Wednesday, January 10, 2024

I’m all in for putting a “badass” Republican woman in the White House…EXCEPT…



Minutes after former U.S. ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced her run for president Feb. 14, 2023, I did what I continue to believe to this day not a single voter or very few voters actually do when choosing a president.

I went to Haley’s website to see what qualifications and accomplishments she did as governor of South Carolina. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when the only thing I saw posted on her site that day was her announcing her candidacy. Perhaps it’s just me but if I were to announce I’m running for president the first thing I’d do is post my accomplishments and qualifications and why I feel I am the right person for the job.

Isn’t that what any person applying for a job would do in the real world today?

To be fair, Haley’s site did post her accomplishments days later, but I didn’t wait until then to read them.

I instead went to her Facebook page on social media to see what others were posting about her record and presidential plans.

I can’t say I read anything positive social media users posted on her site that jumped out at me. The one act I recall Haley did as governor of South Carolina was anything but positive regardless of who you ask. The measure happened July 9, 2015, when she signed into law to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol after flying there for 54 years.



There’s only one reason why she signed that bill into law. It was because three weeks prior 21-year-old Dylann Roof opened fire killing nine African Americans June 17 at a prayer meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Church and suddenly she felt the state let alone the country had a race problem.

In an October 2015 blog I wrote “A sick individual cold-bloodedly murders minorities in hopes of starting a race war and now South Carolina and the rest of the country have a change of heart? If such supposed historical symbols of the Civil War had been taken down years earlier, would have that kept Roof’s shooting rampage from happening? I doubt that about as much as I doubt more stringent gun control laws would stop mass shootings from happening.”

To date, mass shootings across the country have not stopped. They’ve instead become common place like this is how it’s supposed to be.
I believe and still do believe the only reason Haley signed that bill into law is to secure more votes from black Americans much the way the reason President Biden and his administration won’t do shit about the border crisis is to get more votes for the Democratic Party from the illegal dregs of society who have no desire to start a better life here. They just want the free benefits us taxpayers pay and a chance to either wreak terrorism and/or kill a few law-abiding Americans over money or who knows what.
When I asked a friend and South Carolina native if then Governor Haley did anything positive or negative for that matter during her term in office, she replied texting, “I don’t want to discuss that right now out of fear I won’t get a goodnight sleep.”

Hours before the third Republican Presidential debate on Nov. 8 I heard political commentator Mark Levin discuss Haley’s record on his radio show. He had nothing positive to say either.

“Nikki Haley is running for president as a China hawk, but her record suggests a different picture. I've been warning you about Nikki Haley now for a while, as I have about Ramaswamy. But Nikki Haley is George W. Bush in a dress. Eight years in South Carolina, she's not running on her record because she doesn't have much of a record. DeSantis runs on his record. And Nikki Haley runs attacking Trump. She took a job from Trump as the UN's ambassador. She appreciated that. Mike Pompeo writes in his book, effectively and essentially, that she was a political climber, not a team player, and you can see that.

She is the establishment's candidate. That's who they (her supporters) have now rallied around. She's the candidate of many of these RINO billionaires in the Republican Party. That's who they're rallying behind because they love the Bush dynasty. They never supported Reagan.

She was not a great governor. Nobody's told me to say this. I'm not coordinating with anybody -- I look at the records. And there's a dearth of information about all her great and profound accomplishments.”


Up until the three presidential debates last October and November, I had hope that maybe given Haley’s “record” so to speak as U.S. ambassador and supposed experience in world affairs that if she weren’t to get the presidential nomination that she might make a good vice president. Of course, everyone thought the same thing about Kamala Harris and how her being the first black woman vice president marked a step forward for this country. I don’t need to tell you the results of her tenure so far.

When Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who I call a “Mini-Trump” in terms of stirring up train wrecks at the three debates, called Haley out Nov. 8 citing her daughter’s use of TikTok, a Chinese-based company considering how much she has spoken out against China, I saw nothing wrong with Ramaswamy’s accusation.



“In the last debate, she (Haley) made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time,” Ramaswamy said. “So, you might want to take care of your family first.”

That was nothing compared to when Ramaswamy challenged Haley to name the three Russian provinces during the fourth debate Dec. 7 she’d send American troops to, should they be needed to help Ukraine.



All audiences and I got was a blank stare from Haley on television.

“Foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom,” Ramaswamy said. “One thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for.”

Again, it’s probably just me but if I were actively serving in the military and still years away from retirement (Haley’s husband Michael serves in the South Carolina Army National Guard and was just deployed to Africa in Dec. 2023 through 2024) I’d want to know where my president plans to possibly send me and or my fellow soldiers in other military branches to risk my life and others to fight in a foreign country’s war no one really wants any part of.



Then there’s her answer she gave on what the reason for the Civil War which was an easy question if I ever heard one and I never paid attention to all the specifics of that era, not even in history class in high school. Even President Biden said was the reason the Civil War happened “was about slavery.”
I do, however, give Haley credit. She, like every other Republican candidate we’ve had in 2023 who put their hat into the presidential ring knows how to energize her fan base telling them what they want to hear.

When she told supporters Feb. 14 last year how she doesn’t “put up with bullies and when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels” I admit the comment turned me on.
Like Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan R. Jessup in “A Few Good Men” (1992) said “There is nothing on this earth sexier than a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote ‘em all,” I too, believe there isn’t anything sexier than seeing a woman in charge. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished the police officer pulling me over for speeding since I’ve been driving at age 16 was a woman.

I’m not just saying this to score brownie points with the opposite sex!

I had to do a double take when I saw supporters (women of course) holding signs showing Haley in heels stepping on President Biden’s head at that rally last February. Talk about “I am woman, hear be roar.” I thought that Helen Reddy song only applied to first lady Hillary Clinton when she ran for president against former President Donald Trump in 2016.

Seeing Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis square off at the CNN republican debate Jan. 10 days before the Iowa caucuses Jan. 15 I found it to be nothing more than a two-hour he said/she said quarrel. I was only able to stomach an hour of the debate on youtube and I still can’t figure out who really won, much less tell who got the most applause.



What I felt like doing was rewatch the debate from the beginning so I could count how many times Haley told the audience to pull up desantislies.com to dispel all the myths her opponent accused her of. Then I could compare Haley’s website comment to how many times Julia Roberts says “fuck” in Netflix’s apocalyptic disaster movie, “Leave the World Behind” (2023). I’ve a feeling Haley would win.

Don’t get me wrong. I would desperately love to see a Republican woman in heels (five inch if you ask Haley) who not only wears them unless she can run in them and doesn’t see them as a fashion statement, but for ammunition take over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next Jan. This versus the possibility of the country seeing another Trump presidency the next four years. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 despite those few who know me personally think. Yet I still supported Trump because he ran the country like a business and was not considered a part of the Washington elite.
I would not be surprised if Haley were to read my blog here, she’d say the same thing she told DeSantis and Ramaswamy at the Dec. 5 debate. “I love all the attention, Darth Stumpo – thank you for that,” she’d tell me.
Watching the debates the past three months, I’ve hoped to see a “Reagan moment” come out of those debates – someone who can get me excited about the 2024 presidential race instead of having the ghost of Donald Trump hanging over the candidates where the real attention is on the elephant nowhere in sight.

I fear this country is over four decades long past that with who we got running today (that applies to both sides of the aisles – left and right) except on the Democratic side, the leadership is three times worse.

In January 2012, I wrote in a blog how there is no such thing as the perfect candidate. I don’t believe there ever was since George Washington became the country’s first president. Back then I wrote I had no idea who I’d vote for come election day that November.

I wrote “as much as it pains me to say it, whoever it is I vote for my decision will be based on who I think can do the job as leader of the country and not so much on their negative past, despite my wish that there was someone out there has some moral character to be president.”
I want a woman president who not only exhibits style but substance. Haley’s got a lot of style and not enough of the other if that.

Nikki Haley, Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy (who is still in the presidential race but will no doubt back out soon) and former President Trump are all prime examples of those who are from being the perfect candidates. I’d rather, however, be for the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, in this case as much as it pains me to say it, be for Trump if he is chosen at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin in July this year.
I’ve no doubt sometime before I leave this world both physically and mentally and have my ashes sent off into space and become one with the “Dark Side of the Force” that this country will have a Republican woman president in five-inch heels running the White House. We’ve got women governors on both sides of the aisles (Kathy Hochul, Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Gretchen Whitmer) a lieutenant governor of Virginia (Winsome Sears) and women mayors here in the states and prominent women leaders in other countries. Why not add the USA to that list so long as she isn’t a Democrat.

I won’t say I am about to join Sen. Rand Paul’s “Never Nikki” campaign he started Jan. 12 urging people to not vote for Haley.

I do want to see America put a “bad ass” woman in the White House one day, a Republican one. Haley is right when she said, “sometimes it takes a woman.” I’m just not sure I’m truly ready or Americans for that matter are ready to call Nikki Haley, Madam President in 2024.

©1/12/24

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

My thoughts on the 2023 movies I subjected myself to this year

I’ve got good news and bad news on what I thought of the movies I willingly subjected myself to in 2023. First the bad news as it is my blog and I can say and write what I want without the reader’s input whoever they are.

“Barbie” (2023) – A friend of mine from Chi-raq (once called Chicago) went on such a tirade bashing the 1 billion box office hit of the year when I talked to him a few weeks ago I felt like I was having a one-on-one negative conversation with myself. To be fair, when I attempted to watch “Barbie” on Max Dec. 15 I fell asleep ten minutes into the film. My dozing off had nothing to do with the overhyped toy doll movie boring me however. I was overly tired and may have been coming down with onset flu and/or a sinus infection I usually get at this time of year thanks to the Texas weather. When I got sick at this time last December I found myself breathing heavy that turned out I had COVID…again - second time in two years. Trouble is I watched “Barbie” again the following week and still fell asleep – this time an hour later so now I know my dozing off has nothing to do with my declining health. It's the movie! I’ve no plans to return to “Barbie-Land” (or is it “Ken-Land?”) anytime soon to finish watching it. Not owning roller blades much less know how to roller blade will make it even more difficult getting there which the one billion people who saw “Barbie” say is a place that actually exists.



“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) – Ball gags, butt plugs, dildos, dominatrixes, sex dungeons…oh my! The movie had everything a proud member of the LGBTQ community wants in an Oscar winning movie that embarrassingly won best picture. Fans of the film don’t bother preaching to me how underneath all the sex toys was a meaningfully twisted story about acceptance no matter what one thinks of another’s personal interests let alone the life/predicament an overworked Chinese immigrant and mother (Michelle Yeoh) never imagined themselves in. Unlike everyone else who saw the film I barfed up the picture’s proposed “bagel” twenty minutes into it and like “Barbie” I have no intention returning to that multiverse to finish that “bagel” anytime soon. And people wonder why I no longer call “Tinseltown” Hollywood but “Hollyweird.”



“The Exorcist: Believer” (2023) – Not as bad as “Halloween Ends” (2022) but of course, nowhere near as hauntingly memorable let alone controversial as the original 1973 demonic possessed horror classic. Satan will probably agree with me on this.

“The Flash and Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny” (2023) – Should have waited for them to hit the streaming services where I could have saved the money I spent at the box office and at the concessions.

“Godzilla Minus One” (2023) – The 37th movie in the never-dying Godzilla franchise which has grossed $80 million at the box office here in the states so far almost succeeded winning me over with themes about guilt, family loyalty, tragedy – things I’ve never seen in any Godzilla movie to date. Those underlying themes lasted 90 minutes. Too bad the remaining 30 minutes channeled “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker” (2019), “Jaws” (1975) and “Independence Day” (1996) turning the surprise hit into yet another Hollywood disaster monster movie starring an angry giant blue laser spewing walking lizard or whatever it is our atomic bombs created at the end of World War II.



“Leave the World Behind” (2023) – Took me a few days to finish what I felt like was a proposed and then rejected screenplay for a “Twilight Zone” episode and then expanded into an overlong two-hour apocalyptic disaster movie starring Julia Roberts. Should I watch it again the only reasons may be to bash it in a review and count how many times Julia Roberts says “fuck.” I was so irritated with whatever the film’s message was with its love it or hate it ending I didn’t realize the picture was produced by the Obamas.

“The Marvels” (2023) – As someone who finds Marvel movies “despicable” like director Francis Ford Coppola I won’t lie and say I didn’t do my own little happy dance movie mogul Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) does at the end of “Tropic Thunder” (2008) upon hearing the joyous news that “Woke” Disney’s latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “The Marvels” bombed opening weekend in November. I didn’t listen to the critics, or the warnings from another friend of mine from “Chi-raq” who if he had a social media account he'd list his screenname as “Mr. Fucker”. I had to see “The Marvels” for myself. At least “Suicide Squad” (2016) was a fun bad movie I loved to hate and had The Joker (Jared Leto). “The Marvels” was so bad Disney stopped reporting box office receipts two weeks after its release and the film’s failure cannot be attributed to just one reason.



“Oppenheimer” (2023) – The ONLY two reasons director Christopher Nolan’s three-hour history lesson (if you call that) got so much attention is one, the film’s timeliness considering how close we are to midnight on the Doomsday Clock standing on the brink of World War III with China, Hamas forces, Iran, Russia and every other country President Biden has kissed ass since he turned the USA into his own little “Bizarro Land” in 2020 that not a single country in the world is afraid of America’s might any longer. The other is the controversy surrounding the relationship the father of the atomic bomb (Cillian Murphy) had with his mistress Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) in particular the scene where Oppenheimer recites the Hindu text of the Bhagavad-Gita that upset some viewers. The dream sequence where Tatlock and Oppenheimer are having sex as he is being questioned by a senate committee while his wife Katherine (Emily Blunt) looks on would have made director Oliver Stone proud.

“Rebel Moon” (2023) – Netflix’s answer to “Star Wars” in 2023 on the flat screen is equivalent to what ABC tried to do with “Battlestar Galactica” (1978-79) as its answer to “Star Wars” (1977) on Sunday nights 45 years ago. I have no doubt “Nerdville”, “The Big Bang Theory Crowd” and the “Negative Nancys” are sitting around right now having boring intelligent long-winded discussions about director Zack Snyder’s latest sci-fi fantasy epic making comparisons to that other “galaxy far, far away” in between such questions as to who they think would win in a lightsaber battle, Darth Vader or Darth Maul.



I wasn’t thinking about “Star Wars” watching “Rebel Moon”. I was thinking how this overhyped soulless visual exercise about a female soldier (Sofia Boutella), whose world is threatened by another “Galactic Empire” called the “Motherworld”, journeys to other cities and planets to recruit warriors is more a remake of Roger Corman’s produced sci-fi B grade movie “Battle Beyond the Stars” (1980) which was in turn inspired by the 1960 western, “The Magnificent Seven.” I do, however, give Zack Snyder credit. He doesn’t make sci-fi/fantasy movies to please the masses, the critics and the powers-that-be at the studios. If he did he’d still be making Justice League and Superman sequels at what is now called the “DC Universe” at Warner Bros. Pictures. Perhaps Snyder’s R rated three-hour director’s cut of “Rebel Moon” likely due out late next year will feature the one thing missing from the shortened 135-minute release – characters worth rooting for and villains worth loathing.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) – I ask the same question I asked in 2022 when everyone embraced Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” that failed to sweep the Oscars, including best actor. Where is the joy in watching a predictable biopic about a music icon who lived fast, died young and left a good-looking corpse? To date not a single person has been able to answer that question! It’s not a trick question! Why do they keep failing to give me the answer I’m looking for?

Do I like anything “Hollyweird” makes?

No doubt after reading my assessment of the following titles you will wonder why I waste my time sitting in front of the flatscreen.

God only knows just how many times I’ve asked myself that same question. I rarely see the latest releases at the box office now waiting instead for them to hit the streaming services a month later. And no, my reason for avoiding the movie houses is not because of the pandemic.

With all the excrement I’ve sat through this year along with the past five years or more I’ve gotten to the point maybe it’s time to just leave the flatscreen off for a while and pick up one of the books I’ve got sitting in storage bins that I’ve yet to open and read.

Hence the good news! The bottom line is I haven’t given up on the motion picture industry. I’m just no longer buying what “Hollyweird” is selling. They aren’t movies. They are products.
I’ll stick to the old stuff of yesteryear like the “Airport” disaster movies of the 70s, “Bullitt” (1968), “Forbidden Planet” (1956), “The Great Race” (1965) ,“Logan’s Run” (1976) and “North by Northwest” (1959). Films I’ve seen numerous times the past few decades that I’ve watched again this year on streaming services and countless others that were free of woke agendas (You listening “Woke” Disney?), superheroes from the Marvel and DC franchises whose low box office receipts prove they’ve overstayed their welcome, sequels and remakes no one asked for and predictable gone-too-soon music biopics where I already know how they end.
What’s kept me from boycotting “Hollyweird” completely is hope that one day Tinseltown will return to making movies entertaining again to the point I’m excited to see them on the big or small screen and if they are so good I can't wait to watch them again later.

There are movies I’ve seen over the past ten years that prove “Hollyweird” can make a good movie if they really gave a crap about what audiences want to see. “The Social Network” (2010), “Argo” (2012), “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016), “La La Land” (2016) and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016) proved that…IN MY OPINION! NOT YOURS! Pictures I will review eventually adding to my personal list of the 100 best films I don’t tire of watching on occasion.

I still believe sometime in the coming years before I leave this world both literally and physically (since I want my remains sent off into space) and become one with “The Dark Side of The Force” “Hollyweird” might and I stress the word “might” make a movie that’s worth seeing more than once or to quote Judd Nelson’s foul-mouthed rebellious high school student John Bender from “The Breakfast Club” (1985) (another classic I've seen numerous times) “pumps my nads!”

©12/20/23

Friday, November 3, 2023

Appreciation: Bobby Knight (1940-2023)



When it comes to sports, I've always considered it a forbidden subject I want to know nothing about. 

There have only been less than a handful of moments in my life where I have been interested in sports. One of them happened in 2001 whenever a sportscaster mentioned the name, “Bobby Knight.”

At the time, I wasn't interested in learning if Knight’s team, the Texas Tech Red Raiders won or lost. I wanted to see if “The General,” Knight’s nickname, would do what he had done so many times before - churn out what would likely be another Oscar-nominated, foul mouthed performance. There is no doubt most anything he said would probably wind up as yet another addition to the already growing media library of famous clips and sound bites seen on
http://www.youtube.com/.
For me, as far as college basketball was concerned, Bobby Knight WAS the show. If I had been a student at Indiana or Texas Tech at the time he was there, I most likely would have attended the games just to see how he’d react.
That era ended on Feb. 4, 2008 and I don’t believe college basketball has been the same since.

Much to the surprise of fans but not those who believed he always took charge of his own destiny, Knight announced during mid-season that day he was retiring as head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders handing the reigns over to his son, Patrick Knight.

I paid no attention to Knight’s early controversial antics back in his days at Indiana arguing with referees. I knew nothing, for example, about the infamous 1985 chair-throwing incident where Knight reacted to a referee’s call during a game against the Purdue Boilermakers.

Knight's foul-mouthed, sometimes volatile yet informative interview with contributing editor Lawrence Grobel in the March 2001 issue of Playboy magazine piqued my interest.



Here was a guy who had done a number of positive things for basketball since he began coaching in 1962, first at the United States Military Academy until 1971, when he took over as head coach at Indiana University. The college was the place Knight probably thought he’d spend his entire coaching career until his retirement. An altercation with freshman Kent Harvey where Knight yelled and grabbed the student by the arm for not showing him any respect ended "The General's" controversial chapter there when the powers-that-be fired the coaching legend on Sept. 10, 2001.

Not surprisingly that particular incident was among many Grobel discussed with Knight in the Playboy interview. Knight, who was getting fed up having to explain himself again about various incidents at one point demanded the contributing editor hand him the interview tapes so he could destroy them.

I don’t blame Knight for losing it when dealing with the press. My respect for the news media has eroded so much the past three decades to the point I now call them "Fake News." Who doesn't? I put journalists in the same category as the slimy lawyers who know full well their clients did the crime, and yet manage to get them off anyway. They play favorites. Why else did Joe Biden get elected president in 2020? They always print the negatives, never the positives and never, ever give both sides of a story. That includes Fox News and Newsmax.
“These guys sometimes believe they've been ordained from on high to give the general opinion of the populace, and that just isn't the case,” Knight told Grobel. “The thing that bothers me the most about the media is simple accuracy. There are as many guys in coaching who do a lousy job as there are in the media. Those are two professions that are a lot alike. There aren't a hell of a lot of really good coaches or writers.”

Today, if I want to get to the real story, I got to listen to conservative talk radio. So it was with great delight upon reading about Knight’s retirement at the time, I found several clips of him on
http://www.youtube.com/ berating the news media - a profession he once defined as “one or two steps above prostitution.”

I was practically short of cheering him on.



Who can blame Knight for getting upset when a sportswriter asked him one time, how did it feel to lose to a team after recently coming off of another win? The question is the equivalent of having a nurse come in and say to an old man suffering from terminal cancer who is about to go through another round of chemotherapy, “How are we doing today?”

When someone asked him if he ever has a “game face” when he is out coaching during the games, Knight told the reporter he had no idea what that was.

“In my entire adult life, I have never used the expression game face,” he said. “So I have no (expletive) idea what it means or what you are supposed to do.”

Knight then gave several humorous “game face” looks to the media.

When a reporter asked Knight back in 1993 how he thinks his player Damon Bailey will play in 1994, Knight said he would have to wait until then to see him play. He then grabbed an empty glass, banged on it a few times and treated it like it was a crystal ball.

“The image is fading…just a second, just a second…coming back, coming back, yes, yes…images are tough to deal with. Sometimes you got to get them in line,” he mockingly said. “Yes, I see…I see Bailey doing better.”

When the same reporter asked him practically the same question but in a different way, Knight picked up the glass saying “this is a (expletive) damn piece of cheap crystal here.”

“This isn’t expensive enough to answer all these questions,” he said. “Wait a minute there is something forming here, forming…it says, “What a (expletive) question.”

Like that Playboy interview which addressed a majority of Knight’s less-than-stellar moments, I wasn’t surprised upon reading about his retirement how practically every article I read about him brought up almost as many negatives as they did positives.

The fact is the guy wasn't perfect. None of us are but his impressive coaching record spoke for itself.
Since coaching in 1962, Knight racked up a combined total of 902 wins and 371 loses.

While at Indiana, he led his teams to three NCAA Division I Tournament Championships in 1976, 1981, and 1987, one National Invitation Tournament championship in 1979, and 11 Big Ten Conference championships in 1973, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 83, 87, 89, 91, and 93.

In the 1984 Olympics, his U.S. basketball team received the gold medal and in 1991, he was voted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.

In looking up articles on the internet, not once did I find anything about him involved in illegal recruitment practices or drug problems; issues that often plague or put an end to a college’s prestigious athletic departments.

When Knight put on that Texas Tech sweater for the first time in 2001 after being hired as the university’s new basketball coach, he called it “the most comfortable red sweater I have had on six years.”

When Bob Weltlich, a former assistant coach Knight hired back in his days at the United States Military Academy and then at Indiana before taking a coaching job at Mississippi in 1977, he asked his former employer and friend during Knight’s 41st season what is it that keeps him coaching.

Knight said he liked the game of basketball.

“Guys play chess forever,” he said “I might as well coach forever.”



I would have liked to see Knight wait until he reached a total of 1,000 wins before announcing his retirement from coaching the sport at the time. Perhaps at the age of 67 in 2008 with 902 wins under his belt maybe there was not a whole lot more to prove.

It's been 22 years since I got interested in college basketball thanks to Bobby Knight. I predicted back then the only other time I'd talk about "The General" would be when another chapter would end.

That one came to an end on Nov. 1, 2023 when Bobby Knight passed away at 83. 

Knight's death brought to mind a speech he gave in 1994 at Indiana University before the Hoosiers game against Wisconsin.

"When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass!"

I've a feeling "The General" finally got his wish much to his delight.

©11/3/2023

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Gone Too Soon: Matthew Perry (1969-2023)



Near the end of the first episode of “Friends” (1994-2004) when Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston) cuts up all her credit cards, Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) congratulates her saying, “Welcome to the real world! It sucks! You’re gonna love it!”

To die-hard fans of the popular NBC sitcom, the line might as well now be “Welcome to the real world! It sucks!” in the wake of actor Matthew Perry, who for ten seasons delighted viewers as the sarcastic Chandler Bing, was found dead at his Los Angeles home Oct. 28 at age 54.

Anyone familiar with Perry’s battles with alcohol and substance abuse since his teenage years is a born liar if they don’t believe in the back of their minds the tragic possibility that maybe the actor, like so many others in the entertainment industry, was unable to fully conquer their demons.
It’s still too early for me to add Perry to that “Gone Too Soon” list of talents whose untimely demises get more tabloid coverage than the ones still with us who’ve beaten or are still battling their personal struggles with mental illness, alcohol and substance abuse or a combination of all three. (Ben Affleck and Robert Downey Jr. come to mind).
The list of “Gone Too Soon” icons may be short, but the amount of talent lost is great.

John Belushi (33), Chris Farley (33), Carrie Fisher (60), James Gandolfini (51), Judy Garland (47), Anne Heche (53), Jimi Hendrix (27), Philip Seymour Hoffman (46), William Holden (63), Whitney Houston (48), Michael Jackson (50), Janis Joplin (27), Margot Kidder (69), Heath Ledger (28), Marilyn Monroe (36), Jim Morrison (27), Adam Rich (54), Delores O’Riordan (46), River Pheonix (23), Dana Plato (34), Elvis Presley (42), Prince (57), Brad Renfro (25), Jean Seberg (40), Amy Winehouse (27).

Regardless of what the results are weeks from now when Perry’s toxicology report is released the negative opinion will still be the same. While cause of death is pending and listed as "deferred" antidepressants, anti-anxiety and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medications were found at the actor's home. To quote Luke Skywalker from “Star Wars – Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” (2017) “This is not going to go the way you think.”

The difference is I don’t want to know the results. I’m not the only one alone in this. Emma Heming Willis, wife of actor Bruce Willis, shared the same sentiment a few days after Perry’s passing in a post on social media.

“I don’t need to hear the 911 dispatch. I don’t need to know the autopsy report. Why? Because it’s absolutely none of my business. This level of lookie-loo and entitlement is God awful, and I will never understand it. Let this man rest in peace and show some respect. Give his family and friends grace to mourn and grieve without all this noise.”
A year from now, if not sooner, Perry’s untimely end will be graphically chronicled in “Autopsy: The Last Hours of…” (2014-Present) where medical examiner, Dr. Michael Hunter, will give a rundown leading up to the actor’s final hours. The so-called documentary series is not a celebration of how these icons lived but a macabre look at how they died that gives the viewers (assuming they give a rat’s ass about their own health) what NOT to do to their bodies if they want to live to be in their 80s and 90s.
Perry was right about one thing in his interview with Diane Sawyer last year while promoting his autobiography, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing", when he said he didn’t want “Friends” to be the first thing people remember when he passes away.

If I watch anything he did it’s going to be his movies (“Fools Rush In” – 1997, “The Whole Nine Yards” – 2000) and his guest appearances on “The West Wing” (1999-2006) and “Scrubs” (2001-2010) and the one hit full season order wonders “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (2006-2007), “Mr. Sunshine” (2o11-2012) and “The Odd Couple” (2015-2017) which lasted two seasons – all of which aired during the post “Friends” era.

I can’t say the same about reading his memoir, however. Reading it would be different if he were alive today. Reading it now would be like watching those depressing “gone-too-soon” musical biopics (“The Doors” – 1991, “Elvis” - 2022, “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” - 2022) where I already know how their life stories end and begs the question where is the joy watching a two-hour plus biopic about a beloved icon who lived fast, died young and left a good looking corpse.

No one to date has ever been able to give me a straight answer short of saying, “they see movies to be entertained.” If they told me such biopics bring out a new generation of fans I might, and I stress the word might, give them a very small, miniscule amount of credit.

If there’s anything positive that can be said about the loss of Matthew Perry it is the knowledge his book may help save others battling alcohol and substance abuse.

“The best thing about me, bar none, is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me?’ I can say yes and follow up and do it. When I die, I don’t want “Friends” to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first that’s mentioned, and I’m going live the rest of my life proving that.”

A shame the end came much sooner than fans expected.

©11/1/23

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Appreciation: Edward M. Ward (1941-2023)

Summer band camps. Marching band at high school football games in the fall and concerts at area grade schools chomping down on Big Macs at Mcdonald’s during lunch or hot dogs soon afterwards.

Solo contests every spring and concerts in December before Christmas vacation and May before the three-month-long summer break. End of the year pool parties. Even a performance I wanted no part of in seventh-grade school play during the 1982-83 school year which felt like I had signed a contract without actually reading it.

None of this would have happened had I not joined the band at St. Louise de Marillac School (1958-2020)in La Grange Park, Ill in 1980 from fourth to eighth grade when I graduated in May 1984.

St. Louise band directors Ed Ward and Louise Thorson.
The band was under the direction of music teachers Edward M. Ward and Louise Thorson (1952-2018). Of course, we never called them by their first names. We always addressed them as Mr. Ward and Ms. Thorson much the way we called all the teachers there as Mr., Mrs., Ms. or when it came to the nuns “Sister.”

For almost five years my band uniform would be blue slacks, a white shirt, a yellow blazer band jacket and a black tie, if I remember correctly. In 8th grade those ties were called “dickies”. Anyone in my class who had yet to grow up (I’m willing to bet some of them still have yet to grow up four decades later) and whose mind was always in the gutter would laugh when hearing the word “dickie.” The childish way certain classmates I knew who laughed hearing the word (they know who they are) was equivalent to how Joey Tribiani (Matt LeBlanc) would laugh every time Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) said she needed to call her baby’s pediatrician, Dr. Weiner, in “Friends” (1994-2004).
My introduction to the music world, so to speak, began in fourth grade with our class being required to play the flutophone to perform with the band during a spring performance. I don’t remember what made me want to join the band or why but somehow upon meeting Mr. Ward I wound up picking an instrument called the cornet, a fatter version of the trumpet which was the only thing that stood out in terms of appearance. So far as I know the cornet still churned out the same notes as any other, assuming the one playing it can a “play” the music and not the notes.
I’ve said in a couple blogs I wrote about my time at St Louise that a lot if not all the teachers who taught me possessed one trait that made them stand out from the rest. In the case of Mr. Ward and Ms. Thorson I cannot put my finger on just one thing.

I will always remember the glasses he had on those five years. I never saw him with them off until I saw his obituary picture in August this year. He and his wife, Dale, ran The Bandstand from 1973 to 1996 in Brookfield, Illinois where I lived for a time before moving to La Grange Park. I still recall the big sign displayed outside the store near the train tracks in downtown Brookfield that made the place somehow stand out like it was the town staple. The store was also where I oftentimes went to practice during spring break for the upcoming solo contests held every year.

I know many students Mr. Ward taught since 1959 at several schools in the Chicago area will attest to how he always cracked jokes. In my case it’s not his jokes I remember though. I recall his wrath more so than his humor much the way I recall Ms. Thorson being furious at my lousy horn playing during a Thursday rehearsal in seventh grade than anything else.

My first year at summer band camp, Mr. Ward, who not only doubled as being a music teacher but also the camp’s director, introduced himself to all of us students who were from several schools throughout the Chicago area saying, “My name is Mr. Ward. Also known by some as the mean guy.”

Mr. Ward wasn’t lying either. There were a few times at band camp where I saw him disciplining a student. Other times during that week I would hear him storming through the boy’s dormitory screaming at students to stop blaring out their own music and start practicing on the pieces they were going to be playing that Friday morning at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill.
I won’t deny there were times I was the subject of his wrath throughout those five years. When Mr. Ward signaled with his baton for us all to have horns up to begin playing one Thursday afternoon rehearsal, he immediately said “Horns down” glaring at me telling the band, “We have to wait for Joe Stumpo to get along with the program.”
While practicing for the solo contest in spring 83’ Ms. Thorson complained to Mr. Ward how I developed a bad habit of not keeping my ring finger on the third valve of the cornet. Mr. Ward told Ms. Thorson, acting like as though I wasn’t in the room (but I was) saying “Well maybe we need to either glue or nail his fingers to the cornet then to stop that.”

Anyone else would have taken that comment with less than a grain of salt if he or she even cared. My being 12-years-old at the time, I thought he was serious.

When Mr. Ward asked us band members in the seventh and eighth grade if we wanted to be in the school play during the 82-83 school year called “The Ed Sullivan Show”, I had no idea it’d involve me playing again in a band. I ended up saying yes simply because my other fellow band members said yes and I didn’t want to hear from my parents saying how they heard others in the band joined the play and ask me why didn’t I join them?

I considered the seventh grade school year (82-83) at St. Louise to be my worst alongside fourth grade. The 82-83 school year was when my increasingly negative rebel without a cause attitude ran rampant alienating all the “goodie-goodie” classmates I knew and preferred the company of the bad boys in class who if a teacher looked real closely at their heads of hair they might find the numbers “666” engraved on their skulls. Our 84’ class had the reputation at St. Louise of being the most problematic.

That negative attitude I developed that year showed when it came to my being in the band as I very rarely took the cornet out to practice other than on those weekly Thursday afternoon rehearsals.
 
My solo contest medals.
Of the five solo contests I took part in those five years, 1983 was the year and ONLY year I got third place. I scored first place in the solo contests held in 1980, 81’ and 82’ and then went out with a bang my final year in spring 84’ with yet another first-place medal the year I graduated.

The night of our final performance in late April 1984 a month before we graduated, Mr. Ward recognized us eighth grade band students. I don’t remember what it was I got from Mr. Ward and Ms. Thorson for being in the band except when prior to announcing my name to the audience, he described me as “a quiet man.” He wasn’t far from the truth. It is the quiet people you have to watch out for you know.

Today, whenever I watch the film, "Mr. Holland's Opus" (1995), I find it hard not to be reminded of Mr. Ward watching Richard Dreyfuss playing a dedicated high school band director. Looking back on some of those somewhat uncomfortable times with Mr. Ward and Ms. Thorson on their bad days, I understand now the methods to their madness and why they sometimes got upset with me for not taking the band seriously. Their reasoning is because they wanted us to be as passionate about music and playing in the band as they were teaching us. They wanted us to play to the best of our abilities and they knew full well I along with everyone else were more than capable of doing that.



Which explains their disappointment when they learned I had no plans to join the band at Bishop Lynch, the high school I would be attending in Dallas, Texas in the fall of 1984 freshman year. Little did I know that Mr. Ward’s influence was not just relegated to the schools he taught music in Chicago. His influence extended to Texas when I learned that Joe Cardinale, the band director at Bishop Lynch knew Mr. Ward.

I confess I almost did join the band at BL. My joining the high school band lasted less than the four days George Costanza (Jason Alexander) spent in his job at Play Now in “Seinfeld” (1989-1998). There is even a yearbook picture of me with the band in the Freshman yearbook that proves my two-day involvement.

I would have stayed in the band from 84-88. What turned me off was how I’d be required to show up by 6 a.m. every morning five days a week to marching band practice for the weekly football games and pep rallies. I had enough of marching band practices and performances at band camp playing at Six Flags Great America and at St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Ill. for five years.

I couldn’t take another four years of having to keep up with everyone else marching left and right, having to play the music looking at the small booklets attached to my cornet while trying to pay attention to the conductor. I’ve never been a multitasker. The powers-that-be in my IT helpdesk job I’ve been doing going on 27 years now will attest to that!

The only positive thing I could have gotten out of being with the BL band is gazing at the brigade drill team Friday nights whose over the knee black skirted outfits I found domineeringly sexy (black and white were our high school colors). At one point during the sixty years the high school’s been open the drill team actually wore black low-heeled boots – the kinds one would find worn by a dominatrix before the drill team program went with the white go-go dancer boots.
Just because I didn’t continue my music career in high school so to speak doesn’t mean others didn’t. After posting my blog about the “whiplash” moment I had with Ms. Thorson in 7th grade, class of 84’ alum Michele Santiago (1970-2022) posted a comment on my Facebook page on her playing in the band at Nazareth Academy high school in La Grange Park, Ill.
“I recall competing against St. Joe’s / IHM at State of the Art band competition, and I stood in line with Fenwick / Nazareth while both Mike Alberico and Roger Veome both stared me down with their horns in parade lock position, trying to psyche me out (all of us played baritone for concert band),” Michelle wrote. “Fen/Naz beat St. Joe’s/ IHM in 1987 AND 1988. Yeap— I had major solos both years.”

Many of the of teachers, administrators, priests and nuns I had at St. Louise are now one with “The Force” that include Sisters Petronia, Cresentine, and Julitta, Father Edward Borisewicz (1925-1990), Father John Keating (1934-1998), science teacher and later principal Arlene Fencl (1933-2021), 6th grade teacher Violet Zetlitz (1932-2013), 7th and 8th grade teacher Joyce Allen, Ms. Thorson, Deacon Michael McLynn (1921-2021) and now Mr.Ward.

Their passings (I don’t like using the word “died”) prove how as I’ve gotten older I’m reaching that age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away. If you don’t realize it now, you will.

In the case of Mr. Ward I do believe one thing is certain. Somewhere among the heavens he is still sharing his passion for teaching music, this time to probably several young angels from grade schools who went before their time. He, and probably along with Ms. Thorson and maybe even Michele are conducting a large orchestra bigger than any of the ones music composers John Williams and Ennio Morricone ever led.

I’m sure Mr. Ward is up there cracking jokes during rehearsals only to be slightly stressed on the day of the big performances the band is set to play that night in front of the Son of God, Saint Peter, the 11 apostles and God himself. No doubt those student angels will wonder who is more stressed. Their fellow band students or Mr. Ward.

In this case I can’t blame Mr. Ward for being stressed out. What band director wouldn’t want to make damned certain his orchestra is playing up to their absolute best especially if the supreme being in the audience happens to be the Almighty?

©10/10/23

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Will Ricky Roma's "law of contrary public opinion” be the reason I embrace Indiana Jones' final big screen adventure?



Although I didn’t see “Glengarry Glen Ross” until it came out in 1992 nor had I ever heard of the rule called “the law of contrary public opinion” real estate salesman Ricky Roma, as played by Al Pacino, talks briefly about in the film, I have since applied that belief to almost every sequel/movie franchise I’ve warmly embraced the past 50 years.

The list of sequels I’ve seen dating back to 1973 had disenfranchised fans, Negative Nancys, "The Big Bang Theory crowd", "Nerdville" and every know-it-all wannabee movie critic reaching for the barf bags on their way out the theaters. Or thanks to social media today they held and continue to hold bitch sessions and pissing contests to gullably stupid users who’ve got nothing better to do with their pathetic lives but read and listen to other's one-sided commentaries (assuming they even call them that).

Every time I see that garbage on social media I refer back to a meme I saw years back that said “You remember me asking you for your opinion? Yeah, me neither.”
It’s one thing when the Negative Nancys offer criticism at how disappointed they were in the direction the filmmakers unexpectedly took their beloved movie franchises to. It’s another when all they want to do is bitch for the sake of bitching because like the liberal socialist democratic party we got running this country, they want to make everyone else miserable because they are so miserable themselves and misery loves company.
Hence the reason why I’m paying less than zero attention to all the negative reviews - to which there seems to be many - versus the positive ones (are there any?) of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (2023) - Harrison Ford’s fifth and final big screen adventure as the famous bullwhip wielding archeologist with the brown fedora hat.

When James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter asked Harrison Ford in February this year about the backlash “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008) received from critics and fans upon its release 15 years ago, the 80-year-old actor perhaps sarcastically asked Hibberd “Where are they now?”.

“No. I mean, (the critics) were hard on it, but what are they doing now,” Ford said. “I understand. But those were their rules – not (director Steven Spielberg’s and co-writer George Lucas’) rules. They were imposing their rules on what the movie (Crystal Skull) should be. I don’t feel it’s necessary to address those issues. I think that everyone has a right to their opinion. The film was not as successful as we wanted it to be, perhaps. But it didn’t create an attitude or a behavior that carried over into this film (Dial of Destiny).”



To be fair, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was not as good as Temple of Doom (1984), Last Crusade (1989) and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) – (I know it is now called “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” BUT it will always be “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to me). 

In my three out of four-star 2008 review (three stars meaning good – I DON’T DO GRADE REPORTS) - of the fourth installment which was actually meant to be Ford’s final appearance in the role (at the time of its release there continued to be talk of a fifth one in the works) I called Crystal Skull both nostalgic and formulaic.

In reference to the previous films from the ‘80s I wrote “Watching all three was like getting on a new roller coaster some amusement park just built for the current summer season. Instead of being a thrilling non-stop adventure ride though, Crystal Skull feels like we’ve just returned to those old amusement parks 19 years later, but there are no new rides worth jumping on. Everything done here was done better in the previous three. Alas, this roller coaster ride we get on for two hours inside the dark theater reveals nothing new. We just about know what’s going to be around that next corner.”

The irony is every time the Paramount+ network holds an Indiana jones marathon multiple times a month on any given weekend, I literally cringe as it’s not the first three I want to have on in the background while I'm doing something else. I've gotten to the point having seen the Indiana Jones trilogy so many times the past four decades that like the Star Wars movies which are also shown every few weeks on TNT, I feel I need a ten year long break from both franchises.

The sequels I want aired instead are the ones everyone liked the least. There apparently seems to be some unwritten rule the powers-that-be over at Paramount got in place that says ONLY show the sequels everyone loved like “The Godfather “(1972) and “The Godfather Part II” and the first three Indiana Jones films. “The Godfather Part III” (1990) and Crystal Skull are off limits. Those times when the network does air these much maligned “Black Sheeps” which is a rarity is when most everyone is asleep during the early morning hours.
There is no such thing as the perfect movie franchise. I’ve been saying that since 1999 when fans put director George Lucas on a high pedestal thinking “Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace” would be just as good, if not better than “Star Wars” (1977). Imagine their intense hatred when they were introduced to Jar Jar Binks and a child actor (Jake Lloyd) who couldn’t act. (Yes! I liked the prequel!)
“Damn you Lucas! You wrecked my childhood!” was no doubt the rallying cry of the Negative Nancys, Nerdville and The Big Bang Theory Crowd at the time and has been ever since.

Those of you who can’t get enough of the Fast and the Furious, Mission: Impossible and Transformers franchises and those “despicable” “theme park” Marvel movies Oscar winning directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese spoke of that Disney has no plans to stop churning out, the ball rolls both ways.

I can’t tell you how many sequels and non-sequels (“Everything Everywhere All At Once” (2022), “Elvis” - 2022) I’ve seen that got rave reviews from the know-it-all critics and audiences only to have me instead of wanting to yell “FIRE!” inside a crowded theater the moment the end credits rolled, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “DA FUCK WAS THIS SHIT?!?!?!” so everyone will hear!

Look no further than last summer’s “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022). I am not the only one who didn’t like the over-hyped “requel.” It took me 36 years to see the first one. The only reason I saw the Tom Cruise blockbuster was because I had 80 bucks in AMC gift cards to use which made sitting through the sequel all the less painful.
Just because the Negative Nancys didn’t like how Sofia Coppola’s acting or lack thereof wrecked “The Godfather Part III”, that seeing Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy sing “Row Row Row Your Boat” in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” (1989) was not Star Trek, that an Irish toymaker wanted to kill off the nation’s kiddies with cursed masks using witchcraft in “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” (1982) instead of serial killer Michael Myers slaughtering more teenagers and Indiana Jones taking refuge in a fridge from a nuclear blast doesn’t mean others didn’t.
Despite my loathing a few of them, I still watch such atrocities as “The Concorde: Airport ‘79”. “Cannonball Run II” (1984) “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” (1987) and “Independence Day: Resurgence” (2016) on occasion viewing them as “guilty pleasures” – bad sequels I love to hate. 

It’s all about being entertained you know!

The more negative press I hear that Dial of Destiny is getting the more I’m looking forward to seeing it on June 30 when the film opens nationwide. (John Williams' Raiders theme is playing in my head as I write this and I sadly don’t own the soundtrack which can now only be bought from secondhand sellers on eBay and Amazon).

I get the feeling I’m going to get the same kind of emotional nostalgia I got when I saw Crystal Skull fifteen years ago. Those feelings will be the same kind of memorable moments I had watching the less-than-stellar “Star Wars – Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) – in particular, when Ford’s Han Solo returned in a cameo as a ghost to have a very brief father/son chat with villain Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).



Should I wind up embracing “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” it will be because I happily followed Ricky Roma’s “law of contrary public opinion.”

“If everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way,” Roma said.

Something of which I’ve been doing since Clint Eastwood’s "Dirty Harry" Callahan took on rogue officers of the San Francisco Police Department fifty years ago in “Magnum Force”.

50 Years of Sequels I Warmly Embraced That No One Else Didn’t 

Magnum Force (1973)
Airport 1975 (1974)
Airport ’77 (1977)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Rocky III (1982)
Psycho II (1983)
Return of the Jedi (1983)
Sudden Impact (1983)
Superman III (1983)
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
Conan the Destroyer (1984)
The Jewel of the Nile (1985)
Rocky IV (1985)
The Color of Money (1986)
The Dead Pool (1988)
Rambo III (1988)
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Licence to Kill (1989)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
The Two Jakes (1990)
The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)
Batman Forever (1995)
Escape from L.A. (1996)
Batman & Robin (1997)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Barbershop 2: Back In Business (2004)
Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Twilight (2008)
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015)
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Now You See Me 2 (2016)
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Justice League (2017) Joss Whedon cut
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017)
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Rocky IV: Rocky Vs. Drago – The Ultimate Director’s Cut (2021)
Zach Snyder’s Justice League (2021)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)?

©6/14/23