Shut Up, Bitch

How dare you express such a joyful release
Don’t you know chaos is better than peace
Save your relief for a private cry
You better accept I’m an unreasonable guy

I singled you out just for fun
But then you got fired so the damage is done
Now I’m the victim they all choose to blame
Don’t tell me my whining is incredibly lame

I’m not at all responsible for drawing this attention
Sign up for my Substack, I should probably mention
I’m a Mean Girl living in an asshole’s body
It’s not my fault I’m petty and snotty

As I lurch ever closer to the fools on the right
I sharpen my invective and dip it in spite
My agenda is clear, it’s all performative acts
I’ve perfected the discarding of inconvenient facts

They ask me about Trump, I say he wasn’t so bad
Now I wonder why everybody’s so mad
Just because I ignore most of his human rights abuses
And continually make these ridiculous excuses

You defended your words, your real reasoning laid bare
But I have a Pulitzer and I don’t fucking care
I used you for projection and to set a tone
They’re censoring me again yet you can still hear me moan

You shouldn’t have lost your job, of course
But it’s not in my character to show you remorse
I’m as brilliant now as the day is long
I don’t believe that I’ve ever been wrong

Hunter Biden’s laptops, my biggest scoop in years
The kind of huge story that defines careers
They wouldn’t let me tell it which I absolutely hate
I don’t need an editor, mye speling iss grate

So what if I didn’t quite nail it all down
I made a lot of noise all over town
Those aren’t critiques, their vicious attacks
Don’t forget to subscribe to my brand new Substack

You’ve landed on your feet as I continue to break
If I keep this up they’ll start believing I’m fake
My ego is so fragile it’s made of glass
Have some pity for this pompous ass

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, January 29, 2021
9:32 p.m.

Zack And Miri Make A Porno

If only they didn’t spend their money on stupid shit. And if only they had been honest about their true feelings for one another from the very start.

Zack & Miri are old friends from grade school who have been living together for years. They already act like a married couple but have never fooled around. Despite giving clear outward signals there is no mutual sexual interest, because this is a formulaic romantic comedy it’s blatantly obvious they’re living in denial. Beyond casual encounters with other, mostly unseen partners, they are both very single. Considering their charmless personalities, it’s not surprising.

She works at the local mall and doesn’t have any girlfriends. He works in a coffee shop run by a tyrannical stereotype and is pals with an overly sensitive co-worker Delaney (Craig Robinson) married to one of his own (Tisha Campbell-Martin). None of them are happy with their employment.

Zack (Seth Rogen) & Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are deeply irresponsible. Despite a growing mountain of unpaid bills they waste the little money they earn on expensive sex toys. Soon, they lose their power, their heat and even their running water. They resort to burning those unpaid bills to keep warm during a typically cold Pittsburgh winter. It’s a miracle they haven’t been evicted.

While getting undressed to try on some outfits for their upcoming 10-year high school reunion at the coffee shop after work, a couple of creepy teen customers make an unauthorized cell phone video of Miri wearing only her unsexy underwear.

The video ends up being posted online, goes viral (really?) and suddenly she’s known as “Granny Panties”. At the reunion, Zack encounters Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long channeling George Takei), a pretentious gay porn star who makes a good living at it in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Miri embarrasses herself in front of a disinterested old crush named Bobby Long (Christopher Reeve wannabe Brandon Routh). It’s immediately apparent she’s wasting her time. You know he’s gay well before we learn he’s secretly dating the porn star. (He’s more out in LA than in Pittsburgh.)

Suddenly inspired, Zack gives Miri the hard sell on a possible solution to their self-inflicted financial woes. Why don’t we make our own porn film? Paris Hilton did it and she’s an idiot! (The perfume joke is really funny.) Joe Francis built a whole questionable empire and he’s a dick! (Another funny observation.) Your parents are dead, Miri. My grandparents are dead. Who could we possibly embarrass?

I have a problem with this last rationale. What’s wrong with making sex films? Why is such an idea shameful? I’m reminded of Bucky Larson’s parents, of all people, who built an entire career in their younger days documenting their own sex life on camera. It’s why Bucky suddenly bolts for L.A. to become a porn star himself. They’re proud of their work. He’s inspired. The only reason to become an adult actor is because you’re a exhibitionist who loves sex. You’re not necessarily guaranteed an enormous salary. Most porn actors are not rich.

Zack thinks if they can just make a film that their old classmates would buy it would erase all their debts. Here’s a better idea. Stop buying overpriced Fleshlights and vibrators and pay your fuckin’ bills on time. Use your hands like everybody else.

Struggling to come up with a decent concept, Zack eventually settles on a goof on Star Wars which admittedly has some funny elements like R2-D2 with an exposed saggy nutsack (the visual is funny) and has franchise potential. (They’ve already come up with three additional story ideas.) The proposed film is cast with real-life porn stars both past (the notorious Traci Lords) and present (the sweet, helium-voiced cutie Katie Morgan), as well as a space cadet with an insta-boner and a ready-made porn alias he won’t use (frequent Kevin Smith collaborator Jason Mewes) along with Zack & Miri themselves.

Unable to self-fund the doomed project, Zack begs and ultimately convinces his coffee house colleague Delaney to forget about buying that flatscreen TV and invest in Star Whores instead. Clerks jerk Jeff Anderson, who is thankfully less talkative this time, is recruited to shoot the thing. Perhaps that gross-out gag is cinematic payback for all the times he acted like a dick in his most famous role. The set-up is funnier than the pay-off, though.

Because the movie is set in Pittsburgh, there are all kinds of Dawn Of The Dead references from the mall where the invasion takes place to the name of an amateur hockey team (Monroeville Zombies) to the casting of special effects legend Tom Savini as a shady studio owner who deliberately rents space in his already sold property to the would-be pornographers. As he bolts for Florida with an extra 800 in his pocket, the team returns in horror the next day to see bulldozers destroying the building. They cleaned up all that shit for nothing.

Nursing their wounds in the coffee shop, Zack is suddenly thankful he’s a shitty employee with a paranoid boss. Noticing the secret surveillance camera installed in the back for the very first time, he excitedly suggests to the deflated gang scrapping the potentially funny Star Whores premise since they’ve lost all their props and costumes and replacing it instead with one set in his place of business. This is not a good idea.

As we watch the filming, it’s painfully clear no one in the real world would want to see such a sloppy, unsexy production even for free, making the corporate video credit cookie at the end a total wish fulfillment. (The tongue gag is funny, though.) It’s hard to make fun of a business that already has a self-deprecating sense of humour. Part of the reason people enjoy professionally made porn is that it is intentionally silly as well as intensely sexual. When Delaney points out that “this is the worst porn film I’ve ever seen”, it’s too on the nose. Swallow My Cockuccino (bad title) is boring. This should’ve been as brilliant as Ed Wood’s reenacted shooting of Plan 9 From Outer Space. But it has no imagination or little courage to be truly outrageous.

Then again, imagine if they actually made a real good one that had some cleverness and genuine sex appeal. Raining coffee beans on naked people is just weird.

Because Zack And Miri Make A Porno is a Kevin Smith joint, beneath the endless stream of bleepable language, which grows tired very quickly and is starting to feel like a desperate writing crutch for a middle-aged man with a lot of juvenile ideas, is a disappointingly conservative film about love and sex. What is wrong with being polyamourous?

When Miri learns that Zack is going to have onscreen sex with Morgan, she gets offended but doesn’t reveal the real reason why. (It has nothing to do with sexism.) For his part, Zack does not want Miri having an on-screen bonk with Lester, the Jason Mewes character. The whole thing’s a ruse anyway to get back at her eventual husband. It’s only during their fight that he finally proclaims her love for her which does not result in a “I love you” return. That is a very half-hearted “Wait!”, lady. What’s with all the possessiveness and controlling behaviour?

The turning point is when they shoot their own sex scene which is neither comedic nor arousing but definitely awkward. (Why are they looking at the camera so much?) As a rare Live song Smith has been trying to license for one of his movies for years plays on the soundtrack (it was not worth the wait), still wearing most of their clothing they make love, not fuck, as Zack accurately asserts later on. Now fully aware that they’re in love with each other but too immature, stubborn and idiotic to have an adult conversation about it, they instead have the obligatory fight based entirely on a misunderstanding you can already see coming during a Pixies song. Of course, that leads to a long separation (three months), a couple more misunderstandings and the eventual reconciliation.

Zack And Miri Make A Porno was Smith’s attempt to fictionalize and somewhat satirize the making of Clerks. After he closed up his convenience store for the night, he spent the after hours inside making his debut flick just like Zack and Delaney at their coffee house. It was also supposed to be Seth Rogen’s breakthrough movie. But while still working on the screenplay, Rogen was already a star thanks to Knocked Up.

Then, it was supposed to be his own monster hit, something that has eluded the cult filmmaker his entire career. It did about the usual modest but profitable business his films almost always do. He blamed Harvey Weinstein’s lack of advertising muscle. I find it interesting that this was the final straw regarding his long professional relationship with a now convicted serial rapist.

Despite mostly good reviews (including one from the usually supportive Roger Ebert), Zack And Miri Make A Porno is actually one of his worst features, albeit slightly better than Mallrats and the embarrassing Tusk. While not as godawful as Yoga Hosers which remains his benchmark of crap, it lacks genuine heart (Zack is particularly mean and sleazy) and consistently solid jokes. (Good soundtrack, though, which also includes famous cuts from Primus, Blondie and Jermaine Stewart.) Most of the few laughs here come in the first half (although the name of Delaney’s production company is the strongest joke in the second). Released in 2008, it already feels dated, and its weak romance plot is thoroughly predictable.

There’s this annoying thing where Smith will have a progressive view on a touchy subject like racism or homosexuality but that gets negated by characters acting racist or homophobic. One of the teen creeps in the coffee shop calls Zack a “faggot” but shortly thereafter there’s Zack himself being very supportive and curious about Brandon and Bobby and gay sex in general as if that entirely erases what we just heard in the earlier scene. Delaney gets absurdly bent at his Indian boss about being asked to work on Black Friday. But as the boss exits in a huff Zack makes fun of his prominent accent. You can’t have it both ways.

Zack & Miri Make A Porno is one of the many Hollywood films that fought to get a NC-17 rating reduced to an R. Thanks to a rule change, after failing a few times to make satisfactory cuts to get the lower, contractually obligated rating, Smith had an opportunity for a final MPAA screening with different board members and to directly compare racier elements of his film to others like Taking Lives and Jackass Number Two to show that Porno was being held to an unfair, different standard.

He won his appeal. He got to release another terrible movie as is.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
3:41 a.m.

The Prodigy (2019)

An Idiot Plot, as Roger Ebert famously defined it, is a film that would be over in five minutes if only all of the characters weren’t complete morons.  Based on this simple, straightforward criteria, The Prodigy most certainly qualifies.

It is the story of a notorious serial killer from the Midwest who we meet briefly in the opening sequence.  His latest victim has escaped.  She’s missing a hand.  He likes to hum and has eyes like David Bowie.

After managing to make it to the police, she leads a group of them to his secret hideout.  Now naked, he comes outside and refuses to obey their commands.  They think he’s armed and when he makes his move, they pop him.  He dies.  But all he’s holding is his final victim’s severed hand.

Cut to a very pregnant Taylor Schilling.  Her due date is weeks away but she’s already in labour.  Her husband drives her to the hospital and she eventually gives birth to their son, Miles. 

At six months old, he’s already talking.  At two years old, he’s suddenly very fluent in Hungarian, a rare dialect only spoken by 400000 people.  At nearly five and a half, his brain is so heavily developed he qualifies for a special, advanced education.  His eyes are different colours. And he keeps humming the same melody.

It is when he turns eight that his parents should fully realize the obvious.  That’s not their son.

The Prodigy is a misleading title.  This isn’t about a second generation monster learning from a sadistic elder.  It’s about a dead one inhabiting the body of an extremely vulnerable child to resume where he left off.  It’s Insidious meets Child’s Play which is bad enough, but then it kind of ends like The Omen, which is worse. I laughed more than I was supposed to.

Any family in a horror film that has a beloved pet will inevitably lose that beloved pet fairly quickly because the villain just can’t help himself.  You could argue in this case Miles, or rather the serial killer hiding inside him, has a reasonable excuse for offing poor Telulah.  The innocent pooch is a test case to make sure he’s still got it.  (Spoiler:  he’s still got it.)  At least a cat is later spared.  Lucky Pickles.

When that back gate is mysteriously left open, you know it’s a complete waste of time for old daddo to go searching for the killer’s latest victim.  It says something that flies are smarter than humans in this ridiculous movie.

Oh, but we haven’t even addressed the truly ridiculous parts.

One night, while Schilling and her husband go out just to park and get sloshed like the good old days before they unwittingly brought a young psycho into the world, Miles plays hide and seek with his barefoot babysitter.  Presuming he’s down in the basement, as soon as you see her walking down slowly one step at a time in complete darkness because Miles unscrewed the light bulb, we’re impatiently waiting for her to step right on a strategically placed piece of broken glass.

When confronted by his mother about the incident, Miles plays dumb.  And she buys it.

But after he attacks a fellow science student with a rather large wrench for cockblocking him in class, instead of locking his sorry ass up, Miles is interviewed by a concerned specialist.  Then, Colm Feore is called into action. 

He knows exactly what the problem is.  But Schilling is having none of it, at least not right away.

Facing absolutely zero consequences for killing the dog and attacking his classmate, both parents live in denial about their shitty little bastard and what they must do.

When she overhears Miles muttering Hungarian in his sleep, she surreptitiously records him and keeps the tape running after he wakes up claiming “it was a good dream”.  Feore has a colleague translate the Hungarian:

“Shut up, you filthy whore.  Stop crying or I’ll cut your eyes out.  I’m going to watch you die.“

During another jaunt into his room, Schilling quietly hears her own son tell her to “go fuck yourself”.  In their own bedroom, her husband discovers their son’s homemade spying device hidden behind a picture frame.  Jesus Christ, guys, what more do you need?

Once he learns about the dog, her husband is out of there.  He should’ve kept on going and never looked back.  But, of course, he’s an idiot. After a brief absence, there he is waiting right outside the family garage as Schilling comes driving up.

The silliness continues when mom, now no longer in denial, brings her son to see Feore for a private regression session.  (The foolish doc forbids her from participating.)

You know the drill.  Stare into the metronome, sonny, go back in time and then tell me who the fuck is in your body.

But the serial killer has an ace up his sleeve.  He tells the dumb doc that he’s gonna frame him for sexual assault and unethical drugging in language clearly meant to be shocking but, coming out of the mouth of a young boy with a high voice, sounds unintentionally hilarious.  After being threatened to keep quiet or else, a spooked Feore temporarily plays ball.

After they leave, he notices letters scratched on his couch by Miles.  (I could barely see anything, myself. And I’m wearing glasses.)  At 2 o’clock in the morning, he frantically calls Schilling.

Let me pause for a moment.  Why is any of this horseshit necessary?  The serial killer has a Hungarian background, speaks a rare dialect of that language, has two distinctly coloured eyes and a very famous history readily available for perusing.  Wouldn’t a simple Google search save everyone involved a hell of a lot of time here?

There’s more.  During his first session with Schilling, Feore talks about how souls with unfinished business can somehow slip into newborn bodies undetected which explains how certain kids seem to be smarter than they actually are.  The thinking goes that once the dead spirit finds closure, they’ll finally go away and let their young host live a normal life without further invasions or any memory of what happened. But if they don’t get that closure within an unspecified period of time, they can somehow take over becoming the sole, dominant personality forever. Uh huh. I didn’t believe this poppycock from the nice old lady from Insidious.

During his urgent late night phone call with Schilling, Feore claims not to know the intention of Miles’ unwanted visitor.  Is he not aware that his last victim, the one with the missing hand who manages to escape, just happens to have written a best-selling memoir about her ordeal?  Gee, it’s a total mystery why psycho boy is back. I just can’t put my finger on it.

The inanity continues when a belated plan is finally hatched by the parents.  An hour after he arrives at school to continue doodling about womens’ hands, daddo will show up and take Miles for a ride.  They’re finally going to have him institutionalized.

But he’s a huge blabbermouth.  Why on earth would you tell your psychotic brat, who just happens to be armed with a blade, during the long drive that you’re locking him up indefinitely?  Have you heard of this thing called silence?  Or, if you must speak at all, how about lying? It works for Miles since the two of you birdbrains are constantly fooled by him.

The inevitable happens.  Bad shit goes down and it’s left to the very naïve, ill-prepared Schilling to come up with an equally doomed Plan B.

The Prodigy was released by the revived Orion Pictures, now owned by MGM, in 2019.  Modestly budgeted, it managed to find a small audience.  Clearly intended as the first installment in a possible franchise (after all, The Omen was a theatrical trilogy), this is not an inspired start. So far, no follow-up has been announced. Shucks.

It’s blatantly apparent fairly early on what needs to happen to Miles.  But Schilling and her husband are not exactly well served by Feore who is right about the reincarnation nonsense but dead wrong about the closure bit.  Serial killers never get closure.  That’s why they’re serial killers.  They will never stop killing.

Schilling’s no killer herself and she’s deluding herself into thinking her desperate act will solve anything.  By the time she’s fully removed her blinders, it’s too goddamn late.  And where the fuck did that farmer come from?

Laughable trash like this makes me feel for the actors who do their absolute best to sell it all with a straight face. This is my first chance to see Taylor Schilling in action. She’s clearly talented but I want her to make better choices. Colm Feore is a highly respected Shakespearean actor. This is not the first time he’s been caught slumming it in Hollywood dreck. He’s repeatedly demeaning himself like this. He can’t be that hard up for cash.

The best performer in the film is Brittany Allen who plays the serial killer’s only living victim, an instantly sympathetic character. When we catch up with her in the final act, she’s a solitary, soft-spoken cat lady, divorced with a grown son in college. Rightly suspicious of Schilling, she still invites her in not knowing this is a really bad idea. Now with a helpful steel contraption replacing her missing hand, she’s a warm host offering tea and her own sympathy for the nervous mom whose not so forthcoming about her own dilemma.

I mean I just can’t take The Prodigy seriously. I don’t hate the villain no matter which actor is playing him. (What’s with his obsession with women’s hands?) And I have zero respect for his dopey parents. They’re exactly like the adoptive caregivers of Brightburn. It’s taken them so long to have a child, they’ll do anything to keep him alive. No matter how determined he is to keep maiming and killing, they take way too long to accept he can’t be saved.

Stubborn denial can be fatal. A hard lesson to learn if you’re a moron.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, January 24, 2021
4:37 a.m.

Back In Time (2015)

Nostalgia is a powerful force in American cinema. It has this gravitational pull that can yank you from your drab contemporary life at any given moment and plop you back into a happier time of childhood fantasies and endless curiosity. When you consider our suffocatingly dour present, excavating these dusty feelings of youthful joy becomes even more essential now. When there is no normal, you search for the sustenance that gave you the most pleasure.

For some, there is no real difference between the past and the present. In their lives, time has actually stood still since their young worlds were rocked by this one film and it changed them profoundly. They found themselves sucked into a cultural phenomenon so undeniable their futures were completely defined by it. What turned them on then turns them on even more now. Their superfandom has grown beyond obsession and transformed into a lifestyle, one alternately experimental, profitable and soothing, their families willing participants in these singleminded pursuits. There are so many of them now they’ve formed communities based entirely on these artistic passions.

For many kids and young adults in the 1980s, Back To The Future has had that kind of lasting impact, a massive surprise to its two creators, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis.  By the time they finally completed it in 1985 (having first written it five years earlier), both were already industry veterans having wisely hitched their wagon to Steven Spielberg who produced it.  The year before, Zemeckis had made the commercially successful Romancing The Stone without Spielberg, which finally gave him enough industry clout to helm his dream project.

When Back To The Future debuted in the summer of 1985, it was enthusiastically received by both audiences and reviewers.  But it wasn’t until it hit video the following year when it became very affordable to own that its reach expanded beyond the limits of a darkened theatre.  With newfound access to pausing and rewinding, new revelations, previously undetected in real time, could be spotted over successive screenings.  And inspiration was plentiful.

I’ve seen the film probably half a dozen times now, all but one screening having taken place during my childhood. I saw it in the theatre and again on Beta when my dad bought his copy. I saw it on VHS during a Halloween party at school and again during another class most likely in the summer when there were no more lessons to learn. And I’m sure I saw it again at a friend’s house.

The last time I screened Back To The Future was on DVD seven years ago before I turned 40.  I still like it but my enthusiasm has dampened quite a bit.  As a kid, you don’t really pay attention to flaws unless they’re glaringly obvious. But as a more critically discerning adult, your focus is much more precise. Your vast experience and maturity allows you to see things your excitable younger self would be too bummed out to dwell on.

Today, I have a deeper understanding of why it first connected with me.  It’s still fun even with the advanced knowledge of its succession of big moments but now I see what it’s really about.

Strip away the time travel, the cool car, the triumphant Alan Silvestri score and the catchy Huey Lewis songs.  What remains is a sweet story about outcasts feeling lost in their own times and how sorting out their histories, even reliving them to make fixes, helps them carve out a more satisfying future. It’s the ultimate do-over.

Consider Marty McFly in 1985. He has a cute girlfriend who loves him but other personal goals are just out of reach. That black pick-up truck he can’t afford to buy. The fact that his talented band, playing their own decent version of The Power Of Love, can’t even get booked for the high school dance. (How delightfully ironic that they’re rejected by Huey Lewis himself.) His bald principal constantly hounding him for tardiness.

Marty’s best friend isn’t a classmate but an old man with unkempt hair and far-out ideas. He has a much closer relationship with him than his own father, an indifferent nerd with a dorky laugh. His mom is a prude who disapproves of teenage rebellion. And he’s not at all close with his brother and sister.

It isn’t until Marty goes back to 1955 when his parents were initially unaware of each other despite attending the same high school together that he finally finds common ground with them.  His dad, an easy target for bullying while quietly pursuing his own dream of becoming a sci-fi author, and his mom, a much happier, more sexually liberated teen.  Like himself 30 years later, they too feel stuck in an unhappy present unable to break free of their miserable patterns. Even though he has selfish reasons for making sure they still hook up as before, Marty’s also doing them a big favour by allowing them their own personal rewrite.

The story of how Back To The Future was even conceived and ultimately completed is just as interesting if not more so than the film itself.  But Back In Time, a documentary about that very subject, is too distracted by its own fandom (this is not one of the greatest films of all time) and by the shameless commercial agendas of the movie’s nerdiest supporters to explore it too deeply. We do get entertaining, sometimes really funny revelations here but certainly not the full story. Thankfully, there’s just enough good stuff (even in some of the superfan segments), despite the constant detours, to keep you watching. But this is far from definitive.

While it’s nice to see rare footage of the original Marty McFly, Eric Stoltz (who dated Lea Thompson, his co-star in The Wild Life which attracted the attention of the filmmakers), we’re not given the chance to judge for ourselves whether his own interpretation of the character stood on its own because there’s no sound.

We have to take the word of Zemeckis who, despite instantly realizing they still needed Michael J. Fox, his original choice frustratingly chained to the confines of his Family Ties schedule, kept shooting with Stoltz not just because by his own admission he was stubborn but also for the more compelling reason that Universal gave him a hard start date to shoot or the production would be cancelled. At least he was given the option to make a crucial last-minute casting change.

While Zemeckis called the unfortunate situation “painful for everybody”, according to Wikipedia, it was probably a big relief to Thomas Wilson, the magnificently dicky Biff Tannen, who often clashed with Stoltz because the latter was a method guy who wouldn’t break character at all. Once Fox was in place, only his close-ups had to be reshot before moving on.

As Fox notes in Back In Time, his castmates were actually reacting to Stoltz in some of those scenes. Fox had the benefit of youth to get him through such a punishing double schedule where he barely slept. (He shot Family Ties during the day and BTTF at night.) But only up to a point.

Speaking of Wilson, who was such an integral part of the film’s success, it’s not explained why he’s not among the esteemed alumni interviewed here. (Neither is Stoltz, for that matter.) Biff was one of the best villains ever conceived. Yet the character is only mentioned in passing and only shown from Back To The Future in brief snippets. His whole story arc in Part II, where he discovers that Grey’s Almanac that Marty buys in 2015 and becomes a time-travelling Trumpesque tycoon who holds Lorraine McFly hostage, goes completely unmentioned.

Also glaringly absent is notorious kook Crispin Glover who was replaced in the two sequels in a most unusual way. Jeffrey Weissman (who only talks about being hung upside down for a scene in number two) wore a prosthetic of Glover’s face and even sounded like him to maintain the ruse the original actor hadn’t been fired for demanding too much money for a second screenplay he didn’t actually want to sign on for. (He actually sued over this and won a hefty settlement.)

Beyond brief shots of him as the original George McFly, not only is Glover not interviewed but his contributions to the film are barely addressed. It’s left to one of the film’s more interesting superfans, a highly decorated Canadian Paralympian turned inspirational speaker who suffers from cerebral palsy and has personal connections to Fox, to mention how he related very strongly to the character without ever giving a shout-out to the actor who originally played him.

Claudia Wells, who played Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer, was a struggling actress considered too hot for TV commercials. (Casting directors felt she took attention away from the products she was supposed to hock. I mean, she was a good lookin’ dame (and still is), but come on.) She was replaced in the sequels as well. But Elizabeth Shue, who took over the role for Parts II and III, didn’t have to have her face altered to look like Wells. (Shue is another key player only shown briefly in scenes from the sequels but not discussed at all or even interviewed.) Not mentioned is the reason Wells didn’t return. According to Wikipedia, her mother was sick and she wanted to care for her.

Gale and Zemeckis hadn’t planned on doing a sequel (the famous To Be Continued… tag was added to the videotape version) and once they had their story, there wasn’t much for Jennifer to do other than be knocked out by Doc Brown in the opening scene and then pass out again after running into her elder self in 2015. Then again, their whole conceit for Lorraine in 1955 was to portray her as a “slut” and then as a grumpy, repressed housewife in 1985 so their lack of a plan for Marty’s future wife shouldn’t come as a total shock. G & Z aren’t exactly progressive in their sexual politics.

Other peripheral characters like Mayor Goldie Wilson (the well preserved Donald Fullilove) and Principal Strickland (the endearing James Tolkan) are thankfully each given some screen time to recap their very different paths to their most famous roles. Tolkan was in the original 1984 stage production of the Tony-award winning Glengarry Glen Ross with J.T. Walsh, Lane Smith and Joe Mantegna while Fullilove had done TV-movies including one about troubled high school kids. (I would’ve picked a less silly clip.) Both cheerfully recreate their most famous lines proving this stuff is still funny.

Divided into two parts, but already drifting from Back To The Future’s more interesting backstory in its first half hour, once Back In Time shifts fully into the superfan segments, which mostly cover car obsessives who just had to buy DeLoreans and transform them into their own “time machines”, the movie comes dangerously close to being an infomercial.

While I’m glad one guy survived a cancer he was otherwise supposed to die from, when we learn he and his wife work for Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s charity by driving around the country in their own makeshift DeLorean they could only afford through a credit card to raise money for a cure, it feels like a free ad for his foundation which actually includes an archived message he shot tooting their hard work. The wife’s amazement that Fox knew who they were when they met him (she found this “humbling”) doesn’t consider the idea that maybe he was briefed before their photo-op, one of many he’s had over the decades.

Even less worthy of inclusion is the guy who built his own 9-hole golf course in his backyard (because he couldn’t even grow grass) and invited Wells and Fullilove to play rounds with him for charity. Why is this even in here? No one cares.

While I enjoyed some of Community creator Dan Harmon’s sharp, occasionally comical comments about the film and the funny pay-off to the story about how he dragged his divorcing parents to see it which may have actually led to their reconciliation, I could care less about any talk about Rick And Morty, his animated series clearly modeled after Doc Brown and Marty McFly. Based on the lame clip shown, if I was Gale or Zemeckis, I wouldn’t be flattered by the tribute.

Also self-serving is a mercifully short segment on a BTTF homage episode of American Dad which features an unrecognizable Fullilove voicing one of the supporting characters, a highway patrolman, and some sound guy from the show who gets to voice himself because he too is a fanatic. Again, I don’t give a goddamn. I would’ve preferred more history on the trilogy.

Speaking of the sequels, slightly more attention is given to II whereas Part III is relegated to a few shown snippets and mixed reactions by some of the superfans. Harmon harshly hates both sequels while another fat white guy, a historian whose written two obsessively detailed books about the franchise, likes all three.

The backyard golf guy makes the case for number two. I like that one, as well, even though I’ve only seen it twice. I’ve only watched Part III a couple times, too, and while I still like parts of it, I’m more with Roger Ebert today than I was in 1990. It almost but just doesn’t quite work. (Fox’s Irish forefather is a miss.) That said, the shown scene where Marty barely escapes from the DeLorean just before it gets obliterated by Doc Brown’s time travelling train from 1885 has remained dramatically emphatic in its obvious symbolism. Gale and Zemeckis were intent on not making a fourth film despite voluminous demands to cave in. It remains the right call. The quality was already slipping.

Meanwhile, it’s cool seeing all the technological predictions that came true in Part II from the picture in picture feature of the now standard flat screen TV to Skyping before the name existed to drones. And it’s still funny seeing Marty freak out over that hologram shark pretending to eat him right outside a theatre showing the non-existent Jaws 19 (directed by Spielberg’s son Max which must’ve made his day).

Unfortunately, there’s no mention of the Cubs not winning the World Series in 2015. Incredibly, it would actually happen the following year which of course can’t be addressed here because the film had been completed long before their historic victory.

The movie barely scratches the surface of the rest of Part II’s technological inventions. They skip covering the stories behind the self-lacing shoes and the self-drying jacket, although a superfan bought them in an auction. But they do spend some time showing just how difficult it was to shoot the hoverboard scenes without the benefit of CGI. One couple actually thinks they’ve figured out a way to make it work for real but their demonstration involves chaining their prototype to the floor which means even they’re not brave enough to give it the real test. By the way, how did that nerdy guy get such a hot wife? And why does it bother her that he’d love to “bitch-slap” his enemies if he could go back in time? I would, too, which probably explains why I laughed.

As for the car plane entrepreneur giving us the hard sell on his ambitious business, it’s just a vehicle with wings, not at all the vision brought forth in Blade Runner and Back To The Future Part II. Maybe Lea Thompson is right. The whole idea is too scary for most people to even attempt. I haven’t been on an actual airplane in over 40 years. I can’t stand that ear popping. I like being on the ground.

However, it’s not so cool watching The Flux Capacitors, a crummy tribute band, butcher The Power Of Love, even for just a moment. (The best cover is the rather beautiful, contemplative flamenco instrumental of Alan Silvestri’s classic title theme showcased briefly at the start and more fully at the end. I love how the film is called Back In Time but we never hear any version of that song.)

Nor do I need to hear from the guy who runs bttf.com which Gale puts over as the most informative site on the franchise online and better than anything Universal’s marketing department could’ve presented. The website owner also does promo work for the couple who volunteers for Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s foundation, don’t you know. All of this is filler that could’ve been excised and easily replaced with more insightful history of the trilogy.

But the guy who surprises his lovely girlfriend with a marriage proposal at a convention (she accepts!) while being serenaded by Harry Waters Jr. who played Chuck Berry’s brother (they overdub his vocal from BTTF for some reason) all in the clapping, smiling presence of Wells, Fullilove, Gale and Christopher Lloyd is rather sweet. And I have to admit, the restoration of one of the surviving prop DeLoreans at one of the Universal Studios theme parks is a labour of love worth sharing with an audience. If only we were as dedicated to finding cures for diseases.

Fox’s memory of the British premiere (I can relate all too well to holding it in too long) which was attended by members of the Royal Family, and his end credit anecdote are very funny, as is the British guy who runs something called Secret Cinema where superfans get to be characters from the movie (and numerous others) on their recreated sets and spend the day reliving the on-screen trajectories of their heroes. He gets in a rapid-fire zinger that might be the hardest laugh.

Goldbergs creator Adam F. Goldberg even pops in to tell a typically awkward anecdote about his overbearing mother (they also show one really funny moment from the TV show) and how she related to Back To The Future the first time she saw it. Maybe that Secret Cinema guy wasn’t kidding after all.

More than 35 years since its first release, there are those in Back In Time who assert rather unpersuasively that Back To The Future is a “perfect film”.  Even Zemeckis doesn’t go that far, although his only quibbles appear to be a bad shot or two and not that a white character is responsible for the future successes of two Black characters because of his meddling into the past.  He remains very fond of the screenplay he co-wrote with Gale which Thompson points out is now used in film school as an example of exceptional film writing. I mean it did get a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination.

I loved the film more as a kid but I still have affection for it as a man despite its flaws.  Had I watched it for the first time much later in life, I’m sure I could’ve made correct predictions about some of the now obvious plot twists.  And I’m not sure having an attempted rape and a cameo by one-note Libyan terrorists was so wise in retrospect.  But despite that and knowing what’s coming, I remain attached to these heroes.  It’s also far funnier than most modern film comedies.

The relationship between Marty and Doc Brown is enduringly touching. He really cares for the boy and the boy reciprocates that love.  (Why else would he write that urgent note to prevent Doc’s assassination from happening again?) Until he finds love in Part III, Marty’s really the only family he has, next to his dog Einstein.  Their unshakeable bond motivates Marty to strengthen his ties to his own biological family as he tries to undo the unintentional mistake he makes by unexpectedly cockblocking his future father.  The incest plot, discussed and highlighted in excerpts in the documentary, is still very funny because of its cleverly handled construction.  And Thompson is still a MILF.

It meanders a lot, ignores a lot of famous cast members especially a couple of Biff Tannen’s loyal goons, whitewashes some of the more complicated history and spends far too much time with those cashing in on their cinematic inspiration as they plug their websites and products but Back In Time does enough for Back To The Future what Trekkies did better for Star Trek.  It unashamedly honours its devoted fans as much as the film itself.

Not bad for a project deemed “too Disney” for most of the major studios and too freaky for Disney itself.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, January 15, 2021
12:19 a.m.

Why I’m Ending My Appeal Of My Latest Wrongful Twitter Suspension

On Tuesday, January 5^th, I wrote and posted the following tweet:

“Why nothing changes. Imagine being in a time where the federal government is deeply loathed and distrusted and thinking letting a corrupt President completely off the hook will make everything alright. What a fucking cunt…#FuckJamesComey #ProsecuteTrump”

In between the angry words and the hashtags, I linked to the source of my disgust:  a Guardian article about the former FBI Director and the aforementioned, misbegotten argument he makes in his latest book.

My comment first appeared at 10:48 p.m.  The following morning, unbeknownst to me until mid-afternoon, Twitter had flagged it and locked my account.  An automated email was sent at 7:13 a.m., seven hours and 25 minutes later, informing me of the bad news.

But I first learned about the suspension by going directly to my account.  Awaiting me was a screen grab of my tweet and the supposed rule I broke.  You know, the one about “hateful conduct”?

The rule states:

“You may not promote violence against, threaten or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

None of this really explains why I was punished for calling a powerful old white guy, a notorious abuser of civil liberties, a cunt, which quite frankly, is too kind a word for James Comey.

Now, I could’ve done the easy thing.  I could’ve just deleted the tweet, accepted my 12-hour limited features sentence and then move on.

But this bugs the fuck out of me.  Twitter has already falsely accused me of being a fucking bot.  Twice! The second time, I waited 10 goddamn days for a resolution until I gave them what they wanted.  Then, they finally wrote back and everything was cool again.

This is the only time a tweet of mine has supposedly crossed the line.  Anyone who follows my account (and I thank the over 700 of you who do so) knows I’m a prolific tweeter and I curse a lot.  (I mean, for God’s sake, it says “Full Time Venting Machine” in my bio.)  I have over 90000 tweets.  Although it is rare, it is not unusual for me to call a guy a cunt.  And I only do so when it’s completely warranted.  In the eight years I’ve been on there this remains the only occasion Twitter felt it was wrong.

The former leader of a supremely racist American law enforcement agency is arguing in favour of the outgoing President of the United States, a man who instituted a travel ban against innocent Muslims, drone murdered young children in the Middle East, pardoned convicted war criminals and cruelly separated thousands of harmless, desperate refugee families, to be given a free pass for all of his criminal actions.  This isn’t a flippant comment, it’s a published assertion from a longtime lawyer and government official.  That kind of idiocy deserves the strongest possible condemnation with the strongest possible language.  I make no goddamn apologies for calling James Comey a fucking cunt.  He is a fucking cunt.

The day I was suspended, shit got crazy in Washington.  Shortly after Twitter sent that email, Donald Trump had a rally for his most extreme supporters just outside the White House.  Behind a very large transparent screen, he cut a promo on Congress urging them to not certify Joe Biden’s victory over him, an otherwise mundane, routine process never really worthy of wall-to-wall cable news coverage.

Trump urged the fervent crowd to go to the Capitol building because it’s better to show “strength” than weakness.  He laughably claimed he would go with them which obviously was never going to happen.  He’s a moron but not completely stupid.  His increasingly unhinged lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, egged them on further saying it was time to have a “trial by combat.”

Republican Congressman Mo Brooks screamed that old cliché about “taking names and kicking ass.”  That was all the encouragement this foolish crowd of misguided yahoos needed.  Soon, they marched over, directly confronting a shockingly thin, mostly outmatched police line, punching and grabbing them, spraying mace in their faces, stomping and whacking them with sticks, some of their weaponry attached to American and pro-Trump flags, all the while chanting “USA!” and “Hang Mike Pence”, the man overseeing the certification which eventually resumed and concluded just after 3:30 in the morning, making the whole spectacle a complete waste of time.

The chaotic scene saw numerous Trump fanatics climbing up to the top floors, breaking windows to force their way in, marching down that interior red carpet with all the statues, ransacking government offices.  Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s nameplate, placed high in the entranceway to the hall leading to her own section of the building was ripped off and broken, gleefully shown to a TV camera as a prized trophy.

When a female protester tried to get beyond the last section of doors leading directly to Pelosi’s blocked off designated area, she was shot by a guard and later died.  Three others perished, as well, as did one of the few officers on the scene.  A middle-aged protester did manage to get into Pelosi’s office where he wrote a menacing message on one of her file folders (“WE WILL NEVER BACK DOWN.”) and posed for a silly photo while sitting in her swivel chair with his foot on her table.  He has since been among the dozens arrested.

The madness interrupted a rare, pointless debate about the certification in the Senate and soon, everybody – politicians, their aides and members of the media – were eventually ushered out to safety moving from place to place to avoid the attention of the bloodthirsty mob, some of whom ended up in the chamber posing for their own photos. One was captured holding onto a collection of plastic handcuffs.

It wasn’t until a 6 p.m. curfew was announced and the belated appearance of more law enforcement, who were far less combative when brutalizing Black Lives Matter protestors during more peaceful demonstrations for more just causes, that eventually the unruly crowd was dispersed and order was finally restored.

And Comey wants the man who inspired such a fiasco to not be prosecuted for anything, anything at all?  What a fucking cunt.

Anyway, back to my Twitter suspension.  It has been 8 days since I appealed.  I have received no response.  Rather than nag them repeatedly, as I did when they erroneously thought I was a bot for the second time last November, which only slowed things down, this time I decided to wait things out.  Surely, they would either agree with me and unlock my account or urge me to delete the tweet after just one complaint.  Either way, I just wanted an answer.

I was originally willing to wait this out for as long as I could.  (It was nice having some free time to focus on other things for a bit.)  But then I did some research online.  There are many cases where people find themselves cut off from the Twitterverse and even after they appeal, sometimes repeatedly, there is dead silence.  Nothing.  Not even a “Shut the fuck up. We’ll tell you when we tell you.”

One woman, a pro-choice activist got into a Twitter argument with an anti-abortionist, cursed at him and got flagged for three of her tweets.  She filed an appeal and didn’t hear anything.  So, like me last year, she got understandably impatient and kept complaining and complaining.  36 days went by before she was finally reinstated and only because her absence was noticed by her supporters who complained to Twitter themselves resulting in the eventual reversal.  Must be nice to be missed.

Her case is not an anomaly.  Others have waited for even longer.  One person claimed on Quora that they haven’t had an answer in 2 years.

How could Twitter forget them like this?  What is the point of appealing at all if you never get a prompt verdict or any response for that matter?  It’s all so needlessly frustrating and infuriating. It’s almost as if they have no intention of actually entertaining a reexamination of their suspensions and simply stay silent until you give in.

Reading these stories made me realize that at this point I’m punishing myself by not taking matters into my own hands.  How many more days can I stay away when Twitter gives you no indication it’s going to give you any kind of ruling?  Honestly, I would rather learn they were not going to reverse their wrongheaded decision than be left in permanent suspense.

As a result, effective immediately, against my own wishes and under protest, I have cancelled my unresolved appeal and deleted my tweet. Upon doing so, Twitter has now “fully restored” my account which I’m about to take a look at. Looks like the 12-hour limited usage sentence won’t apply any more. I will resume my usual ranting as soon as possible.

It didn’t have to be this way.  I didn’t need to be suspended at all. And regardless, I should’ve gotten an answer by now. I’m not waiting any goddamn longer.

Twitter’s appeal system is seriously flawed and unjust.  It’s set up so that after ignoring you for a prolonged period, you get so fed up with the silent treatment you ultimately back off, give in because you’re tired of the impasse and do what they want you to do, even though you know you didn’t break their rules.  I have never broken their rules. I am not a fucking bot and I have never engaged in “hateful conduct”.

I did not “promote violence against, threaten or harass” James Comey.  I called him a “fucking cunt” for his idiotic desire to not have the racist rapist Donald Trump, who had just instigated a fucking insurrection last week and was impeached for a second time yesterday because of it, federally prosecuted.  I stand by that.

Does Twitter stand by its erroneous suspension of me?  I’ll probably never know.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, January 14, 2021
5:54 p.m.

Twitter Suspends Me For Calling James Comey A Naughty Word

The former director of the FBI has a new book coming out. Yesterday, The Guardian, which acquired a copy, made note of one revelation. He doesn’t think the current President of the United States should be prosecuted.

In Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust, James Comey argues that the incoming Attorney General, which President-Elect Joe Biden is hoping will be former President Obama’s rejected Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, should steer clear of any investigations of Donald Trump, the man who famously fired him four years ago, asserting it would look overly partisan and biased:

“Although those cases might be righteous in a vacuum, the mission of the next attorney general must be fostering the trust of the American people.”

He goes on to compare Trump’s situation with that of Richard Nixon who ultimately resigned in the face of impeachment over covering up the illegal Watergate break-in. Nixon’s Vice President Gerald Ford, originally the Speaker Of The House before replacing tax cheat Spiro Agnew who also resigned, would infamously pardon his former boss and would pay the price for it in the 1976 election when he was defeated by Jimmy Carter.

“By pardoning a resigned president, Ford had held [Nixon] accountable in a way that Trump would not be, even were he to be pardoned after losing re-election. That might not be enough accountability in Trump’s case. Or it may be, especially if local prosecutors in New York charge Trump for a legacy of financial fraud.”

It’s the absolute stupidity of this argument (how is letting an unrepentant crook off the hook by not putting his feet to the fire or by giving him a clean slate “accountability”?) that prompted me to write this angry tweet about it:

“Why nothing changes. Imagine being in a time where the federal government is deeply loathed and distrusted and thinking letting a corrupt President completely off the hook will make everything alright. What a fucking cunt.”

Then, I linked to The Guardian report and added two hashtags: #FuckJamesComey #ProsecuteTrump.

The tweet was posted at 10:48 p.m. I was able to continue tweeting, retweeting and scrolling down my timeline well into the early morning hours until I called it a night.

Today, however, when I went into my account mid-afternoon, I learned I was suspended. According to the geniuses at Twitter, the tweet had been flagged for supposedly violating “our rules against hateful conduct”.

“You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

The very white and very straight cisgender male James Comey, who is neither physically or mentally handicapped nor seriously ill, is an extremely privileged 60-year-old Irish American who has a very questionable human rights record thanks to his two decades working for the federal government first as a US Attorney, then Deputy Attorney General and finally, the head of the FBI, all jobs he held in the aftermath of 9/11. (Before that, he spend years working as a US Attorney in both New York and Virginia.)

As I told Twitter in my inevitable appeal, I neither threatened, harassed nor incited violence against this man. I don’t follow him, he certainly doesn’t follow me and while I’ve been highly critical of him both on their site and the one you’re reading, I have never directly interacted with him. I’ve never DM’d him nor used his handle in a public tweet.

And yet, here we are again having to beg the Twitter gods to allow me back onto my account. When does this end? When does this obvious bullshit cease? I’m beyond tired.

I mean, if you don’t want me calling James Comey a cunt, just say so. Make it a rule. Don’t call the man directly involved in George W. Bush’s torture program a cunt. Don’t call the man who endorses an FBI technique that allows the bureau to pretend to be journalists in order to nab suspects a cunt. Don’t call the man who supports sending informants into the Black Lives Matter protest movement a cunt. Don’t call the man who supports bogus sting operations against vulnerable, powerless Muslims a cunt. Don’t call the man who became the legal muscle for Lockheed Martin, the federal government’s biggest defense contractor which supplies weapons that have murdered and absolutely decimated innocent Muslims in the middle east a cunt.

The weird thing is I’ve used the word cunt to describe dickhead guys on Twitter for years but admittedly not very often and this is the only time it’s been flagged. Why? Did someone complain? Did your oh so brilliant algorithms once again mistake harsh criticism, which is perfectly legal, for a non-existent threat?

Since I filed my appeal, Twitter has acknowledged it on my account (“We’ll take a look and will respond as soon as possible.”) and through an automated email message. But, because I decided to appeal, I remain locked out. For now, the only way to get back in is to cancel the appeal, delete the tweet, live with being in Twitter jail for 12 hours (DMs only) before everything is back to normal.

I refuse to cancel. Once again, they fucked up. It would be nice if they were accountable for a change.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
7:51 p.m.

UPDATE: It appears, based on the time noted on the aforementioned email I was sent, that I was officially suspended at 7:13 a.m., seven hours and 25 minutes after my tweet was posted. An obvious question: if my disparaging comments about James Comey were so objectionable to the Twitter gods, why did it take this long to flag it and suspend me? I’m hoping for some immediate answers shortly.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, January 7, 2021
12:21 a.m.

Felicity (1979)

She’s extremely cute, a flame-haired virgin with an insatiable curiosity about sex.  And she has no boundaries. Well, maybe one.

Felicity (Canadian-born Glory Annen) is a charming young British college student at an all-women’s Catholic college.  (Willows End? Real subtle.)  Surrounded by babes, she sneaks peeks at their hot bodies in the change room after ballet class.  On one sleepless night, she even gets under the covers with one, giggling and shyly exploring, while the rest of their oblivious classmates continue to doze.  Such carnal discoveries are discouraged from ever taking place in this otherwise repressed environment, but you can’t deny desire.

Initially, nothing seems to faze Felicity.  When the creepy groundskeeper at her isolated college watches her shower from a basement window (do they not have curtains in this place?), she doesn’t freak out.  She’s delighted. 

When out with a girlfriend during leisure time by a nearby lake, she’s not at all upset that a couple of boys are ogling her, one of whom groans his approval, while she disrobes.  When her boss at the local grocery store suggestively touches her leg as she’s stocking the shelves, he doesn’t get slapped.  They’re all noticing what she’s feeling.  And she loves the attention.

As Felicity starts to embrace her open sexuality, thanks to her unseen father’s generosity, she’s invited to spend her vacation in Hong Kong with a couple of his privileged friends, a horny heterosexual couple, when the British still had control of it.  It is here she will become completely unfettered and yet, she will reach a conservative conclusion.  She’d rather have sex with someone she loves than someone who’s just available.

Felicity is an Australian film that was first exhibited in North America in 1979.  It is very much a product of its time.  Brief, catchy snippets of disco; wide-eyed first person narration; questionable fashion choices; lots of naked women rubbing each other; a suspicious guy with a mustache; and all that pubic hair.

However, for a film filled with so much exposed flesh it is surprisingly boring primarily because it has no intention of going all the way.  It is a constant tease.  Something sexual starts happening and then the moment is cut off.  In those rare instances where such a scene plays a little longer, the soft moaning does not match the timid movements.  This is not a hardcore porn film.  There is no actual penetration, only limp suggestion.  After a while, it all starts to feel monotonous.  Late in the movie, even Felicity the character feels burned out, if just for a moment.

On the plane to Hong Kong, a guy stares at the cute redhead fellating her chocolate bar.  It’s only when she catches him that she remembers it’s food and not a substitute penis.  While in the middle of reading Emmanuelle (which clearly inspired this movie), she hears an amorous couple surreptitiously fucking.  With everybody else zonked out in their seats, she quietly observes the couple in action. The second Felicity puts her hand down her pants, we’re right into the next scene, a typical pattern. The movie would rather frustrate you than leave you satisfied. It achieves this by never really getting you fully excited to begin with.

While staying with her new friends, her fascination in secretly watching more experienced people fuck while touching herself becomes a compulsion.  When she confesses this to her female host after observing her writhing around with her boyfriend, it’s not met with outrage.  In fact, there’s another confession.  She thinks it’s hot, too. Why no threesome suggestion?

In turn, the boyfriend likes to watch Felicity.  First, he sees her humming while she bathes.  Then, when she moves to the guest bedroom, she deliberately positions herself so he can see her rubbing oil on her nude body.  But again, just as we’re getting started, another snip and the moment passes.  Why is this movie in such a rush to not turn us on?

A local sex worker, who passes on some of her income directly to a few poor refugees out by the docks, becomes Felicity’s underground tour guide.  There they are in a lesbian bathhouse getting more than a cleaning.  And there they are again on what can only be described as a brothel boat.  Watching a variety of undressed pairings not do anything more than rub and halfheartedly kiss, suddenly some aggressive guy puts his hand over Felicity’s mouth and without removing his pants, it’s go time.  The vivacious redhead is perfectly fine with this.

Upon her arrival in China, the eager virgin attends a party where she meets the suspicious guy with the mustache who her female host puts over as a worldly stud she should hook up with.  Shortly after their introductions, he drives her around and once they stop, he takes control.  He orders her to get bottomless.  She looks a little shocked but doesn’t refuse.

Then, he orders her out of the car and commands her to lie on the hood with her legs spread.  He’s not exactly gentle.  And that’s certainly a look of regret to match those pained, staccato cries.  Much like the scene on the brothel boat, he’s somehow able to perform when he’s still wearing his trousers (we don’t see him unzip or take it out).

When she confesses her disappointment to her female host the next day, she’s advised to lighten up and try someone else.  Following the incident on the brothel boat, after outrunning a couple more aggressive Chinese guys (which thankfully does not result in a rape), her only moment of refusal, she is suddenly rescued by a conveniently arriving Aussie on a scooter who later admits he’s a bit sloshed, although that seems to come out of nowhere.

She spends the night in his hotel room but curiously, nothing happens.  Somehow, they become inseparable, spending a few days sightseeing together strictly as friends until finally she puts her foot in his groin at dinner.  They don’t just fool around in his bedroom. 

While going to a porn film, she suddenly fancies his sausage, only to be interrupted by a late arrival who stares too much.  That’s their cue to leave.

When taking a ride on the top floor of a double decker trolley car, she suddenly desires a ride of her own.  But then, a middle-aged woman suddenly climbs the stairs and she climbs off. 

Still quite randy, Felicity talks the Aussie into getting busy on an elevator.  By the time they arrive on the 22^nd floor it’s only then that someone else is waiting to walk inside, but their bottoms are back on in time.  They finally wrap things up in his room in the only sex scene that may not be simulated but who knows.  There’s slight thrusting but no busting.

But then, just as she’s really falling for the adventure photographer (who we never actually see photograph anything), he’s out of there to go to the mainland on assignment for a few weeks.  Crestfallen and weepy, she fools around with her sympathetic Asian escort and in a truly weird scene, after filling her voyeur quota while trying not to watch a couple of naked gals in a bar roll around on the floor, the bartender gives her a drink, asks her for a fuck and she says, “Why not?”  If only it were that easy.

As played by Glory Annen (who died in 2017), Felicity is a sweet, conflicted bundle of cheerful horniness who feels guilty at times for enjoying sex outside what society at that time considered acceptable.  (Remember, she’s a Catholic.)  That said, almost nothing is off the table for her as she enters a softcore world more sophisticated and defiant than she is.

Despite her religious upbringing, it is unusual that she has a guilty conscience at all when she’s a dedicated reader of erotica and no other hedonist she encounters ever feels the slightest bit of shame or remorse. Her hosts don’t care that she’s a voyeuristic horndog and neither does her Asian companion, all of whom encourage her to keep at it. When she finally does track down the Aussie photog, now nursing a baffling injury (he was bit by what, exactly?), as they rekindle their coupling, when she sheepishly admits to not being “the picture of innocence”, he admits the same and the matter is dropped entirely. They both fuck around and he doesn’t care.

While I appreciate that women in this movie are free to be as polyamorous as they desire without being attacked for it, why can’t they have more explicit sex? I’m not against softcore in principle but Jesus, it’s enough with the slow-ass fondling. In the bathhouse scene, the young lady who kisses Felicity is barely even touching her lips. What’s with all the hesitancy?

Filmed in the real Hong Kong, the movie spends more time taking in the sights and showing you the local townspeople (while only briefly mentioning their impoverished living conditions) than focusing on setting your loins on fire. Felicity’s narration at times sounds a bit spacey, typical of someone young who doesn’t realize her thoughts about her body and sex in general are far from profound or original. In fact, there’s too much voiceover and not enough bedroom excitement.

The movie is also sloppily edited at times. The continuity is off in places. (How did Felicity beat the peeping tom boyfriend on the tennis court when she lost the last point?) And there are problems with the audio mix. Dialogue and Annen’s intrusive voiceovers have to compete with the film’s overplayed theme song which is even more intrusive on its own. Yes, we know she’s a woman now. Thanks for the constant reminders.

In a rotating sea of naked bodies, Felicity the movie ends up being curiously old-fashioned as its innocent-looking hero is far less satisfied with random hook-ups than she is in having a regular boyfriend who, judging by the last scene, may or may not even want her as his steady. It’s almost as if the film has a completely different agenda than what was advertised.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
2:15 a.m.

Big Bully (1996)

I watch a lot of movies, some more honest than others.  But it’s been a while since I’ve seen one as phony as Big Bully.

Released in 1996, it’s the story of two kids at war:  a science fiction nerd named Davy and his relentlessly overbearing antagonist Fang (because of his one vampire tooth). 

We begin in 1970.  In between ruining his annual class photos by giving him face bruises, harassing him on the teeter totter at recess and making him believe he pissed in his drinks at lunch, Fang continually hounds his outmatched victim who looks uncannily like a young Rick Moranis.

One day, the kids are invited into the school auditorium to take a look at a rather unimpressive moon rock.  Fang, however, is mesmerized by the thing staring at it a lot longer than everybody else.  Not exactly well protected, all it takes is a cute woman to flirt with the dopey guy from NASA and it’s gone, causing a full-scale panic.

While walking in the woods, Davy discovers the culprit undetected.  It isn’t until his dad announces that the family is moving far away from this Minnesota smalltown that the aspiring novelist finds his opening.

25 years later, Davy (now played by the real Rick Moranis) has published a book and is having an in-store signing.  It’s not going well.  Every customer who approaches him is more interested in the latest Stephen King title.  It isn’t until a naïve burnout arrives that Davy realizes he can only make a sale if he flat out lies about the premise.  He’s written a drama.  The intrigued sucker thinks he’s ripped off Pet Sematary.

Divorced with a young son harbouring deep resentment towards him, out of nowhere he gets invited to return to Minnesota as a conquering “town hero” to teach a creative writing class in his old stomping grounds for just a semester.  It’s a convenient way to get him to come back home for more torture.

Upon arriving, his son starts bullying a kid in his writing class, a kid that could easily be his own son.  But, of course, the victim’s real dad is Fang (now played by Tom Arnold), a now docile father of six married to bitchy Carol Kane and easily disrespected by his own students.  Instead of becoming an astronaut like he dreamed in his youth, he timidly teaches shop to little jerks like his past self.

What happened?  After he got pinched for grabbing the moon rock he was sentenced to reform school where he found himself surrounded by more seasoned psychopaths.  And yet, instead of becoming more of a menace like them, he has since shriveled into a giant doormat, easily bullied and disrespected by Kane and all his kids both at home and in the classroom.

This isn’t remotely believable.  Even less so is how long it takes Fang to recognize Davy.  Considering how the kid he used to terrify on a daily basis looks exactly the same as an adult, there should be an instantaneous light bulb moment.  When Davy sees that protruding tooth, it’s like his heart is beating out of his now sweaty neck.  And Tom Arnold in no way looks like the kid who plays Fang at age 10.

Big Bully is a comedy without any laughs but it’s also an awkward thriller.  It flips between genres uncomfortably to the point where it knows it’s not funny at all so it figures it might as well be exciting to alleviate the tedium.  But that mood shift doesn’t work, either, because you know exactly how it will all turn out.

Once Fang puts two and two together, he immediately reverts back to his bullying persona.  But when Davy complains to Principal Don Knotts (who also hasn’t changed in 25 years), he’s not believed.  Through an inane series of misunderstandings, a fellow teacher, already paranoid and twitchy, convinces the old man to put Davy on probation instead.

At a Sadie Hawkins dance, Davy is invited by an old school crush, the conveniently available Victoria (Julianne Phillips) who also teaches here, to help chaperone.  But once he spots Fang, a last minute volunteer supervisor himself, over by the punch bowl, that old queasy feeling returns and three people get embarrassed. 

Eventually, Davy has a heart-to-heart with his depressed son.  There’s no real explanation for what went wrong in his marriage (“I screwed up.” is awfully vague) but one bullying campaign predictably comes to a conclusion and not very persuasively, either.

Fang’s needlessly belated heel turn sees him suddenly taking charge at home and turning on his once domineering, ball-busting wife.  His forcefulness makes her wet.  And when that little punk in shop class tries to nail him with that chalkboard eraser yet again while his back is turned, with lightning quick reflexes the teacher not only catches it but knows exactly who hurled it.

How he disciplines the boy would make the CIA proud.

As Fang escalates his campaign of psychological and physical terror against Davy, especially after his  eventual confession about who exposed the bully’s thievery, there’s the inevitable “final” confrontation beginning at school and ending out in the woods on a tree bark bridge.  A guilt-ridden Davy, already privately feeling bad about the moon rock incident, now believes he’s gone too far.

He is a fool, not just because has hasn’t done anything wrong but also because even the audience knows the danger isn’t over.  Even after the tension completely dissipates, he makes an ill-advised invitation for a potential sequel that thankfully never materialized.

To a certain extent, Big Bully believes in restorative justice.  For snatching the moon rock, Fang isn’t sent to prison, although being sentenced to reform school with more depraved criminals is its own form of hell as he points out during the confrontation at school.  Once everything predictably calms down, he even makes up for one act of dickishness even though I’m not sure what a grown man who’s not a collector of action figures would do with an out-of-package replacement of a beloved childhood possession.

Speaking of that, how ironic that Davy worships Evil Knievel, the infamous daredevil who once stabbed a journalist’s hand so hard he lost all the feeling in it because he didn’t like something he wrote.  Sounds more like a role model for Fang.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, January 3, 2021
7:55 p.m.