Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20A | 20B | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25-26 | 27 | 28-29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35-36 | 37 | 38A | 38B | 38C | 38D | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42-43 | 44-45 | 46 | 47 | 48-49A | 49B | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57A | 57B | 58-59| 60 | 61 | 62 | 63
PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
64
IN THE FOLLOWING week, Trey was careful to tell Marina everything that had happened at the speak—sometimes in boring detail—and she appreciated that he was trying to earn her trust. Some of his stories made her laugh. Some made her cringe with vicarious embarrassment. She got to know his people and some of the regulars through his more detailed stories and descriptions. His regular girls were still on strike on Marina’s behalf, which she found oddly touching. He needed that revenue, but he hadn’t mentioned being indecent with Marina at all, much less pushed her for anything. All he had to do was ask her to be a good wife, tell his girls Marina had participated, and he’d have his earners back.
But he hadn’t.
What he did do now was slowly kiss her awake in the late mornings when it was time to get up, before they settled in to talking about books and trading notes. Then he’d kiss her again, long, slow kisses she was beginning to enjoy and wondering if those tingles in her between were where lust started.
She didn’t dare talk to Dot about those—or anything else having to do with Trey. Dot had been jealous of Trey before. Now she was almost unbearable about it, having found out Gio was in love with her, that Dot was also harmed because of the bet, and that her father wasn’t about to allow her to take up with him again.
Bishop had been furious they’d gone to the speak—Gio had gone to him the very next day and ratted them out—and Dot was grounded for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Marina or Gio: he knew Marina would try to talk Dot out of her foolishness and Gio wouldn’t put up with Dot’s willfulness. But no matter what, Marina would buckle under Dot’s nagging and Gio was still a Sicilian mafioso mired in the guts of the Machine.
So when Dot was allowed to compete at an open-call dance contest, Marina took the opportunity to beg Trey to go.
And bring Gio.
Trey no more wanted to cross Bishop Albright than Gio did, but he asked because Marina wanted him to and he gave Marina just about everything she wanted. Lo and behold, Bishop Albright agreed, although, Trey said with a dark look at Marina, not without much begging on his part and much growling on Bishop Albright’s part.
Gio was thrilled and terrified.
Dot wasn’t to know until he arrived, and then she wouldn’t be allowed to be with him out of earshot of her father.
“She screwed that pooch,” Trey muttered.
“She’s better off now than she was when she thought Gio didn’t like her anymore,” Marina countered.
“How’s that?” Trey demanded. “She isn’t going to get what she wants. Ever.”
“She knows he didn’t break up with her because he wanted to, and that he loves her.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts before she gets mad and does something willful and stupid, and gets you to think up a plan, because you can’t tell her no and make it stick.” Marina said nothing. “Yeah, see, you agree or you’d have argued about it.”
Marina sighed.
The contest itself was incredibly fun, all those couples in their pretty outfits twirling and sliding to happy music. It made Marina wish she could dance like that, but even if she had time to learn, she wouldn’t be able to: Trey wasn’t interested and he would never allow her to dance that way with someone else, not even a man like Dot’s dance partner.
Gio was simply ecstatic Dot had listened to and accepted his explanation of what he did at the speak and what he was doing with all those women. Marina had not told her what Gio’s job used to be.
Dot was still a little skittish around him, but with Bishop Albright chaperoning, it was enough for her.
For now, at least.
Dot and her partner came in fifth place, which, amongst a hundred four couples, was pretty good for amateurs.
Since Dot couldn’t go anywhere with Gio, the three of them said good night. Trey and Marina dropped Gio off at the speak and continued on to Kresge’s. It was there Marina decided to broach the topic of indecency herself.
“I have an idea,” she said when he seated her.
“Hold that thought, Sugar. I have to tend my business.”
Marina watched him go to the counter and place their order, then hurry to the back restrooms. She dug her book out of her bag and began to read.
Soon enough, the booth wiggled a little. She looked up from her book to start the conversation again, but gasped when she saw a completely different man who was looking at her as if she were … interesting. She gulped a little.
“Hullo, sweetheart,” he drawled, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“Uh … hello?” she asked in a small voice. Was she supposed to be polite or not? She didn’t know but she’d been taught that being polite at all times didn’t hurt anyone.
“What’s a nice girl like you doin’ here all alone on a Saturday night?”
“Um, I … ” Her brain wasn’t working because she was scared and she didn’t know why.
“Jimmy.”
Marina closed her eyes in relief at Trey’s voice and his tone.
“Dunham!” Jimmy said jovially, but with a touch of irritation. “Haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. Whatcha up to?”
“Been busy runnin’ my speak,” he said affably enough.
“Your speak?”
“1520 Main. I own it now.”
“No kiddin’,” he said in awe. “Proud of you, man.”
“Thanks.”
“I bet the girls are really crawling over you now.”
“They know better. Got married.”
Jimmy looked genuinely shocked. “Married! You?!”
“Yeup. Got a bun in the oven, too.”
Jimmy smirked then. “Aw, I see. Got buckshot in your ass, didja?”
“Nope.”
Jimmy craned his neck around the rest of the busy drugstore. “You leave the little missus at home? Naw, I know you better’n that. If you had a piece on the side, you wouldn’t’a brought her here. Where’s your woman? I wanna know what kinda looker you got to marry you.”
“You’re sittin’ with her,” Trey said flatly with narrowed eyes.
Marina knew that look.
Jimmy did too, apparently, because he glanced at Marina, then away again quickly, as if Trey would kill him if he looked too much longer. He slid out of the booth and vaguely nodded in Marina’s direction. “Ma’am,” he murmured before saying something respectful to Trey, then slunk away. Marina turned clear around to watch him shimmy through the fountain customers and skedaddle out the door.
“Be right back,” Trey muttered.
Lickety split he was back with her catawba flip and his lime rickey. “Marina,” he began. “I like you all gussied up, hair, makeup, but now we got another problem, which I didn’t think of, which is my usual mode of operation.”
“What?”
“I ain’t the only cat who thinks you’re interestin’ lookin’.”
Marina blinked. His speech was lazy, which meant he was upset. “I … ”
“You ain’t pretty.” That hurt oh, so much. “You’re never gonna be. You’re mighty attractive. You catch a man’s eye an’ keep it. On the upside of cute. Not handsome, the way it’s meant on some girls. You just got somethin’ about you. Sweet and bubbly—”
“I am not bubbly,” she muttered. “You’re seeing the shadows from Dot.”
“‘The shadows from Dot,’” he mused. “That was a right fine way o’ sayin’ that. Sometimes your words don’t come so you say a lot of ’em. Sometimes they come so sharp an’ fine, they’re genius.”
Marina gulped and wondered why it was so difficult for her to take compliments. Even with her sewing, she felt completely at ease hearing Mother complimented, but if anyone did it directly to her, she wanted to hide. So why was it important he tell her she was pretty? She’d be just as embarrassed as usual if he did.
“Bubbly’s not right, you got a point, but there’s somethin’ there. A man just knows you’d appreciate him and make him feel like a man. You an’ Gio don’t care for each other, but he still feels ’at. It’s just he likes Dot’s bubblin’ over ’cuz he ain’t like that an’ he never met a girl like that who wanted to bubble all over him, make him feel special, see? You’re both smart as whips, just in different ways, an’ those ways suit us. I told you that before.”
She nodded, more at ease now that he admitted bubbly wasn’t the right word, and what he had said was exactly what she needed to hear.
“An’ know what else? Now, you’re gonna be all embarrassed again an’ this is a public place, but I’mma tell you anyway. I’ve seen you naked, Sugga, an’ you got a body a man’d sell his soul to touch.”
She gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth. “Trey!” she choked.
“Now, I ain’t kiddin’ an’ that ain’t me the good friend sayin’ it. It’s me the man your husband sayin’ it.”
“I’m fat!” she hissed.
“You’re pregnant. You weren’t when I got you that way.”
“I meant then! And then after the baby comes!”
“You would be if you let yourself go,” he agreed, “but you keep on workin’ hard as you do an’ walkin’ or whatnot, an’ it’ll stay the way I like it. Nice tits, ass, and fat in all the right places, what where a man can hold on.”
She whimpered.
“I ain’t done. You seen my granddaddy. That’ll be me in forty years, so you an’ me can be fat’n’happy together.”
Marina gulped, the vision of them together in forty years, old, fat, and gray, comforted her so much it was proof she was tetched in the head. “Your grandmother’s tall and slender. And silver. She’s pretty.”
“Handsome,” he corrected. “But she’s kinda like Dot. You and she’d get along like gangbusters. She wrote and asked me when she can come visit, but I ain’t had a chance to get back with her. I said I’d talk to you an’ see. No need droppin’ visitors on your head.”
At that moment, their food came, and as they were both hungry, they dug in with gusto.
“So what’s your idea?”
“What if … That drug, is there—”
His jaw dropped.
“No, Trey, listen. I’d be willing to … If it could help—”
“No,” he snapped. “I want you conscious and natural.”
“When?” she asked, irritated.
“I don’t know! Marina—”
“If you will please allow me to explain,” she said with quiet dignity.
He waved a hand.
“I understand that you’re losing money because your girls won’t come back until you and I have been indecent to my satisfaction.”
His mouth tightened.
“I also realize you could lie to them and say we had so they would come back and do their jobs again, but either you have and they don’t believe you or you haven’t.”
“They ain’t gonna buy anything I say,” he sneered. “They’re too savvy for that. The second I say it, they’ll be over’t the house wantin’ all the details to verify it.”
Marina’s breath caught. “Uh … ”
“Yeah, so there’s your fair warning.”
“I could—” She cleared her throat. “How would they know I’m not lying?”
“You’re probably a good liar, but you ain’t that good. Too many things you can’t know and questions you can’t answer.”
Marina sighed and closed her eyes. “All right then. That’s just another reason for you to, uh … the, uh, sweet tea.”
“Marina, I don’t like you when you’re high,” he gritted out. “How many times I gotta tell you this?”
“Yes, but my idea is different!” she whispered, leaning over the table toward him. “You said I was given too much, didn’t you?”
“You had to have been,” he grumbled.
“Then … don’t … give me much. I would think, if I only had a little bit, I also wouldn’t be as, um—” She felt her face flame.
“Insatiable.”
She gulped. At least Trey wasn’t laughing at her. He never did. “Yes, of course.”
“Liquor will do that.”
“I thought of that, but liquor’s yucky and I would upchuck.”
Trey was wearily shaking his head. “Marina, that is the second-worst idea anybody has ever had.”
“No, Trey, please. Ever since you said you had to figure it out and I just needed to play along when you did, I’ve been dreading it. I want to get it over with.”
“Dreading,” he said flatly. “Havin’ sex with me. Get it over with? That’s worse than being a chore!”
She shrugged helplessly. “What do you expect?” she said softly. “Who likes waiting to take a test she can’t study for but isn’t allowed to fail?” He was so angry, his face was flushed, but this was too important to her. “If you want me to respond correctly, this is the only way I can see.”
His jaw ground. “Is that an ultimatum? A threat?”
Now her irritation was turning into anger. “No. It’s a statement of fact. This is who I am. It’s who you liked when we were courting, and the reason you’re angry with me now is because you want two opposite things. I can go the rest of my life without being indecent. You are the one who can’t make up your mind because you don’t like whoever I was when you got me in the family way. My body knew what to do even though my mind was gone, so I have to assume that with less of the drug, my body will respond the right way without my mind leaving completely or getting in the way. Correct?”
“I can allow as how that might be true,” he muttered.
“You also promised me you wouldn’t be indecent with anybody else, but I have been told over and over again that men have needs. You say you don’t think with … that part. Of you. But if you didn’t have those needs, you wouldn’t look at me like you do when you want to—”
He opened his mouth, but she was not going to allow him to interrupt.
“This is my offer to help you get your girls back. I am not going to be able to do it myself. So … Oh, I know! Think of this as a competition between you and Dot, and I’m giving you a way you might be able to win because I can’t win. You two are tugging on me, but since I live with you, I feel it more from you. But then what? The morning after, will you have won against Dot or am I going to be a loose woman you don’t want to look at?”
Trey winced.
“Or something else entirely different? I honestly don’t understand how you can be on the same list as Dot anyway, since she’s a girl and you’re a man.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
“I can’t talk about books with her because she doesn’t like to read,” she whispered earnestly, leaning across the table, “but I can’t gossip with you because you don’t know who we know and you don’t care about what we care about. Why can’t there be two lists?”
He leaned across the table. “Because other than books, there is nothing else I can give you that she can’t. Except this.”
“Give me?” she asked, incredulous. “What can you give me that would fix this? You took my virginity, you took my womb, and now you want to take my virtue?”
His face paled. “I— I— Please explain that,” he croaked.
“How you see me: virtuous or not. You’ve been in a dither because you want something from me but you don’t know what it is. Want. Everything we are is because you wanted something from me and you took it. You see me as virtuous because I didn’t know and I was completely out of character. The second I am willingly indecent with you as myself, you will not think of me as virtuous, therefore I would not be. And now you speak of giving. You know what you gave me? You gave me a baby I didn’t want!”
“I gave you a house and a car and a freezer,” he whispered angrily.
She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, staring at him stonily. “You didn’t give me that. You gave you that. The right tools so I could do the job right. Everything you give me is to make up for what you took and it’s never going to be enough as long as you’re holding my virtue over my head.”
“Oh, my God,” he groaned, looking thunderstruck. He dropped his head back against the booth and closed his eyes. “I hate it when you turn lawyer.”
Marina blinked, startled right out of her anger, but not her point. “Trey, please. Please don’t make me live the rest of my life this way, living with your resentment whether I do it or not. If that’s the way it’s going to be then you can’t be my best friend, either. And if it’s going to be like that, then … I don’t know what then. I have to stay with you because my baby needs a father and I don’t see that you would be a bad one and you will provide for us, but … Father and Mother had separate rooms—”
“No!” he barked, his vehemence surprising her. “Rule number two: You sleep with me.”
“But why?!”
“A chance,” he snapped. “A chance for me to … When I’m ready.”
“And yet when we discuss it, that’s all you do and you get angry and I live in dread of failing your test no matter what happens. I worked out a compromise and you’ll get your girls back. It’s up to you to take it. Meanwhile, I will not talk about this any further and if you’re ever ready to take what you need, don’t blame me for not knowing how to participate correctly.” With that, she picked up her book, found her place, and, feeling very proud of herself, began to read.
64
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Donations can be made here, if you so desire.
Sorry, Moj. I’m here to spread the word of The American Society of Magical Negroes.
Address your white fragility.
And make it a double showing with Civil War!
Hollywood is delivering just what the doctor ordered coming out of a disastrous strike.
Feb and March are the dumping grounds for failed movies.
Is that REAL?!
IMDB says yes
Wasn’t Barak referred to as the Magical Negro? Who plays Barak?
Barak the magic negro, lives by the shore…
In his fantastically expensive home despite global warming.
I look forward to not seeing it.
Where do we set the over/under for the Rotten Tomatoes score at? 20%?
Real time film notes….
I watched Barbie tonight while the wife took a bunch of kids to look at lights. The wife took the girls this summer and, going with low expectations, liked it. The kids… didn’t.
What follows is my real time text messages to her while watching.
It is really hard to figure out.
Margot Robbie is amazing.
Visuals are awesome.
Writing is covered in horrific nonsense. But I can’t tell how much is on purpose and how much is accidental.
I suspect they are intending the woke stuff to be right and all the stuff where it is actually horrible is an accident of bad writing. But it is so hard to tell.
The natural story is actually that “patriarchy is the natural order and everyone is happier that way.”, which is super weird.
Best line:
“I’m not pretty any more”
“Note to the filmmaker… Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point”.
As a morality play, this may be the worst thing I have ever seen.
Maybe rivaling School Daze or… well, anything by Spike Lee.
And it is as overt about being a morality play as anything I have ever seen.
Terrible in every way that Shallow Hal was terrible too…. claiming to be an advocate against something while being a horrible example of exactly that thing. Even their “body positivity” message with all the fat and ugly Barbies didn’t carry over to Ken… all fitness models.
Just horrible right to the core… revealing of severe moral and mental flaws in the filmmakers. No pretty veneer can hide the ugly soul at the core.
Exactly like Spike Lee movies. Well made racist dreck.
They tried to patch it with Rea Pearlman. Yeah… a bandaid ain’t fixing this.
Barbie’s arc makes zero sense. After all that, being human means being a mom and having a family. … and the one who wants to just be happy and nothing changes…. goes to the gynecologist.
Soo. So so so so unbelievably stupid, tacked on to a horrific offensive mess.
I hated this
I hated “Going Home”
I hated “School Daze”
I hated “Shallow Hal”.
And I hate this.
The one thing I saw Margot Robbie in was so stupid, something with Christian Bale and some other dude and Robert DeNiro and Chris Rock, I think? Anyway, totally forgettable and, frankly, I don’t see why anyone finds her attractive. Just bland looking, with a kind of vacant expression.
Have you seen “I, Tonya”?
Saw the first 15-20 minutes. Wasn’t what I wanted to watch at the time, so found something else.
But, everything people are listing here, Wolf of Wall st., Once upon…, etc., none of that has impressed me with her, and she just doesn’t do it for me.
She comes across as a vapid cow that wont give milk.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fin-the-wolf-of-wall-street-2013-margot-robbie-being-naked-v0-oay8xi5qmmaa1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dde1650b8bc746e85e41d94ba825bdd42377b7473&rdt=34030
Well, that’s… that’s better than I remembered. lol
hubba freaking hubba
Hey Q. Pay attention.
Yes. Frail and pale. People are seeing the beauty of youth… and Hollywood lighting/editing.
She was one of the few good things in Suicide Squad. The spin off movie Birds of Prey was atrocious but The Suicide Squad was excellent and she was very good in this movie too.
I have not seen any of her other movies.
I say if you can be great in a terrible movie, you are a great actor. She was terrific as Harley Quinn in two just horrible movies.
Not an actress that would normally be “good”… too pretty to be “relatable”.
But.. she has a Will Farrell-esque ability to go all-in on a character or scene. Being unafraid to look bad is unusual for a beauty queen type.
Kinda reminds me of Jaimie Pressley in that aspect.
Interesting comparison. I like Margot Robbie and agree she was great in Suicide Squad. I can’t think of anything I’ve seen Jamie Presley except an episode of Entourage.
Jamie Pressley was in My Name is Earl. An under rated show.
She was hilarious playing that character drunk. Funniest actress playing drunk I’ve ever seen. And yes, that was a good show.
She really goes all in. Kind of a Lucille Ball type.
https://youtu.be/RHzk7_R9ChI?si=hwOZ0Z4Oj58yY1-3
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was very good but I think that’s the only thing I’ve seen her in. As for not finding her attractive, you might want to go to the optometrist before the glaucoma or whatever you’ve got becomes unfixable.
I laughed deeply at this
Sometimes, people just catch my eye and I want to stare at them because they are lovely to look at. They don’t have to actually be attractive (e.g., Tommy Lee Jones). They’re like art. They just have to have…something. I don’t know what.
Margot Robbie is one of those people.
I think she comes across as a very attractive, but very real person. The smile (which is slightly too wide) can give her a fairly goofy appearance in some photos. But goofy in a fun way.
She really does look like this in the movies.
e.g. most of Q’s cuties.
My phone cut off Jones before I scrolled down. I was shocked by what I thought you were saying.
Goofy! That’s it!
Well, I have worn bifocals since I was 19, so maybe blind, but, nah, she don’t do it for me.
Certainly no Aubrey Plaza, or Anna Chlumsky.
I’ve seen her up close and personal. Maybe not that personal, but still, yowza.
“Going Home” the Robert Mitchum movie? Haven’t seen that one yet, and I think I forgot to record it the last time it was on TCM.
Or did you mean “Coming Home” the Vietnam War movie, or something else?
Home Again, with Reese Witherspoon.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5719700/
Hazard of real time notes. Forgot the title.
That is my all time most hated film. An affront to all that is good about the human condition. Plus, I love Reese Witherspoon and this was a pet project of hers. Don’t go disillusioning your fans.
I take it you haven’t seen Dondi then.
Please tell me it isn’t worse.
I haven’t seen “Home Again”, but “Dondi” is truly horrible.
Brought forth from the past, my screed of a review
This movie is directly aimed at mid-life crisis moms. As such, I’m not in the target demographic. So with that much acknowledged…. this movie is a profoundly offensive mess. And the mess is entirely because of the offensive story.
The story is a sort of mom-porn for bored housewives who wish for something better. Reese Witherspoon is the mother of two who starts the movie sticking a toe into single life. From there a lot of things could have happened. But none of the good ones did.
She is beautiful, rich and has never really needed to work. She has recently moved from New York to California with her kids, leaving her husband behind with his demanding job in the music industry (where he presumably makes a large income). They are separated, and have not decided about the ultimate fate of their relationship.
And with this setup, the movie is already lost. We are supposed to identify with Reese Witherpoon’s character. And with one of the most likeable actresses of all time, it is hard not to. But she moved her kids away from their father – like 3,000 miles away! She later tells us it is because she used to enjoy going out and partying with her husband (which is a part of his work), but now they are older and she’s annoyed that he still has late nights wining and dining prospective clients. So her solution was to pick up and move the kids as far away as she possibly can. I’m already not really rooting for the kind of person who would do that to her children and her husband.
So she’s living with her kids and trying to start her interior decorating business. Her friends tell her that she needs to get out… but she resists. For about 3 minutes of screen time. Then she goes out and gets drunk and picks up a twenty-something hottie and takes him home to have sex. Remember, she’s a married woman at this point. And we are supposed to be rooting for her to hook up with the adoring younger guy. And to really underscore the play to depressed housewives, she keeps repeating that she’s 40 years old! And he’s soooo young! So the target demographic can fantasize about being 40 years old but still smoking-hot, super wealthy, living in a huge Hollywood mansion and hooking up with a 20 something hottie who is smitten to the point of obsession.
Meanwhile, the husband is making mewling phone calls from across the continent, telling her how much he misses her. He fills the “my husband would be so crushed if I left him” role in the housewife fantasy. You see, he didn’t know how good he had it until she was gone.
So her hottie and his 2 friends end up moving in to the guest house of her mansion. One is really smart and sensitive – so he fulfills the dad role, caring for the kids and encouraging the daughter to go for her dreams! The other is sometimes protector, sometimes housekeeper who is always obsessed with Reese. All three guys combine to be her ideal husband. She gets lots of sex with her attractive guy, intellectual fulfillment and parenting with the writer, and a domestic partner and protector. Win, win, win.
And then the husband shows up to repair things with his family. Apparently he just blew off his biggest client to travel across the country to see his wife. But he still is a bit of a pathetic schlub as he expresses remorse and a desire to be a better husband. Then we get a contrived scene where the protector twenty-something hauls off and punches the husband unprovoked. They then get in a fight that is comical and sad, which serves to tell us that the husband is aging and kind of pathetic and definitely not worthy of Reese Witherspoon!
And just when you think Witherspoon’s character is going to show some growth…. she kicks the 3 young guys out and says she’s going to work on her family…. then kicks her husband to the curb with a flat “I want a divorce”… But this is mom-porn. So even in this stupid contrived universe, she doesn’t show any growth. So she goes and gets the boys back and we finish the movie with a family dinner with the completely useless (but hot) Reese Witherspoon character surrounded by 4 men who are slavishly devoted to fulfilling her desires. She’s happy and all of her needs are fulfilled. They even paper over the damage done to the kids with a cutsie scene where they tell her they are happy without dad and with the young guys around. (never mind that all 4 of the men who are in her thrall are in an extremely unhealthy situation that obviously cannot continue.)
It would be bad but forgivable as a fantasy shared among friends over a glass of wine. But as a movie this drek is unforgivable. If you value family and marriage, there is really no way to enjoy this movie. For those of us who do, it is profoundly offensive. The only people I could recommend it to would be aging moms in bad marriages who are looking to bolster their courage for filing for divorce. Other than that, stay away.
As a native Californian, I find no trope in any movie more offensive than moving to California to find myself. Drop that into an otherwise great movie and like that comment about a tablespoon of shit into a barrel of wine – the whole thing is shit.
The Drinker was brutal about this movie.
It just started showing on Max. So, I thought I might check it out.
Thanks for saving me the pain.
If you are a mom who is annoyed with all the trappings of being a mom today and you are susceptible to the “you are a victim” narrative and you liked Barbie and you enjoyed being the hot 19 year old who got the attention… this might be for you as long as you keep everything at the surface level.
I can safely say not to all of those things
I’ve seen some people who enjoyed it in an ironic way because the writing is so poor that it almost becomes based. The uprising of the Ken’s and the implementation of patriarchy, from what I understand, is basically an improvement on Barbie world.
That is what confused me.
I think the writers are just so dumb that they accidentally made an anti-woke sub-movie. But I don’t know for sure. I was legit confused.
Similar to “Shallow Hal”, a movie overtly about not judging by appearances that only judges by superficial appearance in its writing and production. In that case it was clear that it was not a meta-commentary and they really just were too dumb to do any better.
I deal with dumb people all day long (not empoyees) It’s actually amazing they find their way to work each day.
Trey must feel like one of those lily-pads that Marina just went jumping over.
😘
I still marvel at this 16 year old girl, sometimes she’s 16 (drugstore for food), other times she’s like a mother-in-law. Trey is supposed to be the grown up but he acts like a little kid at times. Tough to believe he can handle running the speak, doesn’t seem to be a good con man or pimp.
/Now to wait another week
Thanks, Moj
Trey has a niche, which is bootlegging and the speak. He’s not quite comfortable outside his niche.
If MikeS drops by somebody let him know it’s all AC/DC on Eddie Trunk’s show tonight.
I am told that he has accepted his place as a seconder and bowed out. He will never again question my greatness. I told him he could still second with the rest of you, but his shame was too great. He now wanders the Earth. A lost soul if I have ever seen one.
Sorry. I’ve been REALLY busy banging Bro’s mom.
Thanks for the heads-up on the World’s Greatest Rock Band being on Trunk.
I believe the exact words you used were unparalleled Firstness. Unmatchable and that you had brought such tremendous shame to you and your family.
asphinctersayswhat?
Un-par-a-lelled.
I’m happy to help a genuine firster.
Libertarian Moment or Symbolic Re-enactment?
Definitely the latter.
Hasn’t been that long since putting your feet on a hallowed congressional desk was tantamount to treason and warranted a year in solitary without charge…..
I’m sure this will be hailed as stunning and brave.
I like beer because beer is good.
Beer Sucks
Good morning all!
Today, some more CSNY, with at least one being (arguably) holiday appropriate)
Teach Your Children.
Everybody I Love You.
Share and enjoy!
Good morning, Beau!
You SugarFreed the second link, but I’ll see if I can find it! 😉
That would be this one. I’m surprised I don’t remember it – this album was on constant rotation in my high school freshman Art class (obviously from the teacher’s collection.) That album and the Peter, Paul & Mary album that included “I’m in Love With a Big Blue Frog.”
Mornin Glibs and Feds!
☕😁
New Sum 41? I’m a bit surprised.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-tc4i31eWB0
🎶🎶
Good morning, Sean!
*waves*