Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976)

 Former preacher Marjoe Gortner and soon to be Wonder Woman Lynda Carter, cavort around New Mexico and Texas in better then expected crime spree flick, featuring Lynda Carter nudity. **

Outbreak (1995)

 Uneven medical thriller about the outbreak of an Ebola-like virus in a northern Califorina town, improbably has more helicopter scenes then any other movie I can think of. I'd wanted to see this for more then 30 years and was disappointed; 2011's 'Contagion' does this kind of thing better, but at the same time is even slower. **

Sheep Detectives (2026)

 Combination of 'Babe' and 'Midsummer Murders', two genre types that you wouldn't think would work well together, but here they do. Remarkably well constructed screen play. ***

Carbon Copy (1981)

 Businessman George Segal finds out he has a black son and everyone over reacts. Major misfire was a major flop, and got seemingly everything wrong except the casting of a young Denzel Washington, who gets an "Introducing" credit. *

Happy Happy Joy Joy (2020)

 Documentary on the troubled production of hit 90's cartoon show 'Ren & Stimpy', as well as it's troubled creator John Kricfaluci. Very informative. ***

Miller's Girl (2024)

 Prime example of "High Tash". Jenna Ortega is the daughter of rich, absentee parents, who is just starting her senior year at a middle Tennessee public high school. Jenna is passionate about literature, and bemoans that she is not very interesting; she aspires to be a writer but fears she dosen't have anything to write about. After the idea is jokingly planted in her mind by a friend, Jenna sets out to seduce and ruin the life of her English teacher Martin Freeman, a failed author with one unsuccessful book to his credit. 

The minimalist story feels like a once salacious  stage play in the tradition of 'The Children's Hour', which flirts, teases and implies but never quite crosses the uncrossble line. Fine performances make the movie watchable, but it's never as deep and probing as it wishes it were. A meta tale about cliche and failed writers, that gilds a trawdry story to demonstrate the pain of not quite measuring up, and ironically succeeds in so doing. **1/2

Housekeeping (1987)

 'Housekeeping' is based on the award winning 1980 Marilynne Robinson novel of the name same and both adapted and directed by Bill Forsyth, a master of both melancholy and whimsy and my favorite Scottish director. Set in northern Idaho during the 1950's, the story follows sisters Ruth and Lucille (played as teenagers by Sarah Walker and Andrea Burchill, both give impressive and understated performances).

The two girls are deposited in a small mountian town with a grandmother they don't know, just before their mother abandons them to commit suicide. The two are raised by this loving grandmother until she dies, then briefly taken care of by two great aunts, before their mother's sister Sylvie (Christine Lahti (I'm always happy to see her)) is more or less forced to take over their care.

Sylvie is a kind, pleasant woman, but deeply eccentric, a horder, with little sense of time and decorum, she is cagey about her past and no doubt suffers from various mental illnesses. The whole movie is about growing up in a family that is haunted by the specter of mental illness, and how the two girls very different reactions to their aunt eventually drives them apart. The film is beautiful and muted, contrasting the gorgeous exteriors of the mountians with the troubled interiors of people with deeply held feelings they don't know how to process. ***1/2

Disclosure Day (2026)

 'Disclosure Day' is (hopefully the final iteration) of "That movie" that Spielberg has been making off and on for nearly 50 years. It is the spiritual successor of 1977's 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and a highly condensed version of 'Taken', a generation spanning mini series about alien abduction produced by Spielberg that came out in 2002. The film principly follows two likable protagonists, an on the run former government tech expert played by (newish commer) Josh O'Connor, and a Kansas City weather lady played by Emily Blunt. These two are central players in a plot by renagade government agents, and extraterrestrials, to reveal the presence of aliens on Earth going back at least 79 years, which has been covered up by the United States government, quasi governmental agencies and even....

It's a tight, efficient movie, with some good set pieces, good mood pieces, and some time spent contemplating the implications of extraterrestrial existence on organized religion and other matters. Our current "post-truth zeitgeist" is a theme running under the film, but not as explicitly as the post 9/11 imagery in Spielberg's 2005 remake of 'The War of The Worlds'.

The movie has it weaker/shakeir bits, not everything lands and it's somewhat uneven, but it's truely Spielbergian moments and flirting with wonder made it an enjoyable watch and kept me with it throughout. I do wonder however, how well it will fair on a rewatch. The movie felt like it came out about a decade too late, if this had been released close to as is during the Obama years, I think it would have been widley embraced. The movie is getting alot of crap on YouTube, but I'd still recommend it. This is the weakest of the directors four films about aliens, but even a meh Spielberg movie is better then most theatrical releases of today. ***

Sins of Youth (1975)

Also known as "So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious", this Italin explotation film is essentially a meaner and more graphic, unauthorized remake of the 1958 Otto Preminger film 'Bonjour Tristesse'. Both films are set in Europe and concern a love triangle between a wealthy older man, his 20ish blond daughter, and the middle aged red head he wants to marry. Heck, Dagmar Lassander even looks a bit like Deborah Kerr, and both movies have the same ending. 

Getting to that ending their are some noticeable differences, including that the perspective step-mother/ step-daughter pair seem to want to fuck each other. There are some artie stylistic elements, but this is still Euro-trash, soft core stuff. At an hour and 16 minutes it's about the perfect length for what it is. **

Demonoid (1981)

  I heard Quentin Tarantino recommended this on a podcast as one of the better entries in the "crawling hand" sub genra of horror movies. Samantha Eggers travels to Mexico where her husband Roy Jensen has invested most of his money in a 300 year old silver mine, but is having trouble getting his superstitious local workers to go very far inside.

 Jensen and Eggers go down deep to prove to the workers that it's safe, they find what looks like a hidden temple inside and take a hand shapped silver container out with them. They were not able to open the container but that night the cursed hand inside gets out, it attacks Roy and possesses him and then the old hand crumbles into dust.

The next day Jensen goes to the mine, hurrangs most of the workers to go inside, then detonates explosives killing and trapping miners inside, he then flees the country. Eggers eventually catches up with him in Las Vegas where a seemingly magical betting streak has attracted a lot of attention. Jensen soon ends up dead, but the spirit of the evil hand proceeds to jump bodies in an effort to get back to and punish Samantha, as she was one of the people who released it from the cave.

Jensen's body is shipped home to California and buried. Eggers tries to convince a skeptical old priest played by Stuart Whitman (who principly worked in Westerns and low budget horror fare) of the reality of the cursed hand. It takes a bit, but Whitman becomes convinced and it's up to him and Samantha to defeat the hand for good. And they do... or do they?

Odd but fun, both tight and all over the place at 92 minutes. **

Weird: The Al Yankovich Story (2022)

 This is a satirical, faux bio-pic of "Weird" Al Yankovich made by Funny or Die for Roku and starting Daniel Radcliff in the lead; the real Al Yankovich was also involved in the production and plays a record producer. There are many recognizable faces in cameo parts throughout, it is essentially one long skit but holds together remarkably well. Reminiscent of a personal favorite of mine: "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story". Evan Rachel Wood does a very good Madonna. **1/2

Golden Exits (2017)

 After a bad breakup, Emily Browning travels from Australia to New York City to work as an intern for archivist Adam Horovitz. Adam Horivitz's current project is archiving the papers of his recently departed father in law (notably the film never tells us what the father in law did for a living, other then that he was apparently a reasonably significant figure in that field, at least in the NYC area). 

Chloe Sevigny is Adam Horovitz's wife, Adam Horovitz cheated on Chloe years ago, he's been pretty contrite since, but Chloe is having trouble fully letting it go. Chloe's sister Mary-Louise Parker low level hates Adam, Adam thinks she's a bitch, a sentiment shared by Mary-Louise Parker's personal assistant Lily Rabe. Lily Rabe in turn vents about this to her sister Lio Tipton, who is married to Jason Schwartzman who is the son of a friend of Emily Browning's mother, and Emily Browning has had a crush on him since she was little and is hoping to reconnect now that she is in New York working for Adam Horovitz, whose good friend Craig Butta is also friends with Jason Schwartzman.

You get the picture, a spidersweb network of soap opera style inter relationships. On occasion the film flirts with semi profound themes. It also makes most of its characters pretty unlikable, trys to shed new contextual light on some of them late in the film, but it dosen't quite work since they've been so unlikable. It has a few moments, but never quite congeals into anything of lasting substance. **

Backrooms (2026)

 Backrooms: Directed by the 20 year old Kane Parsons and based on his web series of the same name, which in turn was inspired by... a meme? The concept of liminal space? The fact that furniture store basements can be creepy? (For this last one I recommend a visit to the Sterling Furniture Comapny in Sugarhouse Utah.)

In San Jose, California in the year 1990, furniture store owner Chiwetel Ejiofor, while investigating the cause of a power drain that has been impacting his utilities bill, discovers a portal to a vast labyrinth that is a kind of Bizaro version of his store. He becomes obsessed with this and eventually convinces some of his employees, as well as his therapist Renate Reinsve to go inside. That experience proves to be something that can not be recommend.

I do however recommend this film. It very successfully balances the surreal discomforts of its horror movie plot, with the psychological discomforts of its two very flawed protagonists. On a budget of only $10 million it has already grossed over $221 million at the box office, making it one of the stand out successes of yet another lackluster year at the movies (It's June and this is the first 2026 release that made me want to actually go to the theater) and makes Kane Parsons the youngest person to have ever directed a blockbuster film. ***

Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)

 This is the sequel to 1985's 'Return of the Living Dead', which it's self was an early example of a meta-sequel, in this case to 1968's 'Night of the Living Dead'. The comic chemistry between James Karen and Thom Matthew's was a great strength of the first film, but those characters die there in, so the actors are brought back as different characters with the same dynamic.

The first films A plot is largley replicated in the B plot here, but the first films B plot is replaced by a very different A plot; so the movie does a good job of staying true to what worked in the original, without being too much of remake/rehash, a problem with many an 80s/90s sequel. Still this isn't on the level of the 85 film, though I found it mostly enjoyable all the same. **

Slam Dance (1987)

 'Slam Dance": Hong Kong born American indie director Wayne Wang working from a script by Charlie McFadden from the Criters movies.  Amadeus himself Tom Hulce is a Far Side-esquse newspaper cartoonist who seems to enjoy his job, but chiefly uses it to finance his passion for painting. He has a young daughter who he loves, played the ill fated Judith Barsi, he's married to but separated from her mother Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, whose also an artist. 

The couple is separated largely because of Tom's tendency to sleep around. One of the women he's been sleeping with is Virgina Madson. When Virginia Madson is found dead, Tom is a chief suspect. Detective Harry Dean Stanton is on the case, he quickly determines that Hulce is not the killer, but that Virginia's death is related to a sex scandal involving powerful congressional representative Bobby Nye and corruption inside his own police department.

'Slam Dance' starts out as mostly a character study, but then slowly develops into a murder mystery, with Virgina Madson not turning up dead until roughly a half hour in. I thought the movies change in emphasis worked for it, because their is really not enough here for either a 100 minute character study or a 100 minute mystery, but plenty for a hybrid of the two. The film has one very good twist in it, though the denouncement is only so-so. ***

Washington Square (1997)

 Adaptation of the 1880 Henry James novel of the same name. Long ago and several times since, I've watched 'The Heiress', a 1949 film based on a stage adaptation of the novel. That movie stars Olivia de Havilland as the titular Heiress, Ralph Richardson as her stern father, and Montgomery Clift as the first man to show a romantic interest in her, and to whom she becomes romanticly obsessed. 

When first watching that movie as a somewhat naive twenty something, I figured that since this was the beautiful Olivia de Havilland plainiffed in dress and make up, this was going to be an Ugly Duckling story in which Clift saw the true beauty in her and would ultimately rescue her form a hard hearted father. I was wrong, Clift was basically an opertunist, who saw the plan, naive and not too bright girl as a ticket to worldly fortune. When it becomes clear to him that her father will dis-inherit her should they wed, he abandons her, leaving her to grow into a wealthy but imbittered woman. 

The 1997 'Washington Square' is an expanded, deeper and more nuanced version of the same story. It is 'The Heiress', but up a full point on the Richter Scale; with the novel promising to do more of the same but even more so, I think I need to read it. This film casts Jennifer Jason Leigh as Catherine (so it still has the 'she's too pretty to be plain' misdirect thing de Havilland had in the earlier film), Albert Finney as her father and Ben Chaplin in the Monty Clift part. 

The film starts with Catherine's birth, her mother dies in childbirth and Albert Finney was so deeply in love with her, that having lost her in exchange for such a plan, dull and simple minded daughter is something he can never reconcile to, so he keeps her at a distance. Catherine meanwhile is desperate to be loved, and showers her father with affection that he can only manage to return in a muted fashion. When she meets Ben Chaplin's Morris Townsend at a party, and he continues to see and persue her their after, Catherine is lost in the romantic fantasy of it all, the kind of love she'd long yearned for but never really expected to have, now seems at her doorstep. Her father however sees in Morris only a lazy, unworthy chissler after his money. Yet he also sees his daughter as unworthy of great love. So which of these are the deciding factor in his denying her what will likely be her only shot at passionote love in life.

There are subplot concerning Catherine's two aunts, who are both interesting people, one of whom is played by Maggie Smith. But that father daughter relationship is just fascinating, layered, tragic. Not all that much really happens in 'Washington Square' at a plot level, but on an emotional level it's just devastating. Unobtrusively directed by Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, the film was well received by critics but a box office flop, making $1.9 million off a $15 million budget. This is, appropriately, a highly literary film, and one I highly recommend to those of that inclination. ***1/2

Wasted on the Young (2010)

 Oliver Ackland and Adelaide Clemons are students at a private Australian high school; they like each other but they're shy and kind of dance around it. Before the potential couple can get together, Oliver's step brother, and uber-popular king of the school Alex Russll, drugs her and he and his buddies rape her. It takes Adelaide a little while to realize what happend, she wants to go through channels and get Alex suitably punished, realizes he's too well connected, so threatens him with a gun, he taunts her that her life will be ruined if she shoots him, so she kills herself in front of a crowd at school. Oliver then plots a fatal revenge against his step brother.

Heavy stuff. Kind of stylized; unusual and sometimes confusing editing. Their aren't no adults shown in the film, just the teenage characters. Add the Australian setting and the whole thing seems kind of 'Off'. It's an after school special as explotation film. But it's very oddness makes it something of a hypnotic watch. ***

Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997)

 I saw 'Alien' (1979) back in the 90's and I've since seen two of the prequel films, otherwise this is a vastly under consumed franchise for me, especially given its prominence. Well it's seemingly all on HBO Max at the moment, so I thought I'd check some of these boxes off.

I rewatched 'Alien', it holds up, then on to 'Aliens' in which James Cameron took over from Ridley Scott. The movie does a better then anticipated job of wrapping up lose threads from the first film (the cat lives), takes some time getting started, adds some space marines, and gives us one of the most solid third acts in action movie history. ****

'Alien 3' was more devicive then it's predecessors, but I really liked David Fincher's take, very solid screenplay, took some unexpected directions, who could have anticipated prisoners turned warrior monks? ***1/2

'Alien: Resurrection'. Ripley dies at the end of the third one, but a successful franchise can not be stopped. Ripley finds herself brought back as a clone roughly 200 years after the events of the last film, as part of that damned corporations obsession with finding a way of monitizing the deadly xeniomorph via their weapons division. This isn't on the level of the first three, but I appreciated that the Ripley clone is allowed to develop into a character distinct from the original. ***

I got about 15 minutes into 2004's 'Alien vs Predator' before decideding it wasn't worth my time, too bland for its own good, not even an interesting failure. The one thing I'll give it is that by having the Weyland Corporation first encounter the xenomorph in the early 21st century, it's obsession with the creatures in the subsequent films makes a little more sense. But I've seen too many Paul W. S. Anderson films to feel like I'm missing anything here. 

Juror # 2 (2024)

Clint Eastwood directing in his assured, lean but thoughtful style, the best moral quandry film I've seen in awhile. 'Juror # 2' stars Nicholas Hoult as an expectant father who fails in his attempts to get out of jury duty. Once empanald he realizes he may have inadvertently caused the death for which an innocent man is being prosecuted. He wants to do the right thing, but when his lawyer friend Keifer Sutherland advises him that if he steps forward he'll go to prison, Nicholas attempts to stear the jury, which starts out 10 - 2 in favor of conviction, towards an acquittal. Very well done, a solid cast including Zoey Deutch, J. K. Simmons, Toni Collette, Amy Aquino, Leslie Bibb, and Clint's daughter Francesca Eastwood as the dead woman. This movie feels like it's from 30 years ago, but in a good way.  ***1/2

The East (2013)

 Brit Marling co-wrote and stars in 'The East', in which she plays an employee of a private security firm who goes undercover to infiltrate an anarchist collective/ eco terrorist group. The time she spends with them weighs on her thinking and changes some presectives. This is a very smart movie and there were times when I was expecting the obvious, then it went in unexpected directions. I was really impressed. It's sociological character study meets 1970s style conspiracy thriller. ****

The Stone Creek Killer (2025)

 In a small Minnesota town two teenage girls go missing, a professional 'psychic' shows up to help, and the girls bodies a found ritualisticly displayed, the sheriff and the only two other officers on the force face what appears to be a serial killer. Filmed on location with a largely no name cast, in 10 days for $300,000, 'The Stone Creek Killer' is bland, "filler" "entertainment". It is also what comes from my mother, my sister and me selecting a movie based on what could get consensus as an acceptable choice. * 

I also watched the Irish mini-series 'The Dublin Murders' this trip and that was great. Watch that, skip this. 

Drowning Mona (2000)

 Mona Dearly (Bette Midler), the most hated resident of Verplanack, New York (a real small town, that was largely not happy with its portral in this movie) dies in what at first seems like an accident, but may have been murder. Sheriff Danny DeVito has no shortage of suspects, including Mona's son, her husband, the husband's mistress, and DeVito's perspective son in law, who had a buisness dispute with the woman. Great cast includes William Fitchner, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Afflick, and an SNL era Will Farrell as the town's sex addict funeral director. I found it quirky, likeable, unchallanging, and enjoyably small scale. **1/2

Sugar Cookies (1973)

 An arty, erotic crime thriller produced by a young Oliver Stone. Director George Shannon murders his star actress/ lover Lynn Lowery as part of an errotic game. His casting director, friend and sometimes lover Mary Woronov helps him to cover it up; but she then proceeds to hatch a plan to bring him down with the unwitting aid of a woman she finds who looks just like the lady he killed, also played by Lynn Lowery. Pretty nihilistic stuff, some social commentary, lots of boobs. **1/2

Paranoia (1969)

 Also known as 'Orgasmo', 'Paranoia' is a Gialo film which features actress Carrol Baker (still with us at 94) going nude as an American widow who travels to her late husband's Italin villia to recuperate after his death. While there her life is slowly taken over by step siblings who use their sexual wilds, to slowly turn her into a reclusive drunk, who they then try and manipulate into suicide. Pretty racey and decades ahead of its time in depicting bi-sexuality.  ***

The Lady in Red (1979)

 This is a lose adaptation of the life of Polly Hamilton, a farm girl with musical aspirations, who becomes a prostitute and later the girlfriend of John Dillnger. Pamela Sue Martin, a child star who played Nancy Drew in the early 70's, closes out the decade in a much more adult role. Pulpy explotation fair from Roger Corman's New World Pictures has some surprisingly big names involved, from screen writer John Sayles, composer James Horner, to actors Louise Fletcher and Christopher Lloyd. For what this is, it's unusually good. ***

Sisters (1972)

Brian De Palma's Hitchcock tribute is a horror - thriller - mystery, or more concisely a Gailo film. Reporter Jennifer Salt witnesses Margot Kidder commit a murder, but the police don't believe her. Kidder is a former conjoined twin whose sister died as a result of their separation surgery. Periodically Kidder is possed, more psychologically then supernaturally, by her dead sister who is very vengeful. Movie works surprising well for the most part, but I still can't make sense of the last 15 minutes or so. ***1/2

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2012)

 Filmed for 3D, you can notice by virtue of gimmicky camera work. This is the movie that actually has Adelaide Clemons in it, she plays a high school version of the girl from the first movie. Somehow Mom got her out of the Upside Down, she now lives with Dad, again played by Sean Bean, I think the only casting carry over from the first film. They move around alot and change names because they are affriad of the cult? Anyway the cult sends Jon Snow to befriend Adelaide and trick her back to Silent Hill, but they give up on him and just kidnap her dad. Jon Snow switches sides, trys to keep Adelaide from going but she goes and then nothing worth remembering happens because I can hardly remember anything from this movie I watched a week ago. Oh, Sean Bean is rescued and Malcom McDowell plays a crazy blind man. This movie was not worth the effort. *

Silent Hill (2006)

 Adelaide Clemens is in the second Silent Hill movie, I like her so I wanted to watch that, so I decided to watch the first movie so I could understand the second one better. Mistake? Any understanding I garnerd was minimal.

Video game adaptation movies are rarly good, that held for this flick. They went all out on atmosphere, story and acting were afterthoughts. Movie is largley boring/confusing, though I found the climax entertaining as it was pretty nuts. 

What's it about: Nice Ohio couple adopt a little girl named Sharon. Sharon has repeated nightmares where she is in Hell, she sleep walks out of the house and trys to throw herself in a local gorge. Family trys to get their daughter help, but none of it works, so Mom figures out daughter was born in a West Virginia town named 'Silent Hill'. Against husband's wishes wife takes daughter to Silent Hill to try and get answers.

Only Silent Hill is closed down, abandoned, the roads closed off. In the middle 70's a fire started in the coal mines that ran under the town, so town evacuated. Question, if this happend in the Nixon era how was a little girl of the Dubya era born there? Question is never really answered. Though it probably has to do with the religious cult that still exists in Silent Hill and view her as a kind of religious figure to be sacrificed or venerated or both, this is also not made clear.

Also Silent Hill seems to be in a kind of pocket dimension, an anex of Hell. The people that live their seem to think the whole world has decended into the same apocalyptic reality in which they dwell, though their is some devision within the cult and a number of its members have been semi banished. Also there is a cloud of darkness that I think can eat people? When it shows up the cult sounds old warning sirens and people take shelter. This is all just a portion of the overcrowded and often unclear mythology of Silent Hill. 

In the end mother and daughter escape the town, but are still stuck in the pocket dimension which is misty and kind of like The Upside Down in Stranger Things. It's a mess of a movie, with a small scattering of elements that kind of work. * 1/2

Delinquite Shool Girls (1975)

 Three escaped mental patients have a grand time at a girls boarding school, until stumbling upon its karate class. This is basically a series of comic vinetes of various levels of crudity, losely tied together by a minimal plot. For what it is, it's about as good as you could expect it to be. **

Mister Roberts (1955)

 When I was a middle schooler I saw the navy comedy 'Ensign Pullver' and really liked it; but I didn't see the movie to which it was a sequel, 'Mister Roberts' until the last few weeks. Based on a hit Broadway play 'Mister Roberts' is a comedy/drama set mainly on a Navy supply ship during the closing months of World War II. It mixes humor and poignatncey well and has a first rate cast including Henry Fonda as the title character the ships first officer, James Cagney as the asshole captain, William Powell in his final screen role as the ships wise doctor (though the actor lived into the 1980s), and Jack Lemmon who won an Oscar as the good natured, but scheming and lazy Ensign Pullver; non of these actors returned for the 1964 sequel, with Burl Ives, Walter Mathieu and Robert Walker Jr. taking over the latter 3 roles respectively. I rewatched 'Ensign Pullver' after this and it's pretty fun, but 'Mister Roberts' is by far the superior movie. ***1/2

Long Shot (2019)

 A recently unemployed journalist (Seth Rogan), gets a job as a speech writer for a Secretary of State with presidental ambitions (Charlize Theron), who was also his next door neighbor growing up and his childhood crush.  Guess what happens? I thought this romantic comedy/political fable struck the right balance, a pleasant/ boarderline endering watch. Rogan and Theron have a surprising chemistry. Also staring Bob Odenkirk as the sitting president, a former actor who played the president on a success TV series, and Andy Serkis under heavy makeup as basically Roger Ailes. ***

Brewster McCloud (1970)

 With the recent passing of Bud Cort, I figured I'd never have a better excuse to finally watch this somewhat devicive Robert Altman film. The directors follow up to the hugely successful 'M*A*S*H', he went in a very different direction, high concept, dry, satire-ish and kind of mystical, 'Brewster McCloud' has a tone unique to its self. Bud Cort is an orphan who lives in a fallout shelter in the Houston Astrodome, where with the assistance of the mysterious Sally Kellerman, he works to construct a set of working wings based on the works of Leonardo DiVinci and the Wright Brothers. He also might be a serial killer.

A string of murders, in which the victims are always found with bird droppings on them, prompts the Mayor of Huston (William Windall) to bring in a high profile, celebrity detective from San Francisco to solve the case. The detective is played by Altman regular Micheal Murphy and is a play on the Shaft/Dirty Harry detective trops of the time, this character could have his own movie.

Eclectic cast includes a 29 year old Stacy Keach under heavy make up as the elderly third Wright Brother; John Schuck as one of the countless cops he played; Jenny Salt as a young woman with a crush on Brewster; the Wicked Witch herself Margret Hamilton as the wife of the owner of the Astrodome; René Auberjonois as the films ornithologist narrator; and Shelly Duvall with an 'introducing' credit as Brewster's flighty tour guide love interest (the Duvall film persona came fully formed). Music from John Phillips of 'The Mamas and the Papas'. 

I think I'm going to need to wait a bit and then watch this movie again to fully digest it. I liked it, if I had to sum the movie up in one word I'd go with 'playful'. Even among Altman's mass of ideocentric film output, this proto-'Nashville' may be his most ideocentric. ***1/2

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2005)

 A kind of meta Comedy from the 'War on Terror' era. Quasi-mockumentery style film has Albert Brooks (who also wrote and directed), playing a version of himself sent to the Indian sub-continent by a government commission, to better our understanding of Muslims by learning what makes them laugh. While not a Muslim, my laughter here was limited principly to the tee-pee and "underground Pakastaini comedians" scenes. The topper joke was Brooks causing an international incident due to both India and Pakastain assuming he must be a spy. I admire the idea of this movie, it's certainly off the beaten path, but in execution it mostly flat. *1/2

Revenge of the Gweilo (2015)

Turns out '"Gwelio" is a Chinese term for a foreigner, particularly a westerner; learning that was the highlight of this movie for me. Nathan Hill takes on Chinese gangsters after they kill his Chinese fiancee. This is a standard Nathan Hill Aussie action / boob's film. I think I've gotten everything I can get from these. Don't plan to watch another. *

Star Trek Voyager Season 1 episode Guide for Beginners

Episodes 1 & 2 'The Caretaker"

Voyager would be at least a little hard to understand without this pilot movie, which introduces our main characters, gives us some background information and sets up the general concept for the show. The survivors of the Federation Starship Voyager team with the surviving crew of a rebel Maquie ship, after they are both sucked to the otherside of the galaxy by a sporositian life form known as 'The 'Caretaker', who is trying to cross breed in order to provide a replacement to his self appointed role as a kind of God/provider figure to a race known as the Ocampa, after his people accidentally make the surfice of their planet uninhabitable, forcing them to live underground. 

The Caretaker is unable to succeed at his mission, leaves the underground Ocampa with a 5 year energy supply and dies. The Alpha Quandrant crews team up and sacrifice the Maquis ship in order to destroy the Caretaker's orbital array (which might have gotten them home), to prevent a Kazan sect (vaugly Klingon like Indian/street gangs surrogate aliens) from using it to genocide the Ocampa. Voyager then begins its trip home from the Delta Quadrant, which would take an estimated 70 years to accomplish. Along the way they will continue to explore the galaxy and search for a means to get them home faster. This pilot is mid tier, but does a good job with the necessary set up.

Main Characters

Captin Kathryn Janeway - Captian of the Federation Starship Voyager. From a Starfleet family, native of Indiana.

Commander Chakotay - Former captain of the Maquis ship; Native American, former Starfleet officer, he takes the position of the ships first officer after the death of Commder Cabot.

Belanna Torres - Half Klingon, half Latina, second year Starfleet Academy drop out, fmr Maquis. Takes over as chief engineer after the death of her predecessor.

Tom Paris - Lt, fmr Starfleet (from a  Starfleet family, who was courtmarshled for a covert up, joined the Maquis, was captured on his first mission, and was on Voyager to earn a sentence reduction by helping Voyager find the missing Maquis ship. Takes over as ships main pilot after the death of his predecessor.

Harry Kim - Koren/American operations officer, recent academy graduate on his first assignment. Grew up in South Carolina, kind of a Boy Scout, plays the clarinet.

Lt Tuvok - A black Vulcan, cheif of security, very proper and by the book, confidant of Janeway, he had been undercover for Starfleet on the Maquis ship. 

'The Doctor' - Emergency Medical Holographic Program, intended for short term use, he must take over the position as the ships doctor after the death of his predecessor. Confined by his holographic projectors to the ships sick bay.

Neelix - Talaxin trader, native of the Delta Quadrant who joins Voyager as a guide owning to his knowledge of this area of space and his outgoing demeanor. He will also become the ships cook and self appointed moral officer.

Kes - Young Ocampa woman in a romantic relationship with Neelix (for some reason). She will train as a nurse under the ships doctor, and will assist with hydroponic farming on the ship as she grew up working in that field on the Ocampa home world. Mildly telepathic. Ocampa only live about nine human years, at the start of the series she is about two.

Episode 3 'Parallax'

Various adjustment pains as the crews integrate. Belanna becomes chief engineer after impressing the Captian in handling the threat possed by a quantum singularly. Kes is put in charge of setting up the ships hydronic gardens, Paris becomes the Doctors assistant, and Kes gets the Doctor to thinking how he might adjust to long term useage/start thinking of himself as a person. Introduction of Seska, a Bajoran Maquis who is hidding a big secret that will be explored over the next two seasons.

Episode 4 'Tme and Again'

This is a time paradox episode, feels rather NextGen. A roughly 21st century level civilization is messing around with an unstable power source which causes the destruction of their world; only maybe it wasn't them, maybe it was Voyager attempting to rescue Janeway and Paris when they are slung back in time about 36 hrs after visiting the now uninhabited planet to investigate what happed to it? Kes's extrasensory perception start to manifest in this episode, a hold over from her ancestors 500 generations back. By the end of the episode the time paradox is resolved, the alien civilization saved, and Kes is the only member of the crew to retain some sense of what happend. Here they seem to be preparing Kes to serve in something similar to Deanna Troi's role on NextGen, though if memory serves this use of Kes's character is largely abandoned, leaving Kes the most underused character on Voyager.

Episode 5 "Phage"

Neelix takes it upon himself to start being the ships cook, he also insists on being part of an away mission searching for dilithium on a small planetiod. Turns out the diilthaum signature was a trap from a race called the Vidiian's, who will be a recurring species over the first few seasons. The Vidiians where once a noble race, whose species has been plauged by a highly adaptive virus called the "Phage". Think leprosy, it breaks down the organs so periodically they need to be replaced, they try to harvest from corpses where they can but are not above stealing from living beings. They steal Neelix's lungs, the doctor creates a set of holographic lungs as temporary solution, but ineffect it's an Iron lung situation which keeps Neelix immobile in sick bay (much to the Doctor's annoyance, he's a terrible patient). Voyager tracks down the Vidiian's who have already altered and implanted the lungs into one of their own. With their suppior medical technology the Vidiian's are able to adapt a lung donaited by Kes as a replacement for Neelix's. 

Episode 6 "The Cloud"

Voyager encounters what they first think to be a nebula, but it turns out to be a space organism as big as a solar system. They accidentally injure it, but they are successful in repairing the damage. The crew continue to adjust to their isolation, and their limited power supplies. introduction to the Chez Sandrine holodeck program, a recreation of a bar in Marseilles, France that Lt. Paris used to hang out in; this becomes in the early seasons a communal gathering place for the crew during off hours. Chakotay starts teaching Janeway about American Indian spirituality and she meets her spirit guide, a salamander (Voyager is an odd show). 

Episode 7 "Eye of the Needle"

Voyager discovers a small, collapsing wormhole just big enough to transport through and it leads to the Alpha Quandrant. That's good. However, the other end of the wormhole is in Romulan space and 20 years in the past, during the Romulans isolationist period. That's bad. Voyager does make contact with a noble spirited Romulan scientist who agress to transmit messages from the crew to Starfleet 20 years hence. That's good. However a consultation with ships records show that said scientist died 4 years before Voyager got sucked to the Delta Quadrant. That's bad. Subplot involves The Doctor providing Kes medical training and deciding he wants a name. The Doctor's search for a name becomes a continuing storyline in the early part of the shows run. 

Episode 8 "Ex Post Facto"

This is a murder mystery episode. Tom Paris is accused and convicted of the murder of a Banean scientist who was assisting Voyager with enhancing their navigation systems. He was apparently having an affair with the man's trophy wife. The Banean punishment for such offenses is implanting the victims final memories in the perpetrator who is then forced to relive them every 14 hours. Tuvok investigates through interviews and mind meld, he discovers that the memory engrams where alternated to make Tom look like the murderer and encoded with the doctors research; the plan being to have the Numiri (with whom the Baneans are at war) abduct Paris and steal said research. Tuvok is able to use the trophy wife's stranger hating little dog, to prove that the doctor who implanted the memories was the Banean traitor. Said false memories are removed from Paris and Voyager goes on its way.

Episode 9 "Emanations"

Voyager detects the presence of an undiscovered element in the ring system of an uninhabitable planet. Early indications show this element may have helpful uses for the resource poor ship, so they send Chakotay, Torres and Kim on an away mission. On one of the asteroids they find in caves many alien corpses encased in cocoon like fiberious shrouds (the new element), this proves to be a bioproduct of the decay of the alien bodies. Chakotay convinces Janeway that as this is a burial site they should leave the bodies and new element un touched. Before they can leave however Ensign Kim is sucked into a "subspace vacuole",  the same phenomenon that has been transporting the corpses to the asteroids, and has now stated depositing bodies on Voyager.

Kim awakes in a sort of 'funeral pod' on an alien world, it is not clear where exactly he is in the galaxy, but it seems to be a great distance from Voyager. Kim meets members of a species that call themselves the Vhnori. The Vhnori have a tradition where elderly, infirm and seriously ill or injured members of their species have their lives taken in these funeral pods, in facilities located around their world on spots where these subspace vacuole's seemingly naturally accure. These Vhnori do not believe in an amorphous soul, but rather that their dead must be physically transported to their afterlife or be lost forever. The Vhnori apparently have not had contact with Alien worlds and believe that Kim has for unknown reasons come from their after life, and his claims to have come from a Starship must be delusions brought on by his journy from the afterlife.

While the Vhnori are deciding what do with Kim, he befriends a crippled Vhnori who has come to end his life so as to not be a burden on his family. Kim inadvertently causes this man to have a faith crises and he decides he dosen't want to die. Similarly the Voyager crew precipitates a faith cries in a Vhnori woman, who was only "mostly dead" when deposited the ship, and who The Doctor brings back to life in order to get more context to aid the crew in retrieving the lost Mr. Kim. The Vhorni woman is killed once more in a failed attempt to transport through the vacuole, they deposit her (and the other bodies placed on Voyager) onto an asteroid and leave her dead this time. While Kim takes the place of the Vhorni male in a funeral pod, using the vacuole to get back to Voyager where he is resurrected by The Doctor. The Vhorni male meanwhile makes his way to some remote mountains where he has some friends willing to take care of him; This had been his preference all along, but the man's wife feared the location was too remote and that he'd die without access to a funeral pod. So ineffect this Mr. Vhorni faked his death to get away from his nagging wife. 

This episode has a good, fairly hard sci-fi story, and an interesting take on questions of life and death..

 

The Outfit (1973)

 This movie should really be better known. This very competently handled, well paced and beautifully looking film, is loaded with details to savor; 'lived in' looking shooting locations, the aging debris of a 1940's story updated to a 1970's setting. It is a caper/revenge story come ensemble character study, with a top flight and eccentric cast of characters including Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, and Robert Ryan, with cameo appearances from character actors of the black and white era, including Timothy Carey (in the kind of slimey roll he excelled at), Elisha Cook Jr. (as a cook), Marie Windsor (always welcome) and former B tier leading lady Jane Greer. I started this on a whim, not expecting to finish it, but it really pulled me in. An unexpected surprise. ***1/2

The Marvels (2023)

 Sequel to 'Captian Marvel', ect all MCU fair. 'The Marvels' teams Brie Larson up with characters from two related Disney+ shows, played by Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani. It's a mess of a movie that drops the viewer into the middle of several on going story lines, with little by way of context. There is a flashback sequence that gives you in condensed form, what was probably intended as the plot for a second stand alone 'Captian Marvel' movie, which would likely have been more interesting then this IP loaded and over stuffed hour and 45 minutes. Still it's watchable, and no character is given enough screen time to really get on your nerves. **

The Blackcoats Daughter (2015)

 Osgood Perkins writers and directs this horror/mystery about dark goings on at a private, religious girls boarding school in the Ameican north east. Solid cast includes Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, Emma Roberts, James Remar and Lauren Holly. Unsettling, Osgood Perkins is a little dark for my taste, but this movie is well put together and takes it story seriously. Shades of "The Exorcist'. ***

Angelica (2015)

 Set in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries in England, a mother tells her daughter (both played by Jena Malone) the true story of her father's disapernce. Psychological, myster-thriller with supernatural overtones is a clever deconstruction of the "hysterical woman" arch type of the era portrayed. Sadly the actual story is not on par with the ideas explored. **1/2

The One I Love (2014)

 Struggling couple Mark Duplass and Elizabeth Moss are sent by their marriage counselor Ted Dansen, to a retreat where they encounter better versions of themselves in the form of physical duplicates who embody idealized versions of each other; can their marriage survive the competition? CIeaver and unique, I loved the ending. ***1/2

The Brood (1979)

 We are in 1970s Toronto and the marriage of Art Hindle and Samantha Eggers is in deep trouble. Samantha has checked herself into doctor Oliver Reed's clinic, to undergo a new form of therapy known as "psychoplasmics". Samantha thinks Reed's a genius, Art suspects he'a a quack. Their five year old daughter dosen't know what to think but misses her mom. Then the murders start. 'The Brood' is best viewed unspoiled, but Cronenberg seems to be back on track after the disappointing 'Rabid'. ***1/2

Rabid (1977)

 This is essentially a less good version of 'Shivers', but with the outbreak originating in a Quebec clinic that specializes in reconstructive surgery. An experimental skin graft on a motor cycle accident victim, leads to a vampirestic plague that is similar to rabies. Was Cronenberg satrizing himself here? I can't tell. **

Shivers (1975)

 Early, Canadian made, David Cronenberg body horror film, produced by Ivan Reitman of all people. An intelligent, vinerally spread parasite, runs amuke among the swingers of a high end condo complex just outside of Montreal. Now if Roger Corman made this movie, I'd probably enjoy it, but it would be like a ** movie. Cronenberg elevates this into a piece of darkley, satirical art I felt genuinely invested in. ***1/2

Caligula (1979): The Ultimate Cut (2023)

 'Caligula' was a notorious, bloated, deboched epic whose production history became legendary. Disowned by its writer, it's principle director and stars, in part because the producers edited (additional) hard core pornography into the film for theatrical release. 'The Ultimate Cut' seeks to return the film to something closer to what the filmmakers thought they were making at the time. This is essentially a completely different film, constructed entirely form alternate takes, there is not a frame of the original film present.

Now this is the only cut of the film (of which their are several) which I have seen. I find it hard to know just what to make of the thing. It's not good, it's very lengthy, very talkie, very sexual and kind of boring. This should have been an epic, but outside of a single coliseum scene, it feels like a pornographic film made by the BBC. Helen Mirren is in this (alot of Helen Mirren), Peter O'Toole and Malcom McDowell. I broke this up into three roughly hour long parts. It was a slog, especially that last hour. I'm not sure exactly what was had in mind, but this film appears to be unsalvagable. * 

Wise Blood (1979)

 John Huston directing, based on a novel by Flannery O'Connor, and staring a young Brad Dourf in a stand out performance. Wise Blood' tells the story of "Hazel "Haze" Motes is a 22-year-old veteran of an unspecified war and a preacher of the Church of Truth Without Christ, a religious organization of his own creation, which is against any belief in God, an afterlife, sin, or evil. Hazel comes across various characters such as teenager Sabbath Lilly Hawks, who is madly in love with him; her grandfather Asa Hawks who is a conventional sidewalk preacher, and pretends to be blind; and a local boy, Enoch Emery, who finds a "new" Jesus at the local museum in the form of the tiny corpse of a shrunken South American Indian." - Wikipedia.

This movie takes a turn about X - minutes in and becomes shockingly dark. There is alot going on in this picture, but most of it understated, most of it implied. There's the surfice and there is the sub floor, once that subfloor is broken into and made plain.... This is one of those film adaptations that feels more like a visual book then it does a movie. If that dosen't make sense now, it may well after you watch it. ****

Warfare (2025)

 Based on a true story of Navy Seals pined down in Ramdi, Iraq in 2006, this movie did nothing for me. On a technical level there is nothing to complain about, but it felt slow, I was bored, there were no stand out characters, I felt in no way invested. Perfect movie to try out the new, one and only true movie rating system: Good Movie, I Didn't Like It. 

The Seventh Victiam (1943)

 Val Lewton produced Horror/Noir, has Kim Hunter in her film debut, mount a search for her missing sister Jean Brooks, who has ran afowl of Satanists. Also staring Tom Conway and Hugh Beaumont. How Lewton, usually a master of understated horror, can produce Satanists so dull is the real mystery of the story. *1/2

The Testament of Ann Lee (2025)

 Bio-pic, musical about the Shaker leader Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), who lead her followers from Britain to the New World in the late 18th century. A handsome looking, reflective type of film, its a sympathetic portrait, but dosen't shy away from the religious excess of the movement, known for ecstatic dancing, communal living and celibacy. Of particular intrest is Lewis Pullman as Ann's devoted younger brother William, who dies of injuries sustained when locals try to drive the pacificst group from one of their New World settlements. ***1/2

Remineciance (2021)

 Noir infused sci-fi mishmash of better movies ('Blad Runner', 'Minority Report', 'Inception' ect) has Hugh Jackman operating a service that allows people to re experience their own memories. Rebecca Ferguson is the fem fatal customer who obsesses Jackman and Thandiwe Newton is his Girl Friday. The film is set in the near future in the partially flooded cities of New Orleans and Miami, this looks cool, while everything else about the movie is blah. *1/2

Song Sung Blue (2025)

 Bio-pic about Neil Diamond (Hugh Jackman) and Patsy Cline (Kate Hudson) impersonators who marry, and go on to regional fame in 1990's Wisconsin. Heartfelt and refreshingly small scale production is a lot of things we don't see that much in contemporary studio financed films; it's about blue collar, traditional, normal looking people and treats them with genuine sympathy and affection. It feels almost like a movie from an alternate universe. More films with this tone and attitude would be appreciated. A simple pleasure of a movie. ***

Bitter Desire (2025)

 Police detective Nathan Hill requires 2 months physical therapy after injuring himself apprehending a crime king pin. The crime king pin requires of his girlfriend revenge on Hill, so she takes the place of his physical therapist so as to ruin Hill's marriage? Feels heavily padded at 71 minutes, so uninteresting side characters are given too many lines and shots are regularly held for unnervingly long periods of time. This movie is really bad. * 

Private Obsession (1995)

 90's errotic thriller. A poplar model played by Shannon Whirry is abducted and held prisoner by obsessed fan Lee Frost; but she gets the better of him about 1 hr 35 minutes in. **1/2

Jasper (2011)

 Nathan Hill, Ozzie action flick / oggle the women picture. PI Hil was about to retire but decides to take one last case for an attractive woman. I saw this a week or two ago and can remember almost nothing about it. I wrote down **

2025 Films

Ranking the 2025 films I have seen from best to worse. Hard to believe my top 3 are all horror movies.

Weapons 

Frankenstein 

Sinners 

The Phonican Scheme

One Battle After Another 

28 Years Later

I Saw the TV Glow

Thunderbolts* 

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Companion 

Mission Impossible; The Final Reckoning 

Superman

The Thursday Murder Club

Another Simple Favor

G20

Jenny's Wedding (2015)

 This is the Katherine Heigl / Alexis Blidel lesbin wedding movie; with the emphasis being on Heigle and her family. That 3 out of 4 of Katherine's parents and siblings (way to go brother) couldn't figure out that she was a lesbian, seems pretty dense. Watching this 2015 film is an interesting artifact to examine a decade later, but Katherine's family's reactions to the news seem more like something out of 2005 or even 1995. But they are a fairly conservative, reasonable religious bunch, and they do live in Cleveland. Tom Wilkinson's performance as Katherine's dad is a real highlight, while Grace Gummers lawn care subplot seems an odd choice. **1/2

The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023)

 I love that the title of this movie dosen't make any sense until the final minutes of the film. The Venture Brothers movie gives us one last look at the lore rich world of the TV show, it also tackles some lose threads from the series, teases an answer to the mystery of who Hank and Dean's birth mother is, but then choses not to tell us. The film does make cannon what should have been pretty obvious concerning the relationship between Dr. Rusty Venture and his arch nemesis The Monarch. ***

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

 Following many of the same beats as 'Way of Water', the Avatar films are becoming increasingly episodic, but do still feel like they are building to something, and the world building remains interesting. Oona Chaplin's secondary villian is a real psychopath; I love Cameron's decision to make sure the Chaplin family is represented in the newish world of film he's making. ***

The Debt Collector (2017)

 Low budget Australian action film has a literal debt collector take out the priests who abused him as a child, unforseen blow back from these killings results in white supremacists and the mob trying to kill him. Not a great or even very good movie, but the filmmakers use their limited resources well and this was a reasonabley entertaining watch. **1/2

Naughty Girl (1956)

 Fine example of the Bridgett Bardot sub genra, where she causes the male characters all kinds of trouble, but they are so happy just having her around that they don't complain much. Co-written by the 21 year old starlet's then husband Roger Vadim, plot concerns a night club, a forging scheme, assumed identities and fantasy dance numbers. Really good at what it is. ***1/2

The Inglorious Bastards (1978)

 Tarantino borrowed this movie's title for his far better known film. Italian made explotation picture set shortly after D-Day, has a group of American solders bound for trial on charges ranging from petty theft to disorderly conduct, freed when a German straffing attack kills their guards. They set out for the Swiss boarder sixty miles away, and proceed to take out Germans while in route to freedom; before stumbling on a secret Allied mission that could use their help. Fun, rather watchable. ***

Sweet Sixteen (1983)

 As she approaches her 16th birthday, Texas girl Melissa Morgan finds the men in her life mysteriously dying off. I waited too long after watching to write this review and I don't remember much about the movie, other then I liked it well enough, my one note on the film said I give it ***

Samurai Cop (1991)

 Action/crime movie concerns a cop (Robert Z'Dar), who is also a Samurai, loaned out by the LAPD to the San Diego PD for a case that also involves a Samurai. Cult film is notable for how everything in it just feels off, the acting, the story, the sets, the action sequences, the dialouge, the effects, EVERYTHING in this movie is not quite right, producing an uncanny oddness that gets you through the film. Still not sure what to make of it. *1/2

Shadow in the Cloud (2020)

 It's August, 1943, and Chloë Grace Moretz shows up in her WAC uniform at a New Zealand airstrip, with a closely held carrying case and orders to accompany a bomber crew on a supply mission to Samoa. The crews reaction to haveing a female aboard with them is at first mixed, but Chloe will prove her worth, as the  plane finds itself attacked by the Japanese on the outside, and actual bat-like Gremlins within; which is to say nothing about the complications that arise when the contents of her case are made known. There is alot about this film that is ridiculous, but the movie is so action packed, tense and harried,  that I found it an absolute joy to watch. I can't think of another feature film that has Gremlin show up in the World War II setting from which they gained their fame. Film leaves room for a sequel, which I'd love to see, but doubt ever gets made. ***

7 Days (2021)

 It's March of 2020 and Karan Soni and Geraldine Viswanathan, are Indian-American young people set up by their mothers on a bind date via an online matchmaking service. The date is middling, and is interrupted by text messages advising them that a lock down has started. Karan lives some distance away and can't get a hotel room, or a rental car and Geraldine dosen't have a car, so they have little choice but to quarantine together.

 They are very different people, Karan is an engineering researcher, a mommas boy and very traditional, while Geraldine is very westernized, she dosen't want to get married, but goes on dates as a condition of her mother paying the rent. At first the two clash, then Geraldine gets Covid as the result of leaving the house for a few hours to get away from Karan, who must then try to nurse her back to health. Close quarters bring understanding and perhaps these two young people are more compatible then they first thought. A warm and endering little film. ***

Crawlspace (1986)

Klaus Kinski is a doctor, and the son of a Nazi doctor. He keeps up his father's work, experimenting with the attractive female tenants of the apartment building he owns. He uses the venting system as a "crawlspace" for access. This move ain't good, but the behind the scenes stories, some of them are pretty wild. *