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Movie Review: The Brute Man (1946)

I like a good bad movie, and this one sort of qualifies. It helps that I watched it accompanied by the expert riffing of the guys at Rifftrax, which made it a lot more fun than it had a right to be. The fact that the deformed serial killer of the title is a person with actual deformities dampens the fun more than a little. But still, the plotting, acting, and production are so bad, it demands all the mockery coming its way.

An artistic masterpiece!

AI generated Chiba-style portrait, with help from K, because no matter what I did, the AI refused to the appropriate colors to her face, and could not put speckles on her chest and legs. Instead it just added extra legs. For a world-ending technology, it sure is stupid.

How does the garden grow, June edition.

We had like, one gladiola this year, but it was a pretty one.

After a few years…a fire orchid!

The lilies were kind of paltry this year, but we had some nice one.

We had some butterfly bush blooms, but no monarchs this year that I can remember.

The nasturtiums were basically indestructible.

Old standbys: marigolds and snapdragons. It was a great year for snapdragons.

The black-eyed susan vines went nuts.

The daisies are always cheerful.

The normally wimpy white roses were gorgeous.

All in all, not bad!

YouTube Recommendation…Leon the Lobster

Back in the dark days of the pandemic, a guy adopted a grocery store lobster, just for the heck of it. And, being a professional filmmaker, he chronicled the experiment. What transpired — the story of Leon the Lobster, and the relationship between the man with the camera and the crustacean, went viral and became Legend. There were 34 Leon videos over the 3 1/2 years of Leon’s life as a pet. Or 33 that you will want to see if you are sensitive, because, well, Leon recently passed, and if you think that might upset you unduly, then you should probably skip #34. But getting to know this friendly, fastidious, curious creature is so very well worth it — I can’t recommend this video series enough.

Movie Review: Rings on Her Fingers (1942)

I checked this out with sort of a bad attitude, because I couldn’t imagine Gene Tierney being funny and I don’t usually care for Henry Fonda. But boy, was I wrong. It seems like a rip-off of the classic “Lady Eve” — OK, it obviously IS — but I actually enjoyed this one quite a bit more. The plot concerns Tierney luring affluent young men into marriage, then absconding with their money before the wedding. Fonda is her mark. But she falls in love with him instead. Go figure. Tierney is delightful, Fonda is fantastic, and the writing is first-rate. Glad I caught this one. It’s free on YouTube.