Wick Chapter 2,” which was less good than “John Wick Chapter 1,” a delightful action blockbuster and the Gold Standard for depicting personal violence on the big screen. “Extraction” is worth seeing. It’s closer to a B+ than an A-. And, don’t confuse this “Extraction” with the “Extraction” starring Bruce Willis. Apparently, the Willis film is the opposite of good.
Hemsworth’s character Tyler is a PMC with a guilty conscience. It’s the guilt that yields some banal chatter between him and his teenaged ward and even, get this, tears. The emotional putridness is what pushes this hostage rescue movie into the upper B range. Hell, I expect touchy feely Del to condemn me for my dislike of the effort to introduce warmth to the movie. So, Del, let me be clear. I find it more endearing that Wick whacked a bunch of people for killing his dog and stealing his classic Ford Mustang than Tyler’s decision to save a privileged youth who lives in a society built on unimaginable inequities. The income gap, houselessness, and medical insurancelessness in America ain’t nothing juxtaposed to what upper caste Indians do to lower caste Indians.
The action, violence, and tension in “Extraction” are a whole ’nother story. Give that subset of the film a sparkling A.
On this side, we have Tyler and his Australian army commando good looks and pumped body and, on the other, Saju, portrayed wonderfully by Randeep Hooda. Tyler and Saju, a former Indian army commando with flowing long, dark hair and chiseled jaw, are initially foes and ally later in the movie to execute the good deed. They are the muscular playthings of a feud between an Indian drug boss and a Bangladeshi drug boss. Much of the action takes place in Dhakka.
The fight sequences of the two Wick mimickers against each other and corrupt Bangladeshi army troops are top-notch choreography. There’s hand-to-hand. There are close-in pistol shots to heads and thoraxes. Thoraxi? Thoraxae? There are assault rifle gun-downs at medium range. And, there are exploding heads via snipers at long distances. Damn fine Wick-y-ness. But, though I hate to admit this, there is one prolonged gun battle toward the middle of the movie that ran too long. It was reminiscent of a battle sequence in “Battle LA” that also held children in peril for an interminable period.
Tyler and Saju absorb wicked abuse. It’s the sort of abuse that none of the other shooters in the movie could take. The PMCs recover faster from lacerations, contusions, and blood loss than Donald Moron Trump and William Stay Puft Barr violate the U.S. Constitution. The good part? There’s no effort to explain Tyler’s and Saju’s resilience by pointing out that they are forces of pure will. The two are well-conditioned dudes with a single goal driven, ultimately, by self‑interest. Plausible.
It would be a mistake to ignore the potent character played by David Harbour, as brief as his appearance in “Extraction” is. Harbour portrays another PMC and is Tyler’s long-time buddy. Slimmed down from his days as the sheriff in “Stranger Things” and imposing, Harbour is terrific as the merciless, though he argued otherwise, mercenary. He almost persuaded me to back doing what he wanted to do. Remarkable. Ten million dollars is a lot of money, after all.
“Extraction” also benefits from a very good original score by Henry Jackman. Its tone fits the film. The score’s moodiness, modernity, despair, and a touch of “everything-will-be-all-right” move the movie by helping pace it and adding atmosphere. Maybe this also means that streaming services are now starting to attract capable composers. What would “Jaws” or “Star Wars” be without John Williams? “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” or “The Thing” without Ennio Morricone? Almost nothing, I argue. To me, the sound in a movie, including its score, is more important than the visuals. That means what? Yep, to enjoy “Extraction” correctly you need an AVR pushing as many speakers as possible at decibels that will annoy your neighbors up and down the block.
Finally, yes, the ending of “Extraction” set up a sequel. Who was that stranger standing poolside?
Del’s take
I expect to visit Mladen one day and find him sunning on a rock with the lizards that make up his band of cold-blooded brothers. He might flick his tongue to catch a fly, then bask in exothermic bliss as he digests his snack, untroubled by emotion or feelings, a Mr. Spock among iguanas.
But enough hissing.
I thought “Extraction” was a much better movie than Mladen’s fussy take and I’m surprised he went in that direction. The movie is a bloodbath that by comparison reduces John Wick to a milquetoast Mr. Rogers guest starring on a Richard Simmons workout video. I was black and blue from just watching it. Sure, Hemsworth gets choked up when remembering the death of his little boy. Who wouldn’t? It was 30 seconds of characterization that lifted Hemsworth from the realm of Van Dammit and Rambot into the arms of relatable human beings. I don’t mind seeing my heroes bleed.
The story is simple: The 14-year-old son of a jailed drug lord is kidnapped by a rival cartel chieftain. The boy’s father is understandably pissed and tells the boy’s chagrined guardian to get him back, or else. You’ve probably watched enough episodes of “Narcos” to know what “or else” means in drug lord-speak. Problem is, the government has frozen the drug lord’s assets, so there’s no money to hire the army necessary to free the boy.
The solution? Hire Thor.
And that’s it. Get the kid back. A hammerless Chris Hemsworth swings into bloody action, laying waste to corrupt Bangladeshi soldiers, hired triggermen, a band of rotten brats sprung from the imagination of a methed-out Charles Dickens, and even a former pal who wants to retire but lacks the necessary funds … until now.
The mayhem is fast and very, very furious with lots of shooting, beatings, car chases, stabbings, and even one scene where Hemsworth pummels a guy into a senseless stupor with a stove pot. It makes a delightful clonky sound and I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the pot or the guy’s head.
Hemsworth’s character, Tyler, is motivated to go above and beyond by the memory of his child. When the boy was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Tyler chose another tour of duty in Afghanistan over remaining stateside to preside over the boy’s decline and eventual death. His wife left him over that – deservedly so. And now he must atone for that sin of abandonment by not abandoning another child in need. Yes, his teenaged ward is the son of a drug lord, as Mladen pointed out. But he’s 14, for Christ’s sake. He hasn’t made any of his life’s choices, except which PornHub channel to bookmark. You can’t blame him for his father’s poor choices.
The movie was well-done in many ways, from the setting to the script and even Hemsworth’s performance, which was not overbaked and in some ways contained surprising and, dare I say it, heartwarming subtleties.
So the movie worked for me and I’m rating it a solid A. The only thing that could top it would be a movie that paired Hemsworth with immortal Charlize Theron to kick Godzilla’s ass. Take THAT, Mladen!
You want action without caricature? You want “Extraction.”
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.
“Sputnik” Starring Oksana Akinshina, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov, Anton Vasiliev and others. Directed by Egor Abramenko. Music by Oleg Karpachev. 113 minutes. Amazon Prime. Should be rated R for at least gore.
Mladen’s take
If the commie pinko fascist reds of the Putin regime savaging Russia today ever build an economy and arsenal like a few of that luckless nation’s citizens built the film “Sputnik,” the U.S. is in trouble. “Sputnik” is Grade A sci-fi horror nicely balanced with the correct doses of well acted storytelling, a world class score, and sophisticated, non-overbearing CGI. The movie is in Russian, so it’s captioned. Inevitably, something must’ve been lost in translation to English, but don’t let that discourage you from seeing the film. The captioning is good enough to convey its neat ideas and the character of the characters.
The Soviet Union is only seven years from disintegrating when this movie takes place. It’s 1983. It’s still the first Cold War. And, the Politburo needs a nationalistic win to boost the country’s sagging morale. The U.S.S.R. war in Afghanistan ain’t going well. Consumer goods are in short supply, unless you’re privileged. The Communist Party is going through leaders like Donald Moron Trump goes through unqualified cabinet secretaries. So, the addled Soviet Union turns to one of its few semi successes, space travel, for a taste of accomplishment. Two of its cosmonauts go into low-earth orbit, but three passengers return.
What unfolds next will have movie reviewers inevitably drawing comparisons between “Sputnik” and one of the two greatest sci-fi horror films ever, “Alien.” Labeling “Sputnik” an “Alien” derivative would be a false equivalency, however. It’d be like bashing “Alien” for mimicking “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” There’s nothing new in moviedom about films creature featuring critters living inside us. “Invasion” with Donald Sutherland is a terrific movie, as is “Alien” with Sigourney Weaver. In “Sputnik,” Oksana Akinshina is top notch as her character, neuropsychiatrist Tatyana Klimova. Amiably menacing Fyodor Bondarchuk as Colonel Semiradov, charming survivor cosmonaut Konstantin Veshnyakov played by Pyotr Fyodorov, and Anton Vasiliev donning the role of ambitious but riven Dr. Yan Rigel are excellent, too. Even the movie’s title is well executed. “Sputnik” means “fellow traveler” or “companion,” but, generally, in a friendly way. That’s not what we get here.
“Sputnik” is one of the finest sci-fi movies I’ve seen in years. It’s better than “Life,” “Annihilation,” “High Life” or “Ad Astra.” It approaches “Europa Report” and “Arrival” in quality in terms of applying science to decipher what’s occurring, as well as acting and atmosphere. As with “Arrival,” for example, there’s a strong and intelligent female as the principal player in “Sputnik.” There’s tension and a twist or two as the characters develop. There’s realism. In “Arrival” the militaries of the world take the lead in trying to understand the aliens that have parked ships above certain spots on Earth. In “Sputnik,” the Soviet army’s Semiradov is trying to weaponize the trilling, cute-ish, slimy symbiont emerging nightly from the esophagus of Veshnyakov to feed. Pay attention to that part, the feeding. The food the alien needs is produced by a human’s endocrine subsystem. The way the creature ensures that happens is one of the movie’s provocative and original ideas. Loved it.
Come to think of it, there’s one other parallel between “Arrival” and “Sputnik.” This one falls into the category of irritating with a caveat. Both films have annoying time spanning flashes that involve children. Where that was needed to tell the story in “Arrival,” it was not needed to tell the story in “Sputnik.” But, that’s a minor quibble.
Disregard Del’s take, if he even suggests in his introduction that the film stinks. To dislike “Sputnik” is to demonstrate short-circuited sensory response, poor reasoning, a flawed recollection of movie history, moral turpitude and full-on soullessness. Watch “Sputnik.” It’s so good that I’m hoping to buy the film on Blu-ray. This way, when some National Security Agency trained, white hat hacker blows up the internet in anger after losing his Luke Skywalker figurine still in the original package that he put up as collateral to speculate on cryptocurrency futures, I’ll be able to watch this film again and again without worrying about access to a streaming service.
Del’s take
Man, what a stinker!
(I am picturing Mladen frothing at the mouth, his eyes goggling out like one of those squishy rubber chickens.)
On second thought, mark your calendars, folks, because today is one of those rare occasions – snow falling on Labor Day, the Florida unemployment compensation site actually working – when Mladen and I agree on something. “Sputnik” is a splendid film, the kind once made in America before the MBAs took over Hollywood.
“Sputnik” is a period piece, set in that happy time frame – for the United States, anyway – of the 1980s when MTV played music videos, imported beer became all the rage and many of us had waistline measurements that did not begin with the number 4. Except in “Sputnik” we are mired in the drab, run-down Soviet Union where people seem drab and run-down themselves, perhaps wearied by the relentless and dispiriting reality of communism. Neuropsychiatrist Tatyana Klimova, who has lost her job because of her unorthodox methods, has been summoned to a remote military facility to examine one of two recently returned cosmonauts – the other is deceased – who is experiencing amnesia. Except there’s a complication and I like the way Mladen put it: “Two of its cosmonauts go into low-earth orbit, but three passengers return.”
That’s a creepy premise and the movie delivers on creep, offering start-to-finish tension that lets up only briefly to set the stage of an original and surprising finish, one I’m surprised Mladen didn’t crab about seeing as how it’s laden with sentimentality.
Mladen is right. “Sputnik” has drawn comparisons to “Alien,” but the world of fiction, be it print or moving picture, provides a surfeit of tales about small groups confined to small spaces facing a singular threat – the Agatha Christie novel “And Then There Were None,” the lighthouse couple in “Day of the Triffids,” and even the happy gang of “The Walking Dead” to name a few. “Sputnik” may tread familiar ground but it strikes its own path.
It is no coincidence a movie about a man afflicted with a destructive internal force and the woman determined to save him takes place in a creaky totalitarian regime that is rotting from the inside, and Americans should pay heed to the cautionary aspects of the movie, which equally reflect the intellectual and moral rot eating the heart out of this country. That comment may not sit well with the Sieg Heil crowd that seems to be running Washington these days, but you know what? They’ll get over it.
The Russians and Chinese are improving their movie-making skills – “Winter of the Dead” and “The Wandering Earth” are two examples – and “Sputnik” continues that trend. I don’t draw any political conclusions from this fact – I think the improvements have come in spite of their no-fun, no-inspiration political and economic systems. Like Klimova of “Sputnik,” some moviemakers in those repressed states have risen above their hopeless surroundings to find some measure of success. Let’s hope that trend is just the beginning.
I give “Sputnik” an A.
There, Comrade Mladen. Are you happy now?
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Recently I posted a link to a story about former Republican Congressman Aaron Schock, who finally admitted he is gay. Schock was known for opposing gay rights measures while in office.
In my post I said something to the effect that from now on, I would assume any Republican opposing gay rights is secretly closeted.
The post received a number of responses, some of them depressingly predictable in their defense of the GOP. So to clarify:
Do I believe each and every Republican lawmaker who opposes gay rights is secretly closeted?
Of course not!
That was a literary device, written for dramatic effect. Not every Republican lawmaker who opposes gay rights is secretly closeted, but some are, and they are being caught in homosexual trysts, which makes them liars and hypocrites.
I became curious about some of the examples and compiled this list. Bear in mind it’s only a PARTIAL list. I could have added more names:
Republican Bob Allen: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught offering a male undercover officer $20 to perform oral sex on him.
New Progressive (derived from the Republican Party) Robert Arango: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught posing shirtless on the gay sex solicitation app Grindr, resigned in shame.
Republican Roy Ashburn: Opposed LGBTQ rights (and blamed that on his constituents), arrested for DUI after partying at a gay nightclub. Admitted later he is gay.
Republican Bruce Barclay: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught hiring gay prostitutes and shooting videos of the sexual encounters.
Republican Robert Bauman: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught soliciting sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute.
Republican Randy Boehning: Opposed LGBTQ rights (and blamed that on his constituents), caught sending racy photos to a 21-year-old male on the gay sex solicitation app Grindr.
Republican Larry Craig: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught asking a male undercover agent for sex in a Minnesota airport men’s room.
Republican Richard Curtis: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught paying a young man for sex and dressing in women’s clothes.
Republican David Dreier: Opposed LGBTQ rights, discovered to be living with his “partner,” another man.
Republican Mark Foley: Caught soliciting teenage congressional pages, disgraced.
Republican Phil Hinkle: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught offering an 18-year-old male $140 for “a really good time.”
Republican Jon Hinson: Denied he was gay, married, caught performing oral sex on a man in a Washington, D.C. men’s room.
Republican Troy King: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught by his wife in bed with another man.
Republican Jim McRery: Opposed LGBTQ rights, accused of using his college fraternity as a front for gay activity.
Republican Glen Murphy Jr.: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught performing oral sex on a 22-year-old sleeping man.
Republican Aaron Schock: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught taking a shower with another man, admits on social media he is gay.
Republican Edward L. Schrock: Opposed LGBTQ rights, caught leaving messages on a gay sex line, did not seek re-election.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Saban Films and Mega Agency.
“Guns Akimbo” Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Samara Weaving, Ned Dennehy. Directed by Jason Lei Howden. 1 hour, 28 minutes. Rated R. Amazon Prime.
Mladen’s take
“Guns Akimbo” is largely a crappy movie, but I’m giving it an A. Here’s the sole reason by analog. The movie works with the premise that the internet is the equivalent of a blowjob by a mouth with acid saliva and fangs dripping neurotoxins. To stretch the analog, the blowjob will feel good for the first few seconds because the recipient hasn’t yet realized that he’s about to lose his member. That’s the internet for you. Ooh, Facebook is so neat. Look, I can share pictures of me and my family with anyone and that anyone turns out to be a scammer, pedophile or Putin bot telling you to join Proud Boys or Oath Keepers to make the world safe for democracy.
Yes, Del, I’m getting to the summary.
Miles (played by Harry Potter) is a loser coder who online insults a Dark Web show called Schizm – think first-person shooter with the shooters and their victims real persons. Offended Schizm creator Riktor (Ned Dennehy) and his goons kidnap Miles and surgically attach a pistol, one for each hand, to him with nuts and bolts and nails. For Miles to get de-pistoled or save his somewhat ex-girlfriend from Riktor and his sadistic clan of internetters or whatever, he has to whack Schizm’s reigning champion, Nix (Samara Weaving). Violent hijinks unfold with Miles at one point ranting into web-connected cameras that all this death and mayhem and cruelty and voyeurism happens because people keep watching it. The death and mayhem and cruelty and voyeurism are all your fault, Miles yells. The Schizm fans responded with a “Fuck you.” Maybe they knew Miles was one of them before he became a pawn in the non-virtual aspect of the web show, real death.
One way of describing “Guns Akimbo” (2019) is by noting it’s “The Truman Show” (1998) with a lot of cussing, blood splatter, casings ejected from receivers, and explosions. But, where Truman is funny and charming throughout, “Guns” doesn’t get funny or charming until Miles and Nix ally to destroy Riktor. Regrettably, that comes toward the end of the film.
Mostly, “Guns” is dour without achieving sardonic, which I believe was one of the director’s goals. Along with reminding me of “Truman,” “Guns” is tinged with “Judge Dredd” (2012) and “Sin City” (2005). Another seeming influence? Possibly, “Shoot ’Em Up” (2007), an underrated, though equally demented, movie.
“Guns”’ production quality is good, though the blood splatter looked like blobs of red gel departing plastic containers rather than liquid forced from skulls disrupted by high velocity projectiles. The film’s score matches its frenetic violence. The soundtrack is good, too. It’s a combination of classic rock-disco-pop (e.g. “Super Freak,” “You Spin Me Round”) and newer stuff. I added “When the Shit Goes Down” to my “It Ain’t No Use” playlist.
See “Guns Akimbo” because its heart is in the right place. The film states plainly that the internet is dangerous because we humans have no self-control.
Del’s take
Your potty mouth is showing, Mladen. No more R-rated movies for you.
As for “Guns Akimbo,” my impression is this: It’s a bloodier, filthier, funnier version of “Horns.”
I have finally trained Mladen, after years of shaming, to summarize the plots of movies we review so you know what “Guns Akimbo” is about. Suffice it to say if you have seen “Horns” you will appreciate a couple of things:
1. Daniel Radlcliffe seems hellbent on pursuing quirky, offbeat roles that will define him as a young turk.
2. “Guns” aspires to be as quirky and offbeat as Radcliffe’s aspirations but falls short of the mark.
As comedy it’s hilarious. The characters are hilarious as caricatures of stereotypes, if you choose to view them that way. The script is hilarious. Even the sight gags are hilarious – picture hapless Radcliffe fleeing the bad guys with pistols bolted to his hands, his bunny slippers flopping and his bathrobe flapping. I thought it was funny, the way a 12-year-old boy – and some retired journalists – find accidental farts to be funny.
As commentary it’s a shallow swoop as it becomes the very thing it criticizes, and I doubt director Howden meant that as a meta critique. The message of “Guns” is that the internet sucks and it’s letting our inner assholes off the leash. Well, yeah, tell me something I didn’t know.
Is “Guns” entertaining? Oh sure. I watched it start to finish, which is unusual for me. These days I’m usually nodding off then jerking away to find drool running down my chin long before Jimmy Fallon hits the air. But is “Guns” sophisticated storytelling? Nah, not that it tries to be. Howden seems content to produce a flavor of the moment and “Guns” will not have the staying power of, say, Cool Ranch Doritos.
Mladen soft-pedaled the violence. Sure, it was presented in the larger guise of humor, but Jesus Christ it was violent. I’m at a loss as to how Mladen can fuss about a single violent scene in “The Hunter” and laugh off the relentless torture and bloodshed of “Guns Akimbo.”
I don’t like casual cruelty because (a) it’s not entertaining, (b) it’s immoral and uncivilized, and (c) it desensitizes the viewer to real violence. That’s my theory. I’m sticking to it despite the grief all those “Fuck you” viewers may give me.
Mladen must have channeled his inner Antifa Bake Sale chairman to give “Guns Akimbo” an A rating. No, folks, it’s not an A. It’s clever. Production values are good. Acting is admirable. But it’s bloody and violent. There’s nothing new about its message. And 10 years from now it will be nine years past its shelf life.
I give it a B-.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Gage Skidmore by way of a Creative Commons search. https://www.flickr.com/people/22007612@N05
I’m not sure what to make of the Iowa caucus results.
I’m not even sure the results are valid. After the difficulties the Iowa Democratic Party experienced with the vote-counting app – apparently nobody had the foresight to sufficiently train users and test the software prior to Feb. 3 – we may never know who actually won.
The current result is Pete Buttigieg, who barely edged Bernie Sanders for the lead. I know that among Democratic frontrunners, Buttigieg and Biden are the most moderate, which gives me a bit more peace of mind. Folks like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren would, in my opinion, wreck the economy. The kids who support Free Everything are well-meaning but callow when it comes to understanding the brass-tacks functionality of our way of life.
Obviously many people like Donald Trump, which means if the Democrats want to win in November they must nominate somebody whose reach is even greater, which leads me to ask:
Can an openly gay man win the presidency?
For sure, America has made progress on this issue. In the past, being gay would have meant instant disqualification for any presidential candidate. Now, a gay candidate has won a state primary.
But is America ready to vote for a guy who would bring a First Husband to the White House? Who would be seen in news photos and on TV kissing a man?
Considering the recent uproar over the dissolution of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the Supreme Court confirmation of gay marriage, I don’t see church-going, blue collar America supporting a gay candidate, man or woman.
Let’s face it: There’s still a lot of intolerance out there, and when it comes to gay men, there’s a LOT of intolerance. I don’t think Americans would follow a Pete Buttigieg. More would than before, but not enough – certainly not enough to beat Trump.
If Buttigieg continues to win primaries he will lay the groundwork for a day when a gay candidate, male or female, CAN win the presidency.
But I don’t think that day is now. I think people will vote with what they’ve been taught, and right now that means four more years of Trump.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Neon.
“Shirley” Starring Elizabeth Moss, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg and Logan Lerman. Directed by Josephine Decker. 107 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Thus begins “The Haunting of Hill House,” a perfect novel befitting that perfect paragraph, and now blessed by a perfect dramatic rendition of the author’s life, “Shirley,” both an elegant and quixotic peek behind the curtain enshrouding horror writer Shirley Jackson.
Yet “Shirley” is not so much about Jackson as how she is perceived through the eyes of the callow wife of an instructor student who has come to Bennington College, Vermont, to learn how to be a literature professor. The young couple take room and board with Jackson and her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, an established professor at the college, and it is from that launching point we discover the people, and the story, and the frailties of intellect and ego, especially as they are coupled with eccentric, seemingly frail yet ultimately powerful collective of personalities.
The physical structure of the movie is as dingbatty as its subject material, flitting from reality to flashback to daydream and wish-fulfillment – muzzy, out-of-focus sequences that provide insight into the thought processes of their selectively sighted muse. Likewise for the score, which flicks from folksy twang tunes with hidden stories to slithery, slinky dream themes suggestive of everything, from the narcotic haze from which Jackson reputedly penned her stories to her repressed lust for Rose, the female half of their tenant couple.
“Shirley” threatens to become “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” but backs away and wraps itself in something entirely different. Where it does resemble “Woolf” is in its quartet of actors and the quality of their performances. Elizabeth Moss is just stunning as Jackson, and if she isn’t rewarded with some kind of statuary, well, there is no justice. Equally stunning is Odessa Young as Professor Nemser’s wife, who arrives in the story innocent and eager to please, and leaves it with a knowing look and tic. Michael Stuhlbarg, who we last saw in “Call Me By Your Name,” is perfect as Jackson’s amoral husband, who is jealous of her talent and sets her up to fail, the covetous embodiment of the bromide, “Those who can’t do, teach.” Logan Lerman has the least screen time of the four but does a creditable job as the student professor who embraces the college monde a little too enthusiastically.
“Shirley” is for literature fans and movie fans, which means its audience will consist of a quiet few, those people against whom the silence lays steadily, as they walk, alone.
I rate it an A.
Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Benson Kua
Photo courtesy of Benson Kua of flickr.
—
I am a lonely, miserable old man, with no reason to get up in the morning. I am alone now. I have always been alone, and I will always be alone.
Would you like to know why?
It is partly my own fault. I have always played it safe. I have never risked happiness. Small, safe steps has been my coda for as long as I can remember.
But it is partly because I have never, EVER been able to be the person I really am. I have always tried to be somebody else. The world required that I be somebody else, and for most of my life, I have been that person.
I did it because I was afraid – afraid I might be told I could not live in this house, or that neighborhood, or among those people.
I did it because I was afraid I would lose my job, that I would end up on the streets, penniless, another faceless person holding a sign at a street corner.
I did it out of a real fear for my safety. I have never been a fighter – or a lover, for that matter. I have always tried to slide by without drawing too much attention, an odd contradiction for somebody who is, or at least was, a public figure.
I did it primarily to spare my family the SHAME of having to live in a community that knew one of its members was a homosexual. Because that’s what our culture does to lesbians and gays, both overtly and covertly. It tells homosexuals that they are damaged goods – that they are defective, morally deficient … that they are unacceptable.
I did not want to subject my family to the harassment, the exclusion, the subtle whispering and the tsking and the million other ways our culture punishes anybody who is different, and anybody who happens to care about those different people.
So I have lived alone, and yes, it has bent me.
I have never known the joys of family, or companionship, or any of those things everybody else takes for granted. What I have known is coming home to an empty house every night. Enduring the withering hatred and aggression directed at people like me. Just trying to make it through the day without being ridiculed, beaten up or murdered.
Now that I am old, and nobody wants me, I have that and worse to look forward to.
Times have changed, but in many ways times have not changed. Some of things are still there – like racism, sexism, homophobia, and all the other “isms” and “obias” we haven’t grown out of.
And that’s why, when I see somebody trying to take back the meager gains that have been made over the past decade, I become angry. It’s not fair. It’s not right.
I should have told the world to go to hell and do what was best for me, but I didn’t, and now I’m stuck with this life which I cannot change.
I don’t want special treatment. I just want to have the same rights as everybody else.
And I don’t want to feel ashamed of being me.
—
Author’s note: Contact me at [email protected]. To read more of my opinion and humor pieces, visit delstonejr.com . I also write fiction – horror, science fiction and contemporary fantasy. If you’re a fan of such genres please check out my Amazon author’s page. Print and e-books are both available, and remember: You don’t need a Kindle device to read a Kindle e-book. Simply download the free Kindle app for your smart phone or tablet.
Video
Image courtesy of Kylie_Jaxxon on Flickr under the auspices of a Creative Commons license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kyliejaxxon/50649471396
On my way to the office this morning I stopped by a local convenience store to pick up a bottle of Diet Pepsi. I had five hours of work ahead of me before I could enjoy the Christmas “holiday.”
The convenience store was open. A tired elderly woman hugging a bag of something – maybe what would pass for her Christmas dinner – struggled to get the door open and then hurried off down the sidewalk. I don’t know why but I had a sneaking suspicion she didn’t have a place to live, and this would be the highlight of her day.
I went inside just as another vehicle, a pickup truck, pulled up. A man got out and headed for the front door. He was grinning ear-to-ear. Good for him.
I found a Diet Pepsi in the cooler and returned to the register. The cashier was doing something in another part of the store, but he stopped and went behind the counter to ring up my soda. I had seen him before because I had stopped at this story many, many times before.
“How did you get so lucky to work on Christmas morning?” I asked, chuckling.
“We all have to work,” he barked back, not happy. “All of us. Nobody gets the day off.”
I made some kind of consolatory noise and he continued, “No day off, no extra pay, not even a $5 gift card. Cheapest company I ever worked for.”
He was angry.
“In 65 years I never had to work on Christmas. This will be the last time. I’ve got to get out of this place.”
He handed me my change and said, “But YOU have a nice Christmas.” I picked up my Diet Pepsi and left as the grinning man headed toward the angry cashier.
I’d like to say there’s a moral to this anecdote, or some kind of silver lining, just something that carries it to a higher level than mere observation on a working Christmas morning, but the fact is, life is life, and that’s what it’s like these days.
And I just thought I would share.
Image courtesy of Kylie_Jaxxon of Flickr under the auspices of a Creative Commons license.
Author’s note: Contact me at [email protected]. To read more of my opinion and humor pieces, visit delstonejr.com . I also write fiction – horror, science fiction and contemporary fantasy. If you’re a fan of such genres please check out my Amazon author’s page. Print and e-books are both available, and remember: You don’t need a Kindle device to read a Kindle e-book. Simply download the free Kindle app for your smart phone or tablet.
Image courtesy of Lionsgate.
“The Turkey Bowl” Starring Ryan Hansen, Matt Jones, Alan Ritchson, Kristen Hager and Barry Switzer. Directed by Greg Coolidge. 2 hours. Rated R. Hulu, Epix, DIRECTV.
Del’s take
After your gut has been stuffed, your nap wrapped up, the football games watched and the dishes scrubbed to gleaming perfection, plop your ass down in the recliner and dial up “The Turkey Bowl” on Hulu or Epix to complete your Thanksgiving Day playlist.
Like Aunt Martha’s green bean casserole, “The Turkey Bowl” is neither bland nor tart. It’s a vaguely smile-inducing low-fi comedy that tries hard to be a lot of things but in the end simply fails to offend, which means people will like it OK but nobody will ask for the recipe. That’s my Cliff Notes review and I’m sticking to it.
The story is about Hodges (Ryan Hansen) who exchanges his small-town Oklahoma roots for the big city. He has a high-powered girlfriend (Blair Bomar as Ashley Sinclair) whose father (Sean McGraw as Sen. Sinclair) is running for president, and a successful business career in Chicago that allows him to never visit Mom and Dad or any of his former friends back home, including a semi-jilted ex-girlfriend, Jen (Kristen Hager). His plan to propose to Ashley over the Thanksgiving holiday at Daddy’s ski lodge in Colorado is derailed when he learns his best friend from high school, Mitchell (Matt Jones), has died. So he returns for the funeral, only to discover it was all a ruse to lure him back for a legendary football game between the Putnam Badgers, for which he quarterbacked, and cross-town rivals the Noble Knights. The score was tied 7-7 when a sudden storm moved in and the game was never finished. That proved to be a thorn in the side of the Badgers, who hadn’t beaten the Knights since the 1950s, and Hodges’ former team members (now in the 30s and grossly out of shape) are strapping on the cleats to finish the game and with luck, bring home a win for the Badgers.
What follows is a series of events that can best be described as farce, some of which you already know and can easily predict the outcome – does Hodges reconnect with Jen? Do the Badgers win the game? Is Hodges able to hide his hometown antics from Ashley and her dad? I won’t give you the answers, but I’d lay money on your best guesses.
You’ve seen “The Turkey Bowl” a dozen times before, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it again. Expect crude language and nudity, and lots of physical humor mixed with meant-to-be-funny dialogue and sight gags (at one point Hodges is placed under “arrest” and cuffed with an ankle bracelet, which turns out to be a dog’s shock collar).
The problem with “The Turkey Bowl” is that it never lives up to its hilarious potential. The story and actors offer the promise of an extremely funny movie, with absurdity layered on absurdity like the hilarious classics of the past like “Airplane!” and “Christmas Vacation,” but somehow the jokes fall flat. My humble guess is the timing is off. Director Coolidge could have profited from tighter editing. It’s as if “Animal House” had been remade by The Hallmark Channel.
Still, as Thanksgiving movie fare goes it’s not a bad way to spend that part of the night between sneaking leftovers from the fridge and falling into a turkey-induced coma that carries you through to the morning. Look for a funny performance from Niceville’s own Alan Ritchson, and who would have thought Barry Switzer, former head coach of Oklahoma Sooners and the Dallas Cowboys, could not only act but be so funny?
“The Turkey Bowl” is no “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and it will not become part of your Thanksgiving lore, but you could do worse. Did Bruce Willis ever make a Thanksgiving movie?
I give “The Turkey Bowl” a grade of B.
Mladen’s take
I watched “The Turkey Bowl” with a sour cranberries taste in my mouth that eventually subsided. The movie reminded me of my most ignominious act in high school. I dropped what would’ve been the winning touchdown pass during my school’s Homecoming football game. All I did was misjudge the trajectory of the approaching football by a couple of inches. Rather than the football floating over my right shoulder pad into my hands it hit it. Too much deflection. I was unable to adjust position to pluck the tumbling pigskin from the cool autumn air.
So, yeah, Del, much obliged for semi‑ruining my holidays because you chose “The Turkey Bowl” for us to review. You are responsible for traumatizing me with something I did decades ago.
The dropped pass memory triggered by Del is mitigated by the fact that for a few years after graduating high school, me and a group of high school friends would play a turkey-ish bowl of our own when we converged on the hometown for the holidays. I can’t recall if it was for Thanksgiving or during Christmas. The games weren’t against our county rival but they were fun. Sometimes there was snow on the ground.
Oh, the film. “The Turkey Bowl” is good enough to rationalize spending 120 minutes of your time if you’re properly fed and reclined to allow those weird semi-sleep states that I sometimes reach when I’m trying to avoid napping because it’ll screw my regular sleep. It’s also an adequate substitute for classic holiday – yes, I’m clumping Thanksgiving and Christmas together because, it seems, the U.S. is no longer interested in recognizing the two as events separated by time – movies such as “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” “Christmas Vacation,” “Home Alone,” and that overrated black-and-white one with whiny children and mysticism-tinged Christianity.
“The Turkey Bowl” takes patience. It’s like putting a meal into the crockpot. At first it’s raw but gets cooked and better fit for digestion over time. The beginning of the film annoyed me. It was campy, juvenile, and the acting a bit off. And, of course, there were cliches, particularly the one about old, out-of-shape men trying to relive their glorious youth by doing something nostalgic.
I wish the interaction among the Badgers when they were together, whether drinking or practicing for the bowl, was funnier. However, the scenes with our hero Hodges and his ex-girl Jen chit-chatting about this and that are charming. Also neatly set up was the contrast between Hodges’s blue-collar parents accepting him for who he is and his fiancée’s elitist liberal politicians trying to keep the image that they’re good, pure, and helpful intact. Hodges’s Mom eventually accepts that he’s a vegetarian and starts preparing vegetarian meals for him along with the hotdog casseroles and fried chicken for the Fox News-watching Dad. Hodges’s prospective father-in-law sics his bodyguard to spy on Hodges to make sure he does nothing to embarrass the politics- and money-driven U.S. senator who wants to be president.
“The Turkey Bowl” is a mash of movies we’ve all seen about a hometown boy leaving the hometown to do something great, coming back for some reason, and then staying for the simpler, happier life.
But, Del, a grade of B for the movie? No. Maybe you’re getting feely squishy because T-day and X-mas day are approaching and you want to be generous to show goodwill, but no. “The Turkey Bowl” is an intermittently entertaining film, which means it deserves a mid-grade grade. The movie is a C. It has just enough warmth and humor to make it an acceptable holiday flick. It will not become, for better or worse, a holiday classic.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Netflix.
“The Platform” (“El Hoyo”) Starring Ivan Massagué (Goreng), Zorion Eguileor (Trimagasi), Antonia San Juan (Imoguiri) and others. Directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. Rated for mature audiences. 1 hour, 34 minutes. Netflix.
Mladen’s take
“The Platform” is a very good movie that could’ve been great but for its descent into gratuitous violence.
How potentially great? The Spanish equivalent of South Korean “Parasite.” That’s how great. Recall that “Parasite” won the 2020 Oscar for Best Motion Picture. It was the first time a foreign film got the most prestigious nod from the Motion Picture Academy.
“The Platform,” perfectly kitted by a simple, soul‑scraping score from Aránzazu Calleja, buttresses what should be clear to all of us by now. Most humans are savages. There’s nothing those of us who aren’t can do about it.
Titled “El Hoyo” (The Hole) in Spanish, “The Platform” is a parable on many levels. Here’s the skinny, assuming I can summarize the movie’s plot.
The hoyo is an underground skyscraper with a rectangular cut centered on each subfloor. A levitating platform, a big ole block the parameter of an opulent dining table, packed with all sorts of food moves down through the subfloors, some three hundred of them. It stops at each subfloor, where the two often self-imprisoned occupants have 2 minutes to dine on whatever food there’s left. The inevitable kicker. The farther the platform descends the less food for the people below. Get it? It’s better to be on top.
Every 30 days, the Powers That Be gas the hoyo to move around the occupants. Those who were once at the top and had access to food before it disappeared may end up at the bottom and not get even scraps. The randomness of the monthly vertical displacement means hoyo occupants must prepare for survival, which often translates into murder and cannibalism, all of it vividly depicted again and again. Unfortunate. An imaginative, nicely acted movie about class gets distorted by “Hostel”-like violence. Let me say it again. Unfortunate.
There is terrific dialogue in this film. Goreng maintains most of his humanity, Trimagasi’s stark realism is understandable, and Imoguiri comes up with a solution for getting as many people as possible fed with the very limited supply of food on the platform. Her idea fails. Those above are unwilling to share with those below.
Maybe “The Platform” also riffs the fascist regime of Franco, who ruled Spain for decades starting in the late 1930s. There’s speculation by a character in the film – may have been Trimagasi, I can’t recall – that the Government was using the Hole as a social experiment to determine when regular folk would be pushed to the brink of cooperating to conquer mutually shared adversity such as hunger. Why? Because the underprivileged, who are always a vast majority of society, could coalesce into a rebellion with revenge as the goal if pushed too far. Who would be the target? The privileged, of course, including Government officials. Neat. The Government is trying to quantify how oppressive and depraved it can be before the masses take action to alter their miserable lives.
“The Platform” is a B+ 1 point from an A-. It pains me to give this terrific movie that grade. “El Hoyo” starts strong, stays strong to mid-point, and then deteriorates toward sadism to an unclear ending. Less splattering blood and fewer depictions of people carved for eating and, poof, “The Platform” would’ve reached A-land. Off I go to relive the film through Calleja’s masterful music, particularly “La Plataforma.” Oh, that insidious, almost lighthearted but certainly tinny tick-tocking as time to be humane runs out.
Del’s take
It’s not merely the Christmas spirit of charity that compels me to agree with Mladen. “The Platform” is a terrific movie ruined – for me, anyway – by graphic, stomach-churning violence. I don’t recommend it to anyone but those who can stomach extreme and bloody sadism.
A shame because it has crucial things to say about humanity, especially today, with knuckle-dragging, hate-spouting anti-intellectuals squabbling like pigs in a slophole over the dwindling largesse this planet has to offer. In fact, as the platform descended floor by floor, its offerings growing meager as it edged closer to an inferno of starvation and depravity, I saw the metaphor clearly:
That’s the world today. We are those people.
Speaking of which, moviegoers will not and have not embraced “The Platform” because they will not and have not embraced movies that offer such a bleak appraisal of the human condition. I maintain the portrayal is spot-on: With climate change, dwindling resources, division and untruth, a weird service-based economy and rampaging pandemics all around us, how can feeling good be a priority? What humanity needs is a swift kick in the ass and an admonition to get out there and change the world for the better. But that won’t happen, ever.
Most illustrative was the attitude changes of the people who shifted floors every month. A plan of action advanced by Goreng was that if each floor took only what it needed, even the people on the lowest levels would have something to eat, averting starvation and violence. Presumably the people on the lower levels, having suffered the greed and waste of those above them, would support such a strategy, but no. When they advance to the higher, more food-plentiful levels, the former low-level inhabitants become swine wallowing in an every-man-for-himself philosophy. Even when Goreng and a fellow cellmate try to organize the occupants of The Hole, or enforce their policy of selflessness, they’re defeated by anger and violence.
I watched this and was reminded of 2005, after Katrina devastated New Orleans and Fort Walton Beach became home to a flood of refugees from Louisiana who were buying gas, water and food and driving it back to the zone of destruction. I saw locals piling into gas stations, filling up the tanks on their gas-guzzling boats and personal watercraft as the lines grew longer and longer, and I wrote a column about it, admonishing those people to abstain from their personal pleasure so that our fellow Americans to the west could get back on their feet. The emails and letters I received were depressing – from people vowing to run all the gas out of their boats and return for a second helping, or more pointedly, that I go fuck myself.
For me that incident became a blunt illustration of humanity’s inherent savagery as Mladen put it, and I suppose “The Platform” seeks to be equally blunt. I personally could not get behind the blood, gore and depravity. Mladen argues the movie would have been better without all that but I’m not sure. I think when you soften the message, the message is lost on a lot of people. Subtlety is not one of our better qualities.
The ending? I won’t talk about the ending except to say it is dark. Literally. And darkness has always served as a metaphor for ignorance, decline, and evil.
Brace yourself for “The Platform.” You’ll never see it on The Hallmark Channel and that’s a good thing. When you’re done watching it, go out and do something unselfish. Make the world a tiny bit better.
Mladen Rudman is a technical writer and former journalist. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.