Fury and Jubilation
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): By the time you read this you might have already celebrated a couple of notable May days from earlier this week, May the Fourth (with its punny-Star Wars-connection), and/or Cinco de Mayo (May 5th for us monolinguists) which should be about an important Mexican victory over attempted-French-conquerors at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 but in the U.S. often deteriorates into yet another excuse for getting roaring drunk with no concept of what the day’s actually about. So, if you didn’t get enough Jedi-insights or cerveza-consumption a few days ago here are a couple of suggestions to brighten up your weekend. First, we turn to the violent world of international espionage in Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, adapted from the noted-novelist’s 1993 story about Navy SEAL John Kelly’s (Michael B. Jordan) furious desire for revenge after a Russian hit team kills his wife and members of his former unit (not a spoiler; this happens within roughly the first 10 min. of the movie), resulting in some murderous activity on his part to get information, then he’s with a new team slipping into Russia for a final showdown only to be shocked with unnerving, horrid revelations (movie's free for Amazon Prime subscribers). In the Short Takes section I’ll review Best Summer Ever, a lively, teen-focused, high-school musical which will be quite familiar in most of its plot elements but refreshingly unique in its casting of many kids with varying disabilities even though their supposed-limitations aren’t even noted, let alone provide any additional difficulties in navigating the age-old-challenges of being in high-school ($4.99 rental on several platforms; I used Amazon Prime); I’ll also offer suggestions for choices on the Turner Classic Movies channel (but too much extra text for line-justified-layout like you see here [Related Links stuff at each posting’s end is similarly-ragged], at least to be done by this burned-out-BlogSpot-drone—oh, ye tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.
Here’s the trailer for Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $. To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid those important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: Navy SEAL Senior Chief John Kelly (Michael B. Jordon) is with his team (headed by Lt. Commander Karen Greer [Jodie Turner-Smith]) in Aleppo, Syria to rescue a captured CIA operative; however, once the opposing combatants have been dispatched, Kelly finds they’re Russian military, not Syrians, so he’s furious with CIA Deputy Director Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell) for sending him into a situation that could easily have resulted in an international incident, yet Greer orders him to stand down. 3 months later Kelly’s back at home in Washington, D.C.—retired from the military—with very-pregnant-wife Pam (Lauren London), choosing to relax on the couch one night listening to music on headphones while she needs to sleep. A crisis quickly occurs, though, when a Russian hit squad (ex-military) guns down the other members of Kelly’s SEALs squad, slips into his home after cutting off the electricity, murders Pam before John can save her, clearly intended to kill Kelly as well but 3 of the 4 invaders are soon dead as the 4th one—wounded—manages to get away because Kelly’s badly wounded also, is soon rushed to the hospital. Greer meets with Ritter and Secretary of Defense Thomas Clay (Guy Pearce) about the attack, learns one of the dead in the Syria hostage rescue was the son of Russia’s FSB (security agency, evolved from the vicious Soviet KGB) so this seems to be retaliation, with the attack on U.S. soil leaked to the press so tensions are now high with Russia; thus, the CIA doesn’t want to pursue finding the 4th killer to not antagonize Putin’s empire any further at this point. Kelly’s desperate for revenge, though, so he attacks the Russian diplomat who issued passports to the kill squad, sets the guy’s car on fire, gets the name of assassin #4—Victor Rykov (Brett Gelman)—then shoots the diplomat dead, resulting in quick imprisonment for Kelly in a D.C. facility with Russian convicts, so he knows he’s facing trouble there.
He meets with Greer, tells her he’s got important info about the attack, which results in Secretary Clay releasing him (just in time as he was forced to battle a squad of seeming-guards [or were they Russians dressed as such?] who invaded his cell, rescued in the course of battle by a messenger from Clay). The Secretary wants Kelly on a team intended to sneak into Murmansk, a Russian port city near the Arctic region of Finland, to capture Rykov, although Greer, another member of this counter-hit-squad, doesn’t think Kelly’s mentally-stable enough for such a mission. The team flies into Russian air space (seemingly off-course) in an almost-empty-commercial-airliner (can’t risk using a military plane or the current Cold War might really get hot), but it’s shot down before they can clandestinely parachute down to their target so they have to sneak into the harbor on an inflatable Zodiac boat which Kelly retrieves from the plane’s wreckage after a grueling-underwater-swim. ⇒In Murmansk, Kelly’s commandos meet up with a CIA team led by Ritter, with Kelly convinced Ritter’s been leaking info to the Russians, causing all the chaos Kelly's team have encountered, although he denies it. The combined group storms Rykov’s headquarters, killing many of his defenders, only to find him wearing a suicide vest, claiming to be a deep-cover CIA operative, says his kills were all done under orders, then he blows himself up as a sniper begins firing on the U.S. group as they realize they’ve been set up to be killed on Russian soil, probably starting a war. After a lot more gunfire, deaths of Rykov thugs and Russian police—highlighted by hand-to-hand-combat-killing of the sniper by Kelly—he, along with Greer, Ritter, and the remaining survivors, manages to escape.⇐
⇒Later, back in D.C., Kelly takes Secretary Clay hostage, forces him to confess he’s behind all of the attacks on American military in this deadly scenario, an effort to intensify conflicts with Russia as a means of uniting the U.S. against a dangerous common enemy, boosting our economy, reasserting our position of global dominance (a bit of a serious twist on the plot of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove … [1964], a darkly-satiric-attack on the former U.S.S.R.), whereupon Kelly drives their vehicle into the Potomac River, drowning Clay while Kelly (seemingly with Aquaman-lungs) swims away. As our story ends, Greer gives Kelly a new I.D.—John Clark—provided by Ritter as John leaves on a train (supposedly Kelly died in Russia). During the credits we get one last scene, a year later, where “Clark” is back in D.C., meets with Ritter, wants him to get the President to form an international anti-terrorism team, Rainbow, with John in charge (setting us up for a sequel, probably based somewhat on Clancy’s 1998 print sequel about Clark named Rainbow Six, although if another movie of this sort should emerge don’t count on it resembling the book too much given how much leeway was taken in adapting this script from Clancy’s original novel version of Without Remorse).⇐
So What? If you’re a regular reader of my Two Guys reviews (if not, there’s no time like the present to start) you’d know it’s very unlikely I’d have read a novel later adapted into a movie (even though in this case, an entry in the thriller-espionage genre—especially by as talented an author as Tom Clancy—would be a likely choice for me [same thing goes for his books about Jack Ryan; haven’t read any of them but have seen most of the screen-adaptations]), which is the usual situation here, but from the summary I skimmed (book published in 1993) I’d have been quite surprised to see this plot on screen, as about the only overlaps are the name of John Kelly, his military career, his deceased pregnant wife (but in a car accident), the need to clandestinely get captured Americans out of a foreign country, and Kelly’s faked death toward the end of the story (yeah, a spoiler, but a minor one). Otherwise, it’s set in 1970, the rescue mission’s in Vietnam, and there’s heavy use of a lot of other actions/supportive characters that totally evaporate from the movie script. Another thing seeming to be a significant change from what I understand of the book is Kelly (as with most action heroes of these types of stories in-print or on-screen, at least until more recent times) was just assumed to be White, so it’s nice to see there was no hesitation in casting a well-known Black actor in the role (although in the couple of decades between Savoy Pictures buying the novel’s rights and Paramount actually getting it produced the role was variously offered to Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Tom Hardy), with another major, substantial Black character, Greer (Kelly’s wife, Pam, also, but she’s soon turned into a motivating factor rather than an ongoing character except in a tender flashback), even though racial identity has no presence in this movie: these people just happen to be Black but none of the events are related to that inconsequential fact.
Jordan handles the revenge-driven-wing of this genre excellently, carrying on the tradition long ago associated with Charles Bronson (Death Wish [Michael Winner, 1974], etc.), more recently occupied by Liam Neeson (Taken [Pierre Morel, 2008], etc.) and Reeves (John Wick [Chad Stahelski, 2014], etc.), plus we get the scene in his D.C. cell where Jordan’s attacked giving us an excuse for him to pull his shirt off (tearing a strip to wrap around his knuckles for the upcoming battle) so we can gaze longingly (male or female, straight or otherwise) at this ripped-torso. Given the critical lambasting of this movie, though (more on that in the next section of this review)—along with the unknown financial returns on whatever the budget was (hefty, I'm sure)—it’s not clear if the intended sequel, Rainbow Six, will happen but, if so, I’m sure more of the same we get in … Without Remorse will return full-blast (seemingly with Greer and Ritter returning also), so stay tuned for further announcements as time goes on—or not, depending on your interest in this kind of stuff. (If your interest is high, though, here’s an anatomy of the first dramatic underwater scene from director Sollima, explaining it all.)
Bottom Line Final Comments: Had it not been for strong recommendations from a few of my local (San Francisco area) critics, I’d likely have skipped … Without Remorse (although there’s always the allure of Michael B. Jordan who hasn’t had a bad role yet, in my opinion, from Fruitvale Station [Ryan Coogler, 2013; review in our July 16, 2013 posting] to Creed [Coogler, 2015; review in our December 2, 2015 posting] to Black Panther [Coogler, 2018; review in our February 22, 2018 posting] to Creed II [Steven Caple Jr., 2018; review in our November 29, 2018 posting] to Just Mercy [Destin Daniel Cretton, 2019; review in our January 16, 2020 posting], so I might have watched it anyway just to keep current on him) because the OCCU is actively-dismissive of this movie, with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes offering only 45% positive reviews while the ones at Metacritic have a surprisingly-similar-result (usually notably-lower) of a 42% average score. Given the enthusiasm of my local guys, I thought … Without Remorse might have transcended what I’d likely expect from the type of brutal-action-for-action’s-sake characteristic of this genre but I can’t say that’s the case as the surprise twist at the end, which I suppose is intended to encourage us toward some deep thought about the motivations of some of our government leaders, is just barely enough to add some level of significance to what’s mostly an expected experience in body-count-tally where our guys are the unquestioned heroes, the Russians are malevolent monsters, so just like with the gung-ho-versions of the old Rambo franchise (not First Blood [Ted Kotcheff, 1982], which actually presents some legitimate moral questions within this crafty-survival-of-the-fittest-tale) beginning with Rambo: First Blood Part II (George P. Cosmatos, 1985), all we need to know—until we find out more to cloud our certainty—is our government/military operatives are totally in the right, therefore they’re given the green light to accomplish their missions by any means necessary while we unfailingly cheer them on.
If that’s what you want in a well-produced, well-choreographed temporary escape from reality (well, not the sleazy-government-aspects; that’s all too real as history and contemporary reporting continue to abuse us with unsavory-facts about our nation plus so many others both then and now) then you’d probably enjoy Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse—probably without hesitation—especially if you’re a subscriber to Amazon Prime (your only option for watching it) because it’s free for you (otherwise, just read all of my review, including the spoiler parts, and you’ll have a reasonable facsimile of the experience anyway). If you’re not all that thrilled to see slam-bang-violence on a very-regular-basis (I’d say about a dozen are dead here within the first 5 min.), you might well prefer the cheery musical I’ll review just below. In the meantime, there’s also the added pleasure of my Musical Metaphor for … Without Malice (a bit of an odd one, I’ll admit; let’s see if I can justify it), which is R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” (from their 1991 album Out of Time) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm3-bytFQkE (live 1999 performance) because at times John feels he “[hasn’t] said [and done] enough” in regard to the revenge he seeks, the wrongs he wants to address, but then we have the sense of Lt. Cmd. Greer often feeling he’s “said [done] too much” in his murderous actions, at least until she fully understands the scope of the situations he’s forced to respond to. So, where our government’s concerned (or, at least, some overzealous members of it) he’s sure he’s “Losing my religion Trying to keep up with you and I don’t know if I can do it […] Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool […] That was just a dream, just a dream.” I realize this song’s actually about a confused would-be-lover in despair his overtures have been ignored or rejected, but, metaphorically, I think it could be acceptably applied to John Kelly’s crisis of government-service in this movie due to the unscrupulous actions of those he’s been previously conditioned to trust. Do you buy my rationale yet? Keep trying if needed while I keep replaying this video because I admire the song, no matter what's the excuse for using it.
SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
Best Summer Ever (Michael Parks Randa,
Lauren Smitelli) Not Rated (essentially G) 72 min.
This is a joyful, low-budget musical about high-school kids who occupy the full-abled-to-disabled-spectrum where it doesn’t matter a bit if the romantic couple’s a Black guy football star who’d rather be a dancer and a girl in a wheelchair because all we need to know is who—not what—they are; it’s consciously-derivative of a lot of similar, well-known movies but has a lovely, pure charm all its own.
Here’s the trailer:
Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.
Without a recommendation from one of my nieces, Lisa Dold (MA in Special Ed; teaches disabled kids in Burlington, VT; actively aware of the Zeno Mountain Farm in Lincoln, VT, which produced Best Summer Ever—opening summer camp scene shot there), I’d have never heard of this movie, so I’m glad she steered me to it (the CCAL’s better aware, though, as RT offers 93% positive reviews, MC a healthy [for them] 72% average score). The important thing here is not just that there are so many of the cast who are classified as some form of disabled (probably sets a record) but that their disabilities are never even mentioned as the kids are presented just as teenagers attending a dance camp or going to high school where they interact easily with non-disabled-teens, everyone’s on equal footing (or wheelchair), with the primary plot about summer sweethearts at that camp-for-everyone, Tony and Sage (Rickey Alexander Wilson, Shannon DeVido), who plan to stay in touch as they head in different directions only to end up at the same Mt. Abraham Union High School in rural NY* as Tony lied about going to NYC, secretly hoping to be a dancer rather than being lauded only for his kicking abilities on the football team, then Sage’s lesbian moms’ (Gillian [Holly Palmer], Kate [Eileen Grubba]) van breaks down in this (wherever) out-of-the-way-town as they’re heading south to grow a new crop of marijuana for cancer patients (if the Oscars had an award for Inclusivity and Social Justice this movie would be a sure winner, containing the most diversity in one place for such content since Fox TV’s Glee [2009-‘15]); they can’t afford needed repairs so Sage enrolls at Mt. Abe.
*Or maybe rural PA; I'm still not fully clear on that point yet (not worth it to rent again just to verify the fictional location), but actual Mt. Abe school is in Bristol, VT where the bulk of this movie was filmed.
Tony’s surprised but happy to see Sage again, yet she’s angry he lied to her, puts him off even as ego-driven-head-cheerleader Beth (MuMu) wants to be Prom Queen with Tony as her King (he’s not interested) while the school desperately wants him to lead them to victory in a homecoming game after a 25-year-drought even as jealous teammate Cody (Jacob Watluck) wants to be the gridiron star. This very familiar plot, with intentional references to such predecessors as Grease (Randal Kleiser [1978]—school stud has to hide his softer side, transfer girl), Footloose (Herbert Ross [1984]—love of dancing’s socially-ruinous for a guy in this environment), Disney TV’s High School Musical franchise (Kenny Ortega [2006-‘08]—jock lead guy named Tony, newcomer girl, clique-rivalries), is totally predictable but a lot of fun to watch ⇒as all of the tensions are easily resolved, Tony and Sage reconnect as Beth’s blackmail plans collapse, Tony’s not there for the start of the big game (team’s terrible without him; how they managed to be behind by only 2 points right at the end’s a mystery to me), arrives just in time to kick a looong field goal for victory as everybody celebrates).⇐
You might notice Benjamin Bratt, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Peter Sarsgaard in the cast list, but know they’re only in brief cameos, not essential to the plot. My New England-niece-Lisa along with my marvelous wife, Nina Kindblad (also MA in Special Ed; worked in various community colleges in the San Francisco Bay area prior to a well-deserved-retirement), might consider me to be a Grinch for giving this delightful movie only 3 stars (in my defense, I do try consistently to group what I see in my stars-clusters based on overall-filmic-context, even when I know there are respected supporters of something on-screen who won’t agree) but its cinematic achievements don’t (and aren’t really intended) to match its basic exuberance, it’s even more predictable than … Without Remorse (intentionally, bordering on a spoof of its referenced material), and clearly shows its tight budget (about $250,000), yet I still think you’d be delighted to see it unless you just can’t stand integrated musicals (not a racial term, has nothing to do with Tony being Black—just as that’s not an issue in … Without Remorse; it just means the songs and dances are natural expressions of the characters in place of some dialogue, as if anyone can spontaneously break into musical numbers without having to be on stage or in rehearsal). You can find this movie on several streaming platforms for $4.99 rental (I chose Amazon Prime) and can get pepped up for it with my Musical Metaphor of R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People” (also on 1991’s Out of Time, with The B-52’s Kate Pierson as a guest singer) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYOKMUTTDdA as the simple, upbeat lyrics are in tune with this movie (even though intended as a satire on Chinese government propaganda [scroll down within the link] following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of protesting citizens, but let’s not let that spoil the party [well, we can spoil the Communist Party harassing people in Hong Kong]).
Suggestions for TCM cablecasts
At least until the pandemic subsides Two Guys also want to encourage you to consider movies you might be interested in that don’t require subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, similar Internet platforms (we may well be stuck inside for longer than those 30-day-free-initial-offers), or premium-tier-cable-TV-fees. While there are a good number of video networks offering movies of various sorts (mostly broken up by commercials), one dependable source of fine cinematic programming is Turner Classic Movies (available in lots of basic-cable-packages) so I’ll be offering suggestions of possible choices for you running from Thursday afternoon of the current week (I usually get this blog posted by early Thursday mornings) on through Thursday morning of the following week. All times are for U.S. Pacific zone so if you see something of interest please verify actual show time in your area for the day listed. These recommendations are my particular favorites (no matter when they’re on, although some of those early-day-ones might need to be recorded, watched later), but there’s considerably more to pick from you might like even better; feel free to explore their entire schedule here. You can also click the down arrow at the right of each listing for additional, useful info.
I’ll bet if you checked that entire schedule link just above you’d find other options of interest, but these are the only ones grabbing my attention at present. Please dig in further for other possibilities.
Thursday May 6, 2021
5:00 PM West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961) One of the best musicals ever, adapted from a successful 1957 Broadway play, itself adapted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the rival families now being rival NYC street gangs as Jets Tony (Richard Beymer) falls for Sharks’ relative Maria (Natalie Wood) but the entrenched rivalries (Whites vs. Puerto Ricans)
lead to tragedy. Huge Oscar winner: Best Picture, Director(s), Supporting Actor (George Chakiris), Supporting Actress (Rita Moreno), Film Editing, Scoring for a Musical, Sound, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design (last 3 all for color films), Honorary Award to Robbins for his marvelous choreography, also highest grosser of ’61 (Pauline Kael hated it; she’s one of the few).
Friday May 7, 2021
10:15 PM The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1967) First version, later adapted to a successful Broadway musical (spawning another movie). Flimflam artist/stage producer Zero Mostel, nervous accountant Gene Wilder seek riches by getting too many investors for a show doomed to fail, Springtime for Hitler by ex-Nazi Kenneth Mars, starring wacky hippie Dick Shawn. But, it’s seen as satire, becomes a hit. Excellent balance keeps this as hilarious, not repulsive; Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Saturday May 8, 2021
10:00 AM Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966) Adapted from Edward Albee’s controversial play (1962), keeps story and most of the (profane) dialogue intact as a professor (Richard Burton) and his wife (Elizabeth Taylor), daughter of this small college’s president, verbally battle in front of house guests (George Segal, Sandy Dennis) as dysfunctionality reigns. Multiple-Oscar-winner: Best Actress (Taylor), Supporting Actress (Dennis), Art Direction, Costume Design, Cinematography (all 3 for B&W films), plus another 8 nominations; bitter to watch, grim masterpiece.
12:30 PM On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) Deserving winner of 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Director, Actor (Marlon Brando), Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint). A mob/union boss (Lee J. Cobb) runs the waterfront but a sub-honcho’s (Rod Steiger) in trouble because his “bum” brother’s (Brando) witnessed a mob killing, is being pressured to testify by a priest (Karl Malden). Contains the famous “I coulda been a contenda” scene between Brando and Steiger during a testy cab ride.
Sunday May 9, 2021
11:15 PM Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) An early classic of the French New Wave starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a small-time hood, patterning himself after American gangster movies, involved with Jean Seberg (an American actress Kristen Stewart’s recent film, Seberg, is based on), a woman whose attempts on his behalf backfire badly; this film’s a primer in attention-grabbing jump-cutting where connective aspects of the action are left out so you have to pay attention to fill it all in.
Wednesday May 12, 2021
3:15 PM Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) Quintessential screwball comedy: Cary Grant as an easily-befuddled paleontologist on the verge of finishing a Brontosaurus skeleton and marrying a prim woman we know isn’t a right match especially after he meets a cute, flighty heiress (Katharine Hepburn) who gets him in increasingly-embarrassing situations even as romance develops between them. Only movie I can recall featuring 2 leopards. Somewhat remade as What’s Up Doc? (1972).
If you’d like your own PDF of ratings/summaries of this week's reviews, suggestions for TCM cablecasts, links to Two Guys info click this link to access then save, print, or whatever you need.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Here are some extra items you might like to know more about regarding streaming options: (1) New to Netflix in May 2021; (2) New to Amazon Prime in May 2021; (3) New to Hulu in May 2021; (4) New to Disney+ in May 2021; (5) New to HBO/HBO Max in May 2021. As usual for now I’ll close out this section with Joni Mitchell’s "Big Yellow Taxi" (from her 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)—because “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone”—and a reminder that you can search streaming/rental/purchase movie options at JustWatch.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts.* Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problems’ been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
AND … at least until the Oscars for 2020’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, April 25, 2021 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here as well as here due to many 2020 releases being tracked on the 2021 list, although the income situation for 2020’s skewed due to so many award-contenders getting limited or no theatrical releases)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike many of the awards voters who simply fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they’ve never seen).
To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the current Golden Globes nominees and winners for films and TV from 2020-early 2021 along with the Oscar nominees and winners for 2020-early 2021 films.
Here’s more information about Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse:
https://www.amazon.com/Clancys-Without-Remorse-Michael-Jordan/dp/B08VF6XYVP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwNbbdxoewI (5:06 interview with actor Michael B. Jordan)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tom_clancys_without_remorse
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/tom-clancys-without-remorse
Here’s more information about Best Summer Ever:
https://www.bestsummerevermovie.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch6ZaDcaqig (29:58 interview with co-scriptwriter
Will Halby [with Terra Mackintosh, Michael Parks Randa] and actor Jake Waltuck)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/best_summer_ever
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/best-summer-ever
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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews-academic-articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)
If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.
By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check-out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile (quite an eternal while, in fact). Ken
P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker. But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"
—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.
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