Author: edbaruch

Written a week ago:

Movie Review: Just returned from seeing “Knives Out” starring Daniel Craig and an all-star cast. Let me start by saying I really liked the film. Kind of like an old Agatha Christie novel/film and reminded me of the film “Sleuth” with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. The film was engaging and really fun! It also improved as the filmed moved along (I have to say it’s hard coming off a half hour of coming attractions into a slow moving film). I also think, from a personal basis, this was the best film and performance I’ve seen Daniel Craig in…bravo Daniel. I saw him in Munich and I didn’t think he looked Israeli at all but still a good film and he was ok. I still catch crap from some people for walking out on Cowboys and Aliens which conceptually sounded good and I tried to watch it again, also with great difficulty. BTW it is considered better manners to fall asleep during a performance and snore than to walk out on it, at least in my case (another admonishment). Here was the big one…I didn’t think Daniel was suited to play James Bond which led to some interesting conclusions. All the other bonds were really British looking and Daniel came out of nowhere to play him. He was kind of stiff in the role like a macho Vladimir Putin. He was really good in Knives Out with his southern drawl. I ran into Daniel a couple years ago when I was doing a variety show in Los Angeles, he happened to be in the audience as I was discussing head injuries in actors. I brought him up and was greeted by the audience with “Oh Oh!!” Apparently he wasn’t that happy with me. I had my notes on his injuries though. I surmised based on his injuries/scars that he was ejected through the windshield of a motor vehicle traveling at high speed. He was surprised that I knew all the details about it. He also told me that if he wanted to he could send me to my next incarnation. Rather than say, “Take a number,” I wholeheartedly agreed with him as he was already unhappy with me. We then had the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had with anyone bar none!!!…he is really fascinating! I agreed to help him out with a couple issues which worked out terrific and we’re on really good terms (though I do say it was touch and go there for a while and he’s grown on me as Bond and the new film is coming out and the trailer looks awesome). There are some other great actors and aspects of the film but go check it out yourselves. I give it a 5/5!!!!! (It’s actually 4/5 but I don’t want to piss Daniel off again and lets face it, it’s not exactly Gone With The Wind.) Later gators.

Movie Review: Jumanji (3) The Next Level 

Let me start out by saying I really enjoyed the film. Critics are giving it about a 70% which is not bad and audiences are giving it 90% which is very good, so I’ll go with the audience score which I think is reasonable. I’m a big fan of the Jumanji series. The first one is the one to beat, like other great series such as Terminator, Highlander, Rocky, Godfather, the first one is always the one to beat. I liked the second Jumanji film and it would be tough to watch this one without having seen the second one, but I really loved this film. I thought it was a lot of fun and had a great all star cast. See below

	Karen Gillan	…	Ruby Roundhouse
	Marin Hinkle	…	Spencer’s Mom
	Dwayne Johnson	…	Eddie
	Madison Iseman	…	Young Bethany
	Jack Black	…	Bethany /  Fridge
	Ashley Scott	…	Ashley
	Awkwafina	…	Ming
	Kevin Hart	…	Mouse Finbar
	Danny DeVito	…	Eddie
	Morgan Turner	…	Young Martha
	Alex Wolff	…	Young Spencer
	Dania Ramirez
	Nick Jonas	…	Alex
	Rory McCann	…	Jurgen the Brutal
	Colin Hanks	…	Young Alex
	Rhys Darby	…	Nigel
	Danny Glover	…	Milo
	Ser’Darius Blain	…	Young Fridge

It was good seeing Rory McCann best known for portraying Sandor “The Hound” Clegane on the HBO series Game of Thrones in this film. A stand-out for me was one of my favorite actresses, Nora Lum who is Awkwafina!!! She does a spot impersonation of Danny DeVito for half the film which was terrific!!! Lots of great scenery, story line and a hint at the next film. World Class entertainment. I give it 4 1/2 stars out of 5, that keeps it in line with the audience scores. Later gators!!

Only one essential ingredient Soy Sauce

1. Soy Sauce lots of it
2. Garlic Powder
3. Mixed Seasoning without Salt, something nice and savory
4. Beer
5. Wine
6. Hard Liquor
7. Ginger Powder or Chunks
8. Cherry Soda
9. Lemon Soda
10. Cherry Pie Liquor
11. Hot Pepper Flakes
12. Sugar
13. Optional: Apple Juice, citrus fruit

Happy Thanksgiving from the Mrs. and me to all our friends and family. Celebrating the holiday of abundance, mutual love, respect and joy.

The Lottery Ticket

When I was young I bought a lottery ticket. My brother told me that if I won the whole family would split the money. I couldn’t cash the ticket when I won because I was too little. My brother took all the money when he cashed it and went to law school.

The Lottery Ticket

When I was young I bought a lottery ticket. The first prize was $500! My brother told me that if I won the whole family would split the money. When I won I tore up the ticket.

I continue to watch “His Dark Materials” starring Daphne Keen. The show only gets better and better. Daphne Keen is terrific and as I pointed out in an earlier post she appears on the show along with the gal she was cloned from. They’re roughly three or four years apart but are identical in every other way. I was pleased to see the younger cloned Keen has returned to play Lyra Belacqua as opposed to her older clone. I have not met the older clone and though they are pretty much identical and still look forward to seeing the younger copy, since I met her a few years ago. As I understand the girls identify themselves as sisters and treat each like sisters and that appears to be the natural or unnatural order of things. The show is wonderful, airs on Mondays on HBO. They’re up to the third episode, great stuff!

Kind of a dilemma wanting to see Kiki Keen even though her sister is identical but older. This happened once before with the BBQueen and her clone but in reverse!. Life is always interesting

I went to see this mostly for Matt Damon, (and Parasite wasn’t starting yet) who I’m a huge fan of despite his coming to my office incognito for a few visits to screw with me just because I outed his secret identity, his family, his father, his mother, his grandfather and his stepfather. Oh, and he’s from Iceland. He made a super film with one of my favorite Asians, Hong Chau who appears in Watchmen and was brilliant. Ford vs Ferrari is a very good action film, and the acting is world class.

I guess my only issue with it is I know it’s a film about racing, and the race takes 24 hours but do they have to go around the track so many times. It’s cool when a car crashes, or blows up, otherwise it’s kind of redundant. Kind of like when I walked out of Cowboys and Aliens because all they were doing was running around on horses and then Harrison Ford didn’t talk to me for months after that. I’ll give it 4.5/5. I’d give it 5/5 but he’ll kiss my daughter but not me. They should have gotten Harrison to play Henry so it would be Ford playing Ford. Harrison Ford is an accomplished pilot but he gets annoyed with me when I tell the uber driver that when he’s flying he thinks he’s Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon flying through an asteroid belt, “Never tell me the odds!!!!” He sits there helplessly while I laugh hysterically.!!

Both are posts taken off facebook

Film Review: Jojo Rabbit. May have spoilers. I was sure I was going to have mixed feelings about another film that rewrites history of the Holocaust. I didn’t, this was terrific! A well done film, very clever, well written, acted, directed and filmed. In this film Hitler shows up as an imaginary friend/delusion/hallucination to a young boy, Jojo, who’s a Hitler youth played by Roman Griffen Davis. His mother Rosie played by Scarlett Johannson (great job!) hides a Jewish Girl in her attic, Elsa played by Thomasin McKenzie. Taika Waititi plays Adolf Hitler, he also directed, produced and wrote the screenplay from the book Caging Skies. Also in the film, all great were: Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen, and Sam Rockwell. Special shout out to Rebel Wilson who is a favorite of mine. Scarlett and Rockwell turn up in a lot of films together as they are Bryce and Ron. The two songs in German are also done by Ron. Well done.

I went through the reviews and in part this sums up my initial concerns about the film, “On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 79% based on 244 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website’s critics consensus reads: “Jojo Rabbit’s blend of irreverent humor and serious ideas definitely won’t be to everyone’s taste—but either way, this anti-hate satire is audacious to a fault.”[38] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”.[39] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A” on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 96% and an 87% “definite recommend”.[36] wikipedia 

I’m going to give the film a 10/10. This could be seen even in view of the upcoming memorial to Kristallnacht. If the reviews are uneven it’s because the film is complex and draws on every emotion. The film left me in tears.

Prequel to film review above though not related to film: During the last days of the war my father, Moise Borochowsky was taken from the camps where he had spent 3 1/2 years going from one to another, taken on a hundred mile death march and wound up in one of a dozen or so cattle cars somewhere in the mountains. While the prisoners, mostly Jews waited for three days in these mountains the order to kill them all was disobeyed by the man in charge of the train sparing the lives of these Jews with the exception of one car of slaves who carelessly ran out of the car in celebration of the end of the war and were mowed down a machine gunner who probably hadn’t heard the news that the war was over…or perhaps he just hated Jews…there seemed to be a lot of that going around at the time. The commander of the train had his life spared at the tribunals because of this act of decency.