Movie Reviews: The Last Shift

The Last Shift
directed by Andrew Cohn

This indie film is worthwhile watching despite some occasionally muddled themes. I appreciated that this movie didn't neatly resolve everything like an old episode of Scooby Doo or one of those ABC Afternoon Specials. Life is not like that. Sometimes the bad guys win. Sometimes we don't know or agree on who the bad guys are. I thought The Last Shift was realistic, both in casting and in the character depiction and reactions. 

The writing sagged near the end. As mentioned, if you like solid conclusions where everything makes sense and everyone gets what he or she "deserves" then this movie is not that. The Last Shift is also, purposely or not, an extended herky-jerky exposition on why the "class first" focus of people like say Bernie Sanders, doesn't often work in the American political economy. 

This film is set in Albion, Michigan. Stanley (Richard Jenkins) is the night manager of an Albion location of a regional fast food franchise, Oscar's Chicken and Fish (and apparently burgers as well). 

In what could be a nod to co-actor Ed O'Neill's role of Al Bundy, Stanley took this job more or less right out of high school and has remained there for the next forty years or so, give or take. Starting at just over $3/hr back in the day, Stanley has managed to grow his salary to the princely rate of just over $13/hr. Real ambitious hard charging dude, Stanley is. Not.

Keller Texas Cops Needlessly Arrest And Pepper Spray Father And Son

I don't begrudge anyone for having a bad day. Depending on the job I may not take it personally if a person is occasionally a jerk. I have mentioned before that a worker at my neighborhood post office is not the nicest woman in the world. She is abrasive, abrupt, and condescending. I am not the only local who has complained about her attitude. But there is a massive difference between being an unpleasant post office worker and being an unpleasant police officer. I can avoid post office workers. 

I'm unconcerned about a post office worker jumping over the counter and assaulting me because I didn't follow an unlawful order quickly enough or looked her in her eyes without fear. Given that police officers have the legal authority to use violence, up to and including lethal force, society can't tolerate officers, who because they are in a bad mood, take it out on their fellow citizens. Police officers must follow the law and treat everyone the same, not make up laws and assault people for not obeying them. 

A North Texas man is suing two officers in the Keller Police Department following his arrest in August. Keller PD demoted Sergeant Blake Shimanek for his role in the incident. The arrest occurred Aug. 15 when 22-year-old Dillon Puente was pulled over for making a wide right turn. Puente was on his way to his grandmother’s house when he was stopped in the Riverdance neighborhood.   

Bodycam video shows Shimanek ask Dillon to get out of the car before he places him in handcuffs. In a police report obtained by WFAA, Shimanek said he detained Dillon because he was worried about his safety. “He was ticketed and taken to jail for a wide right turn,” said Dillon’s dad Marco Puente in an interview with WFAA.  

Marco Puente was following Dillon to his grandma’s house, and he pulled up his vehicle after he saw his son was pulled over by police.  (Watch Video Below)

Movie Reviews: Murder My Sweet

Murder My Sweet

directed by Edward Dmytryk

This was the first film adaptation of one of novelist's Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe's detective stories. Leading man Dick Powell, previously known as a baby faced song and dance light comedian type played against type as the hardboiled detective Marlowe. This film mostly worked I thought. Powell's version of Marlowe is different than the Marlowe I knew as interpreted by Humphrey Bogart.

Although both actors convincingly bring across Marlowe's cynicism, distrust and quick witted snarky one liners, in my opinion Powell doesn't quite show Marlowe's occasional ruthlessness or menace the way that Bogart did. But YMMV. 

One good thing about this film is that despite sharing a lot of themes and even plots with the Chandler inspired movie, The Big Sleep, it is INFINITELY easier to understand.

Watching movies like this can make one wonder at just how influential writers like Chandler and a few others were at establishing the basic outline of modern American based detective thrillers. So this film may not have too many surprises for the modern viewer other than how familiar and up to date it seems.

Old Time Snowball Fight

When's the last time you were involved in a good old fashioned snowball fight? Sometimes there's nothing better as this recently colorized video from 1897 Lyon, France shows. This short film was shot by the Lumiere Brothers, who despite being among the very first filmmakers in the world, thought that the film business was a novelty game that would never go anywhere. So they got out of it about a decade after they shot this footage. Although they couldn't predict the future, as indeed none of us can, this film they left behind is another demonstration of the fact that regardless of differences in time, culture, and nation, humans are more alike than different. I liked how dude on the bicycle almost made it through the gauntlet. 

Television Reviews: Britannia Season One

Brittania

produced by Pippa Harris and Sam Mendes

Season One previously aired on British television and Amazon prime almost three years ago but just started running on American cable channels this past year. Some people made an immediate positive comparison to HBO's Game of Thrones. I don't think that was an accurate comparison. Britannia's writing is not as high quality as that of the first few seasons of Game of Thrones. Britannia does not convince the viewer to see one group as the protagonists or good guys. It's more of a descriptive show.

The show's sets weren't that extravagant though it makes up for that drawback by spending as much time possible outside-to be fair the narrative often requires it. I liked the lush outdoor camerawork. If you are an outdoors nature loving person you will enjoy this aspect of Britannia. The show was shot on location in the UK and the Czech Republic. 

Britannia concerns the Roman invasion of the titular island in or about AD 43. It's a historical drama with few battles though there is violence. This could be because of budget or just because of where the writers and producers wanted to direct the viewer's attention. This is NOT an action packed drama full of swordfights. Those happen rarely.

Britannia is coy about magic. The show smartly flips back and forth between depicting magic as superstition and fear, something that only seems real because of copious psilocybin mushroom consumption, con man/con woman tricks, or (later in the season and definitely in second season) as something very real and dangerous.

Trump Lost The 2020 Presidential Election

Trump lost the 2020 Presidential Election. Trump lost because enough people in enough states decided that Joe Biden was the better choice.  Trump lost because the Republican Party is on a national level non-competitive in the Northeast and starting to show cracks in the South and Southwest. 

Trump lost because the Republican Party has reached the current limit of political popularity that it can have throughy open appeals to white racist resentment, white nationalism, anti-intellectualism, anti-urban feelings, conspiracy theories, and various other dubious emotions or stances. Trump lost because even some otherwise Republican leaning voters looked at Trump's general corruption and specific ineptitude combating the coronavirus pandemic and decided that enough was enough. 

Trump lost because his support slipped among white men, his most devoted base. Trump lost because he is congenitally unable to frame appeals to people that are not rooted in hate. Trump lost because he's unwilling to reach out to people who are not his base. Trump lost because he's incapable of conceiving a scenario where he loses. His ego can't accept that possibility.

Chicago Police Raid Wrong Home And Hold Naked Black Woman At Gunpoint

The Chicago Police are notorious for both brutality and for getting things wrong. When you have the legal authority to detain, arrest, hurt and even kill people getting things wrong more than a few times is not something that society can tolerate. 

I have noticed that it seems as if a disproportionate percentage of the times the police get things wrong they do so with Black people. It's rare that I read about a mistaken militarized police raid in a white and/or wealthy area. 

The city of Chicago attempted to block a local news station from airing recently obtained body camera footage of police mistakenly raiding the wrong home with guns drawn and handcuffing a distressed, naked woman.

CBS2-TV released body camera footage on Monday night of officers forcing their way into the home of Anjanette Young nearly two years ago. The 50-year-old clinical social worker, who helps victims of violence and mentors people of color going into her profession, had just finished her work shift at a hospital and was undressing in her bedroom when a group of male officers broke down her door with a battering ram.

In the disturbing Feb. 21, 2019, footage, officers appear to have their guns drawn while they yell for Young to put her hands up. She can then be seen in the video fully naked with her hands raised, looking terrified and confused (CBS2 blurred parts of the video in which Young was shown naked). One officer puts Young’s hands behind her back and handcuffs her, leaving her with no way to cover herself as police search her home.