Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old

Five Books for Donation Resumed

I’ve decided to take up my five-books-a-week donation to the local library. I think it got derailed a while back when I came down with pneumonia. I never got my act back together. I intend to post this on August 25 and donate the books on September 1. If anyone wants any of these books, let me know before September 1, and I’ll try to get one to you.

The Stuff: The title refers to a book by Krakauer’s fellow mountaineer, Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea. In Mortenson’s book, he claims that he started a charity to build schools in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan to repay villagers who befriended him after he got lost descending K2 in Pakistan.

This short (<100 pages) work says most of Mortenson’s stories are fabrications, and the finances of the charitable organization that he founded, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), are in a tangle. Was any school built at all? Were those buildings that were built used as schools?

I read Mortenson’s original books and swallowed them hook, line, and sinker. After reading this, I was angry. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between. The attorney general of Montana wrote of the controversy:

“Our investigation centered on whether CAI’s officers and directors satisfied their legal duties with regard to Mortenson’s books and speaking engagements, and in managing the financial and operational affairs of the organization. We concluded that the board of directors failed to fulfill some of its important responsibilities in governing the nonprofit charity. Further, Mortenson failed to fulfill his responsibilities as executive director and as a member of the board.

Despite policies that committed him to do so, Mortenson failed to make contributions to CAI equal to the royalties he earned on the books the organization purchased. Nor did he and CAI devise an equitable way to split the costs to advertise and promote the book, as required by his 2008 employment agreement. Mortenson also accepted travel fees from event sponsors while CAI was paying his travel costs. Moreover, he had significant lapses in judgment resulting in money donated to CAI being spent on personal items such as charter flights for family vacations, clothing, and internet downloads.”

2012_0405_FINAL-REPORT-FOR-DISTRIBUTION.pdf (dojmt.gov)

Bio: Jon Krakauer (b. 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He wrote for Outside magazine and has written several nonfiction books, including Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air. The last was written for Outside magazine and took place during the disastrous 1996 Everest ascent. His books have not been without controversy.

Title: Three Cups of Deceit
Author: Jon Krakauer (b. 1954)
First published: 2011

The stuff: This is a nonfiction work describing the role astronomers and those who read portents in the skies played in ancient societies. The author describes the worldview of peoples as diverse as ancient China to the prehistoric Americas. This heavy, hardback book is illustrated throughout with black-and-white drawings and photographs, many original to the author. “Astronomical knowledge confers power,” Krupp writes in his introduction. “The calendar must be kept. The omens must be read. The ceremonies must be performed.”

This is not a technical book, but it can get a little dry for the layperson. Nevertheless, this was an interesting and rewarding read. May it find a good home.

Bio: Edwin Charles Krupp (b. 1944) has been the director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles since 1976 and taught at El Camino College, USC, and UCLA. His area of expertise is archeoastronomy, the astronomy of ancient cultures. He has written books for adults and children in addition to academic works.

Title: Skywatchers, Shamans, & Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Power
Author: E. C. Krupp (b. 1944)
First published: 1997

The stuff: This is a nonfiction work examining the 1925 Scopes trial regarding the teaching of evolution in Tennessee. In the popular imagination, the trial was settled as depicted in Inherit the Wind. (Produced in 1960, the play was not about the Scopes trial as much as it was a metaphor about McCarthyism.)

Real life was more complex. John Scopes, the history teacher charged with violating the Butler Act (which forbade teaching evolution), was convicted and fined $100—a bit more money in 1925 than in 2022. Author Larson sees the trial not as resolving the issue of science and religion but as an opening shot in a battle that continues under different guises. Instead of forbidding evolution, fundamentalists may try to include aspects of “creationism” such as “intelligent design” or “teaching the controversy” in public school curricula, for example.

This book was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in history.

I found this an interesting, if sad, read. However, it has the ugliest and most off-topic cover—an out-of-focus close-up of a chimpanzee’s face. It’s hard to look.

Bio: Edward J. Larson (b. 1953) is an American historian and legal scholar. Currently a professor at Pepperdine University, he formerly held a professorship at the University of Georgia. He makes frequent television appearances on outlets such as NPR and PBS. His articles have been published in Nature, Scientific American, The Nation, American History, Time, and various academic history and law journals.

Title: Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
Author: Edward J. Larson (b. 1953)
First published: 1997

The Stuff: Leakey begins his discussion by referring to Darwin’s arguments about the origins of humans. Some of them—humans originated in Africa—have held up well for statements made without fossil remains. Others, not so well. Leakey emphasizes humans’ unusual bipedalism and the development of large brains and language. While the book misses out on some DNA developments of the last decade or so, it is a concise, accessible discussion of human origins.

Bio: Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (1944-2022) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician. He was the son of renowned paleoanthropologists, Louis and Mary Leakey. Leakey and his team discovered an unprecedented 1.5-million-year-old skeleton dubbed the Turkana Boy. Leakey lost both legs as a result of a plane crash in 1993 and wrote such books (in addition to the present work) as One Life: An Autobiography (1983), The Sixth Extinction (with Roger Lewin) (1995), and Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa’s Natural Treasures (with Virginia Morell) (2001).

Title: The Origin of Humankind
Author: Richard Leakey (1944-2022)
First published: 1994

The Stuff: This is a memoir about losing religious faith and building a life afterward. Lobdell writes that at 27, he had made a mess of his life. A friend advised him he needed God. He became a Christian, started a family, and got married. Things are sometimes complicated. With patience and some finagling, he landed his dream job: writing a religion column for the Los Angeles Times. But there were scandals. When he and his wife were about to convert to Catholicism, the priest sex abuse scandal broke. The memoir is honest and heartbreaking. The material can be hard to read emotionally, but it is candid and important.

Bio: William Lobdell: I couldn’t find much current bio info on the author. His LinkedIn profile listed him as the content manager of Pacific Funds. He seems to have been active—at least for a while—with the Center for Inquiry, a skeptic organization. He is (or was) a visiting faculty member at UC Irvine but was not listed on the UCI directory when I checked. He wrote the “Getting Religion” column for the Orange County edition of the Los Angeles Times from 1998 to 2008 and was a journalist for about 25 years. This is the only book I could find published by this author.

Title: How I lost My faith Reporting Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace
Author: William Lobdell
First published: 2009

Review of “Cry Wilderness” (1987)

A very short clip from MST3K

SHORT REVIEW: RUN AWAY!!!

Longer review:

For our Saturday night pizza and bad movie, we picked one Mystery Science Theater that may have actually improved the viewing experience. This one is just nonsense. Or fine family PG-rated viewing, however you want to look at it.

Plot:

On a school trip, Paul Cooper (Eric Foster) wanders away from the group of boys with red ties. When his teacher Mr. Douglas (Navarre Perry), finds him, he’s standing by an exhibit of something like a tall ape/man. Paul tells his teacher that he’s seen him. He’s seen Bigfoot. Mr. Douglas tells him not to lie and threatens discipline.

Later, when Paul is in his dormitory bed, he hears someone calling. Why, it’s Bigfoot (Tom Folkes)! Or maybe it’s a vision. An odd red glow surrounds everything. Bigfoot tells Paul to come home. His father is in grave danger.

Mr. Douglas at first busts Paul before he can run away, but he runs away anyway. A trucker (Guy Bass) gives him a ride but doesn’t ask where a kid Paul’s age is going. Paul is probably no more than eleven or so.

He wanders through the woods somewhere in northern California/western Nevada until he stumbles across his dad, a forest ranger (Maurice Grandmaison), who pulls a gun on him, not expecting him. Dad lays down the law. Paul is going back to school on Monday. Doesn’t he ask what the kid is doing wandering around the woods?

Paul also stumbles across a pair of boots, which turn out to be on the feet of his dad’s friend Jim (John Tallman), a Native American who (I kid you not) wears blush all over his face. The amount of blush varies from scene to scene.

They all laugh. They laugh a lot. Inappropriately. They walk by a succession of wild critters like a fox with a collar on its neck. They stop laughing when they get to Dad’s cabin and find the door open. Who’s been here? Could it be Bigfoot? Could it be something worse?

Selection B—something worse. A hunter with exceptionally bad table manners is here to eliminate whatever’s been killing the wildlife. (Uh… there are bear in them thare woods? Think they might be doing some ‘a that there killin’? Eh, never mind) The hunter is keen to bag him a Bigfoot, and he gets wind that the boy might know a thing or two.

Thoughts:

The strong point of this little flick is not the script. Nor the acting. Nor the special effects. Bigfoot doesn’t have gloves. The movie has wannabe echoes of Harry and the Hendersons (1987) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) but adds nothing unique.

There are some lovely location shots from around Mono Lake, California, and the Devil’s Postpile. These are both otherworldly and breathtaking areas.

It’s hokum with cute animals.

There might be an explanation. In Backstory 2: interviews with screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s, Patrick McGilligan records writer/screenwriter Philip Yordan saying this about the movie:

The distributor, who had done Sasquatch [1978], which cost maybe $150,000 and made over $4 million profit, says to me, “Give me a picture about Bigfoot, and I’ll make millions.” So I sat down and wrote a picture. He says, “No, no, no, you don’t understand. You got scenes in the beginning that will scare the audience. It’s for kids. So I had to take out all the scary scenes. Bigfoot couldn’t be threatening; he had to be nice. No blood, no violence, no sex, no bad language. I said, “You really want a picture about nothing!” He says, “That’s it! Now you’ve got it! Nothing! I want nothing!” I said, “That’s the most difficult thing to write.” Well, the picture is about nothing, if you sit through it, which I don’t know if you can.

So there. This stinker is incomprehensible, insulting, and bad not because the writer, actors, or director were incompetent but because the people who paid for it wanted it to stink. Yeah, makes no sense to me, either.

Title: Cry Wilderness (1987)

Directed by
Jay Schlossberg-Cohen

Writing Credits
Philip Yordan…(original story)
Philip Yordan…(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
Eric Foster…Paul Cooper
Maurice Grandmaison…Will Cooper
John Tallman…Jim
Griffin Casey…Morgan Hicks
Faith Clift…Dr. Helen Foster
Navarre Perry…Mr. Douglas

Released: 1987
Length: 1 hour, 33 minutes
Rated: PG

Review of “At the Earth’s Core” (1977)

From Youtube

Svengoolie was a rerun once again, so we went to Mystery Science Theater for this gem, an adaptation of an Edgar Rice Burroughs work.

Plot:

Against a backdrop of Victorian Great Britain, scientist Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) oversees the building of a giant earth-boring machine, “the iron mole.” Accompanying him on its test run through some Welsh hills is former student David Innes (Doug McClure), who has financed the venture.

The local people come to watch the demonstration, along with the press and a marching band. First contact between drill and hillside produces sparks and smoke and jostles our heroes around in their leather-upholstered swivel chairs. The crowd applauds.

As soon as Perry and Innes are underground, things go wrong. First, the borer heads down rather than straight ahead through the mountain. Our heroes have no control. On an analog indicator, the crew watches as the machine digs through the earth’s crust and the upper mantle. They faint from the heat. The machine keeps boring through the lower mantle and skirting the earth’s core. When Perry and Innes revive, they find frost covering their instruments and their persons. The ice outside the ship becomes water—they’re in an underground lake. They find themselves on land. The ship halts and goes dark. Innes strikes a match and lights a cigar, providing the only light inside the “mole.”

“Total power failure,” says Perry. “How very disappointing. It must have been the water. I didn’t allow for that contingency. I’ll just get my umbrella. The weather seems so changeable.”

They exit the machine and find themselves in a jungle.

“This can’t be the other side of the hill—unless it’s changed dramatically,” Perry tells the younger man.

There is no attempt to explain the outside light source. Perry immediately recognizes some of the plant species. He’s only seen fossilized form.

They come to understand they’re not on the earth but in it. Their explorations are interrupted by a giant parrot/eagle stomping through the jungle. Our heroes flee. Perry even tries to shoo it away with his umbrella.

The real trouble starts when they’re rescued, however. Beings that resemble apes with slicked-backed hair drag Perry and Innes to a group of humans, chained together, making their way to the city of the Mahars as slaves.

Thoughts:

From the opening shots of gentlemen in 19th-century garb holding planning specs to the marching band spoiling the publicity picture, I knew this would be a delightfully goofy flick. It did not disappoint. It has much in common with works like Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Time Machine.

The special effects are, um, quaint. That is, guys in pterodactyl costumes enslave humans by using telepathic powers. Their eyes light up when they’ve got their mojo working. They hang out on rocks with a bit of fog. They have a written language.

Guys in upright rhinoceros fight each other.

Innes falls for one of the slave women, the lovely Dia (Caroline Munro), but he offends her in some complicated culture-specific way, and she won’t talk to him anymore. Ah, yes. The course of true love never did run smooth, even if those people speak English. Maybe that British Empire went farther than even the British knew.

Our heroes wouldn’t be heroes if they didn’t liberate the oppressed from their oppressors—an idea that apparently didn’t cross their poor benighted minds until the plucky Brits arrived.

The best lines come from Peter Cushing’s character, Abner Perry. In defying the telepathic Mahar, he insists, “You cannot mesmerize me! I’m British!”

No one will confuse this with great cinematic art, but it is silly and doesn’t take itself too seriously. I enjoyed it.

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films nominated At the Earth’s Core for its 1977 Golden Scroll Best Fantasy Film.

At the Earth’s Core can be watched here.

Title: At the Earth’s Core (1976)

Directed by
Kevin Connor

Writing Credits
Edgar Rice Burroughs…(based upon the novel by)
Milton Subotsky…(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
Doug McClure…David Innes
Peter Cushing…Dr. Abner Perry
Caroline Munro…Dia
Cy Grant…Ra
Godfrey James…Ghak
Sean Lynch…Hoojah

Released: 1976
Length: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Rated: PG

Review “Trancers” (1984)

trailer from YouTube

Svengoolie was yet again a rerun, a generically named Curse of Frankenstein, which I reviewed here: We tried another movie the dearly beloved saw a while ago. I remembered bits and pieces of it as well.

Plot:

In the year 2247, Trooper Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) patrols the mean streets of Angel City, near sunken Los(t) Angeles. The opening sequences show our hero entering a café and ordering coffee.

“The real stuff?” the waitress asks. “That’ll cost you.” She disappears into the back room.

Deth asks a patron to show proof he’s not a trancer. The patron objects that he needs a warrant. Deth pulls a gun.

The patron, a large bear of a man, is not a trancer. However, the waitress, an older black woman, comes out of the back room with an ashen face, red eyes, and a bad attitude. She and Deth get into a knockdown-dragout. The non-trancer patron flees and hits a beacon outside the café, alerting the police.

After taking a few blows, Deth shoots the hapless waitress with a ray gun, killing her. She glows and leaves a person-sized burn mark on the floor. She has, in the parlance of the time, been “singed.”

The police arrive in a hover squad car. Out pops McNulty (Art LaFleur), who admonishes Deth over his private war on trancers and demands he return to his assignments. Deth throws his badge onto the ground and stomps off.

Later, when he is diving in the water around submerged Los(t) Angeles, recovering artifacts, McNulty returns. His former supervisor wants him to come with him to speak with the City Council.

Deth at first demurs. McNulty tells him the creator of the trancers, Whistler (Michael Stefani), has found a way to go back in time.

Deth believed he killed Whistler on one of the rim planets. Hearing he’s alive is disappointing, particularly since Whistler killed his wife.

Whistler is back in 1985 in the body of an ancestor, assassinating the ancestors of the City Council. There would be nothing to stand between him and taking over Angel City.

The remaining members of the Council want to send him back in time to stop Whistler as his ancestor. This requires keeping his body in stasis and injecting him with drugs. The antidote for return—one for him and one for Whistler—is secreted in the handle of his period .38 Special.

He agrees, with one exception. He uses his gun on the body of Whistler, destroying it. Whistler isn’t coming home, regardless of what happens.

The Council furnishes him with some information. His ancestor is a journalist. Whistler’s ancestor is a cop, of course, and with the power to psychically control people and make them into the zombie-like creatures known as trancers, beings neither dead nor alive and without a will of their own

Thoughts:

There are cute moments. Jack wakes up with a cute girl (Helen Hunt) whose name he doesn’t know. He’s supposed to get her to her job as a photographer for a mall Santa. The girl is no fool and realizes he isn‘t the same man she took a tumble with the night before. He told her he’s from L.A. but can’t find (let alone pronounce) Cahuenga Boulevard.

When she arrives at work—late—oh, the things that come over Saint Nick (Peter Schrum). That jolly old elf turns green and attacks Deth with a giant plastic candy cane while children scream and worried mothers hustle their munchkins out of harm’s way.

Mrs. Claus calls security, telling them, “We’ve got trouble at the North Pole!”

The sheer silliness of it is worth the price of admission.

Jack Deth himself brings to mind many of the old noir film detectives. No damsel in distress comes running up to his office with a tale of woe, but he is hard bitten, always backtalking his boss. He has a way with the ladies. At the same time, he mourns for his wife and will do all he can to get vengeance on her killer.

The plot is the weakest point, and the movie takes itself rather too seriously at points, but with the silliness, it’s a lot of fun. And it’s just the beginning of a small library of sequels.

The movie can be watch for free with commercials here:

Title: Trancesrs (1984)

Directed by
Charles Band

Writing Credits
Danny Bilson… (written by) and
Paul De Meo… (written by)

Cast (in credits order)
Tim Thomerson…Jack Deth
Helen Hunt…Leena
Michael Stefani…Whistler / Detective Weisling
Art LaFleur…McNulty (as Art La Fleur)
Telma Hopkins…Engineer Raines
Richard Herd…Chairman Spencer

Released: 1984
Length: 1 hour, 16 minutes
Rated: PG-13

Review of “Starcrash” (1978)

Trailer from YouTube. It’s no more comprehensible than the movie

We ducked out on a bad rerun on Svengoolie and chose this gem, a color sci-fi Star Wars rip—er, Star Wars-inspired flick.

Plot:

The opening shots show the bottom of a white starship passing over the viewer. Where, oh, where has that appeared before? No crawl to set the action a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, however. Aboard the ship, transparent red blobs attack people who are looking for the hiding place of the evil Count Zarth Arn. Three escape pods leave, but the ship itself is lost.

Meanwhile, smugglers Stella Star (Caroline Munroe) and Akton (Marjor Gortner) run afoul of the imperial patrol. Police Chief Thor (Robert Tessier) and robot sheriff Elle (Judd Hamilton, English dialogue voiced by Hamilton Camp). Our heroes escape into hyperspace. They come across a random derelict ship where they find one of the escape pod survivors. He is in bad shape and can tell them nothing, not even how he got on a ship from the escape pod.

The long arm of the law catches up with them. Much mustache twirling follows. Stella and Akton are tried for piracy (wait… aren’t they smugglers? Oh, it’s so confusing) and sentenced to separate prison labor colonies.

Interestingly, Stella keeps her bikini-ish costume in prison. Her labor involves dropping white beach balls into what looks like the nuclear reaction in the Batcave. She quickly stages an uprising; guards and inmates alike are killed. ‘Nuff of this prison stuff. Stella sprints off in her bikini and inappropriate footwear.

Outside, she finds… a starship—whaddya know. Thor and Elle stop her. And they take her to an orbiting spaceship where—whaddya know—Akton happens to be waiting. So that prison uprising was for nothing? All those people died for just a chance to go “Pew-pew-pew” with their funky weapons? They’re getting the band back together or something?

Wha—?

Oh, this will make sense now. The Emperor Palp—I mean, the Emperor (Christopher Plummer—in a role he probably didn’t ask his mom to watch) communicates by holograph. He’s heard good things about Stella’s piloting skills. (She’s a smuggler and a pirate?). He’s commissioning her to find his son, a victim of an attack by the evil Count Zarth Arn. The evil count has some fantastic weapon hidden in a secret planet. How does he keep a planet secret? The Emperor’s son was looking for this weapon when he disappeared.

Okay…

I’d ask what could go wrong, but I’m not sure there’s anything that makes sense. And Stella’s clothes keep getting weirder.

Thoughts:

We saw the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this. Maybe it makes more sense without the added commentary, but I have a hard time picturing it. For example, the spaceship our heroes travel in for most of the movie has two main round viewing ports with a wide separator between them, giving the impression they were traveling through space looking out through a giant ape’s skull. Stella flies/swims between spaceships Superman style, with one fist raised, untethered. Some characters have random powers, such as being about to shoot lasers out of their eyes. This trait is never explained. However, a giant animated amazon statue with prominent boobs does not shoot lasers either out of its eyes or its boobs. What appears to be an uncomplicated wound to the upper arm proves fatal.

The outfits Stella and other women wore—like the uniforms of the amazon warriors who attack her and Elle—might remind the viewer of the clean parts of “adult” films. And, frankly, so did the dialogue. Just the same, there is no sex.

The special effects are… special. I can forgive that. Sometimes they’re more enjoyable than the big-bucks special effects. I can’t forgive plots that don’t make sense, nonsensical dialogue, and too many moments of “Wha—?”

Of course, the good guys win. And the bad guy goes down in a humiliating defeat, shaking his fist amid smoke and sparks while his underlings flee. Just can’t get good minions these days.

Yeah, I’d give this one a wide berth.

If, for some reason, you wish to see this movie, it can be watched here.

Title: Starcrash (1978)

Directed by
Luigi Cozzi…(as Lewis Coates)

Writing Credits
Luigi Cozzi…(screenplay) (as Lewis Coates) &
Nat Wachsberger…(screenplay)
R.A. Dillon…(additional dialogue)

Cast (in credits order)
Marjoe Gortner…Akton
Caroline Munro…Stella Star
Christopher Plummer…The Emperor
David Hasselhoff…Prince Simon
Robert Tessier…Chief Thor
Joe Spinell…Count Zarth Arn

Released: 1978
Length: 1 hour, 32 minutes
Rated: PG

Gremlin: In Memoriam

Disclaimer: A eulogy for a cat is perhaps a bit self-indulgent. Gremlin has been gone a week. I miss him very much and probably will for a long time. I ask anyone who isn’t into cats or animals is general to skip this. Thank you.

“Would you like his ashes?” the receptionist asked.

“No. Ashes are ashes.” I didn’t say what I wanted to say: Give me back my cat.

I’d just watched the vet carry Gremlin—or what had been Gremlin—away wrapped in a blanket, his head bobbing, his eyes only slits, his tongue poking out between his teeth.

“I feel the same way you do,” the receptionist said. She asked for my credit card. It would be easier than performing the transaction at the front counter.

After she left with the card, I told my husband, “I didn’t even think to ask how much this will cost.”

“It’s not like you have a choice,” he said.

“No.”

Give me back my cat.

I clutched the jacket I’d wrapped around Gremlin for this last ride to the vet. I wasn’t going to put him in a carrier. He hated the carrier. He’d been in kidney failure for about five years but had remained happy and sassy. True, the block wall fence had grown mysteriously taller with time, but for most of the nineteen years he’d been with me, it had proved no obstacle. Little stood in his way since he was a kitten so small he had to claw his way up to the couch.

He’d lost weight fast the last couple of weeks. That last morning when I went to feed him, he didn’t come out of the doghouse he slept in. I thought he might already be gone, but he sat up and lumbered out. He wandered around his enclosure. He was blind. He hadn’t been the day before. I picked him up and set him down by bushes where he liked to spray. He walked in unsteady circles by my feet.

He didn’t appear to be in pain, but he wasn’t eliminating. There was nothing in the litter box. His organs weren’t working. Add to this the blindness—

I wouldn’t put an animal down simply for being blind, but Gremlin’s blindness came from detached retinas due to hypertension because his kidneys weren’t working. They were never going to work.

“Talk me out of it,” I told my husband after I showed him how Gremlin walked.

“I don’t think I can,” he said.

My husband held him while I took a shower.

“He’s just been purring away,” he told me when I returned.

I held him while my husband took a shower. I called for the appointment. Nothing was open until 2:30, so for those hours, we talked to Gremlin. I told him he was loved.

I fed him and gave him some water. He ate a little and drank some. I took him outside and let him feel the sun.

I remembered this kitten who chewed our fingers when he first arrived and kneaded the back of my head in the middle of the night with very sharp little claws, who purred loudly next to me on the pillow. I remembered the kitten who ran out of his hiding place behind the bookcase to greet me when I came home from work. I remembered the cat who made it impossible to wrap presents because wrapping paper is a cat toy. I remembered the cat who played with the yo-yo my husband dangled before him. I remembered the cat who sat on the block wall washing his paws, ignoring the neighbors’ dog going nuts barking at him. I remember the cat who delighting in tearing up newspaper. I remembered the cat who cried every morning for breakfast as if he hadn’t been fed for a week. I remembered the cat who slept on the couch between me and my husband, one paw touching each of us, as if he didn’t want us to leave. I remembered the cat who pawed my husband’s shoulder because he wasn’t done receiving attention.

That morning, the cat curled up next to me on the couch, sleeping, content.

Gremlin with his mom and littermates. He’s the all-black cat to the far right

I kept you safe from coyotes and cars. I kept you—mostly—out of the wind, the rain, and the hot sun. I could not keep your kidneys from dying. But I kept you from suffering needlessly.

And when we came home with an empty jacket, I had no words. My husband hugged me and said, “I miss him, too.”

To the well-meaning receptionist: Fuck your ashes, trying to separate more of my money from me.

I want my cat back.

Review of “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle”

Long before I read this lovely tribute, I read and enjoyed Bronco’s adventures. Bronco was, without doubt, the goodest boy of them all—just like every dog.

Full disclosure: the author, Thomas Wikman, and I go back some years to a now-defunct writing site, Epinions. I have enjoyed his book reviews and letters to the editor for years.

That is not to say that the book is without surprises. For example, I didn’t know Thomas didn’t grow up with dogs. He has always come across as knowledgeable regarding animals. I assumed he’d been playing catch with four-footed beasts for as long as he could stand on two feet. I grew up with dogs. To me, a house without an animal isn’t a home.

Bronco was a Leonberger, a breed I’d never heard of before. It is an unusual breed in North America. Having originated in the 19th century in Germany, it remains more common in Europe. They are huge dogs, with the males weighing between 120 and 170 pounds and the females 100 and 135 pounds. They are similar to St. Bernards and are known for their gentle dispositions. This was the case for Bronco.

The author relates amusing stories about Bronco and the other dogs he and his family own(ed), which are entertaining. The tales serve more than to entertain, however. They show the family learning, though these are never mere didactic tools.

For example, the author relates that while he was talking with a trainer, Bronco kept poking him in the leg with his (sizeable) paw. The author ignored him because he was in the middle of a conversation. Bronco didn’t give up but bit his rear end—not hard enough to do damage, but hard enough to cause pain. Again, I stress the size of the dog. The author writes:

“I turned around, and there stood Bronco, looking at me with his happy eyes and wagging his tail as if he were completely innocent. I forgave him immediately.”

Rather than go off on the dog or slap him—as people might—he wisely asked the trainer why the dog acted like that. The trainer responded that Bronco wanted his attention but had to learn that he was not the one in charge and shouldn’t behave like that.

The love and caring the author and his family show for their dogs comes through on every page. It is not mere sentiment. He acknowledges that caring for animals is work and, at times, expensive. The dogs are walked, they’re cared for, and trained.

And the pictures! A photo of the cutest puppy on the planet—just like all the other puppies on the planet—when Bronco first arrived at about three months, and a photo of Bronco sitting on the lap of Thomas’ wife, Claudia. You have to take Thomas’ word for it because you can barely see any human in the picture. In addition to the photos, there are charming color drawings by Naomi Rosenblatt depicting some of the cutest and funniest incidents in the book. She also draws touching tributes to the dogs when they leave.

At the end of the book is a history of the Leonberger breed, including statistics, health concerns, and breed standards. This section also discusses the work of the Leonberger Health Foundation International, whose “mission is to improve the life, health, and longevity of the Leonberger,” according to its website.

The author and his stories of Bronco and the family’s other dogs are a reminder of how much animals enrich our lives. They are informative as well. I think any animal-lover will enjoy this—even if a Leonberger is not in your future.

The author is donating his proceeds from the sale of this book to the Leonberger Health Foundation International.

Title: The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle
Author: Thomas Wikman
First published: 2022

Available in print:

Review of “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947)

trailer from YouTube

Svengoolie was, alas! a rerun yet again, so we watched a noir for Saturday pizza and bad movie night. This little flick has Orson Welles speaking an (occasional) brogue and allowing himself to be lured into a circle of unpleasant people after a pretty girl winks at him.

Plot:

“When I start out to make a fool of myself, there’s very little can stop me,” begins the voiceover with a shot of a boat going under the Brooklyn Bridge. Michael O’Hara sets his eyes on a beautiful woman in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park and offers her a cigarette. “But once I’d seen her, once I’d seen her, I was not in my right mind for some time,” the voiceover tells the viewer.

The voiceover is read by Orson Welles in the character of Michael O’Hara, an Irish merchant marine in the United States. The object of his adoration is Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth).

Once the carriage is out of view, thieves descend upon it. Elsa screams. A regular donnybrook arises between Michael and the three attackers, with the three bad’uns lying on the ground, groaning. Elsa and the driver are fine.

For no clear reason, Michael strands the driver and takes the reins of the carriage back to Elsa’s car, where he learns that Elsa is Mrs. Bannister. Bummer that. She offers him a job on her yacht. He declines.

Not as dumb as he looks.

The next day, Mr. Bannister (Everett Sloane) comes to the seaman’s hiring hall, where Michael has come for work on departing ships. Bannister offers him the job in gratitude for saving his wife.

Against his better judgment, Michael accepts the job.

It’s an unhappy cast and crew. Michael senses Elsa’s unhappiness. The two of them could run away together, except he has no money. Things go from bad to worse when they pick up Bannister’s law partner, George Grisby (Glenn Anders). Grisby offers Michael $5000—a lot of money in 1947—to sign a confession saying he killed Grisby. Grisby will then disappear. No body, no murder conviction (which was how the law read at the time). Michael sees the money as a chance to start over again with Elsa.

What could go wrong?

Thoughts:

This was based on the 1938 novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King. It also portrays a hapless main character getting caught up in the machinations of unpleasant and unscrupulous people with money.

Elsa wants to leave her husband, but he won’t let her. He hints that he used something in her past in China to coerce her into marriage. She lived and worked in dubious places. She may have worked as an entertainer, for she sings the movie’s signature song, “Please Don’t Kiss Me” (dubbed by an uncredited Anita Ellis). She may have worked as a working girl—which of course, didn’t exist, and if they did, they wouldn’t get a mention in a respectable movie.

The plot can get a little confusing. (“Now, who’s he again?”) Orson Welles talks a lot. A lot. Few scenes are without his face in them. Those nifty little twists and turns, unpleasant people, and femmes fatale appear, but this is Orson’s baby.

An amusing courtroom scene is followed by a chase through San Francisco’s Chinatown. I missed this, but when Elsa Bannister buys a ticket at a Chinese theater, the cashier greets her by saying, “Konnichiwa!” a Japanese greeting.

The most bizarre scene of the film is the final shootout, which takes place in a fun park hall of mirrors. It plays with the viewer’s sense of reality: Is this a dream?

Overall, I liked this movie. However, it would have been better if there had been less Orson Welles.

The movie can be watched here.

Title: The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Directed by
Orson Welles…(uncredited)

Writing Credits
Sherwood King…(story based on a novel by)
Orson Welles…(screenplay)
William Castle…(uncredited)
Charles Lederer…(uncredited)
Fletcher Markle…(uncredited)

Cast (in credits order)
Rita Hayworth…Elsa Bannister
Orson Welles…Michael O’Hara
Everett Sloane…Arthur Bannister
Glenn Anders…George Grisby
Ted de Corsia…Sidney Broome (as Ted De Corsia)

Released: 1947
Length: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Review of “Shaun of the Dead” (2004)

trailer from YouTube

To complete the trilogy, we end where it all started, Shaun of the Dead. It makes a whole lot more sense to anyone who has ever worked in retail.

Plot:

Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a twenty-nine-year-old electronics salesman by day. He spends the rest of his time playing video games with his friend, Ed (Nick Frost), or drinking at the local pub, the Winchester. This particular night, Shaun’s girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), complains to him they’re always at the Winchester, and he’s doing nothing with his life. They should do something else. Forming a chorus in agreement are her friends Dianne (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran). In the background, Shaun’s slacker friend, Ed, plays video games. Some of the dialogue is timed for deliberate misinterpretation.

The opening credits roll over scenes of people going about their daily jobs: cashiers, retail workers fetching carts (“trolleys” in the local parlance), picking up leaves, everyone behaving mechanically…

At home, Shaun sits down to play a video game with Ed until Ed reminds him he has to go to work. A third roommate, Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), lectures Shaun about letting Ed continue to freeload.

On his way to work, Shaun ignores headlines and weird occurrences—the homeless man trying to eat pigeons, the odd, shambling walk so many people in the street seem to have adopted.

After a humiliating day at work, he returns home. Ed points to a girl in the backyard (“garden,” the locals call it). She’s standing perfectly still, with her head cocked at an odd angle. Shaun and Ed conclude she’s drunk—until she falls onto a piece of metal that pierces her back and protrudes through her stomach. It takes her a couple of seconds, but she gets back up and heads toward our heroes.

Shaun and Ed decide to try to kill her by throwing household objects at her: including Shaun’s vinyl records. They then break into the shed. Shaun emerges armed with a cricket bat, Ed with a shovel, and they proceed to kill zombies.

Thoughts:

This was a lot of fun. I first saw it back in the day. It’s bloody and gory, well deserving of its R rating. Not for kiddies. In addition to the never-ending swearfest, there are more than a few bloody and gory scenes. One, in particular, is not gory per se but would be emotionally difficult for kidlets.

All that aside, this is funny. Shaun promises to make reservations at a restaurant for a date with Liz. Of course, it slips his mind for reasons having nothing to do with a zombie apocalypse. Liz dumps him. He shows up at her place with flowers he bought for his mother.

Shaun decides to hole up in the Winchester, but when he and his cohorts get within range of it, they find it surrounded by zombies. They must go undercover, that is, as zombies. Liz’s friend Dianne gives acting lessons. (“Nice vocals.”)

Killing the zombies—sometimes with a car—has a video game quality. Bashing people’s brains with a cricket bat or shovel is no less graphic.

Nothing is perfect. There are a few unfortunate racial references in the dialogue.

Beyond the title, which hints at Dawn of the Dead (1978 and 2004), this film borrows a line from the iconic Night of the Living Dead (1968). The intent is threatening but presented in such a clownish way that it’s funny.

I didn’t enjoy the film quite as much the second time around as I did the first, but it’s still amusing and enjoyable.

Shaun of the Dead won numerous film awards, including the 2005 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films; tied with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the 2004 Best Screenplay in Bram Stoker Awards; and the 2004 Best Screenplay in the British Independent Film Awards.

This below-average-joe becomes a hero tale makes for an enjoyable little flick, but it is not one for the kiddies or the squeamish.

Title: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Directed by
Edgar Wright

Writing Credits
Simon Pegg…(written by) and
Edgar Wright…(written by)

Cast (in credits order)
Simon Pegg…Shaun
Kate Ashfield…Liz
Nick Frost…Ed
Lucy Davis…Dianne
Dylan Moran…David
Nicola Cunningham…Mary

Released: 2004
Length: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Rated: R

Review of “World’s End” (2013)

from YouTube

This is the last of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy movies, directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. The first two are the zombie movie Shaun of the Dead (2004) and the parody cop buddy movie Hot Fuzz (2007). Not much is said about ice cream in this one, but a lot is said about beer.

Plot:

Gary King (Simon Pegg) opens the movie recalling an “epic” pub crawl he and four school friends fell just short of completing at seventeen along the Golden Mile of their hometown of Newton Haven: twelve pubs beginning with the First Post and ending with (of course) the World’s End.

“In the end,” he tells the viewer, “we blew off the last three pubs and headed for the hills. As I sat up there, blood on my knuckles, beer down my shirt, sick on my shoes, knowing in my heart life would never feel this good again.”

“And you know, it never was.” The scene reveals King in a group therapy session. He grins. He now has an idea.

In the following few scenes, he contacts his old friends, Peter Page (Eddie Marsan), who now works for his father at a luxury car dealership; Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), a construction manager; Oliver “O-Man” Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), a real estate agent; and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), Gary’s closest friend and a corporate lawyer. In each case, he lies and tells the person that everyone else has agreed to meet and try to complete the pub crawl they failed twenty-three years earlier. Most ask, “Even Andy?” To which King replies with the bald-faced lie, “Of course!”

Andy has been a teetotaler since he and King were in a car accident years earlier.

After some mishaps, they all reach Newport Haven, Gary dragging his half-willing friends. It’s been a while. The barkeeps no longer recognize them, except one at the Famous Cock, where Gary was barred long ago. At another pub, Pete encounters a man who bullied him in school. The man doesn’t recognize him. This upsets Pete—adding insult to injury from all the beatings in school—the man doesn’t even remember him.

In the restroom, Gary talks to a teenager who doesn’t respond. This irritates Gary to the point of physical confrontation. Gary knocks the teenager’s head off—it’s a mannequin—a robot that bleeds blue blood.

All of which leads to all five friends squaring off in the “gents” with a group of… teenage robots that bleed blue blood and shed body parts like Barbie dolls.

WTF, indeed.

Thoughts:

First, this does not stand up to the first two movies. There is a desperate sadness about Gary’s character, trying to recapture the one glorious night of his youth. It can’t be done; you are not the same person, and your hometown is not the same place. Toward the end of the movie, it’s revealed he’s recently survived a suicide attempt. He’s an alcoholic about forty years old.

Gary tells Andy: “It never got better than that night! That was supposed to be the beginning of my life! All that promise and fucking optimism! That feeling that we could take on the whole universe! It was a big lie! Nothing happened!”

Not to say there aren’t genuinely funny moments. Oliver’s sister Sam (Rosamund Pike) joins the bunch at one point. Both Gary and Steven have a thing for her. Gary, wanting to reenact a sexual encounter they once had in the disabled restroom, follows Sam to the ladies’ restroom. As one might expect, he gets his fact slapped. Later in the film, after they’ve talked for a bit, Gary says, sounding not at all like Humphrey Bogart, “I guess we’ll always have the disableds’.” Tacky and inappropriate, but quite funny, it also speaks to growing up a bit.

And the pubs? They all look the same. All corporate-owned, trying to look traditional. Uh-huh.

Things get weird toward the end of the movie. However, I think it’s safe to say that Gary finds his purpose after all.

World’s End won the Empire Awards (UK) Best British Film Award in 2014. Its director, Edgar Wright, was nominated for Best Director. World’ End also won a 2013 Golden Schmoe Award—Best Line of the Year”—for its riveting discussion of the meaning of the phrase “WTF.”

I have mixed feelings about this movie. I can’t say that it was bad. It certainly had its moments, but there was an underlying sadness that the other flicks didn’t have.

There is no explicit sex, but there is a lot of violence profanity and potty talk. It’s funny, but not one for the kidlets, I’m afraid.

Title: World’s End (2013)

Directed by
Edgar Wright

Writing Credits
Simon Pegg…(written by) &
Edgar Wright…written by)

Cast (in credits order)
Thomas Law…Young Gary
Zachary Bailess…Young Andy
Jasper Levine…Young Steven
James Tarpey…Young Peter
Luke Bromley…Young Oliver
Sophie Evans…Becky Salt

Released: 2013
Length: 1 hour, 49 minutes
Rated: R