Bad Donald: A movie review

Bad Donald: The Movie

                                                 
Warning:may contain spoilers.

     In the cult classic made-for-tv movie Bad Donald, the shy three legged orange tabby accidentally kills his Dad. Dad trips over Donald in the dark and hits his head on the sink. Donald, afraid and full of remorse, buries his beloved Dad in the litter box. Donald then decides to avoid the police by hiding behind the storage containers under the bed. His plan works until new tenants move into the apartment.  Donald terrorizes their poor golden retriever puppy named Babs.  Poor Babs tries to warn her master that something is very wrong in this apartment, but no one pays any attention to her.  Chaos ensues when the nosy neighbor, Mrs Shoemaker, looks in the window and sees Donald eating Babs' kibble.  Mrs Shoemaker has a stroke and dies from the shock of seeing Donald alive. Donald panics and has no choice but to bury her under the porch.  The family's suspicions deepen until the stunning climax that will send you screaming when Donald suddenly claws his way through the mattress. 

People who liked this movie also liked Bad Ronald:

"Don't do it...don't look through the whole in the wall"

Bad Ronald at IMDB 

     What constitutes a cult classic? Does one have to be a member of the cult to watch it? Or does watching the movie make you a de facto member of the cult. Is it really a classic movie?  For example, I could get a group of people together and we could shave our heads, wear orange sherbet robes, and chant nam yoho renga kyo, while we watch Gone With The Wind.  But that doesn't make it a cult classic.

     No, its something bigger than that. It's a community of like minded people who think enough about a film to invite their friends over and say 'You need to see this movie'. After the movie, you're like whoa, what the hell just happened. You start talking about it and thinking about it and boom, you're in the cult.

     Screaming is a great way to relieve tension. So if you like to scream and laugh at the same time (Without all the blood of a Quentin Tarantino movie) go out and rent Bad Ronald and watch it with some friends tonight.

Sorry, Bad Donald isn't out on DVD.

Preston Sinclair 

Coffee Review: Christman Roasters

       I was running low on coffee the other day and didn't feel like driving to the grocery store so I took a stroll down the street to my local Clayton Food Co-op. They had an assortment of whole bean coffees by a local roaster called Christman Roasters. I decided to try something new and went with their TI Breakfast blend.  The TI stands for The Thousand Islands, in Northern New York which is where I live and the coffee is roasted. They are located in Philadelphia NY, a small town not far from where I grew up. 
     I tend to have a sensitive stomach so I need a mild to medium coffee. When the beans went through the grinder the aroma spread through the whole store and I knew I'd made the right choice. It didn't make me nauseous just to smell it.  This blend doesn't have the dark, roasted smell of stronger coffees, yet it had a pleasing affect on the palate. Definitely not your run of the mill Folger's Breakfast Blend. I couldn't wait to get it home and try it out. At $11.39 it was a bit of a splurge for me, but I was glad to support my neighborhood co-op, and a local coffee business at the same time. 
     When you open the brown paper package, the aroma is clean with a hint of semi sweet chocolate. After brewing, the aroma is rich and full with no bitterness or woodiness to it. If you like your coffee black, the TI Breakfast blend has a delicious grain base note, then the chocolate  type flavor settles in for a nice smooth finish. This is a nice mellow cup of coffee that also stands up to whole milk and demerara cane suger, which is the way I prefer my morning brew.
     This blend pairs nicely with a toasted corn bagel topped with your favorite locally produced strawberry jam. It's always nice to step outside after a breakfast like this to do some errands, and when you get home your place smells delicious like your favorite cafe. Don't be afraid to try something new, and step away from your go-to grocery store brand. If you know what you like, the staff at your local food co-op should be knowledgeable enough to steer you in the right direction.

Preston Sinclair

The Last Time I Saw Paris

     I love Liz. And I especially love alcohol fueled fifties melodrama. Put the two together and ka-boom, you have incendiary nostalgia for pop culture. Liz looks great in her new pixie cut, a thoroughly modern look, yet still glamorous.She has the whole Michelle Williams thing going on.
     The city of Paris, as a character in this film, looks chilly and rainy.  The leaves are barely budding, and there is snow on the ground in some scenes. Some of the street scenes are dingy and gray, however this plays a role in the story as it develops.  By contrast this made the indoor scenes at the cafes, and parties seem bright and homey and gay.  This film reminded me a lot of another film, The Snows Of Kilimanjaro with Ava Gardner (another intoxicating brunette) and Gregory Peck.  Both films were about a writer who can't get out of his own head, or out of his own way.
      In TLTISP, Charles (Van Johnson) is a newspaper man trying to write the great American novel and not having much success. We begin to wonder whether or not he really is a very good writer, or whether he just has a string of bad luck with publishers. Rejection, after rejection piles up and his frustration overflows, and so does the booze.  Charles is a loveable lush though, and seems to be forgiven by Helen even as his indiscretions grow more blatant. This hazy behavior just allows Helen to do what she really wants to do, which is to party in Paris all the time. And no one in the movie really blames her either.  Except her sister Mary (Donna Reed) who has a pissy, frigid attitude because she fell in love with Charles first. Add to that a dodgy father-in-law, played by Walter Pidgeon, and a bratty ballerina child and you have one helluva dysfunctional family. It's no wonder Charles drank.

Helen (Liz) and her boy toy Paul (Roger Moore).  Helen asks herself the eternal F Scott Fitzgerald question,  What difference does it make what I do?

Liz had this to say in a 1964 interview with the New York Times:

          " A rather curiously not-so-good picture, The Last Time I Saw Paris, first convinced me I wanted to be an actress instead of yawning my way through parts. [My character] was offbeat with mercurial flashes of instability-more than just glib dialogue." (Source: Liz by C David Heymann, Birch Lane Press)

     This film is part of a compilation DVD called Great Cinema 15 Films. It includes: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Anna Karenina with Vivian Leigh, Of Human Bondage and many other films with early roles by great actors and actresses.  Some of the movies were made for TV, and are of lesser quality, but still contain good performances such as Jane Eyre with George C Scott. It's a great DVD to pop in on a rainy Sunday and pick one to watch at random.

The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

     A friend at work lent me this book a long time ago and I finally got around to reading it. It's the perfect kind of book to read on my lunch break at work. Crichton's intelligent story telling kept me interested, and the short chapters made me feel like I was making progress.
     The story is set in mid nineteenth century London, and is full of colorful characters, scallawags and buffoons alike. Crighton's digressions are like little historical nuggets. They enlighten, inform and entertain. The story is told from the point of view of the criminals. They come across as smarter than the cops, and their victims; however they make mistakes also. The tale unfolds as a comedy of errors, although there is nothing innately funny about a train robbery.
     The colorful language, jargon and criminal slang of the Victorian period sometimes leaves the reader thing, 'What?!'. Crighton finds ways to translate so that one don't lose the thread of the story while at the same time keeping it moving forward. It's like listening to people talk in a foreign language, but that language is English.
     I would definitely like to read another Crighton novel. I picked up a copy of The Terminal Man at a recent library book sale. Now I have to return the copy of TGTR after a few years, and a little dog-eared, but I enjoyed it finally.

View all my reviews

Skyfall

     Did something I haven't done in a long time last night. Went to the movies with a group of friends and felt like a kid again. One of them smuggled in food, and we were all shocked, shocked I tell you. We were all laughing and whispering, checking e-mails, texting during the previews. One day these memories will add to the nostalgic feeling the Bond 007 franchise evokes.
     One of my favorite parts of the movie was the opening credits that began rolling a short way into the movie as the theme song was cued up. Adele's voice pours over you as she begins to tell the story.  Images, graphics and shadows cross the screen. The moody retro song perfectly sets the tone.
     Daniel Craig has taken ownership of this Bond. Craig's 007 is hurt, and mad, and this makes him probably the most dangerous Bond ever. He's not pretty, or even classically handsome in the sense that previous Bonds were. However, his charm and cockiness allow him to deliver his lines without seeming cheesy, or worse tongue in cheek about it. Probably the most interesting thing about this Bond is his vulnerability. He knows he's getting ...gasp...older. Women are still his weakness. Booze is becoming a problem. Some of his coping mechanisms are no longer working. And yet at the end of the movie he still has a job to do.
    Some buzz has been created by Javier Bardem's villain, Silva. Silva is a psychopath who is out to destroy M at any cost to property or life. Some people wonder if the interrogation scene between Bond and Silva has homoerotic overtones. It's more like a mind game, or a test. James Bond's comeback line is destined to become a classic and made everyone in the theatre crack up in laughter, thus relieving the tension, sexual or otherwise. By the end of the film we all understand that Silva is a damaged person, and he may have been trying to reach out quite literally and bond with Bond.
     In the beginning we think Skyfall must be a code name for a mission, perhaps a past one that went bad. As the movie progresses we learn that it is a physical place, one that has much significance to Bond. By the end we realize that Skyfall is a state of mind.

                                                                            by Preston Sinclair

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The Donald for president in 2016

And the attack ads begin.

 

The Donald for president in 2016

I will be happy to accept donations to the Feline PAC on Donald's behalf.