dokrauss

About two minutes into season 6 of The Expanse, rumored to be the last and final and never will it come this way again (maybe), I thought, "Did they change writers or something?" Because, about two minutes into it, I thought I was watching the introduction of a 1980s-type cheesy scifi series, with ootzy cutzy precocious kids and darling alien animals cavorting around a near-Eden because, if there's anything Babylon 5 and Star Trek Next Generation taught us, the future is bright, I gotta wear shades. But, about forty minutes later, I knew what happened: they didn't change writers, the writers are just tired of it.

How else do you explain such a superficial, out of character, and ultimately dissatisfying end to what I consider the best TV series in all of TV history? And just exactly like other recent epic great series (Lost, Game of Thrones) the last season turns out a sore disappointment.

What's with you guys?

If you haven't watched Season 6 yet, then stop reading this, just stop. Because I'm not going to spare you.

Let's start with the ootzy cutzy kids. Since they've been on Laconia for more than five minutes, I'm sure they've been told at least once that (a) this is an alien world (b) the evolution is different than ours and (c) we don't understand everything that's here yet, so be careful. Indeed, Mom and Dad say as much when weepy little girl in-desperate-need-of-a-spanking tells them she fed earth food to a local animal, killing it. Then the puppies restore it to life. Sinister looking puppies, at that. Something she doesn't tell her parents. But they'll find out soon enough.

And what kind of crazy parents let their kids meander through an alien landscape of different evolution and chemical base and unknown puppies? Thinking Child Protective Services needs to get involved here.

So, okay, endure that for a few minutes and, whew, now we're back into the main story. In which James Holden does something so incredibly stupid that it could only be a plot device. I don't have any further explanation for his disarming the missile. Even Naomi tells him how stupid that was. Because, really, if your choice is doing the one thing that will so disable and disorganize the Free Navy that they will instantly and immediately no longer be a threat and the war is over and thousands, if not millions, will be saved, or spare your girlfriend's feelings, what would you do?

If you say "spare your girlfriend's feelings," please stay out of any job or position where fates are in your hands.

And how is it we got into that situation to begin with? I mean, if we were in downtown Mayberry and James and Marco happened to run into each other, that's one thing, but we're not in Mayberry, we're out past the Belt. Awful lot of space out there. Them running into each other is an amazingly fortuitous circumstance.

As are the Ring Entities.

And I'm guessing Amos swallowed some wuss pills and is now in touch with his inner little girl. The producers needed him to 'evolve,' I suppose, into an early 21st Century ideal man as envisioned by Hollywood and woke culture, instead of remaining the brutalized sociopath seeking redemption that has made him one of the most intriguing and heroic characters in the entire show. I thought revisionism only applied to the past, but, apparently, one can impose present standards on future behaviors, even if it's at odds with the character that you spent five seasons building.

Indeed, about the only two characters that remain true to themselves are Drummer and Avasarala. Thank God. Drummer quickly became my favorite character after Detective Miller, and Avasarala, well, she has my undying love. So I'm happy about that.

And I'm happy about other things. The rail gun assault was magnificent (although, personally, I'da just blown Medina Station and the rail gun to bits but, yeah, okay, reasons) and Bobby was badass and humanity is still the collective bag of crapheads they will always be, no matter what miracles are offered. But this was a letdown. Too much left unresolved. Too hurried.

Too tired of it.

If there's one gigantic piece of evidence that everyone is just tired of this, it's laying further explanations at the feet of the written source material. Yeah, we know, there's short stories and remaining novels and the books do this and the books do that but that's cheating. Media remains within media and you don't get to reference source material as your escape plan. If you can't resolve it in your show, then you can't. But it's a copout to smugly raise an eyebrow and nod at other info.

So, it ends. Not with a bang. But a whimper.

No, this is not a movie review. No spoilers, so relax. This is a eulogy. Because, with Marvel's Infinity War: Endgame, a long and wonderful relationship comes to an end, and I give it a fond, sad, farewell.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off in 2008 with Iron Man, but my Marvel universe started way before that, in 1961. I was a pointy headed kid living in Lawton, Oklahoma when I bought my very first Marvel title, The Fantastic Four #1. It wasn't my first comic book purchase: I already owned several issues of Our Army At War featuring Sergeant Rock, GI Combat with The Haunted Tank, some assorted DCs like Batman and Green Lantern, but all those were random purchases prompted by the cover or the opportunity, except for the Haunted Tank, which was sort of an ongoing series so I picked it up whenever it appeared on the spinning rack o' comics in Carl's Drug Store (which appears to now be Carl's Military Supply). Buying comics and bubble gum baseball cards was standard early-60s kid behavior. But Marvel changed things.

See, Marvel was different. DC ruled the comic book world with Superman and Justice League and Wonder Woman, but there was something a bit off about them. Take Superman: despite DC's strenuous efforts to put some drama in his stories, he was Superman. No one's going to beat him. And Batman was always going to win and Robin was interesting but looked more like he got in the way than anything. Actually, I preferred lesser DC titles like Blackhawk and Tales of the Unexpected and the aforementioned war comics. But the Fantastic Four...they didn't WANT to be super heroes! And they bickered with each other and screwed things up and, what the heck? They were, like, real people.

So I bought Marvel from that point on almost exclusively, with exceptions here and there like those quirky Charleton Comics. Besides Fantastic Four, I collected Two Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid, Ghost Rider (the cowboy, not the motorcycle flame head), and Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos. Cowboys and war, yep, that was my thing. And then Captain America showed up.

I knew who he was. Every Marvel kid in the 60s knew him because he was referenced here and there, but we didn't actually see him until Avengers #4, where he unthaws and joins the team. [NOTE: I may have seen him earlier in the November 1963 Strange Tales, but I can't remember]. And then he showed up in various Howling Commandos titles and I was gobsmacked. This guy, this Steve Rogers was pure of heart and filled with angst and a man out of his time and a hero. He became my favorite character and the Avengers became my favorite team. Yes, I loved X-Men and Daredevil and Thor and everything else Marvel, too, but Cap and the Avengers were the gold standard.

Throughout my rather traumatic 60's childhood, Cap and the Avengers and Marvel were my refuge. When things got bad, I had my trusty pile of comics buried deep in the closet and I could get lost. Heroes had problems, too, heroes suffered; Spiderman lost Gwen Stacy and Cap lost his entire team and had to put up with smart alec Hawkeye and former enemies Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. If he can put up with stuff like that, then I'd be alright. But at the end of 1969, my family blew up and, over one very bad day and night, I lost all my comics. Among a lot of other things. I was right in the middle of an Avengers arc involving Namor kidnapping the Wasp and Powerman invading Avengers HQ. I never finished that story. To this day.

Then it was the 70s and I was in a completely new place and lost interest in galactic level heroes like the Avengers and turned to street level fighters like Shang Chi and Iron Fist and that wondrous Tomb of Dracula, until it was time to put away childish things and I no longer read comics. With exceptions. I did Cloak and Dagger and the entire Adam Warlock Infinity Gauntlet series, but the 80's was different and that Marvel wasn't mine anymore. Move on.

And then it's 2008 and Iron Man and the rest of the movies start, and I was six years old again.

Sure, the movies were vastly different from the 1960s storylines and characters, but that was okay. The directors and the writers gave props to tradition, like Tony's first bulky iron suit, Thor slipping on the Donald Blake coat, SpiderMan's wrestling career, and I was thrilled. Look at this, my entire childhood revived in spectacular CGI color and glory. I loved it, even the Ben Affleck Daredevil. I could forgive much for the pleasure of reliving past joys. But it was all heading somewhere, and when Doctor Strange said, "We're in the endgame now," he meant a lot more than you know. The 1960s was turning into the 70s and 80s again, culminating in this last movie, this last Marvel gasp. Captain America is gone. So is Tony. My original beloved Marvel characters have become dust. Move on.

Oh, sure, there's still Spiderman. The next movie has Mysterio, and there's hints of the Sinister Six at some future point. Guardians of the Galaxy still has Adam Warlock bundled away somewhere, and the next Doctor Strange and animation Shang Chi looks good. But those are all novelties, like visiting your hometown forty years after leaving. Things just ain't the same.

So rest in peace, boys and girls. Excelsior.

I am not a DC guy, so I went into Aquaman with a bit of dubiousness. We Boomers chose sides in the DC/Marvel rivalry decades ago and you either were fer or agin one or the other with a fanaticism bordering on Cold War intensity. There were some outliers who claimed to like both equally, but they were viewed with suspicion, like pacifists who insisted the Commies weren't all that bad. Adding to the dubiousness, it's Aquaman, a blond spandex/fish scale armor-wearing guy who rides a seahorse and pals around with spandex wearing Aquakid, a la Batman and Robin, evoking the same uncomfortableness regarding their relationship. And he talked to fish. Fish.

Not that I felt any particular animus to the character. I watched the cartoon back in the 60s with some satisfaction, thrilled that TV had finally come to its senses and was showing comic book characters, even if it was DC. Cartoon Aquaman remained in his wheelhouse, the ocean, and did ocean things so was not to be taken seriously. This movie Aquaman, though, is deadly serious, done up in the person of badass cool guy Jason Momoa who did quite a good job in Justice League...which I liked.

Yes, I know, that places me in a very small minority and lends suspicion that I might be one of those aforementioned pacifists going soft on the Reds, but it was pretty good. As was Batman vs Superman. See? I can be persuaded. Aquaman might turn out to be this year's Dark Knight.

It's not.

Instead, it turned into a mash-up of Lord of the Rings, Excalibur, Starship Troopers, the Cthullu mythos, Gladiator, the Little Mermaid, the Hunt for Red October, the Avengers, oh, just about every movie of the last twenty years or so. I swear some computer geeks got together and said, "Man, we gotta make some money, so let's CGI every trope from every movie because you know people like that stuff." There's even a Skywalker finding his mother. I swear.

The first ten minutes or so was great. Nicole Kidman...or her stunt double... kicked royal butt and butt royally, depending with whom she crossed tridents. Gotta say, all the movie fights were stellar. But, danger, Will Robinson: a copy of "Dunwich Horror" lies on a tabletop. Now, why would that be? 'Cause, you know, if you show a gun in the first act you gotta use it in the third and, yep, Cthulhu shows up later. Along with his/her fish monsters. WTF? Did one of the computer geeks note "Arkham Asylum" in Dark Knight and figured there was a Lovecraft connection?

I blame public education.

Minutes later, the scene that killed the movie: a line of armoured seahorses facing off a line of armoured sharks. With lasers. And all roaring at each other. I laughed out loud, then asked, "Is this a joke?"

No, apparently not. Even when the timpani playing octopus was beating out the Planet Hulk combat rhythm in the arena, when the Green Goblin CGI-floated around pretending he's still loyal to the Master Race, and Aryan God Boy Ocean Master screams like Howard Dean on the campaign trail, you're supposed to regard all this as serious and intense.

It's like Springtime for Hitler.

I can go on and on and on but I'll just hit the lowlights. F'rinstance, the entire Russian Navy knows Aquaman exists. Aquaman even speaks Russian. Fluently. Everyone on the East Coast knows Aquaman exists. They party with the dude. Yet, the news media pish-poshes the idea of Atlanteans among us.

Must be CNN.

There is an eeeevil villain who simply can't get over that Aquaman didn't save eeevil villain's Dad from a watery death. Dude, your dad was a pirate. Sort of goes with the territory so lighten up. But noooo, evil villain constructs an eeevil costume replete with a dirigible helmet that fires plasma. You'd think a guy who knows he's going to be maneuvering around submarine interiors would select something a little less unwieldy. But, it's DC. Simple physics never bothered them. Like the Batcopter.

And for all their high tech, the Atlanteans are not the brightest. Aryan God Boy knew for decades where his hated half-brother lived and waits, of course, until Aquaboy is full on badass Aquaman before deciding to take him on. For that matter, the plasma firing laser shark Atlanteans have had a beef with the surface world for nigh-on millenia, but, of course, wait until we've got badass Aquaman on our side before making a move. No wonder the gods drowned them.

But Nicole Kidman showing up in a lobster suit...that's it. Done.

Make mine Marvel.

Whew. For a minute there, I thought Cleaver Greene had jumped the shark and we were going so far out into the Australian bush that we would never find a way back but, apparently, the writers realized they were crashing and burning and quickly ended that silly Secretary of Defense storyline. Trump Derangement Syndrome, I guess. and they just had to say something, just had to. So, feel better now? Great. Let's stay on course, shall we?

Wait, what? Simple. I don't binge watch. I watch an episode a week or so. So I'm not done yet. Probably won't be done until sometime in January. Or February. Sue me.

What more needs to be said? Magnificent, perfection, Daredevil the way Daredevil was in Season 1 before Season 2 and the Defenders went off track. Man. That classic Kingpin/Daredevil knock-down drag-'em-out in the last episode harkened back to treasured Daredevil comics of my youth. Don't know what it says about me that a brawl warms the cockles, but it did. Even more cockle warming, the knock-down between Daredevil and Gladiator, replete with saw blades. Yes, would have been nice to see Gladiator in full regalia but this was fine, just fine. Gladiator was always my favorite Daredevil villain and I almost shed a nostalgic tear as he tossed Matt to and fro. Loved Bullseye, too, but it would have been nice to see him in his own costume instead of swanning around as Daredevil. Yes, I know, there's some Bullseye title where he does said swanning but that's outside my comic book ken. Guess I'll have to wait until Season Four...oh, right. Sorry.

I have not felt this let down and ripped off by an ending since Lost. What the hell? This was, up until the end, the best horror series in decades. About the only thing comparable is The Returned (the French version), which was as creepy and disturbing but did NOT shoot itself in the foot with a final New Age post-modern angst-ridden sellout episode. Dudes, really? Really?

They gave the Fist to Colleen Wing.

Are you kidding me?

Now, before you leap on your feminist high horse and give me all that I-am-woman-hear-me-Kiaa crap, understand that it's not grrl power or anything like that which sparks my incredulity. It is the baffling lack of logic behind what was obviously a pandering, politically correct move. What baffling lack of logic, you inquire? Well, like, say, what is the reason or purpose for K'unlun? I mean, if all you need is some old Fist blood and a brand new tattoo, then why the deuce do you have to spend your entire life training to fight a dragon?

Danny Rand got rooked. Danny Rand should ask for his life back.

Other considerations, like, why didn't Davos think of this earlier? Why didn't his Mom? How in the blue blazing hell does a former member of the Hand end up with the Fist? And what the heck is that last sequence with Fist Bullets?

This is not Iron Fist. It's not even a reasonable facsimile. I think the closest the writers ever came to it was glancing at an Iron Fist comic book cover on a newsstand as they were driving by. I actually started rooting for Davos. At least he understood what the Fist was for.

Upside, the fighting was better this season and you got to actually SEE the Fist, which is why I upgraded it from Jell-o to Pudding. But it was still nonsensical. Colleen is a good basic-level sword instructor but a martial arts master? No. Not even close. A guy who spent twenty years practicing mystic martial artists and fighting a dragon is, however, and certainly doesn't need some iffy samurai showing him how to fight. And a Japanese girl and a white boy telling the Tongs they must give up their centuries' old traditions? Well, why don't you invade Manchuria and machine gun the Boxers while you're at it?

Other upsides: Typhoid Mary as the female Punisher and Misty Knight coming into her own, although her cyborg arm should be far more badass than it is. I would love to see Misty in her own series...own. With Colleen and Jessica Jones. That would be badass. How 'bout a team-up between Typhoid and Punisher? Oh, man. Get the popcorn.

But there aren't enough upsides to save the show and it looks like Netflix has figured that out and thrown in the towel. Good. Iron Fist is one of my favorite Marvel characters and what they did to him was criminal.

Matt Murdock should sue them.

...at least, one that had a point. I think it was a way for Joaquin Phoenix to show how much of a badass he is, and he is. But badassery usually needs a reason to believe and this is aimless. Best I can figure out, Phoenix plays badass Joe, who might be a badass because of Aaarmy training, sir, not really sure, who is trying to overcome a traumatic childhood by rescuing kids from their own traumatic childhoods in a way guaranteed to traumatize the children he's rescuing. There's some baffling political shenanigans going on, too. S'kay, because you get to watch badassery. I'd watch it again just for that.

Someone found a box of unused film clips that Jane Goodall's husband, cinematographer Hugo van Lawick, had left in a box and decided to piece them together into another Jane Goodall documentary. You'll see why van Lawick left them in a box because they are posed shots of Jane looking through binoculars, climbing trees, washing her hair, looking through binoculars, walking through the jungle, looking through binoculars, playing with a chimp, looking through binoculars, and looking through binoculars. Only reason to watch this is an attempt to induce an aneurysm.

This is a tragedy that you do not know is a tragedy until it's about 3/4 of the way through. Up until then, you think it's a comedy of errors. It's not. Heartbreaking and very well done.

Outstanding effin' movie about a drunken ex-cop (John Hawkes) seeking redemption. Sound like a cliche? Not in this case. The cop, Mike Kendall, manages to get his partner and a kidnap victim killed while drunk on duty, and it is a measure of the fabled Cop Protection Society that he is not spending twenty years in jail for manslaughter. He is, though, thrown out on his ear, earning opprobrium and contempt from his fellow cops and he becomes a world class drunk, parking his wonderful Nova SS in his front yard (through the picket fence, of course) and in the middle of fields, waking up a couple of days later. But see, once you've gone Brotherhood, you always go back and Kendall yearns to slap on a badge once again. He gets his chance when he discovers a woman's body by the side of the road. This is a straight up story of blackmail and sleaze, no twists and maguffins, more Fargo than Chinatown. But you'll get a kick out of it.

Outstanding effin' movie. Edge-of-your-seat tension along the lines of The Talented Mr. Ripley or Rounders, but much lighter. A genius high school girl, along with a genius high school boy, plan to cheat on an international exam. But, as you know, no plan survives first contact.

This is a movie best watched stoned. Cow-skull helicopters kidnapping cattle, does that give you an idea? Estonia needs dentists. Estonia needs more attractive people. Does that give you more of an idea?

This was disappointing. Just was. It turned into a CGI-fest, the psychedelia of which was supposed to substitute for a plot. Look at the pretty pictures and don't ask any questions. The ending sequence was simply ridiculous, and I was left with a vague sense that I needed to take a bath. I'm not even inspired to read the book. I'll watch this again only if there's nothing else on, because it was pretty.

This is a light-hearted look at genocide, repression, police states and all the other amusing aspects of tyranny and enslavement. Gee, what's next, Springtime for Hitler? How 'bout a rollicking comedy and musical about the Middle Passage? Or Pol Pot's killing fields? Good God Almighty. I spent the entire movie appalled as Beria (Simon Beale) and Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) jockey to take over from the just-deceased Stalin, from the slapstick attempt to move Stalin's body to working their limousines into the funeral procession. I guess this is funny to a generation which knows nothing about the horror show that was the USSR. Won't watch this again, comrade.

Wow. Just wow. A great movie about the destruction wrought by the Mexican drug trade on the innocent, in this case a group of kids left homeless and orphaned by a local drug gang. Not only do they murder the kids' parents with impunity, but they sell the kids into child sex rings. If it wasn't for the orphans' ten-year-old leader, Shine (wondrously portrayed by Juan Ramon Lopez) they'd all be dead or worse. Enter Estrella, a recently orphaned girl who brings with her three wishes, all of which devastate the orphans but bring a measure of justice, too. This is magical realism at its most tragic.

Wow. Just wow. What a great movie about prisoners in the Dominican Republic and how they use a self-developed sign language to communicate across fence lines. The stunning Judith Perez plays Yannely, who you really don't want for a girlfriend. Trust me on this. I can't decide if her performance or that of Jean Jean as Julian Sosa is the better because they are both brilliant.

This is a great movie ruined by its focus, its editing and its hubristic self-regard. Its focus is on the title character Sidney Hall, a 17-year-old writer of such power and greatness that merely glancing at one of his sentences induces orgasms. Or so we are led to believe. Sidney, who is a David Foster Wallace/JD Salinger amalgam gets a novel published through the machinations of his English teacher (yeah, that's how it happens) and world peace and love breaks out until A Tragedy causes the wounded Sidney to become a hobo rail-hopping across the country and burning copies of his books in libraries and book stores...a hobo who owns a billion dollar exclusively-designed desert house, by the way. The Tragedy is what this movie should have been about, not the self-absorbed Sidney's angst-ridden reaction to it. What dreck. What crap. This movie is full of contrived and artificially induced plot points, such as the stunningly beautiful girl across the street (Elle Fanning) who Sidney doesn't even notice until months later. Right. Turns out she's as insightful and brilliant and wonderful as he is, and she's also a creative type, a photographer. Because everyone in La La Land is a brilliant writer or photographer, doncha know. There are no trash truck drivers or plumbers. And, of course, she is the subject of More Tragedy. Really, Sidney is a walking curse that society should jail for its own safety. Oh, yes, there's ANOTHER brilliant writer involved in this, one whose words makes even Sidney Hall orgasm. La La Land has no dearth of brilliant writers, doncha know, all angst ridden and self-regarding except when they are regarding other brilliant writers. Really, we should all turn our lives over to them to manage. The eeeevil people are the parents, of course, and some vaguely right-wing politicians with a contrived censorship activity through which Sidney heroically suffers, because, you know, writers are Class Heroes Bringing The Truth (Christmas, does anybody involved with this movie actually live outside of a bubble?). One of those eeevil parents is the only intriguing character in this whole godawful mess: Sidney's Dad who, in his silence, speaks volumes. I wish the movie had been about him. Nathan Lane is in this movie being Nathan Lane and has the best line in the entire movie: "It's like throwing a party for Sylvia Plath." Indeed, it was. I would not watch this movie again at gunpoint.

I love South Korean crime movies because they are over-the-top nuts. So, apparently, are South Korean fantasy/scifi movies because, Holy Hannah, this one is nuts. A South Korean firefighter dies on duty and must undergo a series of trials before he is allowed to reincarnate. Man, Buddhism is tough. And complicated. I thought my (WARNING! Shameless self-promotion ahead!) Ship to Look For God trilogy set in Heaven was complicated but this one wins. It's a bit tough figuring out who's who and what's doing what to what but worth it. The CGI and swordplay alone make it worth it.

This is a film by Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, two Winchester Film Club 2.0 favorites because of their previous titles, Resolution, and Spring. In this one, Moorhead and Benson cast themselves as two brothers who escaped from a cult decades ago, only to go back for a visit when they receive a video tape from a current cult member. Mind blowing story about time loops and other science fictiony themes handled in a low key manner. The only nit I pick is an important segment that is reliant on the film Resolution, so make sure you watch that before you watch this.

Wow. Just wow. Diane Kruger is an international gem. She portrays a woman whose life is devastated by a couple of a-hole wannabe Nazis who kill her husband and son. Bad enough, but she is re-victimized by a court system more interested in impressing other lawyers and judges by their nuanced interpretation of an obscure statute or two than anything like justice. Seems the justices have sniffily dismissed the concept of vengeance as gauche and bourgeois. Got a state to craft in their own image, doncha know. What the justice system seems to have forgotten is that it was established so we could forgo vengeance in favor of a fair weighing of the facts and a subsequent fair recompense of the wrongs done us. When the courts decide they are vehicles for social engineering instead, what do you think will happen? Watch. This is a movie worth seeing several times. Diane Kruger deserves an Oscar.

One of those coming-of-age movies where you're supposed to be short of breath and gasping at the Big Reveals. I was gasping from the urge not to vomit. Ben, a precocious youngster (they're all precocious youngsters, ain't they?) embarks on a journey by himself to find his father because his mother won't tell him who his father is. Why? Who knows? There's absolutely no reason presented as to why the identity of the father must remain this big dark secret. Indeed, the father turns out to be quite a good guy. What the hell, Mom? Can't ask her because, you see, she died, carrying her incomprehensible and downright cruel reasons to the grave. So Ben has to move in with his aunt, who lives in a house right next door to his house, both on the same plot of land, apparently, and his house is bigger than the aunt's so why didn't they all just switch over? Got me. I guess it wouldn't advance the proposition that Ben is Cruelly Treated by his Aunt and cousin, necessitating the whole running-away-to-find-my-father shtick. As if that wasn't bad enough, superimposed over all this is a black-and-white sub-story involving Rose, a deaf girl who runs away to...well, we're not really sure. Visit the museum where her brother works, I guess. See, Rose is also cruelly treated because her Dad doesn't think 12-year-old deaf girls should run around New York City alone. And, get this, he wants her to learn sign language (why doesn't she already know sign language?)! Yeah, cruel bastard, he. Oh, yes, Ben loses his hearing during a lightening strike, so I guess that connects the two stories even though there's no reason why these two stories even relate...well, there is, but you don't know that until waaaay later, long after you've lost interest. Oh yeah, the 1977 New York City blackout's involved, too. What a godawful YA mess this movie is. I'd kick out my screen before watching it again

This is college. That's all you need to know. It's a running allegorical joke that only the guys who went to whatever college this is based on are in on. The saving grace is the delightfully maniacal performance by Logan Huffman as the head of the red fraternity, whose name escapes me. We all know a guy like that.

This is one hugely entertaining calamity after another as Connie Nikas (played by the wondrous Robert Pattison) tries to get his mentally challenged brother Nick out of Riker's Island after the two of them rob a bank. Connie's idea, ya know; he wanted to buy a farm where his brother could roam free. He also interferes with his brother's very beneficial treatment sessions. Connie's one of those guys who conflates family loyalty with an excuse for all kinds of mayhem and mishap and, man, is there mayhem and mishap galore in this movie. Every thirty minutes or so, there is a complete new cast of characters engaged in Connie's deranged plans. Watch it for that alone.

This movie confirms my suspicion that tennis is a snotty sport played by near-sociopaths who have managed to money their way out of prison and/or mental institutions. It was good, though. I'd watch it again if nothing else was on