Kwickie Kritical Kommentaries

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

I have yet to read a book by Erik Larson that, if it wasn't GREAT, it was at least VERY, VERY GOOD.  His newest one, "The Demon of Unrest" is proving to be in that same category.  It covers events leading up to the attack of Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor that was the beginning of the American Civil War.   In his introduction to the book, Larson tells us that he was well into the research of this book when the events of January 6, 2021 unfolded, and that he couldn't help but see the parallels  to what took place in 1860.   I am only 100 pages into the book, and I can say that he is exactly correct.  The unrest stirred up in the American South prior to the Civil War is exactly what we are seeing being fomented in America today by the Convicted Felon-in-Chief and his minions, and it scares the shit out of me.

I always wait until I finish a book or movie before giving it a rating, but this one is well on it's way to Four Grandstander Stars.

This movie was released in mid-May and within two weeks was available on streaming, so it seems to have bombed at the box office.  It was still playing in our local multiplex, so we took it on last weekend, and enjoyed it a lot.

Ryan Gosling plays a professional movie stuntman, and Emily Blunt plays his ex-lover who is an aspiring movie director,  there is a plot to this one that I won't go into, since these are all "Kwickie Kommentaries" today, but it's a fun movie to see.  Gosling is charming as the put upon lead, and has Blunt ever been bad in anything?

Three Stars from The Grandstander, and be sure and stay for all of the closing credits.

I sought out this 1946 British mystery movie based upon a write-up on a classic movie Facebook Group to which I belong called My Reel Life.  It was said to be the type of movie that Hitchcock would have made back in Britain at the time.  It takes place in a London hospital that was set up to care for those injured and wounded during the Blitz of Great Britain by German V-1 rockets (called "doodlebugs" by the Brits; I had to google it when I heard it in the film) during WW II.  A death takes place.  Was it a murder?  Then another death takes place that most certainly was a murder.  There are five possible suspects, and a Scotland Yard detective played by Alistair Sim has to  unravel the whole bloody mess.  Sim, who is best known as being the best ever film version of Ebenezer Scrooge, can be classified as a distant antecedent to America's Lt. Columbo, in his portrayal of the detective in this one.

I found this one on Amazon Prime, and give it Two Grandstander Stars.

Now let's talk about Uniforms, and I'll be brief.

MLB's City Connect Uniforms are an abomination.  I have yet to see one that I like.   At PNC Park on Wednesday night, I saw a guy coming out of the Pirates Clubhouse Store putting on his newly purchased Pirates City Connect uni with the Number 21 and the name CLEMENTE on it. It made me want to gag.

YUCK!!!!