Movie Reviews: The Take, Law Abiding Citizen

The Take (aka Bastille Day)
directed by James Watkins
Stringer Bell and Robb Stark team up only to discover that they're probably better off apart.

This is another action film that continues the practice of using British actors in American roles. Some people (Idris Elba) can pull this off pretty seamlessly; others really ought to stop. There's not in my opinion, in most European based stories a compelling reason why a protagonist needs to be American. Done properly Americans will line up eagerly for films or series with European national protagonists (James Bond, Downton Abbey or Harry Potter anyone) -especially British ones. So why continue this practice of forcing British actors to try to take on American accents. Some of them just can't or even when they can are already so thoroughly identified with roles reflecting their own nationality that seeing them trying to pretend to be American immediately takes me out of the fictional story. Well whatever. You may feel differently of course. Acting is about new challenges and pretending to be someone else after all. The Take is a solidly made but altogether generic action movie that never quite lives up to the hype generated by the two male lead actors. It also suffers from not having a strong female lead. I don't mean strong as in physically or verbally combative. I mean that the lead women characters don't really have a lot of motivation on their own or for that matter have much meaning to the lead male characters. They could have been played by anyone. They didn't have a lot to do. There is a a small but noticeable lack of chemistry between the men and women. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot was left on the cutting floor with at least one of the women characters. When the women are in danger I didn't feel anything other than "ho-hum". This is probably not a good thing. And for goodness sakes, when someone casually tells you "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. By the way did you tell anyone else about this?", the correct answer is always "Why yes. Yes I did. I told everyone and shared my itinerary with them as well!"

Book Reviews: Chaingang

Chaingang
By Rex Miller

I reviewed one of the late Rex Miller's books before here. He was not an author for the faint of heart as the saying goes. He was writing deliberately shocking ultraviolence before similar modern artists like Tarantino did the same on the movie screen. Like Stephen King Miller could cheerfully go for the grossout but he didn't have quite the same gift at creating believable human characters that stuck with you after the book had finished. No one is perfect of course. Miller's most memorable character was one Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski. He introduced this character in an earlier book Slob, in which it appeared that the hero, Detective Jack Eichord, put an end to Bunkowski aka Chaingang. But much like with Arthur Conan Doyle bringing back Sherlock Holmes from the dead, Miller evidently had more stories to tell about old Chaingang. The book Chaingang takes place in the early nineties. The title character is a serial killer. But he's not your run of the mill serial killer. He's a man who stands 6'7" and weighs close to 500 lbs. A Vietnam War vet, Bunkowski served as a special assassin for the government on various classified black jobs throughout Southeast Asia. Both before and after his government service he has killed so many people that he's lost count. He's extremely dangerous, not just because of his size, strength and sheer malevolence towards all humanity but because his intelligence is off the charts. He's able to use more of his brain than most people and maintain conscious control over functions that are automatic for most of us. His abilities to detect and anticipate danger verge on the supernatural. Bunkowski's brain is a literal library; his memory is massive. The kinds of activities Bunkowski thinks of as fun are things I won't mention here. Bunkowski's only saving grace is that he has a soft spot for animals in general and dogs in particular. Bunkowski grew up under horrific sexual and physical abuse from his foster parents. Bunkowski's only childhood friend was a dog who similarly suffered. At the book's beginning Bunkowski is detained at the Marion Federal Prison. For reasons that line up exactly with some of the real world evil our government has committed for the so called greater good, Bunkowski is released in the vicinity of a small Missouri town. 

Sam Perkins, a realtor in that town, has convinced a number of nearby residents to sell their land at inflated prices to a secretive out of town consortium which states that it's going to be building an environmentally friendly industrial park. When Sam disappears after these sales are completed his wife Mary gets the run around from both the local authorities and the FBI. In desperation she turns to her former main squeeze Royce Hawthorne for help. Royce and Mary go way back and had something even more intense before Mary decided to wed the boring but attentive Sam. Mary thinks highly of Royce or at least of the Royce she used to know in the days of yore. Modern day Royce has substance abuse issues and other, well problems, that he tries to hide from Mary. Trying to live up to who Mary thinks he is is a challenge but one that Royce is desperate to accomplish. When he starts looking into Sam's dealings he finds some things that don't add up. And that's when Royce and Mary come to the attention of people they're both better off not knowing. Royce is no Detective Jack Eichord. So without a morally good or believably competent character to identify with this book is not as ngaging as it could have been. Perhaps for this reason, Miller had Bunkowski run into (and deal with severely)  many morally dubious people (mercenaries, dog fighting ring operators) but because Bunkowski is just as bad if not worse than the worst people he meets there's not any satisfaction at seeing a bad person get his just deserts. 

You could make the argument that no one deserves Bunkowski. This book was only a little over 200 pages but it felt longer. It needed Eichord in it. 

President Trump: Now What?

So Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. Imagine that. I didn't think he would pull it off but he did just that. To the extent that you are worried about what a Trump Presidency could accomplish in a wholly negative sense I share those concerns. But I would also question then why should any President have that much power. Since at least WW2 there has been an accelerating bipartisan tendency to concentrate power in the Presidency. People only seem to care about this when it's not their guy in the Big Chair. That is unfortunately just human nature. If people thought about this some more they then might discover that that is one of the exact reasons why the Founders created a form of government where power was split between several competing and independent branches. From my perspective the silver lining in an otherwise gloomy prospect of a Trump Presidency is that perhaps some people on the left will rediscover a fierce commitment to separation of powers, federalism, a Senate filibuster and states rights. It's surreal that before the election people in the media and on the left were warning Trump supporters that they needed to accept the results. Now some Clinton supporters are writing about the need to secede from the nation. This is real. Papers have been filed.

Before the election people in favor of "immigration reform" were smugly reminding opponents that states and municipalities didn't get to make their own immigration law. Only the Federal government could create and enforce immigration law. And if the Federal government didn't want to enforce a particular immigration law there wasn't anything a state or city could do about it. Immigration was Federal policy. We couldn't have fifty states and thousands of cities creating immigration policy. But now some people who said that have seamlessly switched their view and are stating flatly that federal law or not, their particular city or state will resist any enforcement of immigration law that leads to deportation of illegal immigrants. So much for that whole federal supremacy idea, eh? We have people on the left endorsing what amounts to nullification! Apparently people, despite their partisan divides, aren't quite as different as they may think. It's ironic that it took Trump's election to bring that out.

I do believe that Trump is a racist and a bigot. I don't think that everyone who voted for him is one. A vote is a summation of many different values and concerns. Some people argue that all Trump voters are racist and that the Electoral College is racist. In this telling it was the racism of the American voter that cost Clinton the election. Trump certainly used dog whistles and even bullhorns to get the white racist vote. There's no doubt about that. The modern neo-Nazis are excited about Trump's election. Trump is taking advice from Steve Bannon, a man who has made selling racism a successful business model. Post election, we've seen a number of racist incidents. So I definitely understand the concerns. The problem with the "It's all racism!" explanation about Trump's victory is that it overlooks the fact that Trump won over over Midwestern and Pennsylvania white voters who had previously voted for Obama, in some cases twice. I'm not saying that just because you voted for Obama that means you're not racist. But I also doubt that Obama ever won over the hardcore explicitly racist voter. It's a safe bet that the people who were sharing monkey memes, joking about assassination and trading conspiracy theories about Obama's birth probably weren't voting for him. But many other working class and middle class white voters did vote for Obama. Clinton should have done better with those voters.

So in an election where Obama wasn't on the ballot, to blame the Democratic loss on racist white voters seems to violate Occam's Razor. If race is the sole or even primary voter motivation for everyone Obama never would have won relatively non-diverse states like Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio. This leads to the next point. The world is full of racists. I have worked with some in the past. I currently work with some. I have worked for some. You likely have as well. Usually I can't point and shriek "RACIST!!!" until that person either does what I want or stops being racist. That method only works where I have absolute control over that person. This is not the case with political parties. Political parties need voter support. This means that occasionally parties will have to appeal to white voters who are either racist or racist sympathizers. The Democratic party can not allow white people in regions like the Midwest and South to write off the Democrats. Some of those people heard, or were told by Fox News and talk radio, that Democrats don't care about people like you. If Democrats don't consistently challenge that misconception or worse, appear to confirm it, well then they're going to continue to have problems. And Democrats even saw turnout fall among their base.

The Democrats need to face that, President Obama, aside, large portions of their message are simply not resonating with the American electorate. There has been an over emphasis on cultural/social issues at the expense of class/economic ones. The Democrats lost the Presidency and with it the ability to name at least one and perhaps as many as two or three Supreme Court Justices over the next four years. The Republicans hold the Senate and the House. The Republicans hold the majority of state legislatures. The Republicans are the majority of state Governors and Attorneys General. In short at both the state and federal legislative and executive branches the Republicans are ascendant. This dominance is not just a matter of voter suppression or gerrymandering. The idea that changing demographics (the browning of America) would lead to a permanent Democratic majority turned out not to be true--at least in the short run. I think the Democrats forgot that. I think they got too comfortable with the (to them) self-evident horror of a Trump administration and decided that they didn't have to engage certain voters. 

It is tempting (and occasionally even accurate) to chide some white voters as racist and dismiss them as people who simply need to evolve. But if you are trying to win someone's political support, then insulting them or continually telling them that they're yesterday's news is a losing strategy. The Democrats have become too over identified with the coasts and with the cities. When the Democrats ran a lackluster candidate with limited personal charisma and high negatives they got rolled. But all is not lost. The election was very close. Since Truman it has been very unusual for one political party to win three Presidential elections in a row. George Bush last accomplished it in the 1988 election. It's difficult to run as a change candidate after eight years of your party holding the Presidency. That in and of itself was probably enough to make Clinton's campaign challenging, even before all of the noise about emails and deplorables.

The Democrats are not dead. They just smell that way. What they really are is mostly dead. And as Miracle Max would tell you there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. The Democrats need to regroup and rethink both their approach and policy emphasis. What seems eminently reasonable on the coasts may be a harder sell in the Midwest or South. As Senator Sanders is pointing out it's not enough to emphasize sex or racial status as change agents in and of themselves. Those things must be integrated with class and cultural components. This Democratic regrouping is not going to be easy. But it must start with Democrats listening to people they may disagree with or even despise and explaining to them why voting Democratic makes sense. "Racist/Sexist/Homophobic" can't be shorthand for "you're an evil irredeemable person who is not worth engaging". The Democratic regrouping has to include the realization that demographic change won't necessarily be the party salvation. Despite taking a hard line on illegal immigration and insulting Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, the largest Hispanic group in America, Trump got 30% of the Hispanic vote. Romney got 27%. Trump also received a higher level of Black support (8%) than Romney did (6%) despite a long history littered with allegations of housing discrimination and racially tone deaf statements. So the Democrats can't just assume that not being as bad as the Republicans will bring their base out to vote for them. It's time for some soul searching on what it means to be a Democrat. I think the Democratic next moves should include getting rid of the current House leadership and cleaning house at the DNC. Trump can do a lot of short term damage. Trump will be President with all of the power that our constitution and his predecessors have given that position. But the Republicans have only the slimmest Senate majority. This can easily change in 2018. And if Trump is as malevolent and incompetent as advertised he could be a one term President. But first the Democrats have to understand why they've lost so much and change tactics accordingly. 

Rutgers Incident: Keep Your Hands to Yourself!!!

I don't understand why it is so difficult for some people to understand that if you go around hitting people you will eventually run into someone who will hit you back. Fighting should be your last resort. It should only be done in self-defense. Although I can appreciate that certain insults can make a man or in this case a woman feel that honor requires them to lay hands on someone I would remind people that when you get into a fight with someone--especially when you start it--you're essentially signing up for whatever comes next. I think it's an utter obscenity for men and women to fight-whether it be in a domestic violence context or in a street brawl as in this case. There used to be an understanding in society that gentlemen did not hurl sexual assaults at ladies and that ladies did not attempt to fight gentlemen. Unfortunately many of those conventions have been lost with our insistence on equality as the highest and only good. Equality is necessary but it is not the whole of human experience. But in a country that insists upon placing women in combat is there any reason to be upset at this situation? I think there probably is though as a society we no longer have the vocabulary to explain why. So all I can say is morals aside, from a strictly pragmatic POV, this is why it is a very bad idea for most women to start a fight against most men. The difference in strength, speed and endurance is too great. And the law apparently doesn't protect people who start fights, regardless of their gender, even if they do wind up with a cracked skull.
No charges will be filed against the man caught slugging Emily Rand in the face with a right hook so hard that she was knocked unconscious when her head hit the sidewalk. “We’ve finished our investigation and interviewed the individual you see in the video, as well as a lot of other people. At this time there’s not going to be any arrests or any charges,” New Brunswick Police Capt. J.T. Miller told New Jersey 101.5 of the incident that took place around 1 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. “It’s a mutually exclusive fight between the individuals.”

The incident was captured on video, which was posted online.

Miller said that the 19-year-old Middlesex County College student from South Amboy struck the man first and “there is evidence that she was aggressive towards other people before the video starts.”
Other people involved with the video do not want to pursue charges against Rand, according to Miller, who did not disclose the identity of the man. Rand has been at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center and was in a coma following skull surgery to relieve pressure in her swollen brain. Her aunt, Debbie O’Connor, said Rand has started to breathe on her own this week and will soon begin physical therapy.

LINK

Movie Reviews: Purge: Election Year

The Purge: Election Year
directed by James DeMonaco

If I had known that Mykelti Williamson played a prominent role in this movie I probably would have skipped it. Everyone has to eat I guess but something about many of Williamson's roles just rubs me the wrong way. If you're looking for a black actor to spout some cringe worthy dialogue then Williamson's your man. I've always looked a little askance at him since his turn in Species 2 where he grabs a machete and says he wants "...to get African on some alien a$$" (and where coincidentally he's the only male human the sex hungry female alien has no desire to mate with). In the latest Purge installment Williamson's character is basically the Wise Old Negro who serves no real purpose except to provide service to other (non-black) people. He gets to have wonderful dialogue like saying that his team is like "a bucket of fried chicken about to be attacked by hungry negroes" or telling other black people that he "likes these white folks so I'm not going to let you negroes kill them". Hmm. We all have different things that annoy us I guess but a lot of the dialogue and assumptions in this movie seemed more than a little reactionary to me. Williamson is not exactly a desperate young actor who's willing to take any role to get his name out there so he can stop living in a studio apartment. I would have thought that a black actor with his success could have requested some script changes but who knows. His sensitivities are not mine. Ultimately it's all just pretend fun and games, right? Anyhow my hangups aside The Purge: Election Year is not a great movie, either in execution or in the meaning behind it. It's heavy handed and over the top. Every now and then there is a good scene but usually it's something that viewers have seen before, whether it be from Death Wish or strangely enough Jaws. If you are a person who is sickened by cinematic violence then this probably isn't the film for you. It's not super explicit but it does have more than its share of mayhem. But as this is the third installment in this series most of us have figured out by now that there's bloodshed in this film.

Election Night SNL Skit

President Trump. Wow. Depending on the vagaries of the Day Job and the insistent demands of merciless supervisors there might be other more detailed and substantive posts on the election results, political parties and what all of this means at a later time, but for now I did want to put this out there for your consumption. I thought it was humorous. Enjoy.

Book Reviews: Bad Guys, Red, Here There Be Monsters

Bad Guys
by Anthony Bruno

This novel was the debut fiction offering of now deceased true crime and mystery author Anthony Bruno. It is also first in a series. It was pretty quick reading with very little fat. I did find it a little over descriptive at times but on the other hand Bruno was able to bring you into a story which had only a few well drawn characters. Everyone else was more of a stock type in some aspects. But Bruno did make you feel like you were actually in the New York and New Jersey neighborhoods which he described in such detail. This book was just under 300 pages in paperback and can likely be found in any of your better used bookstores. It's set in the eighties so some of the references (pay phones, slow computers, video cassettes) can feel a little dated. The story is something that you've read a million times before -two cops who are wildly different in both morals and personality must work together to bring down a bad guy. The difference here is that one of the cops may be the real bad guy. This book tries and I think succeeds in having it both ways. It definitely doesn't make heroes out of the organized crime people who are the book's primary antagonists. There's no love for any of the mafiosi, who are depicted here as uniformly greedy, corrupt and personally dangerous. On the other hand the younger protagonist is indeed breaking the law. The fact that he's an FBI agent who values doing what's right more than he values upholding the law can leave the reader feeling a bit conflicted, which presumably was the author's intent in creating the character. It's the 80's and one Richie Varga, counselor to at least three New York based crime families has provided evidence and testified against his former bosses, helping to sentence them to life terms and destroying large portions of the East Coast Mafia. Varga has since disappeared into the Witness Protection Program. But word on the street is that Varga is also the man responsible for the grisly murder of three undercover FBI agents, although no one can prove it.

One man who thinks he has all the proof he needs is renegade FBI agent Mike Tozzi. If Tozzi wasn't an FBI agent he would have been a mobster. He's got the looks, connections, aggression and disregard for rules. He also has an overdeveloped sense of vengeance and justice. Alleged criminals who were found not guilty or who escaped indictments because of political connections (a Congressional pedophile) are turning up dead. Everyone believes Tozzi to be responsible. Tozzi's looking for Varga. And he's probably not trying to deliver roses to Varga. The Special Agent in Charge of the Manhattan FBI office brings back Bert Gibbons, Tozzi's former partner, from retirement. Gibbons is ordered to find Tozzi and stop him by any means necessary. Ivers hopes that Gibbons' long experience with Tozzi will give the Bureau the inside lane on catching or teminating Tozzi. Ivers wants to get Tozzi tagged and bagged as soon as possible. Ivers has career plans that would be derailed permanently if news about Tozzi's alleged activities becomes public. But the straitlaced Gibbons may be more loyal to Tozzi than he is to the concept of law and order. And Gibbons notices some irregularities within Ivers 'office. Someone is watching his every move. And someone is rebuilding an underground Mafia family. Gibbons must decide what's the right thing to do when all of his choices look bad. And Tozzi must not let his quick temper and weakness for women influence his at best shaky judgment. Tozzi has tracked down Varga's wife Joanne, who did not follow her husband into witness protection. Tozzi's sure that his good looks and charm have convinced Joanne to help him in his search for Varga. Gibbons wonders if his ex-partner is letting the wrong body part do his thinking for him. This was a good read that you can finish in 1-2 days. Don't expect more than that and you won't be upset.



Red
By Jack Ketchum

This is another older book. The best way to describe it is a cross between John Wick and Gran Torino. I was a little leery about reading it if only because the author has a well deserved reputation for over the top violence. I wasn't in the mood for that. So it was good then this wasn't that sort of book. There is violence -the entire story kicks off from a senseless act of brutality- but the author didn't rub the reader's face in it. I thought the story was very realistic in that there was nothing supernatural involved. And if we want to live in a certain type of society we agree to let the justice system handle our grievances. Overall that's probably a good idea. Otherwise the weak could never bring the strong to justice. But obviously even though a justice system may work for all of us on a macro basis there are many times when it fails on an individual basis. There are many times when the strong, wealthy or political elite may corrupt the justice system to use to their own malicious ends. So when that occurs the only justice may be found in an individual taking the law into his own hands. It's a paradox. Red is about that sort of situation. Avery Ludlow is a semi-retired widower who lives alone in Maine. His only companion is his fourteen year old dog Red. Ludlow's in his late sixties. His late wife gave him the dog for his birthday shortly before she died. Just as Ludlow is slowing down, his dog Red is as well. Red is positively ancient by canine standards. Red has serious arthritic and ocular issues. But as dogs tend to be Red is still loyal to and protective of Ludlow. Ludlow likes taking Red with him when he goes fishing. One day when Ludlow is out with Red he's waylaid by three teens who claim to be hunting. Well maybe. But what they are actually hunting for is the pure pleasure that comes from hurting people weaker than they are. Angered when they discover Ludlow has no money for them to take, the boys shoot and kill Red. 

After they leave, Ludlow embarks on a quest for justice. It's important to know that this is not just about the dead dog nor is Ludlow a homicidal time bomb waiting to be triggered. There are however incidents and reasons in his background that the reader slowly learns about which show that the three boys made a very very bad mistake. There's only so much a man can take. Ketchum takes his sweet time drawing all of the characters, especially Avery Ludlow. This is just a much a character study of a aging man living with tragedy as it is a revenge novel. It's also a novel which may make you think about the relative value we put on human and animal life and why we do so. Laws vary by jurisdiction of course but as the police explain to Ludlow most district attorneys are not going to spend a lot of resources pursuing those who commit crimes against animals, particularly when the penalties are very low. The love and affection of an old half-blind dog may be priceless to Ludlow but prosecutors and judges and the law don't put much value on that. Ketchum teases the reader with a class resentment theme which I thought could and should have been brought out more. At least two of the teens who assault him and kill his dog are spoiled rich kids. And their wealthy father shows that the rotten apple didn't fall far from the tree. Ketchum also shows some links between the kind of people who would harm animals for fun and the kind of people who do the same to humans. The two sets have a lot of overlap. If you aren't a big horror fan or don't like constant explicit written depictions of violence this book might be just the thing for you. Ketchum showed that he's not reliant on the gross-out to get the reader to feel things. Ludlow's loneliness and sense of loss is as much a part of the story as his murdered dog.



Here There Be Monsters
By Tim Curran

This is a fourteen story collection of short stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Some are better than others, as is true of any collection but almost all of them are good, which is pretty unusual. There's no huge clunkers here. There is a fair amount of humor as well. The stories all range across different places and times. Some stories are written in a deliberate pastiche of Lovecraft's verbose style ("A shuttered and silent place was Kobolddamn, one that inspired a sense of claustrophobia, a sense of macabre foreboding. At first look I would have thought it deserted, such was its inexplicable  aura of degeneration and rot.") while others reference 1930s and 1940s tough guy patois (" But I didn't want Brennan's badge. He was strictly small potatoes. After facing off with that sweetheart up in the steeple, guys like Brennan were strictly small potatoes. I was sore and pissed-off but the only thing broken was my pride.") My favorite story here is undoubtedly "Eldritch-Fellas" which is as you might suspect a parody of the movie Goodfellas. Here Cthulhu is the wild enforcer with a quick temper and a mean streak who takes deadly offense when one of the other Dark Gods has the temerity to tell him that he's funny. This story will amuse anyone who's watched Goodfellas or who has a familiarity with some of that film's most intense scenes. "Six Feet of Moldering Earth" is more of a gothic tale which details the events which happen when two antiquarians and occultists open the grave of a wizard, hoping to make a Hand of Glory. Something in the grave isn't dead and needs a new host. "The Shadow of the Haunter" is a classic hardboiled detective story in which a beautiful woman wants a private eye to look into her brother's death. She doesn't think he was killed by lightning.  "The Procyon Project " finds a WW2 vet suffering from PTSD taking a job as a security guards at a Defense Department research facility. "The Naming of Witches" imagines an entirely different reason for the witch trials at Salem and elsewhere. "The Seal of Kharnabis" is about as generic as Curran gets in this collection. It's a somewhat prosaic tale of curses and death brought back to America by an expedition that opened an ancient Egyptian tomb. "The Wreck of the Ghost" details the adventures of a whaling ship crew who slowly discovers that something extremely dangerous is hunting whales and them. "The Eyes of Howard Curlix" revisits Lovecraftian themes about links between cutting edge physics and banned 12th century magic. "Nemesis Theory" tells of a problem in a max security prison where the inmates are horrified to learn that something else is locked in with them. There's little flab on any of these stories. They move quickly. I have seen Curran's name around in a few places. He's from Michigan. I'm going to be looking for some of his other work.