BlackJack_B Reviews

Nus et célèbres (2005 Video)

PPV titillation from France.

[20 January 2024]

I assume this was a French PPV as these were also common in Canada and the U. S. at the time of its release. Jerry Springer and various adult entertainment companies would offer cheap PPVs featuring nudity and adult situations.

The premise is that six men and six women talk about themselves and their bodies in front of a camera while stripping down to their birthday suits. Then there's some voting and one of the men and women appear in a room with a condom on a pillow. The object of the game is for the woman to "excite" the man with only words for them to win. It's just a scripted reality show contest.

It was droll to see that two of the men have credits in gay-themed films in France. Oh, and Anna is truly a Vietnamese hottie.

Goof on the Roof (1953)

The best of the latter-day Shemp shorts.

[9/10 · 16 January 2023]

Goof on the Roof is one of The 3 Stooges best shorts and definitely the best of the latter-day Shemp Howard entries. It's also one of the few Stooges shorts that features minimal interaction with other characters. It's all Moe, Larry and Shemp for about 15 minutes.

The boys are sleeping in their onesies when the doorbell rings and they find out that their roommate Bill has gotten married and wants them to move out. Bill also wants them to pay for the installation of a new TV Bill ordered for himself and his new bride. The Stooges decide to install the television themselves and give Bill and the Missus the money as a gift.

Hilarity ensues as the Stooges attempt to clean the house. Buckets of water, a stubborn door, a feather duster between the ears and Moe eating a soap and mustard sandwich and downing it with vinegar are among the slapstick comedy moments of the first half.

When the television arrives, the real damage to the home occurs as Larry lays waste to a wall while looking for the TV knob, Shemp destroys the TV looking for his Cracker Jack ring and Moe gets electrocuted. When Bill and the Missus arrives, they won't recognize the place.

With the constant slapstick of this short, the laughs keep coming. It is a gas seeing Shemp with a bucket over his head from slipping on a bar of soap or the door knocking him down. If you're looking for a surefire short dose of comedy, Goof on the Roof delivers.

Never try to repair your television yourselves, folks.

Bitter Lands (2018–2022)

It was the best show on television in the last three years, as far as I'm concerned.

[8/10 · 27 August 2022]

During the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, we both became hooked on this great television soap opera. We watched it on MTV Lebanon where it was dubbed in Arabic. In a time where American T. V. is at an all-time low when it comes to entertaining programming, BZC harkened back to the 1970s and 1980s when you had great dramatic shows such as Dallas and Dynasty.

The story about two families (the Yaman and the Fekeli clans) and their twists and turns was dynamite the first two seasons and a half. This was a show I didn't want to miss as it aired daily. Sadly, once they began killing off the major characters it started to lose its mojo. The 4th and last season was about these crime bosses involved with Julia and crazy Batul and her mother trying to destroy what was left of the Yaman family and it wasn't as good.

Regardless, this was a wonderful show while it lasted and provided us entertainment during the lockdown and beyond. Great characters that you cared about, the beautiful setting of Southern Turkey and some comedy made this a pleasure to watch.

I wish my Grandmother could have seen this show. The character of Hammine reminded me her.

Three Sappy People (1939)

Lorna Gray steals this one.

[8/10 · 8 January 2022]

Three Sappy People is a favorite of mine due to Lorna Gray's performance. She reminded me of a woman I knew a few years back who was a spitting image of her in this short.

The Three Stooges play three inept phone repairmen. During their attempt to fix the switchboard, they are then mistaken for the psychiatrists in the office they are doing work in. Due to Curly's friend/wife/dog Gertie "expecting any minute", they decide to portray the 3 psychiatrists named Ziller, Zeller and Zoller to make money to help Gertie. Fortunately for The Stooges, these three psychiatrists are known for their unorthodox methods.

The patient in question is Sherry Rumsford (Gray) who is the young, restless and vivacious wife of J. Rumsford Rumsford (Don Beddoe) who wants her wanderlust sated. The boys run amok at the party and at the dinner table hoping they can cure Sherry and collect.

The star of this episode aren't any of the Stooges but Gray. The then 22-year old actress is absolutely infectious whether she's talking, laughing or parking her car INSIDE the mansion. She has a devil-may-care attitude that is very appealing. Ann Doran, playing a countess who Curly annoys, is also a standout. I found her very attractive. Other Three Stooges' regulars such as Bud Jamison (playing a butler) and Richard Fiske (playing a guest) are also in the cast.

While not one of their elite shorts, Three Sappy People is still quite good. I never get tired of watching Lorna Gray and Ann Doran in this one.

Fiction in Bed (2018– )

One of the better Playboy TV programs.

[7/10 · 8 January 2022]

Fiction In Bed is an erotic drama/comedy that features Elizabeth Church (who I don't find particularly attractive facially) as a narrator who reads books in various stages of undress while in bed. The stories are divided into five chapters where we see the lives of ordinary people and their love lives. I believe there were 7 episodes and an 8th "Best Of" show.

Church starts each episode setting up the story and adds narration when necessary. At times, she will break the 4th wall by appearing with the characters in the episode (though they don't see her) and egging them on.

The stories are entertaining and decently well-written and acted. One story features a bickering couple whose love life gets reignited when they both become attracted to a female food courier. Another is about two co-workers seeking a "philosophical discussion" during their office's Christmas Party. Yet another one is about two female video gamers competing against each other over getting a specific rank in a fictional game. The most interesting story features an Eastern European trophy wife named Milena (based on Melania Trump) who is tired of living as a queen and dealing with her husband/king Ronnie (modeled after Donald Trump) who mocks and belittles her. She eventually falls for the computer specialist that Ronnie keeps sending over named Ernie (obviously named after Bernie Sanders) who is really an FBI agent trying to bring down Ronnie's corrupt empire.

The sexual situations are more playful than explicit but the casts for these episodes are attractive or look like everyday joes. The stories are entertaining and run the gamut from fantasy to dealing with reality.

All in all, it's certainly worth a watch if you have any version of Playboy.

Year of the Jellyfish (1984)

Mom vs. Daughter with jellyfish and the ColecoVision in tow.

[6/10 · 15 May 2021]

You've go to love a movie in which the ColecoVision makes a cameo appearance. At one point, a teenage boy and later Chris (Valerie Kaprisky) are playing Zaxxon on the ColecoVision. The game was priced at what equates to $133 U. S. today but was worth every penny. One of the many memorable scenes in this drama. Actually, others might have a differing opinion of Year of the Jellyfish due to the sheer amount of skin exposed. It was shown here in Quebec on Saturday nights as part of TQS' Bleu Nuit.

Christopher Frank, who directed the movie version of his own novel, tells us the story of Chris and her mother Claude (Caroline Cellier) competing for the same man while on vacation in the French Riviera. They both like Romain Kalides (Bernard Girardeau) who pimps ladies to wealthy men looking for pleasure. Chris also fools around with Vic (Jacques Perrin) a well-to-do married man who looks facially like Alan Alda and has a threesome with another vacationing couple but it's Romain that she wants. When it's obvious that her mother is going to win this contest, well...

Visually, there's nothing to complain about as the cast is attractive and the acting is good. Cellier won the Best Supporting Actress Cesar Award for her performance as a nubile cougar. However, this movie is all Kaprisky. At one point, Chris sits on the bed in her birthday suit and wants to watch music videos and shake her head to the rhythm. Vic then sits next to her and turns off the T. V. in hopes of having a "philosophical discussion" with her. This causes Chris to go into a violent rage over not being allowed to have her fun and Vic agrees to bed her at her own leisure. She then calms down, turns the T. V. back on again and resumes dancing in a sitting position to the rhythm while Vic can only watch and wait.

Can't say the direction was very good. Frank certainly was a paint-by-numbers director and it shows. Seems like he just wants to shock the audience or appease teenage boys than tell a coherent story. Also, many scenes elicited unintentional laughs for me.

Regardless, this is entertaining melodrama for the most part. Not Citizen Kane or Django Unchained, mind you, but good for a slow winter's night. The temperature will definitely rise when Valerie shakes her moneymaker.

Violent Is the Word for Curly (1938)

When finding Corona was a good thing.

[10/10 · 29 July 2020]

The strangely named Three Stooges short Violent Is the Word for Curly is packed with action during its 18 minute run time and offers some classic situations that make it one of their quintessential efforts.

The boys have gotten jobs as service men at a gas station. They are to offer "Super Service" to their customers but instead give 'Stupid Service". Three German professors (Feinstein, Frankfurter and Von Stupor) make the mistake of having their lunch while the Stooges "service" their jalopy. The results are hilarious and a lunch is ruined. Another customer comes in, asking to check on his ice truck. After they destroy the professor's jalopy, they escape in the ice truck which contains the professor's suitcases that Larry threw into said truck.

After the truck runs out of gas, they find out they have to thaw out Curly because he now resembles a frozen dainty. They put him on a spit and after he thaws out he jumps into a creek because he's seared. After dragging Moe and Larry into the creek, the boys dress up in the professor's clothes and are found by Mrs. Catsby of Mildew College; who thinks they're the German professors.

The Stooges wreak havoc on the college but also get the girls to perform a quaint version of "Swingin' The Alphabet". The real professors eventually show up at Mildew and the Stooges do what they can to keep them from leaving.

Violent is packed with a lot of content and classic bits and gags. It probably would have been better if the Stooges made longer shorts but as is this one is still very entertaining after dozens of viewings

Big Bad Mama (1974)

All aboard the jalopy of money and debauchery!

[6/10 · 4 May 2020]

I remember reading about Big Bad Mama in one of those "magazines" in my father's grocery store when I was a kid. There was an article showcasing some explicit scenes featuring Angie Dickinson and William Shatner that didn't appear in the final cut. It took many more years before I actually saw the film.

This is your typical drive-in movie from the 1970s; I probably saw it for the first time on the old Drive-In Classics channel here in Canada. It's pretty much a clone of Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty's classic Bonnie & Clyde but instead of 4 future Oscar winners, a great script and multi-faceted characters we get nudity, one-dimensional characters and insipid dialogue. However, much like The Asylum in the present day you can't help but admire what Roger Corman was doing in his day. He wasn't trying to win Oscars or impress critics. He was giving his loyal fanbase what they wanted.

Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson) and her two very, very nubile daughters Billy Jean (Susan Sennett) and Polly (Robbie Lee) go from East Texas to California robbing banks and causing mayhem. They are joined by Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt), a fellow bank robber who was trying to rob the same establishment as the ladies and William J. Baxter (William Shatner), a dishonest gambler. Their goal is to make a million dollars and never have to deal with being poor again.

Dickinson portrays Wilma as a devoted mother who only wants the best for her two daughters but doesn't seem to care that they're out of control. She is pretty stoic at all times. Billy Jean and Polly are two fey party girls just looking to booze, smoke and get it on. They are constantly on a caffeine high. Diller is a weak-minded man who does Wilma's bidding without question and later gets Polly pregnant. Poor Shatner is relegated to playing some huckster that the film could have done without. He's high-maintenance and feels like he got himself into something he didn't want to be a part of.

Lots of skin and debauchery to be found here as Dickinson, Sennett and Lee certainly were not shy about shedding their clothes. It's also a violent film but the shootouts are seemingly more comical slapstick than, say, what you would see in The Wild Bunch.

In the end, it's another fun and raunchy Corman production for those who just want to see a quick and violent flicker that isn't afraid of the censors. If you're looking for pedal-to-the-metal sex and violence, Big Bad Mama delivers.

Young Lady Chatterley II (1985)

Harlee, Sybil and Monique...oh, yeah!

[7/10 · 3 May 2020]

Young Lady Chatterley II is the sequel to the original film that also starred Harlee McBride. This movie takes place in the present and features McBride as Cynthia Chatterley, a descendant of her character in the prequel. Cynthia just loves to get it on and succeeds in doing so.

Of course, she has to deal with the goings-on at her Manor. An American professor named Arthur Bohart Jr. (Adam West LOL) goes around looking for proof that another woman prior to Lady Godiva rode nude on a horse. A former flame, now a priest, visits the Manor with his sister and nephew and a ruthless businessman wants to buy the Manor so he can build a nuclear power plant on it.

Of course, none of that really matters as the real reason to watch this film is to see the ladies. Harlee looks amazing and her character is a compassionate, kind and sweet lady who wouldn't turn her back on anybody. Sybil Danning's Judith Grimmer is a shrewish lady that is just waiting for the right man to push her buttons. Monique Gabrielle plays Eunice the Maid and performs with a cute English accent to go along with her formidable "gifts".

It doesn't overstay its welcome, the characters are entertaining and the Manor is just as beautiful as its residents. Certainly worth a view on a slow day.

T.J. Hooker (1982–1986)

Sgt. James T. Kirk.

[2 May 2020]

After a lean run for William Shatner in the 1970s, things began looking up for him after the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and since then he has gotten steady work in film and television. Shatner signed on to star as the title character of the cop show T.J. Hooker as a former detective who decides to go back to being a uniformed street cop in order to rid Lake City of crime in the memory of his former partner.

There's nothing special about T.J. Hooker; it's just another cop show like the dozens of others before and after it. I just think it's a stretch for Shatner and Heather Locklear to play cops. Shatner could play Captain James T. Kirk or a gangster or somebody who's a bit nutty but I found it droll to see Shatner and that rug on his head running around and doing those rolls versus the thugs of Lake City. Aaron Spelling regular Heather Locklear, all 5 feet and 98 lbs of her, is miscast here. Adrian Zmed as Officer Vince Romano and James "Moondoggie" Darren as Officer Jim Corrigan fare better. It's clear the cast were hired on their good looks than playing convincing police officers.

Regardless, I like TJ Hooker because there's that feeling of zaniness seeing Shatner, Locklear and Co. playing against type. Shatner doesn't disappoint with his brand of acting here. His presence carries this show. If you liked him in Star Trek, you'll like him here.

Recommended.

Gus (1976)

Oyake, no logic here.

[3/10 · 1 January 2020]

I remember seeing Gus back in elementary school on those old spinning tapes and a projector in the 1970s. For some reason, the film left an indelible mark on me. Perhaps it got me into the NFL, which I still enjoy immensely to this day. Regardless, this is a low-budget Disney film where most of the money went into the impressive cast.

Hank Cooper (Ed Asner) owns the inept NFL California Atoms who are unrealistically bad. He's going broke because he apparently is in debt to mobsters Charles Gwynn (Harold Gould) and Cal Wilson (Dick Van Patten) but will be relieved of all his debts if the awful Atoms can win the Super Bowl.

As a way to boost attendance, Cooper brings in Yugoslav Andy Petrovic (Gary Grimes) and his ball kicking mule Gus as an attraction. When Gus kicks a 100 yard field goal, Asner instructs his hapless head coach (Don Knotts) to bring him into the game and after finding out it isn't illegal he becomes the new placekicker with Andy as the holder.

The Atoms start winning and Gwynn and Wilson get desperate so they hire two ex-cons in Crankcase (Tim Conway) and Spinner (Tom Bosley) to deal with Gus.

Meanwhile, Andy tries to prove to his parents that he's accomplished something in athletics but Papa Petrovic is not convinced. Andy hopes that he change that.

Gus has a great cast but the film is so hokey and silly that even these talents can't do anything with the story. The film, like Freaky Friday, has a cheap look to it with overuse of the projector behind the actors. Bob " Lover" Crane as Pepper comes off as loud and overbearing as a play by play man. There should have been more of Dick Enberg, who actually was a legend in regards to play by play.

Also, lots of illogical stuff. The California Atoms play real NFL teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams but in the Super Bowl, they face the fictional Minnesota Mammoths? Also, why is Danny Wells always the referee? Why would somebody involved with bookies be owning an NFL team? How could a grocery store allow such tomfoolery for 25 minutes and do nothing about it? I guess children don't care about that.

If you're a Disney fanatic that has to watch everything from the House of the Mouse you'll probably check it out. Otherwise, pass unless you're a die hard fan of the comic actors featured.

H.O.T.S. (1979)

Danny Bonaduce and the Playmates.

[5/10 · 1 January 2020]

H.O.T.S. is your typical Drive-In Classic featuring lots of exposed bosoms and little else. If you're a fan of The Asylum's nudie films then H.O.T.S. will be right up your alley. The only difference is that the film's dialog isn't as raunchy as Barely Legal or Celebrity Sex Tape but it's pretty tepid.

A group of ladies spurned by the uptight and egotistical PI sorority form their own group called H.O.T.S. with the goal of stealing the PI's boyfriends and humiliating them any way they can. There's also a subplot with two escaped thugs attempting to break into the H.O.T.S. sorority house to get the stolen loot they hid before they were incarcerated.

Danny Bonaduce is Richie Walker, an obnoxious, sexist and full-of-himself wannabe "musician" and ladies-man turned touch football commentator who tries to bed these ladies with "hilarious" results.

There's not much humor in this sophomoric comedy except for the scene where the thugs play salesmen promoting a robot who can clean the girl's home. When Bugs Benny gets too close to the ladies he gets all steamed up and out of control. Reminded me of that old Bugs BUNNY short where he outsmarts Elmer Fudd's robot. I laughed at that scene.

The cast is full of attractive Playboy Playmates but there's nothing that makes most of them stand out from each other. The only one who does stand out is Mary Steelsmith's Clutz, for obvious reasons. Basically, they have one thing on their mind: FUN!

If you've watched every other nudie film and want something less raunchy then this one is OK. At least everybody seems to have no silicone, which is a positive.

The Masked Singer (2019–2024)

Bread & Circuses comes to life. Again :(

[1/10 · 16 September 2019]

The Masked Singer is something that could be compared to the sentiments of those who hated Disco in the 1970s. This is mindless, consumerist, overproduced escapist fare that shows how low society has fallen. Instead of compelling television we see people high on Red Bull screaming like banshees to an audience also high on caffeine. Now add a poor attempt to impersonate The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo ad infinitum to the program and you've got something that looks like a bad mix of Let's Make A Deal (Wayne Brady's version) with The Gong Show and all the tired trappings of musical "reality" television thrown in. The Masked Singer is another example of product from a country that has given up.

Look at the judges. The painfully unfunny Ken Jeong, the brainwashed ditz with the IQ of soap in Jenny McCarthy, the zero talent Nicole Scherzinger and the equally untalented Robin Thicke. You've got plastic lover Nick Cannon as host and a bunch of desperate for attention "singers" appearing every week on some rigged malarkey. Every performance is a cringe-worthy, overproduced spectacle. It's a pure circus weekly. This has no business being on network TV. It's atrocious.

If there's one redeeming factor about The Masked Singer it reveals, as one pundit opined, "a pretty fascinating examination of celebrity culture, mass appeal, performance, image, and fame." Unfortunately, that examination is quite frightening in an America run by somebody detached from reality. People are starving to death, living in abject poverty or struggling with mental health issues but the masses want to see rich people acting the fool daily. The populace needs to wake up and realize our society is eroding to the point of no return. Do the networks care? No way. Money is their "God".

20 years of this mind-numbing trash is enough. For the sake of Kerouac, please stop supporting "reality" television. We deserve better from the networks.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Disappointing and often boring film about Freddie Mercury.

[6/10 · 19 November 2018]

Queen is a guilty pleasure of mine. I'm more of a Beatles/Rolling Stones/Doors/Led Zeppelin type but Queen is one of the most entertaining groups to come down the pike. They employed many genres in their music such as glam, disco, opera, gospel, rockabilly and straight-ahead rock and were led by the often imitated, never duplicated Freddie Mercury. I was very interested in seeing Bohemian Rhapsody and, well, it was a disappointment.

I don't know why the producers chose to create a sanitized film about the life of Freddie. Many of us know that Freddie was a very private man who didn't grant many interviews and disliked the press infringing on his matters. Outside of his music and concerts. we know very little about him. So, they chose to use creative license to make up stuff, rearrange history and distort his life. As expected from a PG-13 film we get uninspiring dialogue, Freddie's homosexuality being trivialized (and made to be seen as harmful) and Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon relegated to being meaningless fringe characters.

Much of the movie, when not re-enacting concerts or recordings, is focused on Freddie's personal and emotional battle between his heterosexual love for Mary Austin and his homosexual love for Paul Prenter, who is ridiculously portrayed as a villain. His relationship with his real-life boyfriend Jim Hutton is barely acknowledged. Utter claptrap that wasn't needed and slows down the film to a crawl.

To be fair, the concert footage (especially Live-Aid) is superb and Rami Malek delivers a masterful performance as Mercury. He deserves a Golden Globe or Academy Award nomination as it's nothing short of brilliant. 5 of my stars go to him.

If you're a fan of Queen, yes, you should go to the theater and see this movie just for Malek's unreal performance as Freddie but don't expect much more out of the film. It's a wasted opportunity to learn about one of the greatest showmen in rock music history.

The Proposal (I) (2018)

Bread and Circuses comes to life :(

[18 August 2018]

I know this show is obviously staged. I know this show is obviously scripted. I know that no sane human being would appear on this program to parade himself or herself like a piece of meat with other strangers in front of yet another stranger unless it was an act. I know Bob Iger is a disgrace as a CEO or whatever he is at Disney; using this tacky and tasteless Bachelor series to fill out his Monday schedule on ABC. I know that Jesse Palmer will do anything for a pay check. What I don't know is why this show was even green-lighted in the first place.

It's basically a season of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette condensed into 40 minutes and nothing more. Only now you have a coached audience high on Red Bull cheering the festivities on and a mysterious human asking personal questions to the prospective suitors. Just like the episode of Star Trek in the title, it shows how low network television is willing to go to get attention. This is exactly why I avoid the networks (except for the CBC here in Canada) entirely. The Proposal is a show emblematic of a country that has given up.

I only hope that people actually know this entire trainwreck is staged but I genuinely fear some actually believe that what they're seeing is real.

My Breakfast with Blassie (1983)

You have to get kayfabe.

[5/10 · 28 August 2017]

My Breakfast With Blassie is a parody of Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre and unlike that classic work, this movie is nowhere as memorable. Performance artist Andy Kaufman (still selling the injured neck he suffered at the hands of Jerry "The King" Lawler) has breakfast with legendary pro wrestler and manager Fred Blassie as they discuss life, breakfast, pro wrestling and various ways of insulting people.

As expected, Kaufman delivers a restrained performance for the most part except when he starts arguing with women seated nearby while Blassie remains stoic. Bob Zmuda (Kaufman's manager) plays a man obsessed with his phlegm who harasses the two. The best parts are when they are discussing their careers in the ring or the interruptions from various people but much of the film is slow and talky. Kaufman could be a frustrating talent but that's how the man operated. You had to wait for the payoff with his material. It's only an hour long so it doesn't overstay its welcome but the film could have been so much better. However, if you are a fan of these two its worth viewing once in a while.

It's a shame Kaufman died so young, though. He had a unique way of making people laugh.

The Voice (2011– )

Yet another overwrought reality television show.

[24 April 2017]

With the cancellation of American Idol (only briefly, unfortunately), The Voice is now the premier "find a new recording artist to market to the adolescents" show on network T.V. Unfortunately, it is still garbage just like all of reality television.

Other than the ridiculously convoluted way they pick a winner (which seems to take ages to go through) the show relies on the same reality television formula that has been done to death. You have your typical stereotypical wannabes who probably were found butchering songs on YouTube, flashing skin on Facebook or prostituting themselves on Instagram. They have judges and mentors (some of which are terrible singers with personalities as noxious as a sewer or faker than a $3 bill) trying to teach these stiffs how to "sing" better. It's like Chinese Water Torture.

Hosted by Ryan Seacrest wannabe Carson Daly, the current judges include hack country singer Blake Shelton, his boyish, flat-butted girlfriend Gwen Stefani, douchebag of the decade Adam Levine and Casting Couch Connoisseur Alicia Keys. If you wish to see people make an embarrassment of themselves, watch The Gong Show. On the other hand, if you need a cure for insomnia...

Match Game (2016–2021)

Not-so-good reboot of the classic 70's game show.

[5/10 · 17 April 2017]

I am a big fan of Match Game from the 1970's. I watched the show as a kid from 1975-1982, watched reruns on The Game Show Network or whatever it's now called and YT is full of episodes and classic moments. It is tough for a reboot to match (no pun intended) the classic Match Game hosted by Gene Rayburn and this one just doesn't make the grade.

I watched episodes from both the summer of 2016 and the new episodes being aired in 2017.

I actually think Alec Baldwin is a great host for the show. I'm no fan of the guy but he fits in perfectly with his sleazy, douche-y persona and he pays homage to Gene by using a microphone like the one Mr. Rayburn built for the show. I have zero issues with him.

I do have some issues with some of the panelists they bring in. Some of them look like they drank a case of Red Bull before coming in for the taping. Niecy Nash overplays the sassy black woman to the hilt that it becomes annoying. Mario Cantone is your typical unfunny stock flaming queen who is no Charles Nelson Reilly. I'd rather have a guy who only implies he's gay than somebody who is loud and proud such as Cantone. Some panelists even have contempt for the contestants and gave purposely wrong answers.

The contestants can be annoyances as well. They love bringing in brainwashed female religious fanatics from Jesusland or other stereotypical flaming queens with the big flashy smile and the limp- wristed clapping.

The blanks are typically about sex or politics and people in the summer got their panties in a bunch when Donald Trump was the topic and you had Alec Baldwin (who is known for his portrayal of him on Saturday Night Live) and Rosie O'Donnell (who hates Trump) taking shots at him. Are people not aware that Mr. Trump isn't exactly a normal human being?

Way too often in the Head-to-Head Match, the other panelists stick their noses where they don't belong. Could you imagine if the late, great Richard Dawson had every other panelist in his face every time he was picked?

It's an OK show but the more you watch it, the less you like it. Hopefully, Neil DeGrasse Tyson appears again as he was great in his one appearance.

What's Up, Doc? (1972)

Babs throws a screwball.

[9/10 · 28 September 2016]

While I'm not a fan of Pierre Elliot Trudeau's ex-girlfriend, there's no question Barbra Streisand is a superlative talent as an actress, singer and composer. She has more talent in her pinkie finger than Jennifer Lawrence has in her whole body. She owns What's Up Doc? fully and delivers a tour-de-force performance. Streisand sings, acts, showcases her comedic chops and even sizzles with her understated sensuousness throughout the zany proceedings.

Peter Bogdanovich's delicious take-off of the classic screwball comedies of yesteryear is spiced up with references to iconic Bugs Bunny cartoons. Bab's Judy Maxwell is a wisecracking, confident go- getter who is attracted to mousy scientist-musician Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal), who has come to San Francisco with his frigid fiancée Eunice (the late great Madeline Kahn in her film debut) to compete for a grant.

You also have a hilarious game of cat-and-mouse involving four exactly alike duffel bags being stolen and re-stolen by various shady characters (one of whom is future Boss Hogg Sorrell Booke) without them looking inside of them. These individuals and Maxwell reek havoc on the posh hotel in uproarious fashion.

Eventually, these two story lines mesh in a crazy chase through the streets of San Francisco where the screwball also meshes with Bugs Bunny.

I really enjoyed WUD. It actually is a funny film and the references to the classic film shorts are spliced in at the right time. Like so many other Warner Brothers films of the last Golden Age of Cinema, you will never see anything like this today. It's family-friendly but adults will find plenty to tickle their funny bone. In a day of fart jokes, blue humor and sexual tastelessness, there is always the classics to turn to and WUD is a fine film.

If only there were more Judy Maxwells in Ottawa...

Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas (2014)

Razzie Award winning Christmas nonsense.

[1/10 · 13 July 2016]

I don't know what the story is behind Kirk Cameron's over 25 year run as a Fundamentalist Christian. Gay rumours, a concussion, alienating the cast of Growing Pains, who knows? The last two decades as a Hope Dope Dealer have made him a laughingstock to mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics and of course, atheists like myself. However, he is making a decent living preaching to the converted with his twisted ideologies.

Saving Christmas is a truly awful film. It's nothing more than Kirk playing himself as he rattles on about hot chocolate and his ridiculous views about Christmas. He pushes the "reason for the season" to his nutty brother-in-law Christian (played in excruciating manner by Darren Doane, who also directed) in a car. We also see stereotypical black men talking ebonics.

This is the slowest 80 minutes you'll ever encounter. Kirk and his buddies at the ironically named Liberty University padded this film with tons of slow motion and idiotic dancing from brainwashed people who believe in fairy tales. This is pure torture.

The acting is brutal throughout. Kirk is probably the least annoying yet he won two Razzies when Doane should have won one for playing a stammering nincompoop who looks like Al Snow.

I'll be nice and say that they made St. Nicholas look like a total boss and the human beatbox old school rapping during the purposely overlong credits are good (I like old school freestyle rap) but the ridiculous myths about swaddling clothes, Christmas gifts looking like New Jerusalem and seeing a bunch of white people making Emily Ratajkowski look like Mikhail Baryshnikov when it comes to dancing will overwhelm any good bits this bore offers. If you want to laugh at a Fundie film, stick with A Thief In The Night. If you want a cure for insomnia, on the other hand...

Screen Test (1985)

The prototype that The Asylum has made a fortune with.

[6/10 · 11 January 2016]

Screen Test is a film that has become unfairly obscure in a huge sea of horny guy teen flicks. Among the Private Schools, Porky's and Bachelor Parties it is Screen Test's story line that is still used and re-used by studios such as The Asylum.

A bunch of horny men concoct a scheme in order to get some action by pretending that they are porn film directors and then find out that their plan might lead them to an early death when they cross the mob.

The real reason to see this film is for the Goddess that is Monique Gabrielle. She appears three times and shows everybody her goods. There are a few funny scenes in this low budget film such as the two guys pretending to be the Siskel & Ebert of sex toys or seeing the kids watching an accidental broadcast of the porn movie and then the boy telling the two girls that he wants them to join him in bed but it's not really anything special outside of the plot. None of the actors ever did anything of note before or after this. However, if you're a fan of the nudie films of The Asylum you should try to find this film to see where they got all their ideas for a few of their films such as Celebrity Sex Tape.

Naked News (1999– )

Pure cringe-worthy cheese.

[29 July 2015]

From some dank basement in downtown Toronto, The Naked News has been delivering pop-culture cheddar to the Internet since 1999. For a monthly or yearly subscription fee, people can see lipstick feminists shaking their moneymakers all in the name of Girl Power.

Imagine Entertainment Tonight or some lurid sex show with nude women...that's The Naked News. 20-25 minutes, 6 times a week of "sexy" women reading off of a telestrator. You should see these women as a lot of them have massive egos and think they are worthy of having shrines built to them. The good and beautiful anchors are the ones who realize the whole racket is just to be tongue-and-cheek and not to be taken seriously (Eila Adams, Madison Banes, Angie Heyward, Carli Bei, Isabella Rossini) but the women who shove their agendas down people's throats are unbearable.

First, we have Katherine Curtis. Ms. Curtis is a self-proclaimed nerd and humorless ultra-leftist bitch who acts like she is above everyone. The entire time she shows up on camera she flaunts her massive ego and spews her ridiculous ultra leftist beliefs to everybody while thinking she still has a killer body. Back in 2007 she was hot stuff, now, not so much with the flabby backside. She is also a co-writer and co-producer (as is Eila) but you can tell what segments she wrote.

Next is Peyton Priestly, Ms. "I only eat organic food and support animal rights". Certainly a great all-natural body but a nasally and annoying voice and sporting a massive ego to boot.

Then we have her identical twin sister Whitney St. John, who is only there when school is out. She has fake bosoms, wears nerd glasses to show how "smart" she is and thinks she's a big deal. She talks like a school professor.

Finally we have Natasha Olenski and Andrea Sully, two women from the Eastern Bloc. Olenski is not beautiful at all unless you like bad breast augmentation and while Sully's work is better, her behind is as flat as a board and both have voices that grate on my ears.

Despite the motto "The Program With Nothing To Hide" the location of their studio is a guarded secret. Of course, they do come out and do topless interviews made possible by my province's Topfree laws. They do lame man-on-the-street interviews about trivial stuff to bemused people embarrassed to be on camera.

The real kicker is the forced repartee between the ladies. It's painful to watch. It sounds like a conversation between women who deep down hate each other's guts but must pretend to be buddies. When you watch the local news, you can tell there's camaraderie between the anchors. Not here. Then again, I wouldn't want to be near Ms. Curtis, Ms. Priestly or Ms. St. John, either. Nothing like being told what to do with you life, eh?

If you want to pay for an overpriced subscription to be bored to death half the time by women spewing leftist policies on their audiences just to see those anchors that don't take themselves seriously then go on ahead.

Wonder Bar (1934)

Maybe Will Hays was right...

[5/10 · 12 July 2015]

Wonder Bar is one of the most notorious films ever released. One of the last Pre-Code films, Wonder Bar is mostly tame by today's standards. The story of a night at Al Wonder's (Al Jolson) Paris nightclub (named after the film) is full of dark humor, crazy cougars, love triangles and crimes of passion. Sadly, it's quite forgettable and these parts of the movie aren't really why anybody would watch Wonder Bar today.

The two reasons to view Wonder Bar is first to see Al Jolson sing and he puts on a terrific show. My favorite part is when he talks to the Russian Count and he goes back to his roots (Jolson was born in present- day Lithuania) and develops a Russian accent. Yes, he's playing himself but that's good enough for everybody.

The second are the two Busby Berkeley numbers. Don't Say Goodnight is an amazing showcase of his choreography skills with tons of blondes and mesmerizing visuals.

Going' To Heaven On A Mule over the years has aged worse and worse. Every time I think of all those kids in blackface I cringe. I find it hard to believe the producers would think Going' To Heaven On A Mule would be listed among the greatest movie musical numbers ever. The idea of hundreds of whites dancing in blackface with Jolson still disturbs me. Maybe Hays was right in this case that having a Code would at least prevent this kind of overt racist humor for a period of time. You would figure back in 1934 Hollywood was liberal enough to discard the watermelon stereotype but apparently not.

Wonder Bar is nothing special outside of Jolson and the two big Berkeley numbers. It's definitely a must-watch for serious cinephiles but that's about it.

Frozen (I) (2013)

Frozen? More like Slush!

[4/10 · 3 May 2015]

Frozen is a mystery to me. How an average run-of-the-mill Disney film has become a sensation for a year and a half has puzzled me. I feel this film pales in comparison to Snow White, Bambi, Fantasia, Beauty & The Beast, Toy Story and other animated/CGI films often lauded as the best from The House Of The Mouse. I sat through the film twice, looked for hidden meanings (and found none) and tried to understand what was going on and just didn't understand the hype or why people are ridiculously obsessed with the film, its songs or its characters. Was it because of the cold winters the last two years, the standout track Let It Go (honestly, a pretty good song) or the done-to-death oppression theme? Why are so many people crazy about this film? It's a mystery to me.

Frozen has top of the line CGI and one good song but nothing more. The script is painfully lame and isn't worthy of a PG rating, the voice acting is hammy, the characters are annoying to anybody who isn't a tween girl (Disney's biggest audience by far) and it's simply not like Disney films of the past that could appeal to all ages. Only tween girls will find Frozen a joy. Everybody else should just see it as another Bob Iger cash grab but strangely, they don't. They are mesmerized by this mediocre film for reasons I'll never know. As Prince once opined, it's The Sign O' The Times...and not one I like.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Nothing but a bad chick flick version of BDSM

[1/10 · 1 March 2015]

I didn't know about 50 Shades Of Grey until February, when it was shoved onto everybody's face. I never heard of the wildly popular book, either. Of course, that's because any book that is wildly popular is usually some scribble geared to teenagers. Not to say that I haven't indulged in schlock as my brothers and I read Sidney Sheldon books in the 1990's. These days, I am a lot more careful about my reading material.

So going into this movie, I knew nothing about the contents of the book or what it was all about. After viewing it, I can't understand why anybody would want to see this crud in a theater. 50 Shades Of Grey represents the nadir of Hollywood. Proof positive that crap can draw money because people will pay to watch mediocrity (which this film isn't even) and praise it because they refuse to bother looking for the much better in years past. Films from 1975 explored BDSM way more explicitly and honestly than this fluff.

All this film offers are Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) doing G-rated versions of BDSM. That's it. Add in horrible acting from the entire cast, a insipid script written by Kelly Marcel in which she channels a 7th grader's mindset and terrible direction from Sam Taylor-Johnson and you have a multi Razzie Award winner come to life. Boring, unerotic and sterile is all I can say. There's much better out there in regards to films exploring BDSM. If they make a sequel, boycott it. Tell Hollywood that you're not going to get your intelligence insulted any longer.