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"In a very real sense, we are all aliens on a strange planet. We spend most of our lives reaching out and trying to communicate. If during our whole lifetime, we could reach out and really communicate with just two people. We are all indeed very fortunate."

- Gene Roddenberry 

"I hope he fails miserably. See, my ex-husband truly loved only one thing his entire life: this club. And Ted Lasso is gonna help me burn it to the ground. I want to torture Rupert. I want him to feel like he's being fucked in the ass with a splintered cricket bat, just in and out, over and over in a constant loop.

It likely started with Saturday Night Live. The show was roaring in the 1970's, and along the way some ideas that made great 3-minute skits got appropriated for movies and even television shows. A few of them have become classics. The Blues Brothers is one fine example. Most have retreated into obscurity. I can only think of a two examples where something like that became a dominant force for years to come. In the 1950's, Jackie Gleason was hosting his own variety show called The Jackie Gleason Show. One of the skits was about a bus driver named Ralph Kramden. That eventually stood on its own as The Honeymooners. Probably the best example takes us back to the 1980's and the arrival of a fourth television network in FOX. One of those first shows was The Tracy Ullman show, and that variety hour often featured little animated shorts about a horribly dysfunctional family: The Simpsons. Nearly 40 years later the series is one of the most successful franchises in the history of television. So what if we took a character and circumstances from a television commercial and tried the same thing. Would it work? The answer is yes ... for a little while.

Mark Harmon as Gibbs was the soul of the NCIS franchise. When he finally called it quits after nearly 20 years, I have to admit I wasn't sure how much longer the show could go on. I mean, there has to be a reason for this kind of longevity. All of the spin-offs have now come and gone. NCIS: Hawaii has now ended.  NCIS: New Orleans shuttered it's doors three years ago now after a mere seven years. The longest-running of the spin-offs was L.A., but even they have gone now after only 10 years. I say "only" 10 years. For most shows a 10-year run is rarefied air. So how about 21 years? Only Dick Wolf's Law & Order franchise has accomplished more. Yes, Harmon might have been the franchise's soul. But Gary Cole came in and has taken up that slack far better than anyone could have imagined. Now CBS is releasing NCIS The Complete 21st Season on DVD, and that short run of episodes puts the franchise passed the 1000 episode mark. It's an unbelievable run, and it doesn't look like it's close to ending now.

Season 21 was up against some tough odds. Just as the industry was truly recovered from the COVID halts in production, both the writers and the actors went on strike last summer. For a few months it didn't look like either group or the studios they were up against were very interested in settling. It's a bit mind-boggling to me. They suffered a somewhat self-inflicted wound and shut down productions once again over the strike. It hurt the current summer film season, and television shows didn't return to the airwaves until February. Like most network shows NCIS ended up with a short 10-episode season. But the delay cost them much more than another dozen episodes and months of dead air. This blow will be another test to the fortitude of the franchise.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Start your engines.”

Back in 2015 when Mad Max: Fury Road was released, it was a film that I don’t think anyone expected audiences to respond to as they did. It was 30 years since audiences had last been to the Australian Wasteland when they previously saw Max, then played by Mel Gibson, play the title hero in a dystopian trilogy that has a very loyal fan base. Fury Road managed to exceed expectations as it delivered on having over-the-top chases through the desert wasteland, spectacular stunts, a great score, and then there was the character of Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, as a one-armed badass who managed to steal the film from Tom Hardy, who was now starring in the title role of Max. While I do love Fury Road, my major gripe was with the over-simplicity of the film. Basically it is nothing more than one large chase where our heroes spend 2/3 heading in one direction and then in the final portion decide to turn around and continue their chase. I have nothing against a great car chase; after all, I still think Vanishing Point is hands down the ultimate car film with the best chases put to celluloid, but considering George Miller had 30 years to brainstorm ideas and come up with a script, I would have hoped for a better story. Now we have Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, this time only nine years in the making. Expectations are pretty high, and with the summer box office looking pretty bleak, theater chains are in need of a hero, and it looks like Furiosa could fit the bill. Does the film succeed in being everything audiences could hope for and need, or is this just another dumpster-fire cash grab by the studios just churning out a sequel hoping it will stay in theaters longer than a few weeks before hitting VOD?

Jeff Nichols is one of those directors who may not be a household name, but he’s one of the few working directors out there who I feel is just one box office hit away from breaking out and becoming one of the modern greats. The 2012 film Mud is hands down my favorite from his filmography. Then there is Take Shelter and Midnight Special that are close behind. While these may not be considered box office hits, these films I feel are each cinematic gems that deserve to be checked out. So of course when I hear he is helming The Bikeriders with a stacked cast of Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Michael Shannon (who was also in Midnight Special and Take Shelter), Boyd Holbrook, and Damon Herriman, this easily became one of the films I was most looking forward to this year. As it turns out, this is one of the most frustrating film experiences I’ve sat through in some time.

The film is about the midwest biker culture from 1965-1973, a film that was heavily influenced by Easy Rider but was attempting to have a little more grit, but for me it just never quite felt right. Danny (Mike Faist) was a photographer who hung out with the biker gang that called themselves The Vandals and is interviewing Kathy (Jodie Comer) to get her perspective on the rise of the gang. This interview is basically used as a narration for the film, and gives it this weird Goodfellas vibe, and for me this just didn’t work. First let me say I’m a fan of Jodie Comer, and I feel she is one of the great rising stars working right now, but the accent she was using for this role had me wanting to jam needles in my ears, I literally had to stop the film at one point just to walk away for a bit. It may have been authentic to the character, but yikes, it was like Fargo on steroids and a helium balloon. Anyway, Kathy is our introduction to the gang, and we meet everyone through her perspective, and we see her relationship develop with Benny (Austin Butler). He’s the pretty boy of the group and does a good job of playing a tough-guy version of James Dean. Leading the gang is Johnny (Tom Hardy), who plays this role effortlessly it seems, and just has this essence of cool so that it’s no surprise why these other bikers want to follow him and be like him.

"India. Once a faraway and mysterious place of Ghandi and nonviolence. And ancient traditions of spiritual enlightenment. What happens when a young 23-year-old westerner realizes he needs to change, goes there in search of himself, and he finds that The Beatles are there, too? Four of the most loved and famous people in the world, and they're there to meditate and to write music. They also want to find out who they are on a new and deeper level."

The Beatles. As a musician I fully appreciate the fact that the band literally changed rock music as much as any other act before or since. The music was truly transcending, which is a great place to start when talking about Meeting The Beatles In India. Just as the Fab Four were nearing the end of their time together, they took six weeks to travel to India, where they met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. At the time TM, or Trancendental Meditation, was gaining a kind of Beatles-like popularity. I remember my mother bringing home a book on TM. It never went anywhere for her, but it did for millions of people. So it's no surprise that The Lads sought out The Maharishi to see what it was all about. There the band wrote between 30-48 songs. The number is apparently arguable, as you will discover here. And while they were some of the last songs the band would write and record, they stand out as a pinnacle of the band's career. Shortly thereafter they went their separate ways, as changes began to overtake them as people and as a musical act. Many believe these changes began here in India during that six-week stay. Some of the changes would lead to the inevitable split, while other changes would reshape the landscape of the songs themselves. If you are interested in what happened, this might be a good place to start, but I must confess that I was overall a bit disappointed in the film as a whole. More on that later.

For horror fans, the past couple of years have been pretty great with the amount of quality films we’ve been getting. Now, for the amount of good films we’ve gotten, there should be no surprise that there have been some duds along the way. This year I’m feeling like Night Swim is the worst of the bunch. As for Tarot, I have to admit I went into this one with pretty low expectations, but the trailer had enough in it for me to want to still give it a try. While I missed it in theaters, this weekend I caught it on Netflix, and I’ve got to say, it’s better than I expected, but still it left me wanting more. The film opens up with a group of friends renting a mansion in the middle of nowhere to celebrate their friend’s birthday. When they run out of beer, they search the home looking for more to drink but end up finding more than they bargained for when they find a door telling them to Keep Out … but this is a horror movie, so of course they open the door that leads to a creepy basement filled with creepy artifacts. When they find a deck of tarot cards, Haley (Harriet Slater), the tarot expert of the group, volunteers to give everyone a reading, and of course curses them all in the process. It is a very simple setup, and it is effective for this kind of horror film. Sure, it is a twist on the Final Destination franchise, as we see them each die how their tarot reading told. I was totally on board for this direction … but the directors got in the way of themselves by showing us (the audience) too much and too soon.

What makes the Final Destination films work so well is that the villain is death itself, and it is something we don’t get to see; instead we see the environments of the characters turned into deathtraps. In Tarot death for these kids takes the form of their final card drawn, whether it is a magician, a jester, or whatever character is on the card. To make it worse, I hated the look of all these “death” characters brought to life. Then there is of course the character that is there to explain why the cards are cursed and who is behind it all, and that is fine, but again, this just felt like a wasted character.

“What can I say? I like playing with my food.”

I have to say, I was expecting more blood. When the cast speaks out and calls the film “the bloodiest thing they’ve ever worked on in terms of volume,” or “the most traumatic experiences,” and the director describes it as “just a bloodbath,” I guess I was just expecting it to be pouring down from the walls. However, that was really not the case. In truth, I barely noticed a difference between this and your typical horror film. Granted, other horror films have less exploding vampires, which I assume was the reason for the film earning its gory reputation. I suppose that is to the film’s credit; the ability to use close to 30,000 liters of fake blood, and I was no more disturbed than watching any other traditional vampire films. Aside from that surprise, I have no complaints about Abigail, a reimagining of the Universal horror classic Dracula’s Daughter starring Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Will Catlett, Kevin Durand, Angus Cloud, and Giancarlo Esposito. For Angus Cloud, this serves as his final role due to his passing in July 2023. Also noteworthy was that production wasn't completed until months after his death due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. However, Cloud had managed to film all of his scenes before production was shut down.