"Cleopatra" (1963)

One afternoon this past week I spent over four and one-half hours watching this epic - and trust me, "epic" is the only word that can reused to discuss this one - 1963 movie that was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton.  What prompted me to seek out and watch this sixty-three year old movie, you may ask?  Well, earlier in this year, I listed to the most recent season of TCM's The Plot Thickens podcast entitled simply "Cleopatra".

This is a terrific series of podcasts hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, and if you love movies, I highly recommend that you seek it out and listen to all six seasons.  The six episodes centered around the making of this movie, and the effect that it had on Joe Mankiewicz, a noted screenwriter and director who had garnered four Oscars in his career, including writing and directing Oscars for 1950's "All About Eve", one of the all time great movies ever.  Ben Mankiewicz is Joe's great uncle, which gave this podcast a little more personal touch.

The idea for this movie first came to 20th Century Fox producer Walter Wanger sometime in late 1959/early 1960. From the very beginning, the movie was beset with budgetary and artistic problems.  No one was able to come up with a coherent  script and the original director, Reuben Mamoulian, resigned from the project.  Elizabeth Taylor was 29 years old at the time and already a huge star.  She didn't really want to do it.  She told Wanger that she would do it if they paid her $1 million in salary and ten percent of the gross..  She figured that there is no way the studio would agree to her demands and that would put an end to it.  However, Fox said "yes", and Taylor became the first actor ever to sign for a million dollars for one picture.

Joe Mankiewicz was brought in to both save the script and direct the movie.  He didn't really want to do it.  Epic pictures weren't his thing.  He was reported to have said "I wouldn't go to see "Cleopatra" so why would I want to direct it?"  If that quote is accurate, you can see why he won two Oscars as a screenwriter.  So why did he end up doing it?  As you might suspect, the answer was money.  In addition to a large salary, Fox agreed to buy Mankiewicz' production company for $3 million, a sale that netted Joe $1.5 million.  Doing "Cleopatra" was, he said, "an act of whoredom".  Another great line.

As they say in Hollywood, complications ensued.  Taylor developed some serious illnesses that delayed the start of filming.  Costs were skyrocketing. Locations for filming changed from Hollywood to Egypt to London before finally settling on Italy.  Each location change required rebuilding of the elaborate sets, the likes of which had never been seen before.  Tens of thousands of  dollars were spent on wigs for actors, many of which were never seen because of the helmets that the actors wore. One line item in the budget was "$100,000 for paper cups".  Paper Cups!!  "Cleopatra" would go on to be the most expensive movie ever made up to that time.  It cost $44 million to make.  Its eventual gross receipts, according to IMDB, were $57.8 million.  It virtually bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

But the biggest brouhaha of all was the love affair that began between Taylor and Richard Burton, each of whom were married to other people at the time.  People may shrug at such goings on in 2026, but in the world of 1960-63, this was a scandalous act and a HUGE news item.  Even an eleven year old Grandstander was aware that events surrounding the making of this movie was a really big deal, even if he did not fully understand the making of movies and the marital status of Hollywood big shots.

Anyway, listening to the podcast made me want to see this movie that I had never before seen, which, as I said at the beginning, I finally did the past week.  

So how was it?

Well, it was way too long.  Mankiewicz shot a movie that was over six hours long.  He actually had the idea that the Fox should actually package "Cleopatra" as two separate movies, "Cleopatra and Caesar" and "Cleopatra and Antony", and release them separately a year apart.  This was revolutionary at the time, and Fox said no, it had to be one picture.  This necessitated drastic editing on Mankiewicz' part and the result was a somewhat disjointed and choppy picture, that still had a running time in excess of five hours.

For all of that, though, I actually liked the movie.  It was campy and fun. (Unlike the current "The Odyssey" another sword-and-sandal epic that I found to be dark and grim.)  The costumes and the sets were magnificent and beautiful to look at.  I thought that while Taylor was terrific and, although much of her performance consisted of chewing major portions of scenery, there were several moments of a very nuanced performance on her part.   Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.  He was the only actor from the movie to receive a nomination. (Sidney Poitier won that year for "Lillies of The Field".)  Richard Burton was good as Antony.  Has any actor ever had as distinguished a voice as Richard Burton?  One actor at the time who received positive critics' reviews for his performance was Roddy McDowell, of all people. Roddy McDowell!!! Go figure.  Also interesting cast members to note were Martin Landau in his pre-Mission Impossible days. He had a rather large role as one of both Caesar's and Antony's military advisors. Oh, and nine years before he became television's Archie Bunker, Carroll O'Connor was one of the Roman senators who participated in the assassination of Julius Caesar.   Purportedly, he had called Caesar a "meathead" but that line was cut from the final version of the film.

The costumes and the make-up were fantastic.  I loved Taylor's eye make-up:

Liz supposedly did her own eyes for the movie and it took two hours to apply every time.

And then there were the gowns, and it seemed that Taylor had a different one in every scene.  This was one of the more spectacular ones.

In one contemporary review of the movie that I read, the critic was positively shocked at Liz's display of cleavage throughout the film and was appalled that in one scene Taylor was "obviously naked".  Get ready to be shocked and appalled, folks, because I am going to show you that scene right now:

Oh, the humanity, am I right?

I said that this movie was "epic".  There were at least four separate scenes that were simply amazing in scope but easily the most spectacular of all was the nine minute sequence showing Queen Cleopatra's entrance into Rome.  It was a spectacular parade featuring dancers, horseback riders, chariots, arrows shot into the air, and a release of thousands of doves over Rome, and it culminated in Liz/Cleo arriving atop a 36 foot replica of a Sphinx being pulled by hundreds, if not thousands of slaves while wearing a spectacular dress and crown of gold.

I have included the entire nine minute clip of that scene HERE, and trust me it is worth watching.  It is especially enjoyable when you listened to that portion of the Plot Thickens podcast that describes all that went into the filming of the scene.

As I mentioned, I did check the interweb to look up some reviews of "Cleopatra".  Reviews in both the New York Times and Variety at the time of its release were positive.  I was unable to find a review by critic Judith Christ of the New York Herald-Tribune that reportedly savaged the move and has become famous for Christ calling  Taylor a "fishwife" in her critique of her performance.  Retrospective reviews written upon the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the movie are less kind.  

As for me, despite its length and unevenness, I rather enjoyed it and assign it Three Grandstander Stars, if for no other reason than the sheer value of this movie in Hollywood history.  I am glad that I watched it on DVD where I could pause it from time to time as needed rather than sitting through it for five hours in a theater, even if there was an intermission in the film.

"Cleopatra" received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Rex Harrison. It won four Oscars: Cinematography, Art-Set Decoration. Costume Design, and Special Effects.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor ended up divorcing their spouses and were married and divorced from each other twice in the years ahead.

"Cleopatra" pushed Joe Mankiewicz to his breaking point.  He never talked about in interviews over the years, and according to his children, it is the one movie that was never discussed in the Mankiewicz household.  In 1949, he won Screenwriter and Director Oscars for "A Letter To Three Wives" and in 1950, he did the same thing with "All About Eve", a back-to-back achievement that had never been done before nor since, and probably will never be done again.  He was nominated for nine director and/or screenplay Oscars in his career.  He directed only four more films after "Cleopatra", the last of which "Sleuth" in 1973 earned him a Best Director Oscar nomination.  He died in 1993 at the age of 83.

Richard Burton accrued seven Oscar nominations from 1952 to 1977.  He never won one.  He has 314 acting credits listed in IMDB.  He died in 1984 at the age of 58.

Elizabeth Taylor earned five Oscar Nominations and two Oscar wins from 1957-67.  She has an incredible 562 credits in IMBD and spent much of the her life devoted to various humanitarian efforts.  She died at age 79 in 2011.

Taylor and Burton starred together in 1967 in Mike Nichols' "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".  Each earned Best acting Oscar nominations for that one, with Taylor winning her second Oscar for this performance.

Oh, and I am halfway through listening to The Plot Thickens - Cleopatra podcast once again.

To Absent Friends - Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon

Freddy Cannon

1936-2026

One of American Rock 'n Roll's big stars of the "pre-Beatles" era left us this week when Freddy Cannon does at the age of 89.

Born Frederick Picariello in Massachusetts , Cannon came on the scene with two big hits in 1959 - "Tallahassee Lassie" which he wrote, and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", but his biggest hit came in 1962 with "Palisades Park" which peaked at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.  Among people who have cited Cannon as influential to them are Mick Jagger and Robert Plant, and author Stephen King mentioned Cannon's music in four of his novels.  "Tallahassee Lassie" has been covered by both the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, and  the  Beach Boys, among others, have covered "Palisades Park".  It is also said that Cannon holds the record for most appearances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand with 110.

Ands let's face it, is there a better nickname in all of rock 'n roll than Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon?  I think not.

Cannon continued to write, produce, and perform into the 2010's.  You can see him perform his biggest hit "Palidsades Park" on this 1:58 clip.  Thank you, YouTube!

RIP Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon.
 

Quick Hit Critiques

Some (hopefully) brief and (hopefully) informative Critical Commentary  to aid you in your viewing and reading pleasure.  I present them to you in alphabetical order.

This new novel opens as follows:

"Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives."

Ilona Bannster then describes five random people on the platform and tells us that it is one of these five who will die: a mother and her unruly child, and old lady, a young man with a gambling problem, and a gruff and quasi-obnoxious businessman.  Between amazingly suspenseful real time descriptions of the events taking place on that train station platform over the course of the next five minutes, Bannister gives us the back story for each of them.   She lets you, the reader, whom she addresses in the second person, decide who you think will be the one to die, how that person will die, and whether or not that person deserves such a fate, or shall it befall one off the others.

It is a most interesting and somewhat unique way to tell a story. I found it to be a really good read and give it Three Grandstander Stars.

"Five Star Weeknd" is an eight part mini-series streaming on Peacock based on a best selling novel by Elin Hilderbrand.  It stars Jennifer Garner as a social media influencer specializing in food, cooking and baking, and the fancy presentations thereof.  In the opening of the first show, we see police arriving at her door to inform her that there has been a terrible accident and that her husband did not survive.  We then flash forward six months, and Garner, still struggling with the grief of this devastating loss, is planning a weekend retreat at her lavish - and  do mean lavish - Nantuckett beach house.  The guests for the weekend will be four women from various stages of her life: her oldest friend who is like a sister to her, a college friend, a woman from the "Moms' group" (yeah Garner has a college age daughter that spices up the mix a bit further), and a woman whom she has never me but with whom she became friends after the she reached out to Garner after her husband's death via Garner's enormous social network of followers.  Each of these four ladies are determined to help Jennifer G. get through her grief spiral, but each of them are also carrying some  burdens of their own as they arrive for the meticulously planned weekend.

Yeah, it's a real soap opera, but  Garner's castmates Chloe Sevigny, D'Arcy Cargen, Regina Hall, and Gemma Chan assure that this is a high quality soap opera.  Each of the eight episodes are about 45 minutes in length so it requires a time commitment, but Linda and I binged it in three sittings.

On a serious note, the story also makes some telling points about how people deal with grief and the interactions of families (Garner and her daughter in this case) as they struggle to come to grips with this unbearable change in their lives.  If you know me, you know why this aspect was of special interest to me.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

When a young woman's mother dies, her two older brothers receive the bulk of her estate (she was fairly wealthy self-made entrepreneur), and she is left with series of DVD's that her mother recorded before she died and a "life list" of things to do that the young woman made when she was only twelve or thirteen.  The DVD's instruct young Alex that she needs to complete this life list within twelve months, and only them will she receive her as-yet-to-be-disclosed inheritance.

Some of the things on the list are silly:  do stand-up comedy, get a tattoo, play one-on-one with a New York Knick.  Some are quite serious: become a good teacher, make peace with your father, find true love.  

Sofia Carson, an actress with whom I was not familiar, was thoroughly charming in the role of Alex, as was Kyle Allen, another unfamiliar, to me anyway, actor as the young lawyer who serves as executor to Mom's will.  The mother was played by Connie Britton, the only actor in the movie that I knew.

The movie was somewhat predictable.  I mean, you knew within the first twenty minutes how the "true love" part was going to resolve itself, but there were enough meaningful parts of the movies that made it well worthwhile, especially the performance of Miss Carson.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Christopher Nolen's, arguably one of today's most important and influential film directors, "The Odyssey" will no doubt be the biggest movie of the summer of 2026.

It is big.  It is sweeping. It is no doubt a piece of brilliant movie making, and it is based on a classic tale that is over 3,000 years old.

It will also no doubt receive critical acclaim and will probably garner a passel of Oscar nominations.

I give you all of that, and will concede that it is a great piece of film-making.

But it's not a movie for me.  Just couldn't get into the story, and man oh man, is it violent.  Lots of people die in lots of very gruesome ways in this one.

I did like how the story of the Trojan Horse was depicted, though.

It is also 2 hours and 52 minutes long.  In fact, this was me saying good-bye to Linda as I left for then theater last Friday morning:

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

I have been aware for some time that the producers of "The Big Bang Theory" were planning a spin off of that show that would feature the character of Stuart Bloom, the owner of the comic book store, played by Kevin Sussman, as well as the characters of Stuart's girlfriend Denise, Bert the geologist, and physicist Barry Kripke.

Before I go on, allow me to make some observations about the original show.  I come by these because we spend just about every weeknight watching at least one rerun of The Big Bang Theory. (1) While Sheldon Cooper and his eccentricities were the coming hub around which the show revolved, he was also a real jerk.  Even his fellow nerd scientists would never have put-up with his bullshit in real life and they probably would have punched him out early on. (2) Penny and Stuart, and maybe Bernadette, had the funniest lines over the course of the series. (3) Among all of the scientists and geniuses, the smartest person among all of them was Penny.

Okay, back to the spin-off series.  It debuted as a series on HBO Max this week and we watched the first episode last night.  It is a sci-fi story of a post apocalyptic multi-verse that resulted from some experiment conducted by Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard that went horribly awry.  It is now up to Stuart, of all people, to try to set things right and restore order to the world.

We didn't like it.  We will not be watching future episodes, and we were barely able to get through episode one.  If the producers of TBBT wanted to milk some more money out of the cash cow that was the original series, God bless them, that's the American Way, I suppose, but this sure wasn't the way to go about it.

One-half Star, just for the effort, from The Grandstander.

Spain Reigns!! (and other soccer thoughts)

The 2026 FIFA World Cup ended yesterday with a perfectly satisfying result:  The best team won.  Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 in Extra Time, and it was a thoroughly dominating performance.   A worthy champion was crowned.

In a tournament that was dominated by star players - Messi, Mbappe, Kane, Bellingham, Haaland et al - the "star" of the Spain team was, as one of the commentators put it, the team itself.  No one single player stood out, but the team played to such a level that there can be no doubt as to the worthiness of this championship victory.  In eight matches Spain had one goal scored against them.  ONLY ONE GOAL.  That is astonishing, even in a sport where scores of 0-0, 1-0, or 2-0 are commonplace.  Every match that I watched where Spain played, my impression was of a team that just suffocated opponents defensively.  This was illustrated yesterday when Argentina, featuring the great Lionel Messi, had 0, as in ZERO, shots on goal in 120 minutes of play.  How is that even possible?  That is a level of defense that not even the Steel Curtain Steelers or the '85 Bears could match.

Some final thoughts now that this thirty-nine day festival (and it WAS a festival!) has concluded.....

• As I approach my 75th birthday a few weeks from now, I find myself cherishing, if that is the right word, these quadrennial events like the Olympics, World Baseball Classic, and Presidential elections.  I mean, how many more of these am I going to be around for, right?, so I found myself really into this World Cup.  I didn't miss a day of coverage that was offered on Fox Sports.  I didn't watch every match, but I watched a lot of them, and I enjoyed them beyond all expectations.
• I truly came to appreciate the game itself and some of its intricacies.  If you search through The Grandstander archives, you will find plenty of past references  wherein I spelled out typical American objections to the sport (too slow, they don't score enough, they don't even try to score) but no more.  Soccer may never become "the beautiful game" for me, but I am done knocking it.
• I am going to take a deeper interest in following the sport, and I think that the way to do that is to pick one specific team and follow them rather than just randomly watching any game that happens to be on NBC or Peacock on some random Saturday or Sunday morning. That team will be Manchester City of the English Premier League.  Why Man City?  Erling Haaland playsI for them.

• I loved many of the announcers that were used to cover these matches, especially the British ones.  My absolute favorites were the team of Darren Fletcher on play-by-play and Owen Hargreaves on color.  I wish ABC/ESPN would hire them for Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl this coming season.
• The Fox Studio host team of Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic was terrific, and they would have been absolutely perfect if they hadn't been saddled with blowhard Alexi Lalas.  Lalas epitomizes the term "ugly American".
• I have not-so-jokingly said that Zlatan should replace Kirk Herbstreit on NFL Thursday Night Football.  
• The World Cup is the most heavily wagered upon event in the world.  Upwards of $1.5 billion is wagered upon it world wide, and I did my bit to contribute to the total.  In all, I made 149 separate wagers on the World Cup totaling $372.65 (average wager of $2.50), and realized $478.69 in returns, a profit of $106.04, or a 28.5% return on investment.  Wish that I could do half as well on MLB, the NFL, and the NCAA.
• Is there a better cheer and or victory celebration in any sport that is as fun as the "Norwegian Row"?  I think not.
• While I have no problem with the host nation's Head of State being in attendance at the final game and even being involved in the awards presentation, how about how the American President had to be literally pulled away from the Spanish team by FIFA Punjab Gianni Infantini as their on-stage victory photos were being taken?  He just had to make it about himself.  Note that neither the Mexican president nor the PM of Canada  acted in such a gauche manner.  (Just think of what he'll do at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.)
• I also heard that as the American President was being introduced in the stadium yesterday, thousands of people in the stands held up red cards.  Pretty good statement there.
• Throughout the tournament, my painstakingly constructed Legos World Cup Trophy has sat by the TV set in our living room.  I now have to find a more permanent and less obtrusive spot for it.

• It is interesting to note that Spain now holds both the Men's and Women's FIFA World Cup titles, with the women winning it in 2023.  The Women's tournament will take place next year, 2027, in Brazil.   Wonder if that will merit the same wall-to-wall television coverage that this just completed men's event just had?

So, as we bid adieu to the 2026 World Cup, let us have one more salute to the Champions....

Espana!

How The Pirates Treat Their Paying Customers

On Saturday, July 11, my friend David Cicotello and I attended the 4:05 game between the Pirates and Brewers at PNC Park.  The Pirates won the game, which was nice, but that wasn't my biggest take away from the "ballpark experience" that day.  You can read about it in this letter that I will be sending to Pirates President Travis Williams.  I reproduce it for you below:

July 19, 2026

Mr. Travis Williams

President

Pittsburgh Pirates

115 Federal Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15212

Dear Mr. Williams,

On Saturday, July 19, I attended, along with over 29,000 other fans, the second game of the split double-header between the Pirates and Brewers.  We arrived on the north side early, around 2:30.  Realizing the logistics involved in emptying PNC Park after the first game of the double header, which concluded at about that time, we waited until about  3:00 to get into a line to enter the ball park.   We got into a line that began at the corner of Federal and General Robinson Streets, a line that would eventually lead to the left field gate where the Willie Stargell statue is located.

Eventually, the line started to move. Then it stopped moving.  Then it moved a couple of feet.  Then it stopped moving. You get the idea.  It soon became apparent that there was a strong likelihood that we would miss the beginning of the game (which, in fact, did happen).  After about thirty minutes or so, the Stargell statue came into view, and I could see that there was one gate open.  In a gate area with four portals for entry, there was ONE GATE OPEN.  We also could see that there was another line to get into that ONE OPEN GATE that was coming from the  other direction on Federal Street.  It was like trying to funnel the Mississippi River through a drinking straw.  

At some point a gentleman wearing a Pirates lanyard and ID badge, Ryan Niemeyer, your VP of tickets sales appeared, and I asked why was only one gate open?  To which he replied “we didn’t have sufficient security to open more that one gate”, and to that I replied “Why not?”  He had no answer for that.   This was a day where a huge crowd was expected because of the highly promoted (hyped?) Pirates Country Weekend, where there was a highly promoted give-away item involved, and the Pirates didn’t anticipate having sufficient security on hand to allow more than one gate to be open to ease the entrance of paying customers into the ball park?  Did the team learn nothing from last season’s Paul Skenes Bobblehead debacle?

There is a term in the military for this: “Cluster____.“ I will let you fill in the last syllable of this term.

It has become a cliche in Pittsburgh to say that “the Pirates are cheap” or “the Pirates can screw  up a one car funeral” or “do these guys have ANY idea of what they are doing”, but after being a part of that mess on July 11, what else can one think?

Let me say that I am not a casual fan.  I attend roughly 10-12 games a season.  I have come to accept that the actual part of the organization that, you know plays the games, operates with one hand tied behind its back due to Mr. Nutting’s, uh, shall we say, frugal way of operating the team, but still, I come to the ball park, buy the merch and the eight  dollar soft drinks, and watch the Pirates on TV.  I will be a fan until I die, but, WOW, considering how the organization treats its paying customers, as exemplified by what happened last Saturday, you folks don’t make it easy to be a Pirates fan.

I am anxious to hear your response.

Sincerely,

Bob Sproule

I shall let you know what response, if any, I receive from Mr. Williams.  By the way, here is a picture of the scene at PNC Park that day as we tried to get into the ballpark.

A 53 Year Old Movie: "Soylent Green" (1973)

 

I had never seen this 1973 sci-fi classic, but like many people, I did know what the punch line to the movie was, but I will give no spoilers here, not even for a fifty-three year old movie.  I recorded it off of TCM the other day and watched it over the weekend.

The movie takes place in "the future", when the world has been over populated (New York City alone has a population of 50 million people) and the entire world is an environmental disaster.  There is no food, no shelter, and people have devolved into savages.  Oh, and the future year in which this dystopian disaster has befallen: 2022!!

Charleston Heston in full lock-jawed intensity plays a NYC cop who is trying to solve the homicide of the Chairman of the Soylent Corporation, the firm that provides the world's only food source.  That product, Soylent, comes in many colors, but its newest product, "soylent green", made from sea plankton, is the best of the lot, but it is still severely rationed and its scarcity is causing riots among the population.  It is a very grim world, this world of 2022.

Actually, director, Richard Fleischer does a great job in painting the picture of this dystopian (yeah, I've now used this world twice, but it is such a cool word to use) landscape.  For that reason, this is a pretty neat movie to watch.  Another reason to watch is the cast.  In addition to Heston, it included.....

Edward G. Robinson.  Robinson was eighty years old and suffering from cancer when he made this final film appearance.  He died shortly after the movie wrapped up filming.  Heston later said that being able to act "with Eddie" made this movie one of the most special of his career.  Robinson's presence alone may make this worth watching.

Leigh Taylor-Young.  Miss Taylor-Young was all of 28 years old when she made this movie.  She appeared in television's Peyton Place (she replaced Mia Farrow). married co-star Ryan O'Neal, and was quite the thing in the early 1970's.  She was quite beautiful, but I had long since forgotten her.  She is now 81 years old, lives in Washington DC, and has worked regularly right through 2024.  Good for her.

Joseph Cotten, was 68 years old when he made this one and his role was brief.  He was the Soylent Chairman who got bumped off early in the picture.

Chuck Connors.  Television's Rifleman and ex-Brooklyn Dodger and ex-Boston Celtic was 52 years old when he made this.  Connors was only 71 when he died in 1992, and he had amassed 221 acting credits in a career that lasted right up until the year of his death.

Whit Bissell.  Was there ever a character actor with a better name than "Whit Bissell"?  Bissell died in 1996 at the age of 86 and had an astonishing 349 acting credits to his name in IMDB.  As I often say, Stars are Stars, but you can't make movies without guys like Whit Bissell.

Other notable actors that appeared in "Soylent Green" were Brock Peters, Paula Kelly, Dick Van Patten, and ex-Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Henry.

"Soylent Green" was a 1970's era Message Movie, and while it may have been ham-handed in some aspects of delivering that message, it was still fun to watch.  Again, I'm not going to give away the ending, but if someone offers you a tasty snack of soylent green, you might want to take a pass on it.

Surprisingly, Three Stars from The Grandstander.

More World Cup Comments

Allow me to follow up on THIS POST from June 26 as the 2026 FIFA World CUP heads into the quarterfinals round.

The Round of 16 matches were completed last night, and seven of the eight matches were tightly contested and tremendously exciting to watch.

• France defeats Paraguay 1-0 on a penalty kick goal by Kylian Mbappe
• Morocco defeats Canada 3-0
• Spain defeats Portugal 1-0 on a goal in stoppage time
• Norway defeats Brazil 2-1 with both goals being scored by Erling Haaland, and the "Viking Row" becomes the signature fans event of the tournament
• England 3 - Mexico 2 at Aztec Stadium, where the Mexican National Team never loses.  The English scoring came from stars Jude Bellingham with two goals and Harry Kane with a penalty kick.  There was ten minutes of stoppage time in this one, and the furious attacks by Mexico and the defense by England in those extra minutes was beyond exciting
• Switzerland and Colombia finished 0-0, and the match was won by the Swiss on penalty kicks
• And in perhaps the best match of this round, Argentina 3 - Egypt 2.  Egypt scored at 15' and 67' to hold a 2-0 lead.  It looked like the defending champions, and their great star, Lionel Messi, who had actually had a penalty kick blocked early in the match, were on the ropes and were about to be sent home.  Then Cristian Romero of Argentina scores at 79' and the Giant was awoken.  The game was then tied at 83' on an impossible goal by who else but Messi, and Enzo Fernandez then scored two minutes into stoppage time.  It was an almost indescribable match to watch.

Then there was the one game that was not so great:  Belgium 4 - USA 1.

We all know the backstory on this one. The suspension of American player Folarin Balogun because of a red card he was given in the previous match was reversed after the American President made a phone call to FIFA prexy Gianni Infantino asking that the red card and suspension of Balogun be "reviewed".   I had been wondering for months leading up to the World Cup, and I am sure that I was not alone, just what the American President was going to do to insert his grubby presence into the event and embarrass the country yet again in the eyes of the world.  He didn't let us down. By making yet another event into something about himself, the President managed to make the USMNT, which had been celebrated and almost heroic in their performance up to this point, into villains and a team that the whole world then began to root against.  All the good will generated by America and Americans leading up to this point evaporated thanks to the 47th President.

Belgium, motivated beyond measure by the this chain of events, proceeded to swamp the USA 4-1, and the match wasn't even THAT close.  Belgium is undoubtedly a better team, and would no doubt have won this match anyway, but thanks to the interference of the American President and the shady machinations of FIFA, they turned into a steamroller and the USA never had a chance.

Had the US won this game, it would have been seen as tainted in the eyes of the world, and the team's victory would have carried an orange asterisk next to it that would never have been erased.  Oh, and if the USA  had won, guess who would have taken credit for it?  At least that travesty has been avoided

I loved the Belgian's team response of "Overturn This" to FIFA after the match and their mocking victory dance to "YMCA". 

So, after twenty-seven consecutive days of soccer, the World Cup takes a one day break before the quarterfinals begin tomorrow.  I have reproduced the bracket at the top of this post.  The betting favorites, per Fan Duel, are France, Spain, England, and Argentina.  Each match will no doubt be tense and exciting, and each will probably be decided by one goal.  At least one of them will probably go into extra time, and maybe even have to be decided by penalty kicks.  

If any match does not go according to chalk, I think that it will be the one between England and Norway.  I look forward the Harry Kane and Erling Haaland matchup.

My prediction is that this will produce a final four (my apologies to the NCAA for using this trademarked term, which is why used lower case F's) that will lead to a Championship matchup between France and Argentina, just like four years ago.

Some of the Stars that will be on display over the next three days:

Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland. Kylian Mbappe

Harry Kane, Lamin Yamal