Office Christmas Party
directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon
Good cast but mixed results in a comedy that felt rushed
This was a remarkably silly film that wasted a good cast and familiar story on over the top foolishness and crudity. There's a way to be funny and even hilarious without having to go for the grossout every chance that you get. Unfortunately every time that something which I thought was mildly humorous occurred in this movie the directors/writers apparently must have decided "We can't have that! Throw in some gay humor! Throw in some flatulence and incest jokes! Throw in a bipolar woman on her cycle jokes! Hey there's not enough male buttocks! Yeah that's better!" So for me the movie was at best uneven. It was a mashup of Office Space, DC Cab, Meet the Millers, Major League and Horrible Bosses among others. Horrible Bosses veterans Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman basically reprise their roles from that film series. SNL star Kate McKinnon does okay with a role I think she could probably sleepwalk through.
Courtney B. Vance seems to be having a good time playing the opposite of the serious sober types he normally plays. I will say though as I have mentioned before that if you are looking for someone to play the calm put upon everyman with a hidden snarky side then you should have Jason Bateman on speed dial. He really does that well. Of course I haven't seen him do too much besides that but why mess with what works?
One of my relatives sent me this video. One of his pet peeves is judges who lecture or insult people, usually defendants. I do have friends and relatives who are attorneys. Some of them spend or have spent time in trials. I would not have their patience in dealing with judges who are occasionally sanctimonious, patronizing, insulting, condescending and almost always bossy. I don't like bossy people. I don't appreciate imperative tones. I don't like people who think they can speak to me any old way. But this is the way our justice system is set up. I don't think it could be any other way. When someone has the power to find you guilty or not, to sentence you fairly or not, and to put you in jail for no other reason than you got on their nerves and showed them contempt, then the wisest move for you, whether you are defendant, attorney, court worker or court spectator, is to tread lightly and keep a civil tongue in your head. Telling the judge "F*** you!" is usually not going to improve your prospects, no matter which role you currently happen to be playing in the court.
Judge Vonda Evans scolded a man charged in a criminal sexual conduct case who swore at her in a Detroit courtroom. Anthony Thornton yelled "f--- you" at Evans during the trial Friday, and she responded to the outburst during the proceedings. "Be quiet!" Evans said. "Take him back. Take him out! Take him out now! ... I’m not even going to dignify that comment!"
The Black Russian
by Vladimir Alexandrov
Today Russia has a reputation, fair or not, as a xenophobic haven for Neo-Nazis and white supremacists and thus a hostile place for anyone of apparent African descent. But at the turn of the 20th century this wasn't the case. Frederick Bruce Thomas, an African-American, made and lost a fortune in Russia during the pre-Bolshevik years. He also repeated his success in Turkey. Thomas' story is an example of what someone intelligent can do when freed from the strictures of American racism. Thomas' life is also an unfortunate example of how American racism can still reach out and touch people far from its shores. The Black Russian is lastly an intoxicating tale of the events around the time of the First World War and how they shaped the world we live in today. I knew that the Turks stole (conquered) Constantinople from the Byzantine Greeks in 1453, renaming it Istanbul.
I had forgotten that in the aftermath of WWI the Greeks, with Allied assistance, attempted to partition Turkey, conquer (retake) the Greek founded city of Smyrna, and make Istanbul an international city, with the likely aim of eventually claiming it for Greece and of course changing the name back. The Greeks were unsuccessful, something that would have a negative effect on Thomas' life and business interests. Frederick Thomas was born in 1872 Mississippi, not a place that was very hospitable to black people, especially black people who "didn't know their place". This was probably a designation that fit both of Frederick Thomas' parents, Lewis and Hannah, as well as his stepmother India, who helped to raise him after Hannah's death. Former slaves, Lewis and Hannah (and later India), had left sharecropping as early as 1869. Lewis and Hannah purchased their own farm.
The Thomas property grew to over 600 acres, a decent sized farm then or now for a single family. The Thomas family wealth allowed them to donate land for schools and churches. The family made business partnerships with white English immigrants and hired local black residents as workers and sharecroppers. White people noticed the economic power wielded by Lewis Thomas and his wife. This would prove to be the downfall of the Thomas family in Mississippi.
I never found Kathy Griffin to be very funny. But I'm not in her primary target audience. Everyone has their own sense of humor. So when I saw the photograph of her holding a replica of Donald Trump's severed head I didn't find it amusing. I thought that the picture from the video was in bad taste and not funny. I thought it was an excellent example of how the Trump Presidency has unhinged some people. I also thought that it wouldn't be long before there would be a backlash. The thing I've noticed about the Right after all these years is that they have no problem dishing it out. They're really good at that. But taking it? No that's not what they do. Suddenly they turn into sensitive little snowflakes. The very same people who were angered about the Griffin picture were evidently laughing it up when Ted Nugent told Obama to suck on his machine gun, called Hillary Clinton a "toxic c***" , called Obama a subhuman mongrel or said that if Obama were re-elected that he (Nugent) would be either dead or in jail (because you know what he'd have to do). Trump didn't have a problem with Nugent's statements. He invited him to the White House. Of course when you came to prominence peddling racist birther stories, why would you have a problem with a racist like Ted Nugent? Birds of a feather.
The same people bemoaning the ugliness shown to Trump apparently had no issue at all with President Obama being burned or hanged in effigy, being called every single sort of racial slur imaginable, being called a skinny ghetto crackhead, being threatened with assassination, having Senators pray for his death or obviously getting the monthly run of the mill monkey-ape-gorilla comparisons. That was all just fine with conservatives. They had no problem making incredibly ugly hateful and threatening statements about President Obama, his wife, his daughters, his mother, his father and anyone associated with him. But when someone of a different political faction plays in the same dirty sewer conservatives have a problem? What changed? I have little use for selective outrage.
Anger is a dangerous emotion. It can be useful when you channel it towards something positive. Holding on to it can be as dangerous to yourself as the object of your ire. Two time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is clearly still pretty angry about having lost the 2016 Presidential election to louche real estate tycoon Donald Trump. I don't blame her for being angry. I would be angry as well. There are few among us who can clearly see our own faults and move to correct them. That's why we have significant others, life coaches, friends, bosses, co-workers, siblings, consultants, and so on. But Clinton does herself and more importantly the Democratic Party no favors by blaming everyone except herself for losing an election which nearly everyone thought she was going to win. In a remarkable interview Wednesday with the technology site Recode, Hillary Clinton went from wounded to whiny, from sympathetic loser to sore loser, as she delivered her accounting of all the things that led to Nov. 8: Why did she lose? Let’s recap:
▪ It was the Democratic National Committee’s fault. “I get the nomination ... I inherit nothing from the Democratic party,” she said. “It was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong.”
▪ It was the media’s fault for turning her use of a personal email server “into the biggest scandal since who knows when.”
▪ It was the Russians’ fault for leaking emails detrimental to her campaign. “I believe that what was happening to me was unprecedented,” she said.
▪ It was, ahem, someone else’s fault for helping guide the Russians on how to best “weaponize” those leaks. Who gave them that guidance? “I’m leaning Trump,” Clinton said.
Logan
directed by James Mangold
Masterful end to a series and reworked classic for modern eyes
Well. This is a different kind of Marvel Superhero film. The first thing you need to know about Logan is that it is rated R. And it is a hard R for violence and language. People are badly hurt and killed. And the camera doesn't shy away. Some of my younger relatives saw this film. I wouldn't have let them but I'm not their parent. But please don't hear "comic book movie" and think that Logan is in any way designed for children. It's not. Kids under 16 shouldn't see this film. This intense film fits with the subject matter. Wolverine was never a "good guy". As he said in the comics, "I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice." Wolverine was a killer, both on his own and in the service of governments. Occasionally he could go berserk. And when he did it was best to be elsewhere. Wolverine was also melancholic, fully aware that no matter the reason, there is a moral and emotional cost to killing that he would have to pay every day of his abnormally extended life.
This film returns the Wolverine character to those darker roots while imagining a dystopian future for mutants. Logan is simultaneously a reboot, a franchise conclusion, and a stand alone film based loosely on a graphic novel that my brother, a comic book guru, hadn't gotten around to reading yet. In fact he didn't sound particularly interested in investigating the source material, feeling that there are too many alternate Marvel storylines. So if you've read the comics which inspired Logan, you may not like everything in Logan. For me though, ignorance was bliss. I wasn't angered at this or that wrong interpretation or missing character or plot hole.
Gwendy's Button Box
by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
When some people see the King name they immediately think that there will be heavy horror with all sorts of grossouts interspersed throughout the doorstopper text. Well that is not this book. And that's not necessarily King either though that's a different discussion. This is a short novella that can quickly be read while you're waiting for someone at the hospital or doing anything else that requires you to burn some time. I couldn't tell which author wrote which parts. The story felt seamless. You can complete this book in less than two hours. I didn't think it was among King's best work, but it is a good story. It left questions unanswered. But "Gwendy's Button Box" should feel very familiar to the reader, particularly if they have read Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life" or seen the classic Twilight Zone adaptation of same.
In 1974 twelve year-old Castle Rock Resident Gwendy Peterson, a tall athletic girl inclined to fleshiness (the local bully calls her Goodyear, after the Blimp), meets a strange man dressed in all black, except for his white shirt. He knows her name and knows things about her family. This man's name is Richard Farris, a name that serious King fans should recognize. He gives Gwendy a box with several colored buttons and levers on it. This box dispenses special chocolates and old coins. The chocolates satisfy all of Gwendy's hunger. The man informs Gwendy that some of the buttons are associated with various continents while other buttons have different purposes. He's giving this box to Gwendy because he has a special feeling about her. When Gwendy asks what the other buttons do the man smiles unpleasantly and advises her to not ask questions to which she already knows the answer.
Over the next decade Gwendy will undergo some changes, mostly for the better. She becomes beautiful and popular. And both Gwendy and the reader will ask themselves what would they do if their creative and destructive powers were greatly enhanced. As Peter Parker learned, with great power comes great responsibility. I thought that this book was also an extended metaphor on writing. The story was mostly non-violent with one or two exceptions.
