Film: Terror Beneath a Transparent T-Shirt: A Review of The Deep (1977)

Let’s not beat around the scuba tank—The Deep (1977) is the kind of film where treasure lies beneath the surface, both literally and metaphorically, and half the audience came for the plot while the other half came for Jacqueline Bisset’s wet T-shirt. What Peter Benchley started with Jaws, he continued here with a tale of underwater thrills, sunken narcotics, colonial Spanish bling, and enough moray eel attacks to make Freud weep. If this film were a cocktail, it would be part high-seas adventure, part vintage Bond fantasy, and part Penthouse editorial—but shaken, not stirred, and best served with a side of compressed air.

Sunken Concepts and Surface Ambitions

After the megaton impact of Jaws, Peter Benchley was hot property—so hot, in fact, that Columbia bought The Deep before it even left the womb of its galley proofs. Benchley hadn’t even slapped the dust jacket on the thing before producers were writing checks and dreaming of box-office treasure. Enter Peter Guber, a man who could smell profit through six fathoms of marketing, who snatched up the rights for $500,000 plus backend points and who would later, with naked glee, credit a translucent T-shirt for his entire career. Director Peter Yates (Bullitt) was brought in for his kinetic eye and no-nonsense handling of male ego. And ego there was, from every man involved, especially the mechanical eel—nicknamed “Percy”—who had more personality than some of the supporting cast.

Filming this aquatic escapade was no small feat. The cast logged over 10,000 hours underwater, downed over a million cubic feet of air, and built what was at the time the largest underwater set ever constructed—on top of an actual Bermudian hill they cut off like a deranged colonial barber. This thing had sharks, stunt doubles, underwater lighting innovations, and a production calendar more bloated than a corpse in the Gulf Stream. Somewhere amidst the coral and chaos, Benchley even popped up as a background extra, because why not? It’s not like writing the thing was hard enough.

Casting Calls and Bikini Bottoms

At the core of the film are Robert Shaw (slurring nobly through another Benchley tale), Nick Nolte (fresh-faced and angry), and Jacqueline Bisset (fresh-faced and wet). Shaw, playing Romer Treece, a lighthouse-dwelling treasure hunter modeled on real-life Bermudian diver Teddy Tucker, seems to have wandered out of Jaws with the same hat but a different accent. Nolte, in his first leading role, got the part after a hilariously awkward meeting where nobody wanted him—but by the end, everyone did. Hollywood, thy name is passive-aggressive.

And then there’s Bisset. Yes, she’s competent, game for underwater stunt work, and adds tension to the plot. But let’s not kid ourselves: her career—and the film’s marketing campaign—took a sharp uptick thanks to a single shot of her swimming in a see-through top. That image, allegedly snapped without her knowledge, circulated more aggressively than the plot itself. Even Peter Guber, the film’s hype man, boasted that it “made him a rich man.” #FeminismWasStillLoading

Box Office Gold and Critical Salt

The Deep opened with a splash (sorry), grossing $8 million in its first weekend and beating Exorcist II: The Heretic, proving that bad sequels are no match for underwater cleavage and morphine ampoules. It went on to become Columbia’s biggest earner that year, hauling in over $100 million worldwide—though Guber claims he never saw a dime of the backend. Maybe he should’ve asked the eel for accounting help.

Critics, however, were not so generous. Vincent Canby called it “juvenile” with underwater sequences that were “nice enough”—which is basically the cinematic version of a shrug. Roger Ebert was kinder, admiring the photography and praising its novel setting. And the public? Well, they showed up. Jacqueline Bisset was crowned a sex symbol, Benchley kept cashing in, and Columbia popped champagne corks made of coral. A 53-minute extended TV cut (never released on DVD) even made the rounds, offering fans a soggier, soapier version that doubled down on exposition and eel attacks.

Legacy in a Bottle

Today, The Deep remains a pulpy, sun-drenched relic of ’70s adventure cinema: not as tight as Jaws, but far more flamboyant. It’s the kind of film where everyone looks like they smell faintly of rum, salt, and Vaseline, and the audience floats between being thrilled and vaguely titillated. It’s also the only movie where a moray eel kills a drug lord and nobody thinks that’s weird.

So yes, four stars—for the sheer absurdity, the underwater spectacle, and the fact that it tried to be both treasure hunt and drug thriller, Bond knockoff and Benchley sequel, all at once. It doesn’t always work, but it swims like hell trying.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 Stars)

#WetTshirtWonders #PercyTheEelDeservedAnOscar #BissetDidTheHeavyLifting #NotJaws2 #SharkFreeButStillDangerous #TheDeep1977

Art: Empty Gods and the Bay of Oh-So-Human Absurdity

Have you ever looked at a statue of a god, only to find out it’s missing its heart—and possibly its liver, spleen, and a chunk of its metaphysical raison d’être? Welcome to The God of the Bay of Roses, Salvador Dalí’s sun-drenched surrealist fever dream, where the divine is both skin-deep and completely hollow. Towering over a dry, cracked world of worshippers who are either praising him or trying to grope his ankles, this “god” stands aloof, gazing down in total detachment, like a Renaissance Michael who just ghosted humanity and left his torso in airplane mode.

This is Dalí not at his most famous (The Persistence of Memory hogs that honor), but perhaps at his most acidic. Here he builds a religion from sand, bodies, and vacancy—then invites us to the mass. The pedestal crumbles, the crowd writhes like extras in a Fellini orgy, and the only thing truly solid is a giant rock formation shaped suspiciously like an upright baguette. It’s the sacred and the profane sharing a sunburn under the Catalan sky.

The Madman Behind the Curtain

Salvador Dalí, born in 1904 in Figueres, Spain, was the kind of artist who could paint a melting clock and convince you it was about your mother. Trained in classical techniques but raised on Freud, Catholic guilt, and tapas, Dalí turned the art world upside down by never fully living inside of it. With his twirled mustache and carnival-show charisma, he made every canvas an existential prank, every paint stroke a coded insult to rational thought. Some saw genius; others saw self-parody. He shrugged, pointed at his cane, and painted ants crawling out of a violin.

By the time he created The God of the Bay of Roses in 1945, Dalí had already fled Franco’s Spain, reinvented himself in America, and started blending his Surrealism with atomic physics, classical aesthetics, and Catholic pageantry. This painting emerges from that perfect storm—when Dalí was dancing on the tightrope between divine revelation and egomaniacal showmanship. He wasn’t just painting gods; he was auditioning to become one.

1945: The Year the Divine Went on Leave

To understand this painting, you have to understand 1945. World War II had just thrown in the towel. The atomic bomb had done more than vaporize cities; it vaporized certainty. God was missing, presumed dead, and humanity was left staring at the crater wondering what page of the Bible covered thermonuclear fallout. Artists, philosophers, and theologians alike were panicking into abstraction. Dalí? He built a new theology—one part divine, one part gender ambiguous being, one part hollow chocolate bunny, all dipped in Iberian sunlight.

The “Bay of Roses” was not some utopian Eden. It was Dalí’s stomping ground, a personal mythic landscape as constant in his work as Gala’s poker face. Here, he turns it into a theatre of the absurd, where worshipers cavort in the desert like they’ve lost the script and the director stormed off. The figure above them is both muse and martyr—beautiful, unreachable, and gaping in the middle like a god carved by committee.

What’s the Deal with the Hole?

The hollow torso? That’s not a design flaw—it’s the point. Dalí’s god is deliberately empty. He’s every ideal we’ve ever hoisted onto a pedestal—a blend of beauty, divinity, womanhood, manhood, and power—stripped of substance. It’s a sneer at blind reverence and a love letter to the myth of transcendence, except written in disappearing ink. The onlookers at his feet, those frenzied pilgrims and dislocated revelers, aren’t praising him—they’re mourning what used to fill that hole. Meaning? Soul? A decent public radio station? We’ll never know.

Dalí dares us to ask: If God showed up and was beautiful but vacant, would we worship harder or walk away? He paints no answers, only an arid stage and a suggestion that even the divine might be running on fumes.

If the gods we build are hollow, is it their fault—or ours for worshiping statues with soft centers?

#DaliDecoded #HollowGods #BayOfRoses #SurrealismUnplugged #ArtThatStings #DivineAbsence  #CrackedPedestals #GalaWatchesSilently #ExistentialVacation

Film: “Hero” (1992): The Schmaltz of a Savior, the Burden of a Bernie

There are movies that lift your soul. There are movies that twist your gut. And then there’s Hero, a film that sort of fiddles with your sense of ethics for two hours, then sheepishly backs away like a kid caught drawing mustaches on a church portrait. It’s not a bad movie. In fact, it’s almost a good one. But like its central character Bernie LaPlante, it can’t decide if it wants to be noble or just swipe your wallet while telling you a story about morals. This is a film about the accidental burden of being lauded as a saint while your shoes still reek of sin. It’s clever, overcooked, oddly tender, and never quite as deep as it thinks it is—which, honestly, makes it rather like most TV news stories.

The origin of Hero is rooted in a flicker of actual inspiration, which is always dangerous. Producer Laura Ziskin and co-writer Alvin Sargent were watching the 1988 presidential primaries, likely sipping Chardonnay and muttering about Reaganomics, when they noticed how television could manufacture heroes in 30 seconds or less—faster if there’s a plane crash involved. That crash, by the way, did happen, and yes, some anonymous Good Samaritan did save people. And like any good American, Ziskin said, “What if the savior was an absolute dirtbag?” Thus, Bernie LaPlante, a grubby pickpocket who stumbles into heroism like a raccoon into a wedding buffet, was born.

Enter British director Stephen Frears—yes, the man who brought us Dangerous Liaisons and The Grifters, deciding to spend his time wrangling a smoke machine and Dustin Hoffman’s ego. Frears took on Hero as his second American feature, probably thinking it would be a Capra-meets-Sturges moral satire. What he got was a combustible mix of cynicism and sentimentality, wrapped in a script that couldn’t stop reminding you it was clever. The shoot featured a reconstructed Boeing 727 blown to hell in a fake riverbed and enough smoke effects to gag a dragon. All of which begs the question: did they spend more time on the symbolism or the dry ice budget?

Now, casting. Dustin Hoffman plays Bernie like he’s still mad about Kramer vs. Kramer royalties. There are reports of him barking that directors who ignore his advice end up directing Havana—a zinger aimed at Sydney Pollack, but probably felt by everyone within shouting distance. Geena Davis, luminous and charming as ever, gets to be the beautiful conscience of the film, even if her character seems like she wandered off the set of Broadcast News looking for integrity. Andy Garcia, oozing wounded decency as John Bubber, is the homeless vet who steps into Bernie’s abandoned hero role like it’s an Armani suit from Goodwill. The film also features uncredited Chevy Chase doing Network cosplay as the TV news boss, and Joan Cusack delivering some of the film’s few human moments, likely while wondering if her siblings would forgive her for this one.

Plot-wise, Hero is Meet John Doe on a double espresso and a government stimulus check. Bernie saves a plane full of people, steals a purse while doing it, and gives his last shoe to a stranger who then becomes America’s sweetheart. Media shenanigans ensue. People fall in love. Kids get inspired. And somewhere in there, ethics get trampled like free samples at Costco. The film’s final sequence involves a rooftop suicide attempt, a heartfelt confession, and a sudden pivot to America’s Funniest Home Videos: Near-Death Edition. It’s not bad—it’s just a little much, like a Hallmark card taped to a Molotov cocktail.

Critically, Hero split the room like pineapple on pizza. Roger Ebert thought it had the right ingredients but was cooking the wrong dish. Kenneth Turan called it “shrewdly cynical,” which is the Los Angeles Times’ version of “I liked it, but I’m not telling my editor.” Box office receipts were similarly unimpressed: a paltry $19.5 million domestically, $47 million overseas, and Columbia lost $25.6 million—enough to buy 54 replacement shoes for the passengers Bernie allegedly rescued. The title was changed to Accidental Hero in places like the UK and Australia, presumably so people wouldn’t walk in expecting a Marvel prequel.

And then there’s the legacy. Mariah Carey’s “Hero” was supposed to be in the film, but Tommy Mottola played keep-away like a greedy prom chaperone. Instead, we got a Luther Vandross ballad so smooth it could seduce a filing cabinet. Despite the underwhelming reception, Hero continues to exist in that weird Hollywood purgatory: too moral for satire, too goofy for prestige, too well-meaning to hate. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a guy who makes a speech at your wedding, cries halfway through, and then steals the gift cards.

So what are we left with? A middle-tier 1990s dramedy that tried to say something grand about heroism, media, and identity—but mostly reminded us how messy truth can be when filtered through ratings and egos. It earns its three stars by being smart, flawed, and fascinating in its failure. Just like Bernie.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

#PartyOnGale #AngelOfFlight104 #UncreditedChevy #TootsieAftermath #HeroicMediocrity #SmokeMachinesAndMorality #FrearsVsHoffman #LaPlanteWasRight #PG13Fbombs #BoxOfficeCrash #MeetJohnDoeRedux

Art: Do You Think She’s Looking at You or Through You?

Let’s start with the obvious: if you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be judged by a woman who knows all your secrets—even the ones you forgot—you’ve just met Portrait of Lorette. Her eyes aren’t just watching you; they’re auditing your soul. And Matisse, ever the cunning orchestrator of visual mind games, painted her like a mirror dipped in molasses: thick, dark, slow, and just a little too honest.

Henri Matisse, the man behind the madness, was already a titan of modernism by the time he met Lorette. This wasn’t some whimsical paint-by-muse scenario. No, this was trench warfare in oil and canvas. It was 1916—France was bleeding in World War I, but Matisse was busy waging a quieter battle in his studio in Nice: the war against decorative mediocrity. While others were painting nationalism or nihilism, Matisse decided to stare into the face of a woman and wrestle with what it meant to reduce—and refine—human complexity into line, color, and shape. Spoiler: he didn’t blink.

Lorette, his raven-haired Mona Lisa with attitude, was no ordinary muse. She was a professional model with a stare that could melt through Fauvism and probably a few egos. Matisse painted her again and again—over fifty times, in fact—like a man obsessed. And why not? With her heavy-lidded gaze, luscious lips, and a face drawn like a Byzantine saint who just got ghosted, she offered him the perfect vehicle to dismantle realism with elegance.

Let’s talk technique. Portrait of Lorette is not some romantic, painterly whisper—it’s a slap. Her hair is a black wave of intention. Her nose? Outlined like a draftman’s afterthought. Her lips? Redder than a slap on a Sunday. Matisse wasn’t going for “pretty.” He was aiming for permanent. This was the beginning of his transformation—less interested in representing the world and more in reimagining it. With every thick, awkward brushstroke, Matisse was asking us: “Do you need precision to feel truth?”

But what’s really going on here? Why does this portrait feel like a challenge instead of a celebration? Because it is. Matisse’s Lorette is the calm before the storm of his odalisques—the smoldering ember before the flame. She’s the proof that beauty doesn’t need symmetry, and feeling doesn’t need finesse. And more than anything, she’s the silent indictment of every lazy portrait that came before her. You can almost hear Matisse mutter under his breath: “You want a likeness? Buy a mirror.”

Portrait of Lorette is a transitional work, yes. But it’s also a dare. A dare to sit with discomfort. A dare to acknowledge asymmetry. A dare to admit that simplicity, when done with ruthless precision, can cut deeper than detail ever could. Matisse wasn’t just painting a woman—he was painting an idea. And if that idea unsettles you, congratulations: you’re paying attention.

So, I ask again:

Is she looking at you, or through you? Or maybe—just maybe—she’s not looking at you at all.

#RedLipsDon’tLie #MatisseMood #ModernArtGlare #SheSeesYourBrowserHistory #FrenchFauveFlame #PortraitOrPowerPlay #LoretteKnows #StudioConfessional #WWIMuse #EyesThatJudge #HenriGotItRight

Flm: In the Land of Saints and Sinners: Liam Neeson’s Gaelic Bloodbath — and Yes, It’s Worth It

If Liam Neeson is aging like a fine whiskey, In the Land of Saints and Sinners proves it’s the kind you keep hidden under the bar for special nights — not the rotgut he’s been chasing down action movies with since Taken 3. In this broody Irish shoot-’em-up, Neeson doesn’t just beat up bad guys. He wrestles with demons, guilt, and the general misery of living in a 1970s coastal village where every pub has more secrets than Guinness on tap. It’s an authentic, weather-beaten, beautifully shot, occasionally absurd thriller — and like Neeson himself, it carries its battered gravitas with a wink and a growl.

A Movie Made of Sleet, Whiskey, and Regret

Director Robert Lorenz (an American, bless his Midwestern heart) clearly decided that if he was going to make an Irish thriller, it was going to bleed green from every frame. No Hollywood leprechauns or tin whistles here: Lorenz went full native, hiring an all-Irish cast and crew, filming in the craggy wilds of Donegal, and probably dodging rainclouds bigger than Manhattan.

The script — penned by Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane, with a spit-and-polish by Matthew Feitshans — roots itself in 1974’s Troubles, a setting that makes today’s political tensions look like a PTA bake sale. There’s real ambition here: Lorenz tries to weave a mythic, wounded Ireland into a western-style redemption story. Think The Quiet Man by way of Unforgiven, but with less kissing and more shotguns.

Of course, no amount of misty cliffs or IRA bombers could stop Netflix from poking its greedy nose in. The streamer grabbed UK and Irish distribution rights faster than Finbar can load his soggy shotgun shells. The result? A movie that smells like peat smoke and dynamite… delivered straight to your living room with the click of a remote.

Neeson, Condon, Gleeson — and No, This Is Not the Set of a Law Firm

Casting here is a small miracle. Liam Neeson delivers another variation on his signature role — Sad Man With a Special Set of Skills — but this time he adds real weariness, a feeling that every kill weighs an ounce heavier than the last.

Kerry Condon, fresh off stealing The Banshees of Inisherin, plays the fanatical bomber Doireann with ice in her veins and rage in her marrow — a performance that’s sharper than a Galway gale. And then there’s Jack Gleeson, unrecognizable from his Joffrey days, oozing sleaze like a bar towel left in the sun. Honestly, it’s good to see him being evil without needing a crown or a crossbow.

The plot clicks along with the grim inevitability of an Irish funeral procession: bodies fall, secrets spill, and just when you think Neeson’s character has finally traded in his shotgun for a quiet pint, someone drags him back in. Add in Colm Meaney doing his best “crooked but charming mob boss” act and Ciarán Hinds showing up as a Garda who might be the only honest man left in Ireland, and you’ve got a stew so Irish you could serve it with a side of brown bread.

A Stiff Breeze of Praise, and a Light Drizzle of Complaints

Critics, as usual, lined up like barflies to toss their pennies into the pint glass. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 83% nod of approval, calling it “well-written and classically constructed.” Translation: they liked it, but weren’t about to propose marriage. Metacritic, meanwhile, threw a 60/100 at it — the equivalent of a shrug and a muttered “sure, why not?”

The Belfast Telegraph called it “mixed,” Empire gave it three polite stars, and The Hollywood Reporter tried (unsuccessfully) to swat it away with a sigh about “overripeness.” Funny — if anything, this movie is undercooked compared to the over-boiled schlock Neeson’s been trapped in since The Commuter.

Viewers, however, seem to get it. This is not a movie that’s trying to reinvent cinema. It’s a battered ballad about second chances, set against a land where the hills themselves probably carry grudges. It’s old-fashioned, brutal, mournful — and weirdly comforting. Like a sad Irish drinking song you can’t stop humming.

Come for the Shootouts, Stay for the Soul

In the Land of Saints and Sinners doesn’t blow the doors off the genre, but it does something rarer: it earns your respect. It’s an action movie that remembers to have a heart (even if that heart has a few bullet holes). Liam Neeson could probably make three of these a year and still seem credible — but here, thanks to Lorenz’s insistence on real Irish grit and a cast that understands what’s at stake, you get something more: a well-weathered fable of violence, memory, and blood on the moors.

It’s not perfect. But damn if it doesn’t leave a mark.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 Stars)

#SaintsAndSinners #LiamNeeson #IrishCinema #Netflix #DonegalDrama

Art: Lady in Blue and the Art of Not Giving a Damn

Once upon a time — about a hundred years ago — when Paris was basically a giant, smoke-filled art frat house for men with little mustaches and enormous egos, a woman named Émilie Charmy decided she didn’t need to smile pretty, paint bowls of fruit, or wait patiently for a polite invitation into the boys’ club. She just shoved the door open, easel in hand, and threw some serious color grenades into the mix.

Seated Figure is Charmy at her “come at me, bro” best. Here’s a girl sitting alone by a river, wearing a blue dress and a hat like she stole it from a scarecrow. She isn’t posing like she’s about to be someone’s muse or mistress. She isn’t even trying to seduce the viewer. She looks like she might punch you if you even thought about asking her to fetch your coffee. In a world where women were supposed to be decorative wallpaper, Charmy’s figure says: “I’m tired. I’m bored. And if you don’t have anything interesting to say, get lost.”

Now, about Émilie herself: Charmy was born in 1878, back when the options for a woman were basically “wife,” “nun,” or “cautionary tale.” Naturally, she chose Option D: “wild, color-slinging artistic outlaw.” She ran with the Fauves — Matisse, Derain, all those boys — but she didn’t just copy them. While they were busy figuring out how many shades of radioactive orange they could cram into a sunset, Charmy was quietly giving the middle finger to every expectation placed on women artists.

Historically speaking, Seated Figure lands smack in the middle of the early 20th-century art wars. Paris was exploding with Cubists, Dadaists, and surrealists, all trying to one-up each other’s weirdness. Charmy didn’t need gimmicks. She just painted women — real, tired, thoughtful women — and let the wild brushwork and savage color do the shouting.

Meaning? Oh, there’s meaning. It’s about presence. About being in the world without asking permission. It’s about a woman claiming space — muddy, messy, beautiful space — at a time when the world told her to stay invisible. It’s about the stubborn grace of simply sitting down and refusing to be moved.

In a world still too eager to put women back into neat, pastel-colored boxes, Seated Figure feels like a woman-shaped Molotov cocktail. God bless her for it.

When was the last time you sat down, looked the world in the face, and said without blinking: “I’m not here for your approval”?

#EmilieCharmy #SeatedFigure #ArtThatFightsBack #FauvismForever #WomenInArt #BadassBrushwork #ModernArt #ArtHistoryRevenge #ColorOutsideTheLines

Books: A Wing, A Prayer, and a Whole Lot of Nerve: Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed

Every once in a while, a novel comes along that feels like it was stitched together from adrenaline, whiskey, and the questionable dreams of a history major who slept through his ethics class. Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed is exactly that kind of novel: a balls-out, fast-talking wartime caper about kidnapping Winston Churchill that sounds about as plausible as Elvis running a gas station in Idaho—but by God, it works. It doesn’t just work; it soars, like a rogue C-47 piloted by drunk gremlins. And while it occasionally drifts into the land of “Oh, come on,” it’s such a stylish flight that you won’t mind the turbulence.

Higgins, before he became the literary equivalent of a pop hit machine, was just another gritty ex-soldier-cum-novelist peddling his brand of fictional tough guys. But The Eagle Has Landed changed all that overnight. Published in 1975, it was written at a time when the Cold War was still heating leftovers from World War II, and people were crazy for stories about secret missions, Nazi plots, and heroic Irishmen punching authority in the face. Higgins smartly leaned into that appetite. He cooked up a tale so slick, it practically wore aviator sunglasses and smoked Lucky Strikes. Rumor has it he wrote it in just a few feverish months, fueled by the kind of grim determination normally reserved for parole hearings and Thanksgiving family dinners.

The book was designed with laser-like precision to hit every sweet spot: daring commandos, disillusioned heroes, plucky villages, and the unshakable English countryside where everyone pretends not to notice armed men falling out of the sky. Higgins used the “false document” trick to give it all a whisper of credibility, like the literary version of saying, “No, dude, I swear my cousin’s roommate saw it happen.” It worked. By the time the ink dried, Higgins was printing money, selling over 50 million copies by the time selfies became a word.

Historically speaking, Higgins didn’t exactly break new ground—World War II spy novels were already a crowded bar—but he did spike the punch. Instead of noble Allied heroes, he gave us complex Germans, an IRA rogue with a poet’s soul, and a South African spy who would rather stab England than knit tea cozies. He spun the Mussolini rescue into a twisted mirror: what if Hitler tried to snatch Churchill? The historical context gave him just enough scaffolding to erect his skyscraper of what-ifs, without bothering too much about minor details like plausibility. This was less about historical accuracy and more about the fantasy of “What if we pulled off the impossible?”

The development of the book leaned heavily into real-world cynicism. By the mid-70s, Vietnam had sapped America’s patience for clean heroism, and Britain’s own postwar gloom meant readers were primed for stories where the good guys and the bad guys both smelled faintly of cigarettes and regret. Higgins, bless him, understood that deeply. He didn’t try to create saints. He gave us men (and one terrifying woman) with dirty hands and murky loyalties. If anyone was clean in The Eagle Has Landed, it was only because they hadn’t lived long enough to get stained.

Upon release, The Eagle Has Landed didn’t just succeed—it detonated. The book raced up bestseller lists, kicked the legs out from under its rivals, and sat smugly at the top like a cat on a warm car hood. Critics, sniffy as ever, tried to dismiss it as airport pulp… right before their own mothers asked for a signed copy. Hollywood came sniffing like raccoons at a barbecue, and in 1976, John Sturges rolled out the film adaptation, starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, and enough serious eyebrows to sink a battleship. The movie, much like the book, worked not because it was realistic, but because it was thrilling. Audiences were willing to forgive a lot when the explosions were this good and the Irish accents this endearing.

Legacy-wise, The Eagle Has Landed made Higgins a brand. It birthed a quasi-sequel (The Eagle Has Flown), resuscitated Liam Devlin across half a dozen other novels, and gave WWII fiction a slightly scruffier, more anti-heroic edge. Today, it feels a little like a relic from an era when readers liked their spies grim, their commandos doomed, and their history twisted just enough to wonder, “Maybe… just maybe…” And while you could nitpick its melodrama, its sheer nerve still punches harder than most modern thrillers that mistake brooding for storytelling.

 Four out of five stars. The Eagle Has Landed is not perfect, but it has enough charm, swagger, and well-worn cynicism to keep you flipping pages like your life depends on it. If it occasionally crashes into the scenery, well, it does it with style—and you’ll be grinning the whole way down.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 Stars)

#HistoryTwist #JackHiggins #WWIIThriller #AlternateHistory #ClassicThriller #SpyNovels #LiamDevlin #TheEagleHasLanded

Art: The Dream of Ossian and the Strange Fever Dream of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Picture this: it’s 1813, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, one of the fussiest, starch-collared painters in French history, gets handed a golden ticket. Napoleon himself — the man who redrew the map of Europe by sheer force of ego— wants a painting for his Roman bedroom ceiling. It’s the kind of commission you could dine out on for the rest of your life. You might think, “I’ll paint him leading troops, or the gods crowning him with laurels, or, hell, riding a cannon into the sunset.”

Nope. Ingres goes rogue. He gives the Emperor a blind bard snoozing in a pile of rocks while ghost warriors and half-naked girlfriends float overhead like the world’s saddest Macy’s Parade. Welcome to The Dream of Ossian — a painting so weird, so wildly misplaced for its original purpose, it’s a wonder Ingres wasn’t sent to exile right alongside Napoleon.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Reluctant Romantic

Ingres — that crotchety, pencil-thin High Priest of Line — made his career pretending he hated Romanticism. He wanted no part of all that gooey, emotional, chaotic drama that spilled out of Delacroix’s brush like red wine on white carpet. Ingres thought art should be rational, pure, like a geometry lesson handed down from Olympus.

But then he fell in love with James Macpherson’s Ossian, the Scottish literary scam that had Europe swooning for misty heroes and doomed love songs. Like a guy who claims he only listens to Bach but knows every word to Bohemian Rhapsody, Ingres couldn’t resist. The fake poetry of a fake bard hit him squarely in his fragile classicist heart.

Napoleon’s Ossian Obsession (Because of Course)

By the early 1800s, Napoleon wasn’t just a general. He was an emperor, a myth-in-the-making — and he needed the right soundtrack. Ossian, that mist-drenched, harp-strumming relic of a made-up ancient world, was perfect. Melancholy? Check. Heroic? Check. Pagan but noble enough to pass for classy? Double-check. It didn’t even matter that Macpherson basically invented Ossian out of thin air. In fact, that made it better. What is empire, after all, if not an elaborate invention?

Napoleon loved Ossian so much he commissioned paintings, operas, even interior decorations based on it. His architects commissioned artists like François Gérard and Anne-Louis Girodet to paint ethereal, floating warrior-ghosts to class up the place. Ossian fever swept the French art world like a bout of upper-crust food poisoning.

Ingres, seeing an opportunity to climb into the imperial good graces, chose Ossian for his ceiling commission. And in 1813, fresh off his success with Romulus’ Victory over Acron, he delivered The Dream of Ossian.

Only problem? Instead of glorifying empire, Ingres painted a funeral. A beautifully rendered, painfully frozen funeral of dreams past.

Sleep, Death, and a Parade of Regrets

At the center of the painting, poor blind Ossian slumps on his harp, a ghost dog loyally beside him. Above, in the misty firmament, float the vaporous echoes of his dead son Oscar, his maybe-wife Malvina, his father Fingal, assorted warriors, lovers, and fairy tale musicians playing ethereal tunes on golden harps. It’s like a heavenly LinkedIn profile of everyone Ossian ever loved, lost, or killed in battle.

The details are lush: arms extend pleadingly, shields glint faintly, figures fade into the mist like memories too painful to touch. And it’s all tinted with the emotional temperature of a tombstone.

Where Gérard’s earlier Ossian Evoking Phantoms was full of drama and swirling storm clouds, Ingres’ Ossian looks… tired. Beat down. Nostalgic. Not the vibe you want above your imperial four-poster bed when you’re plotting the conquest of Russia.

Ingres might have told himself he was painting a neoclassical history scene. But this isn’t history; this is memory — bruised, bruising, and already halfway to oblivion.

No Ceiling for You, Sir

Napoleon never slept under The Dream of Ossian. He got exiled, the monarchy fell apart, and Ingres’ sleepy bard was hauled out of the palace and lost for a while. Ingres, no fool, later bought the painting back in 1835, jammed it into a new rectangular frame (which he awkwardly adjusted, like trying to squeeze into your college jeans), and kept tinkering with it until he died.

Critics didn’t know what to do with it. Some (like Thomas B. Hess) admired its emotional guts; others (like Anita Brookner) thought it was “grisaille” garbage, a dull, lifeless mistake better left unmentioned. Modern viewers? We’re left staring at it the way you stare at an old photograph of your teenage self: confused, tender, a little embarrassed.

Dream or Eulogy?

In the end, The Dream of Ossian is not about triumph. It’s about nostalgia’s slow suffocation. It’s about how even the greatest warriors are reduced to fading memories and half-remembered songs. It’s a vision not of empire at its peak, but of ambition’s inevitable collapse.

Whether Ingres knew it or not, he painted a quiet obituary for Napoleon’s dreams — while they were still technically alive.

And maybe that’s why The Dream of Ossian feels oddly modern. Because it’s not about winning. It’s about losing, beautifully, and having just enough pride left to pretend you’re dreaming when you’re actually mourning.

When you dream about your victories… are you dreaming about what you’ve gained — or everything you’re afraid you’re already losing?

#TheDreamOfOssian #Ingres #NapoleonWasTiredToo #RomanticismVsClassicism #ArtHistoryHotMess #FadingDreams #GhostsOfAmbition #MistAndMemory #HistoryIsAScam #Art #ArtHistory #Painting #ClassicArt #Romanticism #Neoclassicism #CulturalHistory #Museum #Masterpiece #HistoricalArt

Film: These Dangerous Years: When Tough Guys Moonwalked Before It Was Cool

There’s a thin line between gritty realism and cinematic face-planting, and These Dangerous Years spends 90 minutes wobbling on it like a drunken juggler on payday. If you ever wondered what would happen if Saturday Night Fever was filmed two decades early in a Liverpool slum—with a pop singer who could sort of act—you’re in luck. This is a movie that tries to tell you youth is dangerous, the army builds character, and moonwalking belongs in the ‘50s. It’s not a badmovie exactly—just the kind you forget is playing while you’re still watching it.

“Liverpool, But Make It Melodramatic”

Directed by Herbert Wilcox, These Dangerous Years was meant to be a rough, real portrait of Liverpool youth gone wild, only with less realism and more clumsy messaging. Anna Neagle, going solo as a producer for the first time, thought she could bottle the menace of the Dingle slums and the promise of rock ‘n’ roll into one neat package. Originally titled The Cast Iron Shore and planned for Diana Dors, the project lost its star before filming even started—because Dors was too busy conquering Hollywood (and probably doing it better than this movie would have let her).

Enter Frankie Vaughan, the pop singer with a twinkle in his eye and a fistful of catchy songs. These Dangerous Yearswas also supposed to be Vaughan’s launching pad to acting stardom, and it was… in the same way that a slingshot “launches” a rock straight into your neighbor’s window. Oh, and speaking of unexpected debuts, lurking somewhere in the background was a young David McCallum, marking his feature film debut with all the subtlety of a future NCISicon waiting for better scripts.

“Squarebashing and Early Moonwalking”

Frankie Vaughan plays Dave Wyman, a gang leader who dreams of crooning his way out of poverty but instead gets called up for National Service. Suddenly it’s all drills, sergeant majors, and heartfelt monologues about responsibility. Training turns him into a stronger man—by which I mean he looks slightly less confused while wearing an army uniform. When his best mate is killed by a camp bully, Dave naturally reacts the only way melodramatic ’50s cinema allows: dramatic revenge, crooning ballads, and marrying his duet partner.

Filming took place at Inglis Barracks, which added some faint whiff of authenticity—although not enough to overcome the script’s endless parade of recycled army jokes and heavy-handed moralizing. In an odd footnote that no one could have predicted, there’s even a scene where Vaughan and some excitable Liverpudlians bust out an early version of the moonwalk—yes, that moonwalk. Somewhere, Michael Jackson was still learning to walk upright, and Liverpool’s tough kids were already gliding backwards into history.

“Box-Office Luck, Critical Shrugs”

Critics greeted These Dangerous Years with the enthusiasm of a man realizing his pint is half foam. The Monthly Film Bulletin praised the lively Liverpool scenes before lamenting the film’s nosedive into cliché and soap opera plotting. Eddie Byrne got a few cheers for keeping the energy alive, but otherwise the consensus was: solid start, tedious finish, somebody pass the smelling salts.

Kine Weekly was kinder, suggesting the film was “definitely box-office”—the cinematic equivalent of “you’re not pretty, but you have a nice personality.” And to be fair, they weren’t wrong. The movie made its money back and then some, riding Vaughan’s pop-star appeal and a public still willing to forgive a few awkward performances if it meant toe-tapping tunes and a few dreamy slow dances.

In hindsight, These Dangerous Years occupies an odd little niche: too earnest to be cool, too sloppy to be profound, but somehow, against all odds, still watchable. It’s a movie that reminds you that British cinema in the ‘50s could stumble charmingly even when it aimed for gritty kitchen-sink drama. It also accidentally invented one of pop culture’s most iconic dance moves a quarter-century early, which frankly, deserves a slow clap on its own.

“Liverpool Got Dangerous, But Not Too Dangerous”

These Dangerous Years is like an old leather jacket found in your grandfather’s attic: it’s frayed at the edges, the lining’s a bit moldy, but there’s just enough faded cool left to make you wonder what the hell happened. It earns its three stars not because it’s a classic, but because it tried so hard to say something important—and occasionally, it even almost did.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

#Hashtags: #TheseDangerousYears #FrankieVaughan #DavidMcCallum #MoonwalkBeforeMoonwalk #LiverpoolCinema #BritishFilms #ForgottenClassics #RocknRollMovies

Art: From Little General to Big Problem: How Napoleon Crowned Himself King of the World (or Tried To)

Once upon a time, a scrappy little Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte decided that being First Consul just wasn’t enough. Nope. Titles like “hero” or “savior of the Republic” sounded too much like something you could lose at halftime. Napoleon wanted something permanent, something shiny. So what does he do? He grabs a gold leaf wreath, swipes a scepter, and basically cosplays as Caesar. Hence we get “Napoléon Ier en costume du Sacre”, painted in 1805 by François Gérard — a man who knew how to make tyranny look like a GQ cover shoot.

François Gérard, for those keeping score at home, was the artist you called when you needed to look good enough to rewrite constitutions. A student of Jacques-Louis David (the Beyoncé of Revolutionary art), Gérard perfected the fine art of painting your favorite dictator in a way that made him seem both godlike and ready for a cologne ad. Gérard gave Napoleon this dazzling portrait, glammed up in white satin, crimson velvet, and enough gold embroidery to wallpaper the Louvre. It was all calculated. You weren’t supposed to see a man who clawed his way to power—you were supposed to see destiny in a fur-trimmed bathrobe.

And yet, let’s not kid ourselves. This was a costume party of the most dangerous kind.

The historical context? Simple: Napoleon had just made himself Emperor after charming, bullying, and shooting his way through Europe. He even dragged Pope Pius VII to Paris for the coronation, only to snatch the crown and slam it on his own head — because when it comes to narcissism, why let God have the last word? Gérard’s portrait captures this new reality: one man, standing alone, swathed in symbols of legitimacy he bestowed upon himself, daring anyone to challenge the theater he just made real.

Here’s the uncomfortable meaning staring back at us: autocrats don’t announce themselves with jackboots and evil laughs. They show up draped in honor, wreathed in tradition, and holding scepters. They redefine reality through sheer pageantry — and they dare you not to clap.

In 1805, people gazed at this painting and saw an emperor.

Today, if we’re not careful, we’ll look around and see a hundred more — dressed differently, but wearing the same smug grin under different crowns.

So the real question is: How long will it take before we stop mistaking costumes for character?

#CrownedByHimself #NapoleonComplex #HistoryIsWarningNotBlueprint #VelvetTyrants #ArtAsPropaganda #GérardKnew #EmperorsWithoutClothes

Film: Hollywood or Bust (1956): The Last Laugh Before the Divorce Papers

If you ever wanted to watch a friendship die slowly — in Technicolor, no less — Hollywood or Bust is your golden ticket. This was the final ride for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, America’s favorite dysfunctional comedy marriage, and boy, does it show. Underneath all the crooning, pratfalls, and pastel-colored Chrysler convertibles, there’s an invisible middle finger being exchanged between the leads after every scene. It’s not the best Martin and Lewis movie, not the worst — just the awkward family Christmas dinner of their career, where the smiles don’t reach the eyes and you can practically hear the therapy sessions being scheduled off-camera.

How a Script Lost Its Dignity

Originally, Hollywood or Bust wasn’t even supposed to be about a wisecracking man-child and his grumpy lounge singer sidekick. Erna Lazarus’ original screenplay was about a down-on-her-luck ex-chorus girl and a lovable con man. Shirley Booth and Humphrey Bogart were meant to headline — a concept so odd it borders on performance art. But by the time director Frank Tashlin got his cartoonish scissors on it, the script had been forcibly retrofitted into yet another Martin and Lewis playground, complete with talking dogs and tepid Vegas gags. Lazarus kept the writing credit, probably because even she didn’t recognize her own work anymore.

To make things even more awkward, filming commenced after Dean and Jerry had already decided to break up — a fact they communicated through a solemn vow never to speak to each other off-camera. That’s right: the entire film was made with the leads communicating solely through acting, ad-libs, and maybe the occasional death stare. Jerry Lewis later said he never watched the film because it was too painful. Honestly, Jerry, it’s our hearts that should hurt, not yours.

Dogs, Dean, and Desperation

Dean Martin, playing the slick gambler Steve Wiley, mostly sleepwalks through the movie with the dead-eyed stare of a man who just realized his alimony payments are about to double. Jerry Lewis, playing Malcolm Smith, leans so far into the squeaky-voiced man-child persona that you almost expect him to sprout whiskers and climb back into a crib. In a plot cobbled together like leftover Christmas fruitcake, the duo win (or scam) a brand-new 1956 Chrysler New Yorker and hit the road to Hollywood, picking up Pat Crowley’s aspiring dancer along the way — because what’s a desperate road trip without a love interest to ignore?

As for Anita Ekberg, she plays herself — or rather, the fantasy version of herself as imagined by lonely teenagers and bad screenwriters. Malcolm spends the film pining for her like a boy who’s just discovered his first Playboy, and the big climax involves a dog being cast in her next movie. Yes, you read that correctly: the Great Dane gets a job offer, and it’s the most believable part of the entire movie.

Death Rattle with a Smile

When Hollywood or Bust hit theaters in December 1956, critics and audiences didn’t quite know whether to laugh or weep. It’s a perfectly serviceable comedy — charming enough in spots, awkward as hell in others — but everyone could smell the divorce lawyers in the air. Ironically, the film’s title ended up being a cruel little prophecy for the team itself: it was Hollywood… and then bust.

The movie does retain a weird, bittersweet afterlife. A clip of it was used in Grease (1978) during the drive-in scene, and footage of Martin and Lewis performing on the Sands Hotel marquee made its way into The Godfather (1972). So even if the film itself isn’t exactly Citizen Kane with pratfalls, it has at least managed to photobomb two genuinely great movies — not a bad way to spend your retirement.

Looking back, Hollywood or Bust feels like the cinematic equivalent of a broken engagement photo: everyone’s smiling, but you just know someone’s hiding a suitcase behind the couch. Dean went on to Vegas crooning glory, Jerry went on to direct The Nutty Professor, and the audience? Well, we got a shiny Chrysler, a giant dog, and a front-row seat to a beautiful friendship going down in flames — all for the price of a movie ticket.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

#HollywoodOrBust #MartinAndLewis #ComedyBreakup #ParamountPictures #1950sCinema #ClassicHollywood #DeanMartin #JerryLewis #GoodbyeForever

Art: Would You Trust This Man with a Republic?

Ah, Napoleon as First Consul. It’s the visual equivalent of a rebranding campaign for a guy who’s already halfway through a hostile takeover. Painted by Andrea Appiani—a man who knew exactly which side of the easel history was being written on—this portrait doesn’t just depict Napoleon Bonaparte. It seduces you. It says, “Look at this man. He’s not a dictator. He’s a visionary. And he irons his cuffs.”

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just oil on canvas. This is myth-making in real time.

Andrea “Spin Doctor” Appiani

Andrea Appiani, the Italian court painter who gave Napoleon this imperial glow-up, was not some neutral observer. He was a state-sanctioned brushman with a job: make the up-jumped Corsican artillery officer look like the second coming of Augustus. And damn if he didn’t deliver. Appiani gave us a Napoleon who doesn’t sweat, doesn’t blink, and most definitely doesn’t ask permission.

Appiani was the guy you called when you needed to look both benevolent and bulletproof. Think of him as the 19th-century version of a high-end Instagram filter—except the stakes were slightly higher than likes and engagement metrics. He wasn’t painting what was. He was painting what the regime needed you to believe.

Liberty’s Last Stand—Now in Velvet

This was painted in 1801, fresh off the coup of 18 Brumaire, when Napoleon decided democracy was overrated and wrote himself in as First Consul of France. You know, just temporarily. Just until things stabilized. Just until the Republic could get its feet under it. Spoiler alert: the Republic didn’t make it. Napoleon did.

And here, in this portrait, is the con: the soft jaw, the far-off gaze, the not-so-subtle Roman stylings wrapped in military chic. It’s all designed to scream “restoration” while whispering “absolute power.” He’s not brandishing a weapon—he’s accessorizing with one. Because real power doesn’t shout. It poses.

This wasn’t leadership—it was set design. The revolution had left France exhausted, paranoid, and hungry for order. Napoleon offered calm, structure, and the soothing promise that everything would be okay… if they just gave him everything.

The Original “I Alone Can Fix It” Vibe

The genius of this painting is that it doesn’t shout revolution—it murmurs reassurance. It gives you the fantasy of strength wrapped in a bow of calm authority. He’s not a warlord—he’s a problem-solver. A peace-bringer. A First Consul, not a future emperor. Nothing to see here, citizens. Just a competent man with a good tailor and a backup plan for liberty.

But let’s not miss the real trick. This painting isn’t just a record of a moment—it’s a warning. Because every populist strongman wears a version of this uniform. They promise greatness, restore “order,” and smile just long enough to close the door behind you. And when they do, it won’t be a guillotine that ends the republic—it’ll be applause.

So, here’s the question:

What makes us fall for the strongman every time—his promises, or the way he looks in a sash?

#PaintedPropaganda #AppianiKnew #NapoleonGlowUp #FirstConsulFirstLie #VelvetCoup #HistoryIsRepeatingWithBetterLighting #RepublicOnTheRocks #AutocratAesthetic #DemocracyInDisguise #StrongmanSeasonReturns

Film: Straw Dogs (2011): A Brutal Remake That Should’ve Stayed on the Porch

Once upon a time, someone walked into a pitch meeting and said, “You know what the world needs? A reboot of one of the most upsetting, polarizing films of the 1970s, but make it glossier, dumber, and with James Marsden!” Straw Dogs(2011) is what happens when you remake a psychological horror-thriller with all the nuance of a brick through a bay window. This is not a film that whispers menace—it yells it through a megaphone, chucks it at your face, and then wonders why you’re not clapping.

When Good Ideas Go Bad and Then Keep Going

The original Straw Dogs (1971), directed by Sam Peckinpah, was a powder keg—morally ambiguous, uncomfortably intelligent, and explosive in its violence. The 2011 version? More like a soggy firecracker that fizzles and still manages to blow up the backyard. Rod Lurie, once a journalist, tried his hand at directing again and thought he could drag this film into the American South and give it relevance. Instead, he gave it a sunburn and a confused screenplay.

Changing the setting from Cornwall to Mississippi might’ve seemed like a bold reinterpretation, but it actually feels like someone yelling “Hey y’all!” in a room where no one asked for regional flair. The shift in David’s profession from mathematician to screenwriter is equally bold—and equally useless. Great, now he’s a pacifist and has writer’s block. It’s less about building tension and more about watching a man lose a staring contest with a roofing crew.

 The Less Said, the Better

James Marsden plays David Sumner with all the testosterone of a soy latte. His arc—from passive writer to murderous home-defense warlord—feels less like a transformation and more like a personality transplant performed in a hardware store aisle. Kate Bosworth’s Amy has all the emotional range of a character written by someone who read half of a psychology article once, and thought trauma worked like an on/off switch.

And then there’s the rape scene. Let’s talk about the elephant in the living room: it’s vile. Not just for its content, but for how it’s shot. The camera lingers with the tact of a lecherous uncle at Thanksgiving. Kate Bosworth told Skarsgård to “just go for it,” which might explain why the scene feels like an overbudgeted snuff film with better lighting. If this was supposed to be a character study in masculinity and repression, it ends up more like an amateur psychology dissertation written in blood and drywall dust.

Unloved, Unwanted, and Unnecessary

Critics greeted Straw Dogs with the warmth of a cold shower. Rotten Tomatoes slapped it with a 42% like a disappointed gym teacher handing back your essay. Roger Ebert, bless his consistent soul, gave it 3 stars—proving that even legends have off days. Everyone else seemed to agree that this remake, much like unseasoned grits, lacked flavor, nuance, and any reason to exist.

The film flopped commercially, pulling in $11 million against a $25 million budget, which is Hollywood code for “oops.” Its legacy? An asterisk in a Wikipedia article, a cautionary tale for future remakes, and an uncomfortable reminder that just because you can remake a film doesn’t mean you should. Especially not when the most memorable character is a bear trap.

No Bark, No Bite, Just a Limp Whimper

Straw Dogs (2011) is what you get when you copy someone’s homework but change a few words to avoid suspicion—and end up submitting a hate crime instead. It’s not bold, it’s not insightful, and it certainly isn’t necessary. It’s the cinematic equivalent of microwaving roadkill and calling it stew. Peckinpah’s original may have been controversial, but at least it knew what it was doing. This one? This one just looks confused.

⭐️☆☆☆☆ (1/5)

#StrawDogs2011 #RemakeFail #RodLurieWhatHappened #BearTrapOscars #KateBosworthDeservedBetter #HollywoodToneDeaf #CinemaCrimeScene

Art: Forgiveness is Fabulous, But Have You Tried Bedazzling Your Trauma?

Have you ever looked at a shrine and thought, “This needs more glitter, a Barbie head, a golden bird, and maybe a dash of righteous fury”? No? Then you clearly haven’t been baptized in the incandescent, found-object fever dream that is Vanessa German’s Forgiveness is Good it Shines it Remembers and Forgets All at the Same Time it Washes the Soul Anew. That title alone deserves a standing ovation and a nap. It reads like a lost Psalm co-written by Maya Angelou and a Black southern grandma who survived four wars, five husbands, and a school board meeting.

Vanessa German, the high priestess of visual exorcism, isn’t making art for coffee table books or sterile white cubes where people whisper about brushstrokes. No, she builds power figures—fierce, bedazzled, unapologetic sentinels of Black resilience and joy—by gluing together the flotsam of America’s cultural junk drawer and breathing life into it like some post-industrial Frankenstein goddess. A Barbie torso? Put it on the crown. A brush topped with a gold bird? Boom, it’s a scepter. And pearls, buttons, keys, bottle caps, rosaries, teeth (maybe)—each piece whispers a secret from someone else’s forgotten life. German doesn’t decorate her figures. She armors them.

And why forgiveness? Because in America, particularly if you’re Black and a woman, forgiveness is a daily miracle performed in a country that keeps handing out wounds like free samples at Costco. German isn’t asking you to forgive and forget. She’s telling you to remember, glitter-bomb the pain, shout it into being, and then maybe let it go if your soul feels like it. Forgiveness, in her world, is active. It’s feral. It shines and forgets and scrubs your spirit clean with a loofah made of ancestral rage and rhinestones.

This sculpture doesn’t hang quietly on a wall; it stands, arms open like it’s ready to receive your confession—or punch you in the heart if you’re not ready to face the truth. It’s a sermon in sequins. A museum piece that looks like it might walk away if the conversation bores it.

So here’s your creative and wildly uncomfortable question of the day:

What does your forgiveness look like—and would it survive being bedazzled into a shrine, or would it flake off like cheap paint in a thunderstorm of reckoning?

#ForgiveLoudly #VenessaGerman #BlackJoyIsPower #ArtAsArmor #BedazzledReparations #MuseumMagic #SoulLaundryDay #PowerFiguresUnite #TraumaButMakeItFashion

Film: Embryo (1976): A Lab-Grown Femme Fatale, a Rock Hudson Comeback, and a Test Tube Full of Regret

In the back alley of 1970s cinema, Embryo lingers like a forgotten science fair project gone rogue. It’s a movie about playing God, loving your science experiment, and then regretting both in quick succession. Directed by Ralph Nelson—who once had the audacity to make Charly—Embryo is a curious blend of bioethics, soft horror, and ’70s sexual anxiety, all dressed up in polyester lab coats and strung together with the seriousness of a PSA warning you not to sleep with your clones.

The Petri Dish Origins

Embryo hatched from the overcaffeinated mind of Ralph Nelson, a director who once asked, “What if we gave a mentally challenged man super intelligence?” and then apparently thought, “Now let’s do that, but sexy and homicidal.” The film arrived in 1976, right on the cusp of America’s great cinematic identity crisis: post-Watergate, pre-Star Wars, when science fiction was still mulling over whether it wanted to be smart, spooky, or exploitative. The film was a spiritual sequel to Charly in the same way that your second divorce is a sequel to your first: technically, yes—but narratively, a lot messier.

Sandy Howard produced it, which tells you most of what you need to know: this was the same man who would soon produce The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), in which Barbara Carrera also appears—because once you’ve played an artificially-aged, fetus-murdering, methotrexate-huffing sexbot, your résumé can only go up. Add to this the uncanny fact that some of the same makeup team did both films, and one wonders if they kept a leftover prosthetic fetus or two in cold storage.

Rock Hudson and the Rise of Victoria the Vixen

Speaking of awkward résumés, enter Rock Hudson—back on the big screen after three years, presumably because even he couldn’t resist the pitch: “You run over a dog, save its unborn puppy with a magic serum, then use the same trick to grow a suicidal woman’s fetus into a full-grown woman who becomes your lover and also possibly your murderer. Thoughts?” Rock, bless him, gives it the ol’ square-jawed try, though by the third act, even he looks like he’s calculating how far he can fast-walk out of frame before the credits roll.

Barbara Carrera, in her first of four genre films, is stunning and spooky in equal measure as Victoria—a genetically fast-forwarded science project with the IQ of a NASA mainframe and the ethics of a shark. She plays chess like Bobby Fischer, seduces like Mata Hari, and ages like an unrefrigerated banana. The film lets her do it all—except be credible for a moment longer than necessary. Diane Ladd, meanwhile, plays a jealous sister-in-law with the suspicious curiosity of a soap opera detective, ultimately poisoned with the very serum she was skeptical of. Chekhov’s methotrexate, if you will.

From Cult Lab to Bargain Bin

Upon release, Embryo got about as much fanfare as a lukewarm cup of Tang. It was rebranded later as Created to Kill—which is like renaming The Sound of Music as Singing Nun: The Hills Strike Back—and somehow fell into public domain limbo. That’s why you can now find it on every dusty DVD rack in a gas station near you, right between Plan 9 from Outer Space and The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. The quality varies from “taped off TV in 1984” to “filmed by a potato.”

Roddy McDowall appears just long enough to be humiliated in chess, while Dr. Joyce Brothers makes her acting debut as herself—though why she showed up, or how she escaped the shoot with her dignity, remains a medical mystery. As for Ralph Nelson, this was his final film. And while he went out with more of a confused sigh than a bang, you have to respect a man who said, “Let’s Frankenstein this fetus and see what happens.”

Final Diagnosis

Embryo is not good, but it is interesting. It’s a film made at a time when you could still say, with a straight face, “Yes, let’s cast Rock Hudson as a horny geneticist and make the climax involve a fetus heist.” The pacing drags like a bad leg, the moral implications are queasy at best, and the science is a Lovecraftian fever dream—but the sheer nerve of it all gives Embryo an accidental charm. Like a B-movie that overdosed on graduate-level ethics, it leaves you pondering one final thought: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

#ScienceGoneWeird #RockHudsonWTF #MethotrexateMayhem #CloneWars #EmbryoTheMovie #PublicDomainGem #BarbaraCarreraUnleashed #BrideOfFrankensteinRedux #FetusNoir #1970sSciFiMadness

Art: Lady L and the Man Who Drilled Her: Robert Colescott’s ‘Oil Man

Ever wonder what it looks like when American capitalism, gender politics, and race relations walk into a bar, tie up a woman, and set her in front of a pile of bureaucratic paperwork and fossil fuel soot? Welcome to Oil Man by Robert Colescott—a painting so unsubtle it might as well be screaming “This Is America!” through a megaphone while juggling red tape and dirty money.

Here, in a storm of purples, oranges, and bureaucratic beige, we meet Lady L, who is neither ladylike nor liberated. She’s hogtied and gagged in a blue dress and red heels—Marilyn Monroe meets hostage negotiation. Hovering behind her is a man who looks like he sells crude oil futures and runs diversity seminars for ExxonMobil. He’s big, white, and dressed like a senator who just gutted environmental regulations over brunch. On either side of him? Faceless figures smothered in paperwork and coal—symbols of blind complicity and the detritus of a system that’s been photocopying oppression since the Gilded Age.

Satire in a Suit of Paint

Robert Colescott, an artist who knew the difference between parody and prophecy, didn’t do “safe.” His brush was dipped in venom and velvet, his humor both stinging and oddly comforting. He came out of the post-WWII American art scene like a wrecking ball through the Museum of Modern Art—armed with cartoon imagery, caustic wit, and an uncanny ability to call out the absurdity of racial and gender hierarchies with a smile and a sucker punch.

By the time he painted Oil Man, Colescott had already scandalized polite society with works like George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware. Here, he skips the re-enactment and goes straight for the jugular: Big Oil. Patriarchy. Institutional inertia. He even throws in a pair of scissors in case you missed the point—cut it out, already.

History Has Entered the Chat

Painted in the context of America’s late-20th-century oil addiction, Cold War anxieties, and post-Civil Rights-era disillusionment, Oil Man isn’t just a painting—it’s a rant in acrylic. The kind you get when the evening news has broken your brain and your gin-and-tonic tastes like late-stage capitalism. Lady L is more than a damsel—she’s a metaphor for everyone steamrolled by white-collar tyranny, environmental decay, and men named Bob who call themselves “disrupters” on LinkedIn.

And let’s not ignore the paper. Mountains of it. Useless documentation, outdated regulations, forms signed in triplicate. That’s the real villain in Oil Man: the systems so numb, so bloated, they crush dissent with a smile and a memo.

So What Do We Do with All This?

Stare at it. Laugh. Grit your teeth. Recognize it. Oil Man is what happens when the American Dream puts on a mask, holds the Constitution hostage, and sells the whole scene to the highest bidder.

So here’s a question:

What part are you playing in the system Colescott roasted alive on canvas—and are you holding the rope, or tied to the chair?

#LadyL #RobertColescott #OilMan #SatireInPaint #ArtAsProtest #TiedUpAndTokenized #BigOilBlues #BureaucracyKills  #AcrylicAnger #WokeBeforeItWasCool

Film: Bundle of Oy: A Diaper-Filled Detour on the Road to Stardom

Let’s be honest. There’s something weirdly hypnotic about watching America’s Sweetheart of the ’50s, Debbie Reynolds, toddle through a Technicolor farce about a baby that isn’t hers while actually carrying the future Princess Leia in her womb. It’s like cinematic Inception, only with more bonnets and less plot. Bundle of Joy is a remake of a remake of a German film, and by the time it got to 1956, it had all the spontaneity of a mandatory baby shower. It’s sweet, sure. But it’s the kind of sweet that makes your teeth hurt. And not in the good, “aww” way. More like a “who let this happen?” kind of way.

The film was conceived, rather cynically, as a way to cash in on the then-white-hot marriage of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, America’s favorite newlyweds, or so we were told between verses of Fisher’s syrupy crooning. RKO Pictures—freshly zombified after Howard Hughes sold it off like last season’s mink stoles—greenlit this pastel-colored spectacle as part of a last-gasp production slate. Fisher, a crooner with the emotional range of a rotary phone, owned 65% of the movie. Hughes clutched the other 35% from his Vegas lair like Gollum hoarding studio rights. The result? A musicalized remake of Bachelor Mother that manages to strip the original of its wit and replace it with a lullaby and a tax deduction.

Even the development was touched by Hollywood’s signature cocktail of ambition and denial. The original Little Mother was a tender and risqué 1935 Austrian comedy. Its American reimagining in 1939, Bachelor Mother, had the wisecracks of Ginger Rogers and the British aloofness of David Niven. But when the 1950s decided to dust it off and toss in musical numbers, everything turned saccharine and slow. This wasn’t about reinvention—it was about repackaging sentimentality in Cinemascope and praying Fisher didn’t blink too much on camera.

Speaking of Fisher: the man could sing like a lark but acted like a deer in headlights. Casting him as a romantic lead was like handing a bouquet to a vacuum cleaner. It didn’t help that Reynolds, who could act circles around him even while eight months pregnant, was often strategically hidden behind potted plants, hats, or display racks. Why? Because little Carrie Fisher was busy gestating behind all that millinery. Reynolds dances, sings, and emotes like a professional, even when her director—Norman Taurog—was allegedly slipping into early-onset Alzheimer’s and giving instructions like a broken record. The man forgot the plot. Which, to be fair, so did the audience.

The story, thin as a ribbon on a baby bonnet, centers on Polly Parish, a hat girl who finds an abandoned baby and ends up tangled in a farce of mistaken paternity. The boss’s son (Fisher, robotic) becomes entangled. There’s dancing, confusion, and a climax involving more fake baby daddies than a Maury marathon. The real emotional core is Reynolds, doing her damnedest to humanize the chaos while everyone else treats the baby like a prop in a Vegas lounge act.

Critically, the film was met with shrugs and a few stiff drinks. Fisher himself called it “a bomb” and lamented that “Debbie’s was the only career that survived.” He wasn’t wrong. The songs, composed by Josef Myrow and Mack Gordon, vaporized instantly. No standards, no revivals—just the cinematic equivalent of musical sawdust. The premiere, oddly noble, doubled as a fundraiser for Hungarian refugees, attended by the likes of Archduke Leopold of Habsburg, who probably thought he was watching propaganda. Spoiler: he wasn’t. He was just as confused as everyone else.

The legacy of Bundle of Joy isn’t cinematic excellence—it’s the trivia. Debbie was pregnant with Carrie. Fisher’s agent torpedoed a real acting opportunity (What Makes Sammy Run?) in favor of this squeaky-clean, diaper-wrapped detour. It’s a time capsule of 1950s studio desperation: musical fluff inflated with Technicolor and real-life headlines. Fisher tried to be an actor. Reynolds tried to stay married. RKO tried to stay alive. Only Debbie succeeded—and even then, not for long.

So, should you watch Bundle of Joy? Sure—if you like mid-century pastels, accidental pregnancies, or the soothing voice of a man who’d rather be singing about heartbreak than pretending to change a diaper. Otherwise, go watch Bachelor Mother. At least Ginger Rogers doesn’t have to hide behind hat racks to deliver a punchline.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

#BundleOfJoy #DebbieReynolds #EddieFisher #1950sCinema #TechnicolorTrials #BabyNotIncluded #HollywoodRemakes #CarrieFisherBackstory #OldHollywoodGossip