Hooray! Halle Berry is NOT in John Wick 4

So maybe I'm not done with the John Wick franchise after all. And maybe I'm late with this news, but I just found out that Halle Berry is NOT reprising her role in the 4th installment of the John Wick franchise. She should not have been in the 3rd installment. 

I have said I would have had no problem with Halle Berry performing the role of a strong female character in the franchise. Just not a female version of John Wick.

I should never believe news through the grapevine. As that was what I was going by when I thought she was going to be returning. So, okay. I guess I have a movie to look forward to after all. 

Hooray.

Done With John Wick - Thanks to Halle Berry

 I had posted after watching John Wick 3 that the inclusion of Halle Berry almost ruined the franchise for me. Nothing personal against Halle Berry. If they had found a good role for her, no problem. And I would agree with a strong female character for her, as stories and real history are filled with strong female characters and female heroes.

But no. At Berry's insistence, no doubt, they gave her the role of a "female" John Wick. Meaning there she goes beating up ten, twenty male fighters all at once. So, I cannot buy into that. And I am NOT a misogynist or a chauvinist. Quite the contrary.

Like I said, I believe in strong female characters. But my criticism is that a woman, or anyone for that matter, doesn't have to prove their strength by beating people up. Or by killing them by the dozens. I mean, aren't we seeing in real life enough psychos out there killing people? The headlines are filled with stories like that. Are we supposed to believe these mass murderers are strong characters?

I say it's bullshit. Look. The story had an ex-assassin return to avenge the wrong done to him in his own way. But the LEGEND of the John Wick character (the Boogey-Man) as was his nickname to the Russians, was that he was a one-of-a-kind type of assassin.

Which is why the inclusion of Halle Berry as the female John Wick ruined it for me. Now, John Wick is no longer a one-of-a-kind assassin. Now we have a 5' 3", 110 lbs. woman who is 50+ years old as his fighting style equal. That means there's nothing special about John Wick anymore. 

Now, it's like there's nothing to see here, folks. Now, you can just round up anyone, any age, any gender, any size, and you can have another John Wick.

I was willing to let it go, if the one scene Halle Berry was in was the ONLY scene she would be in. But I have learned that is not the case. I have learned that she will indeed be back in John Wick 4, and no doubt, the equal or dare I say, the superior to our beloved hero, John Wick.

So screw this John Wick franchise. I have gone on record as to insisting that beating people up and/or killing people by the dozens is not how you prove to be a strong character. Is this what we are teaching our kids? Is this what we are teaching our sons and now our daughters?

Being a public school teacher as I have been for thirty years, I have seen more fights between teenagers than anyone should ever have to witness. And yes, far more fights than I had seen than when I myself was a teenager. IT'S UGLY. Is anyone out there listening? 

And most of these fights I've seen are between GIRLS. Sure some guys will duke it out, but it's over in a minute or two. When girls fight, they are scratching and clawing with their nails, pulling out handfuls of hair, ripping at clothes, poking, gouging, anything and everything!

IT'S UGLY. It's not the choreographed dance-like moves, that the fighting sequences in the movies portray. NOTHING like that. I never want to see another girl fight the rest of my life.

Nor do I want to see a 56 year-old Halle Berry beat up and kill dozens of grown men twice her size, and then try to believe it can really happen. Because it can't. I will not see any more John Wick movies. Halle Berry's inclusion in the franchise didn't almost ruin it, it ruined it.

Goodbye Elizabeth Keen

So I returned to viewing The Blacklist. I had written it off due to the horrible writing that had made Lizzie into some super villain. But the reality was the writers were actually writing her out of the show. Once I realized the end game of it, meaning they were going to kill her off, I thought, okay, let's check it out again. And yes. The show is much better without that annoying character in it. It's a shame, really. I thought Megan Boone, the actress who had been playing Lizzie, did a fine enough job when the writing had her being what she was supposed to be -- a rookie FBI agent being helped by the criminal mastermind Red Reddington. It worked and all was good. 

I already wrote about the many reasons why it was good and how it devolved into a lousy show. But it seems they are fixing it. I would have written it differently, of course, and probably much better, but at least they are getting it right now. So I watched episode 5 and 6, and liked both of them well enough. Even in spite of the constant references to Lizzie.

It's a shame one of the characters died in real life and he died in the show, too. I guess that was fitting. And of course, James Spader gave a great performance to send him off. Or was it a performance? Maybe he wasn't acting. Since the real guy died, maybe he meant every word.

Whatever. It's a good show now. I had liked it before. Now I do again.

Resident Alien Gets a Passing Grade

So the first season of Resident Alien has concluded, and I had agreed to watch at least this first season to give it a fair chance to convince me it was worthwhile. I had said it started slowly for me, and by midseason, I was still on the fence. It had a lot going for it. But there was enough there to criticize as well. For one thing, I just couldn't get over the alien's idiocy. For another, I didn't like that he wanted to kill the little boy who knew his true nature.

But that got settled. Like I hoped it would. First, about the alien's idiocy. To be an advocate for the show, I might say, what do you expect? This is an ALIEN. Not a secret agent from Russia! or China! This is an ALIEN. Not a human. Not a creature from this planet. Can you get that through your head? It's an alien sent to this planet, not to intermingle with humanity. Not to pretend it's one of us. It had a simple mission. Drop the "extinction device" and go home. That's it. It wasn't supposed to land or get out of its spaceship or anything like that. 

But, of course, when the U.S. fired a missile at it, the spaceship was damaged before it could launch its weapon. That kind of makes you glad that the U.S. had a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. I would think that in real life we don't have that attitude. But in this fictitious farce, it does. Hey. It's a TV show, not a documentary about how earth should respond to unannounced alien visitors.

So the alien ship crash-lands, semi-incapacitated, and with its "extinction device" broken. The alien, like Jeff Bridges in Starman, can take human form. Almost just like in Starman actually. Although we don't see him go through the infantile stage like Jeff Bridges did. Whatever. And after a length of time residing in a loner's cabin after killing him, the alien learns, to some degree, how to speak and act like a human by watching television shows for some months.

So there you go. It leaned the language and learned about human behavior from TV shows, and the internet, which it quickly learns to master. And because the loner in the cabin was a doctor, it becomes that doctor, and thus recruited by a nearby town to take over for another doctor who had been recently murdered. By the way, killing the first person the alien confronted was a hard one to swallow until you learn that it came to earth in the first place to kill everyone. So it became believable.

But wanting to kill the kid was not believable. It should have known (even from TV) that killing a kid was going to bring too much attention to its situation, and now that the kid and the alien have become "allies" so to speak, I like it much better. The kid is a great actor, and a great character. So is the Muslim girl who becomes his partner in the quest to learn more about the alien. Both kid actors play their roles well, and more importantly, their roles are written well.

I'm not so sure I can say the same for Linda Hamilton's part. She had seen a UFO when she was a child, and ever since, she's on a quest to capture it. This is another one hard to swallow because she gives orders to her female agent to kill anyone who might compromise the mission, including innocent citizens and her male partner. Yeah, she's acting as a rogue, but ordering one agent to kill another for no reason? I don't buy it.

But the two female supporting characters are great. Asta and D'Arcy are both well written characters  and both have fun parts to play in the show. D'Arcy is especially likeable, as the more comedic of the two. Once Asta learns the alien's true nature, the show gets better. But that didn't happen until near the end of the first season. And after the final episode, when the alien decides not to kill everyone, you have a good feeling.

I love it when a show makes you feel good at its conclusion. But this show is not concluded. Even the final episode of Season One had a type of cliffhanger ending, so you need to see the second season to see what happens next. For now, the alien is off the earth, and after having repaired the extinction device, it destroys it, and now it just wants to go home. (For clarification, the alien is not a he or she. It had made clear that its species does not have male and female.) So what about its mission? We'll have to see the second season for that question to be answered. I'll be waiting. And I'll watch it.

The Blacklist - Now a Big Joke

The Blacklist. Once it was a very good TV show. It featured a great actor, James Spader, playing the role of a great character, Raymond Red Reddington. It also had a weak actress, Megan Boone, playing a weak character, Elizabeth Lizzy Keane. But the weak character of Keane and the weak performances of Boone did not matter. And that was because the great acting of Spader and the great character of Reddington more than made up for it.

But now we have to believe the weak Keane has become the "female" Red Reddington. Now, the former FBI agent, Keane, is going to be the top criminal mastermind who will destroy, (that word again) the current top criminal mastermind of Reddington. Yeah. Right. We've heard that how many times now?

This is all one big joke of a show. And to make my meaning clear, a big joke of a show means that a once great show has become a perverse shadow of its former self. In simpler terms, it SUCKS.

I said this before. Reddington was the main character of Blacklist, not Keane. Spader was the star of the show, not Boone. But with Hollywood's focus on "feminism" the past twenty years, they are trying to reverse the roles, I suppose. Just like the joke of making Halle Berry the "female" John Wick. And now they are making the Equalizer into a female, too, on a new TV show. Another joke. It's a fat, old woman, at that. It was enough we had a skinny old woman pretending to be John Wick. Sheesh. Nothing against skinny or fat people by the way. And nothing against old people, either.

But Hollywood has lost it. They don't care. As long as the money rolls in, that's all they need to see. What ever happened to ratings? Well, I won't be watching The Equalizer, that's for sure. I won't even give it a single viewing. I have better things to do. As for Blacklist? Hey, it used to be my favorite show. And I still hope it can return to being that. I have hope because they can still salvage it.

Here's how they can salvage it. First of all, Lizzy NEVER gets the better of Red. That just better not ever happen. And lastly, it better be revealed THIS SEASON that Red IS THE TRUE BIOLOGICAL FATHER of Lizzy. That will be the only thing that can bring any sense to this show. And even better, if it were to also be revealed that the lady known as Katarina was NOT the biological mother of Lizzy.

Then and only then can I say, "Well, they had me for a bit there. Clever assholes, as they were, they had me, but now it's all good." And it will be my favorite TV show again. Will it be? Who knows? I would like it to be. Let's see those qualifiers happen, first.

Blacklist Bottoms Out

 

Blacklist has been so bad the last two or three seasons, it's a wonder I watch it anymore. But I am, and it hasn't gotten any better. In fact, it has bottomed out. I mean it can't get any worse! Season eight is now underway, or maybe it's the conclusion of season seven? Whatever they were, whether they were season seven's conclusion or season eight's beginning, those two episodes were gawd awful.

So, we found out last season that Red is not the former lover of Lizzy's mother and had promised he would watch over her as if she were his real daughter. That was a flimsy way of explaining why he had shown the kind of affection and dedication to Lizzy as a real father would. And even though he has continued to show the affection and dedication of a real father to Lizzy for all seven seasons before this up to and including saving her life countless times, we have to watch this crap.

What crap? The kind of crap from Lizzy, I mean. Her entire role has bordered on boredom to stupidity to plain and simple crap.  Maybe it's not Megan Boone's fault. She has to play the role written for her, right? I mean, she doesn't have the kind of pull that a James Spader will have. Meaning, if he doesn't like what he's reading in a script, he can make it better. And if that's true, what the hell is he waiting for with the kind of crap we are seeing from Lizzy?

Is Spader content with shining, all the while allowing Boone to crap? Sheesh, is she nothing more than a foil to him? Does he believe that the worse she looks the better he'll look? Well, if he does, he's right and it's working. 

So, now, once again, for the umpteenth time, at the end of the last episode, (as in Season 8, episode 2) we have to watch Lizzy proclaiming how she's going to bring Red down, make him pay, utterly destroy him, and yadda, yadda, yadda. How many times has she made that declaration? I've lost count. Just like I've lost count how many times Red has saved her life!

And the combination of those two things truly makes this show suck. AND SUCK BIG TIME. I might use stronger language here, but I'm a teacher and I have to be careful what words I use. But this show sucks so bad that I wish I could use stronger language.

It's like the writers of this show had no idea that this show would last this long, and they don't know what to do with it. They probably had a good idea how the story would go for the first two or three seasons. But after that, it's like these writers are wingin' it. It truly looks like they are just trying to come up with something to last another season.

It reminds me of that other disaster of a show called LOST. They had something going for a bit, but then it was like they had no clue what to do with the story line after the first three seasons. They just winged it from there, and it had probably the worst series ending in the history of TV.

This is where Blacklist is going. For me, the ONLY thing that can save this show is if it is finally proven that Red really is Lizzy's biological father. How that can happen after he's already said he isn't her father, I don't care. Because if he isn't, then nothing about his show makes any sense at all. Because no one like a Red Reddington, or anyone I know even in the real world, would put up with a ridiculous character like Lizzy unless she really was his daughter. His real daughter. So let's see if that happens. Then and only then might I say, "Well, okay."

Blacklist is Back - But Do I Care?

 

Yes, season 8 of The Blacklist is underway. But do I really care? I do, but that care has been dwindling quite rapidly. Once upon a time this show was my favorite TV show. Oh, how times have changed. And during recent times, I have complained about this show more often than I have praised it. With good reason. It sucked the last two or three seasons.

I have lamented time and again how dizzy the female lead character Lizzy is. Thus the nickname for her, Dizzy Lizzy is more than apt. It suits her so well, in fact, that it should be her real name. Dizzy Lizzy. Yeah. Hollywood of late has become so obsessed with making strong female characters, (something I'm not opposed to, btw,) but in doing so, Hollywood has lost its grip on what, exactly IS a strong female character. Is this obsessive need for uncovering someone's "secret" something that makes a woman a strong character?

Rather, it makes Lizzy quite dizzy. Dizzy Lizzy. I would argue that respecting someone's privacy makes a character, any character, a strong character. In Dizzy Lizzy we have a woman who never knew her biological parents. But since becoming an FBI agent, she has come to know a man who has saved her life on multiple occasions. (I've actually lost count of how many times Red Reddington has saved her life.) She would be dead, dead, dead, if not for the intervention of Red Reddington. 

But does she have any appreciation of that fact? How about some gratitude? How about some loyalty or respect for the man to whom she owes her life? Um, nope. Instead, she can't get over the fact that he has a secret. It doesn't matter that he has proven time and again that he has Dizzy Lizzy's best interest at heart. What matters to Lizzy is that he has some kind of a secret and she just can't stand it.

So at the end of Season 7 we saw Dizzy Lizzy choosing to side with a mysterious woman, her supposed mother who she never knew, and after that same woman had put Dizzy Lizzy's only child into danger. And btw, she's a woman who had lied to Dizzy Lizzy when they had met to keep her own identity secret. (Talk about secrets!) On top of that this is the same woman who Dizzy Lizzy knows had murdered two of her fellow FBI agents even.

So yeah. Dizzy Lizzy sides with the mysterious mother who she never knew, and who was an enemy Russian spy, and who had lied to her, and who had put her daughter into danger, and who had murdered two of Lizzy's fellow FBI agents, instead of the man who has given her protection and has saved her life more times than I can remember. 

All of this is such crap, it's a wonder these writers are still employed by the series. I could write a lot better stories than this. I dare say anyone could. Except, that is, the writers who have the job. 

So I will watch the first two episodes of The Blacklist season eight during this holiday break, and see if these writers can pull themselves out of the hole in which they have dug themselves. It can be done. But it will take some mighty fine writing to do it. We'll see. And then I'll get back to you.

Bad TV Shows

I was talking about bad TV shows the last time I blogged, but I was getting tired of writing about them after dissing my once favorite TV show, The Blacklist. Another one I was going to condemn is the reboot of Lost in Space, now airing on Netflix. And yeah, what a joke that is.

Original cast for the original show, (minus the robot.)
Set a precedent.

Lost in Space, when I was little, was one of my favorite TV shows. SciFi adventures were an intriguing concept and I was thrilled to watch anything on TV or the movies that dealt with futuristic stories, especially when they were about space travel and alien worlds. The 1960s Lost in Space series filled that bill.

It featured strong male characters such as the leader of the family, Professor John Robinson. He was a family man with a dominant personality, leading his family, as a father should. The image to the left describes actor Guy Williams as Professor Robinson to a tee: "...the ultimate father figure symbol, powerful enough to handle himself in perilous situations, yet sensible and compassionate in matters of the heart..."




In today's Hollywood, this kind of actor (or the role he played) is shunned. In fact, it's the opposite of what they want to portray. But in the Sixties, even secondary male characters held their own. As in the pilot of the spacecraft, Major Don West. He was another strong and competent male character. And there was the "boy wonder" Will Robinson, who was just an adolescent, and the family's only son, but he was a progeny of sorts, as he was a scientific genius even at that age.

But wait. There were strong female characters too. Maureen Robinson, the mother of the family, was a strong personality, herself. Meaning she was not a whimpering, frightened female that would draw the ire of women's libbers. Not at all.

There were the two older daughters as well. I might confess here that their roles were minimal, and that was a shame because the oldest daughter, a beautiful blonde woman named Judy was the love interest for Major Don West. There could have been many story arcs that featured these two, but again, sadly, the producers or writers missed that one. Then there was the middle child, the teenage daughter Penny. She had more interactions with her younger brother Will than any other cast member and her role was never elaborated as it should have been.

And there was the "bad guy" Dr. Smith. He was the traitor hired by the enemy faction of the world order at the time to sabotage the spacecraft upon launching. But he was stuck in the ship at take off and became a permanent crew member and cast member from then on. He was always the one trying to do whatever he could to get back to earth even at the expense of the safety of the others. I remember thinking back then that if I were the captain of that ship, I would have killed the dude from the get go. And there were several times he should have been offed, but I guess the writers figured the story needed his comedic element. (It didn't.)

Lastly there was the robot, which was an important element of the cast as well. It was one of the first shows to feature a robot as a main character, and the precursor to later "robot characters" like the android "Data" from the Star Trek Next Generation series.

So the show was great, until it wasn't. Meaning it devolved into a farcical tale of goofy antics fit for a slapstick comedy. The show phased out all the serious elements of an adult SciFi series and turned it into a weird (and stupid) tale of Will and Dr. Smith. They even turned the robot into a joke. That wasn't what I ordered. And it faded into obscurity. Which was a shame.

Cast of Lost in Space the movie.
(Minus Judy, Will, and the robot.)
No complaints here.

But it had a legacy from which a movie some years later was released. It featured pretty much the same cast of characters who were all pretty much true to the original series. There were some differences in the way the story evolved, but it was a one and done story so what the heck. It passed.

But the Netflix reboot is a sham. Because they are doing what the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises have done. Which is they turned the men into weak and incompetent characters. It's the women who lead and who are the heroes now. I quit watching when it was revealed that Maureen Robinson is the professor now, and she is the one with the brains and she is the leader of the crew. And John Robinson is just another idiot, much like we've been seeing in pretty much every show from Hollywood over the last twenty years.

The new leader and hero of the crew of
Lost in Space from Netflix. The professorship has been
transferred from the man to the woman.
I wouldn't have minded if both were professors.
But Hollywood doesn't work like that.
Not anymore.

So the Netflix version of Lost in Space is great if you're a women's libber and you love to see weak men dominated by strong and heroic women. But that's not me. I will say once again, that I believe women are strong. They can be just as strong and just as heroic as men. BUT....that doesn't mean that when they are strong, the men have to be weak and dominated by them. That's a very tiring element from Hollywood, and I'm wondering when they will figure it out. The answer is they won't as long as the money keeps rolling in. And such is life, full of goose-steppers willing to call a show good just for its title.

Rambo V - Great Movie

I have not been so enthralled with the Rambo franchise over the years. For me they didn't rate up there with The Transporter franchise or John Wick, but they were fun enough.

Actually, for me the John Wick franchise took a fall with the third chapter as I've blogged about.

As for Rambo V, I suspect it's the last and final episode for the Rambo franchise and it was a great one. I mean, finally we have men acting like men and women acting like women. And that is not to be mistaken as men are strong and women are weak. No. Women are strong too. But in real life they're not going around beating up and/or killing everyone. Not like in a Halle Berry fantasy, anyway.


No. In Rambo V, women are strong and determined individuals who, as adults, have their shit together, but as teenagers, they don't. (Kind of like in real life.) And that is the basis of this story. In Rambo V, you have an adult woman and a teenaged girl (her niece,) who live with Rambo, and the niece makes a choice that is not the right choice. Imagine that...


They're both strong women, but neither one of them go around beating up twenty men all at the same time. I mean they don't beat anyone up. And that was a refreshing twist in the Hollywood universe these days. I have grown very weary of watching women beating up and killing men left and right, at every turn, and sometimes as many as fifty men all at the same time.

So no. This movie was realistic. Gritty, and quite brutal. Because in the Rambo character, we have an ex special ops military man. He's trained to kill, and trained to survive. He's a veteran of wars and, of course, a veteran of the four  previous Rambo experiences to his credit.



And as an older man, the Rambo character still exudes toughness. He looked strong. Probably because of Stallone's workout ethic and yes even the steroids he doesn't lie about taking, unlike other Hollywood musclemen, (i.e. The Rock,) But whatever...

Rambo V Last Blood worked, and it was great. It was refreshing and I'll take it any day. And at this point I'll take it even over John Wick. At least over John Wick Chapter 3. No wanna be tough chicks in the Rambo franchise. Thank god.

John Wick 3 - Almost Ruined - Almost

I took my time before I went to see John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum. Of course the big news was that Halle Berry was going to be in it. It was no big news to me. In fact when I heard she was going to be in it I was disgusted.

Why? Because the John Wick franchise had become one of my favorite movie franchises. Right up there with The Transporter franchise. I thought Chapters one and two were terrific. I was so glad that Hollywood was preserving at least ONE tough guy that was still a dude.

I've lamented recently here on the blog that Hollywood had been turning men into wimps in just about every medium. We've had to see women become the new "tough guys" and the men turned into pussies in every TV show and movie franchise from Star Wars to Star Trek to Flash, Arrow, Person of Interest, and the list just goes on and on.

When The Transporter franchise tanked, thanks to Jason Statham leaving the franchise, I was glad that the John Wick franchise was still going strong. I couldn't wait for Chapter 3. Then I heard Halle Berry was going to be in it. Worse still, she had petitioned to be in it. Here's the link. And here's another. So I suppose the producers figured she was an A-list actress with an academy award in her resume. How could they refuse? Well, if they found a good part for her, I'd have had no problem.

But my fear was they were going to do the same thing to John Wick that they did to the Jim Caviezel character in Person of Interest. Meaning they had two seasons as Jim Caveizel being the show's bad-ass, then in the third season they introduce another bad-ass character in a little chick. Yeah, and she was an even tougher bad-ass than Jim Caviezel. Sheesh.

So I saw the show, and sure enough. Halle Berry is in there beating up and killing fifty dudes all at once, a la John Wick. I mean she was using the same moves and the same type of styles that John Wick had been using in the two prior movies. Did she train with the same people? No. She was just a female version of John Wick. Yeah. All 5' 2" and 110 pounds of her.

Fifty-two-year-old Halle Berry as "tough guy" Sofia in John Wick 3.
Yeah. A real tough guy. She looks about as tough as a middle school girl.
She couldn't take on 50 middle school kids, let alone 50 trained
killers all at once. Her character was a complete piece of crap.

That scene almost ruined the movie. Thankfully, it was just that scene and then she was gone. But not until after spitting in an empty water bottle as Wick is about to undergo a romp in the Sahara desert. And like a pussy, Wick takes it. The scene with Berry was nothing more than gratuitous violence inserted for her egotistical benefit. It was like placating a spoiled child. The movie would have been better without her. And yet the goose-steppers are out there claiming how great she was, which, of course, is bullshit. The fact is she almost ruined the movie.

There were so many holes in that scene and when it was all said and done the scene made no sense at all. They killed her dog? Yeah, where had we seen that before? Except wait...they didn't kill her dog. Whatever. It didn't stop her from going all John Wick on them, and completely ruining the concept that she had laid out of not wanting them going after her daughter. It made no sense for her to go into a killing frenzy for no reason at all. Her dog wasn't dead.

So yeah. Halle Berry sucked in this movie. She did not fit at all. Her character was lousy, and her acting was the worst. What happened to that great acting ability that won a best actress academy award for her role in Monster's Ball? It wasn't displayed in John Wick 3, that's for sure. Her acting sucked. And because of these reasons, John Wick 3 was almost ruined. The best thing about Halle Berry is when we didn't have to see her anymore after that horrible scene was over.

I have to admit this was the worst of the three John Wick movies so far. Will John Wick 4 get back on track? We'll have to wait another two years to see. I won't hold my breath. As far as I'm concerned, the John Wick franchise sucks now. Thanks to Halle Berry.

Maybe it can be great again. As long as Halle Berry is no longer in it. Or maybe if her character is killed off that could fix the problem they created. But I don't expect that to happen. Berry's scene and her privileged demand which was unconditionally granted, proved she has a huge ego belying her diminutive and very NON-intimidating frame. And I wouldn't doubt it if she is one of those actors and actresses who has the kind of ego that refuses to let any of the characters she plays from ever getting killed in a movie she's in. And I'm probably right.

Bottom line is it's a damn shame the producers of the John Wick franchise bent to the will of this privileged and self-serving actress who can demand to be in a movie that had already established itself as a great success without her. She brought nothing to the franchise. And like I said. She almost ruined it. Please, no more Halle Berry. Or if she does return, please, kill her off.

Avengers Endgame -- Sucked

It sure seems like I'm hard to please. At least that's what one might think when reading my blog. But  whatever. I'm not going to say a movie is good when it's not. And even though Avengers Endgame made billions of dollars, it sucked. Big time.

So why did it make so much money? I've said it before...the goose-steppers. For those of you who don't know what that means, goose-steppers are the rabid fans who will like anything, or any movie, that has their favorite heroes in it.

Jack Kirby's rendition of the Scarlet Witch

Like Star Wars for instance. Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas for four billion dollars, a price he couldn't refuse, I suppose, even though I heard he donated the money. But whatever. In selling his franchise to Disney, he surrendered what little integrity the franchise had left after its atrocious prequel trilogy.

Disney studios proceeded to destroy the legend of Star Wars. First by doing nothing more than rehashing the original story line, albeit with a female "Luke Skywalker" this time. And then by delivering prequels and sequels that totally sucked with boring scripts, tired plots, and bad casting. But the Star Wars die hard fans had been waiting so long for anything Star Wars, they ate it up. These are the "goose-steppers" and Disney made billions off of them.


The same thing was true for most Star Trek fans. So hungry for anything Star Trek, even the stupid movies and TV shows couldn't fail. The goose-steppers soaked it all up and still are. I said "most" fans because once upon a time I was a Star Trek fan. I thought the original series was terrific as did millions of other people. But the second series "Next Generation" was a total load of crap, and so were the ensuing movies...nothing but crap. I didn't buy it. I quit watching The Next Generation soon after it aired, and even though I admit to seeing the movies, I couldn't stand any of them. Therefore I am removed from the "goose-stepper" status.

The Scarlet Witch as drawn by Jack Kirby

But one might argue that since I paid for seeing the movies, doesn't that make me one of the goose-steppers? No. Because a fan will go to see a movie hoping it will be good. The goose-stepper will come out of that theater raving about how great the movie was, even if it sucked. Why? Well, because it was a "Star Trek" movie. Not me. I loved the original Star Trek. But after seeing the movies, I realized I wasted my time and money. So no. I'm not a goose-stepper.

I had been a Marvel superheroes fan since I was a kid and I can call myself an expert on the characters and the Marvel universe, at least so far as the Silver Age is concerned. I still have quite the collection to this day.

Elizabeth Olsen is NOT the Scarlet Witch

I have been critical of the casting and the story lines of most of the movies. Yeah, Robert Downey, Jr. is good as Tony Stark. Yeah, Chris Hemsworth is good as Thor. Jeremy Renner was fine as Hawkeye, and I didn't mind Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. Chris Evans is a better Captain America than he was the Human Torch. But just about every other actor was horribly miscast.

That means from the first movies like the X-Men to the last one...Spider-man Far From Home this summer. They all have been miscast. And they ruined the characters, too. I remember seeing the first Conan movie. I was a Conan fan and I was thrilled they were making a movie. I saw it, and even during the movie I remember thinking to myself..."That isn't Conan."

But of course the goose-steppers were thrilled just to see a dude dressed up as Conan with a broadsword riding a horse. Never mind the dude had nothing else in common with the character created by Robert E. Howard. Never mind the story completely sucked.

Mila Kunis is the perfect Scarlet Witch

So it's the same thing with Avengers Endgame. The characters are all there. There's Captain America, ending up as an old man, passing the torch to a new Captain America. There's Thor, but with a pot belly and wasting his days playing video games. Yeah, that's right. A pot-bellied Thor doing nothing but playing video games all day. Everyday. I mean, um, that's supposed to be the "god of thunder" but yeah. He's a pot-bellied couch potato now. What was worse was the completely ridiculous story. The bad guy kills half of life in the universe, because... Well, there really was no reason. Balance, he said. What does that mean? The story, plot, and script sucked big time.

One last example before I go. The Scarlet Witch, as pictured above (drawn by the original artist Jack Kirby.) She used to be my favorite female superhero. But casting Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch was a disaster. Especially when the PERFECT actress for the part was available and still in her prime.

Imagine that outfit in red-The Scarlet Witch!

Who could argue that MILA KUNIS isn't the PERFECT Scarlet Witch? No one that's who. It's because Mila Kunis is the perfect Jack Kirby drawing of the Scarlet Witch come to life. So why can't the movie people get something right when it's staring them in the face?

I can go on. My point is the actors and actresses are out there. They got Thor right and Iron Man right. But that's like two out of fifty or something. With a little more effort they could get them all right. And with a little more effort they could have great stories, too. I mean it really isn't that hard to figure out. If the movie people went with the stories written by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee during the Silver Age, all of these movies would have been a hundred times better.

Too bad the effort is lacking. But why bother? They're getting their billions. That's all that matters, right? To them, at least.

The Spanish Princess

I enjoyed the first two installments of this series: The White Queen and The White Princess. Both focused on the women, (of course) of the York line, as their male counterparts vied for the throne of England, eventually losing to the Tudors. Ultimately the two bloodlines joined through matrimony, when Henry VII married Elizabeth York, ending the civil wars that plagued England for years.

In the third installment, the timeline of this historically based series takes us to the introduction of Catherine of Aragon, who was famously married to Arthur, (Henry VII's firstborn son,) and after he died, to Henry VIII, (his second son.)

And yes all this is true history, which makes for great story-telling. But being the critic I am, I am not without criticism of this third installment. I've only seen the first two episodes, so far, but right from the start there were some problems. Major ones.

As we know, Catherine's parents, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, had reconquered Spain from the Moors, (Muslims who had occupied Spain for several hundred years.) And they had rid Spain, (and the entire Iberian Peninsula) of all non-Christians. Meaning there were no more Moors or Muslims left in Spain.

But the story starts with Queen Isabella, in full armor, leading a charge to fight off a Muslim insurrection that had ambushed the royal entourage on its way to send off Catherine to England.

Um, say what? Yeah. It wasn't the king leading a charge, it was the queen fighting off Muslim attackers as if she were the top knight of the land. King Ferdinand was nowhere to be seen, once again playing into Hollywood's perverted mandate to elevate women above men in all ways, up to and including military bravery and leadership. Sheesh. So that was a two for one stain on this new show. Muslims still fighting in Spain and the queen leading the charge to fight them.

That's critique number one. Next, we see in Princess Catherine's royal entourage, one of the royal Spanish soldiers is a black Muslim. I have no problem with skin color, but the Muslim part is complete crap. I had already established that all Muslims had been kicked out of Spain or killed. In this show, not only did they portray an army of Muslims still there, but now we see a Muslim is among the royal entourage as one of Princess Catherine's personal guards!

Princess Catherine and her Entourage

Never mind that he's a secret Muslim. I mean how secret can you be when you're kneeling on your Muslim prayer rug five times a day in the ship that's crossing the English channel? It doesn't work. Clearly the show is pandering, not only to women, but to a Muslim audience. Again, it doesn't work, if only because the entire concept is crap.

As if that wasn't enough, to further the Hollywood mandate to diminish male characters, they have one of the English guardsmen, (of the royal palace, no less) trying to molest the top woman of Catherine's entourage, (a black woman, of course.) If any royal guardsman tried to molest anyone he'd be executed on the spot.



So what's next? How about little Princess Catherine bests Prince Henry in a sword fight... Yeah, that's coming next as the show's preview for the next episode portrayed. Never mind that England won every war it ever had with Spain. Never mind that Henry was 6' 3" and athletically inclined, and trained in the military arts. Never mind that Catherine, (at least THIS Catherine) is a tiny thing, standing no more than 5' 2" and weighing 100 pounds.

This is just too much. But it's  been too much for twenty years now. My only conclusion is that the goose-steppers buy into it. But like I said before. I don't.

Game of Thrones - Totally Predictable

In all my posts in which I'm lamenting the reduced roles of male characters these past months, I haven't posted about Game of Thrones. Never mind that almost all the male characters have been reduced to wimps and cowards, like in just about every other show and movie franchise, they have also been reduced to subservient pawns at the beck and call of their female "superiors."

And following this, was it any wonder that the character who saves the GoT world from the horrid Night King was, of course, the little girl, Arya Stark, all of the 5' 1" and 90 lbs of her, played by the equally tiny Maisie Williams of England.

But my point is that it was totally predictable. My wife and I, both, had predicted the one who would finally kill the Night King would be Arya. Everyone I knew, with whom I talked about it, also knew it would be her.

While the 6' 6" 250 lbs "Hound" was cowering in the shadows, it was the littler girl Arya who was fighting off dozens of "white walkers" all at once. It was all too expected now that Hollywood has set the precedent that it's the women who are the smart ones, the heroes, the brave ones, and the saviors of the universe, while the men are wimps, cowards and degenerates.

Maisie Williams

So, here we go. The baddest character in the GoT universe is little Arya Stark. And, of course, the goose-stepping fans of the show are "all in" with this. As are all the other "goose-stepping" fans of shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, Disney, the Marvel universe, and every other TV and movie franchise, as they follow blindly the destruction and demasculinization of the male characters in Hollywood.

You know, I do have a suggestion of how that GoT episode could have been better. And it doesn't even diminish Arya's bravery. She had somehow leaped over a crowd of the Night King's followers, I'd say about 40 to 50 feet in distance and about ten to twenty feet in height. Never mind how she managed to do that. But after doing so, the Night King had caught her by the throat. As we saw then, Arya dropped her knife into her other hand and stabbed him, at which point he, and his army, exploded. That was the predictable part.



What would have been a hundred times better and more believable would be if the Night King snatched the blade from her and handed it to his "right hand" man, one of those other elite white walker dudes. But then, the dude turns around and HE stabs the Night King. And after they all explode, we see that he doesn't. Why? Because at that point, he removes his "white walker" face and Arya sees, (as does the TV audience) that he's actually that dude from the "assassins guild" who had been tutoring Arya in the ways of the faceless assassins. You know, those dudes who put on the faces of others to mask their true appearance. That would have been awesome.

But no. Clearly the writers of this show aren't as good as I am. Whatever. It goes to show they are all in with Hollywood's directive. It's the women who are the heroes. And the men who are wimps. The goose-steppers buy it. I don't.

The Last Kingdom way better than VIkings

The Last Kingdom - a Great Show

And it's not even close. Netflix's The Last Kingdom is 100 times better than History Channel's Vikings. That's not an exaggeration. It's that much better.

I've seen all five seasons of Vikings. I've had mixed feelings about it. Mostly I think it sucks. And there's a whole lotta reasons for that. I've only seen the first four episodes now of Netflix's The Last Kingdom. But that's all I needed to see to reach my conclusion that it's way better than Vikings. It takes place during the same time period as Vikings, and it's the same type of show. You know, Vikings invading England and both shows include the rise of Alfred the Great.

But Vikings is a poorly written show. It's premise is poor. The plots are poor. The directing is poor. Everything is poor. Bottom line: it sucks. In Vikings, Alfred the Great becomes king because his brother stepped down from consideration. And then his mother kills him anyway so as not to threaten her second son's claim to the throne. That's all bullshit.

In real life Alfred's brother WAS king, like in The Last Kingdom, and then when he died, Alfred became king, like in The Last Kingdom. And it's a way better story that way. It's the TRUE story. (Actually, three of Alfred's brothers were king before him, but the point is already made.) And the further point is that the Vikings' writers messed everything up with their attempt to make the story more melodramatic. But all they did is make it suck. The real life story is better and The Last Kingdom has it much closer to the way it was in real life and is far superior for that reason.

Vikings - this show sucks

Oh, and there's the "woman warrior" thing. Sheesh. I'm so tired of this "warrior woman" concept Hollywood is promoting over and over again. I mean Hollywood is shoving it down our throats that women are equal warriors to men. That is bullshit as I've chronicled here on the blog several times. I have made clear that women CAN be warriors, and some CAN be equal to most men, but that is the exception. I say again. It's the EXCEPTION, not the rule.

The Vikings show will have you believe it's the rule. They have women out there as warriors on the battlefield in near equal numbers as the men, and many of them are outfighting their male counterparts as if the men are nothing more than children. Again, that's bullshit. Sure, as I've said before there could very well have been a few women fighting in battles, but I say again that's the exception not the rule. And in The Last Kingdom they have it right. There are NO women warriors on any battlefield.

And I must be clear, that's not to say that women are weak characters. I will make my point for the hundredth time that women are STRONG characters, but they don't have to go around beating people up, or killing people to prove it. I would think any intelligent woman (or any intelligent man) would be in complete agreement with me.

But I digress. Suffice it to say The Last Kingdom is written way better, is produced way better, is directed way better, and is acted way better, with way better stories and more compelling plots than Vikings and again I say it's not even close. How and why Vikings keeps getting renewed for additional seasons is beyond me. It sucks. And it's even hard to watch.

So here's to the show that deserves to be long lived. Here's to the show that is fun to watch, the show that gets it right. The Last Kingdom. A way better show.

Aquaman Movie Not Bad

So I saw the Aquaman movie with my two sons, and it wasn't bad. It was pretty good, actually. As for Amber Heard? Not so impressive. Her acting I mean. And this is a disappointment to me because I had been waiting for some time for Amber to play a major role in a major movie. And now that it has finally happened, my fears have been realized. First of all, Amber makes a bad redhead. Some actresses can change their hair color without losing a step. Scarlet Johanssen is one of those. She can be a blonde, a brunette, or a redhead, and for her, it works. Not so with Amber Heard. She's a blonde, and as a blonde, she is very beautiful, as I've mentioned often on this blog.

But as a redhead, (see above,) Amber Heard does not make it. Maybe acting has everything to do with it. And as I've mentioned, Amber is not very talented in that regard. And I'm disappointed because I had envisioned her as the lead female role in my book Killer of Killers if it were to ever make the big screen. The lead female character in that book is a blonde. And as a blonde, there is no other actress I can think of who can top Amber in looks. But being an actress is dependent on more than just looks. You have to be able to act. And she doesn't have the acting skills to pull it off.

In Aquaman, for example, she delivers her lines with no passion, no sense of urgency, and no base skill. It makes you wonder if she ever took acting lessons. But whatever, she didn't ruin the movie Aquaman. And that could be because the lead female role was actually played by Nicole Kidman, who has never been questioned about her acting skills. She's a veteran actress with a long resume. And she delivers in Aquaman as the mother of Aquaman. She worked well. And yes, she is getting on in years, and it shows, but, hey, she's the mother of Aquaman, who's a fully grown man, and that means she's playing the part of a middle-aged woman, and she was right for the role.

But Amber Heard is not right for any role. And that is because she is not a good actress. That doesn't mean she can't become a good actress. Her role in Aquaman is her first major role in a movie as far as I know. I mean other than some B movies like I've mentioned before. So like anything, with time and practice, anyone can get better at whatever it is they aspire to do. The only problem is time. For women in the movie business, and for men too, btw, time is not an ally. It's an ally when you consider that with time you get better at something. But on the other side of the coin, time takes away the very essence of what being a movie star begins with. Looks. It's that way for everyone.

So the movie Aquaman works well enough to suit me. Even with Amber Heard. Heck, get her some more roles in some other major movies, and maybe she can end up being a good actress. Maybe even good enough to play Samantha Jones. But time will be the ultimate judge of that one.

Amber Heard is NOT Samantha Jones

If it were up to looks only, Amber would be perfect for the role of
Samantha Jones in Killer of Killers. Take this photo for example.
This is exactly how I envisioned Samantha Jones to look. Is there
a more beautiful woman in Hollywood? I don't think so.

I browsed some of my past entries here on the blog and found a post entitled Amber Heard is Samantha Jones. So, I thought I'd update that post with this one. Amber Heard is NOT Samantha Jones. And I base this new conclusion on her performance, however small, in that last Justice League movie. She plays the wife or significant other of Aquaman. And, well, short as her screen time was, it was not anything that would make me think she can act.

I think the movie people knew that, too, which is why her screen time was so painfully short. I mean talk about a bit part. It was nothing more than a cameo, really. And any opportunity for her to shine was not used to her advantage. In fact, her lines, few as they were, were delivered with no credibility, no convincing tone, and were nothing to write home about. And ditto from what I've seen in the new Aquaman trailer.

So, yeah, I was suspecting there was a problem with her acting for a while now. I began to suspect it when I saw her in that B movie Machete Kills. I was thinking, well, it's a B movie, and it was tongue in cheek, to boot, which is very hard to pull off, and mostly no one in that movie outside of Danny Trejo was able to pull it off.

At that point I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. But after her farcical marriage to Johnny Depp, and the debacle that turned out to be, and the unwillingness of casting directors to cast her in any decent movies, (Aquaman excepted) I have been changing my mind about her. The benefit of the doubt is no longer viable. Amber Heard is NOT Samantha Jones.

And that is really because, if Killer of Killers were to ever be made into a movie, the role of Samantha Jones has got to be given to a beautiful blonde woman who can ACT. Someone who has screen presence, which Amber does NOT have, and someone who can command an audience.

Jessica is not the looker Amber is, but she's a better actress.
She was actually my first choice for the part.
Sadly, the years are taking a toll on her. 

I used to think Jessica Alba could be that woman, but the years are not being kind to Jessica Alba. Her most recent movies reveal an aging woman, sadly, which is normal, of course, but not kind to actresses who made their mark on Hollywood as young and beautiful up-and-comers.

The years have put that part of Jessica in the past. She is now a middle-aged actress, and her appearance shows it. Not even the magic of the movie set cameras can hide it. It doesn't mean Jessica's career is over. But she's not the "hot babe" she used to be, and, again, that's just the way it goes. It happens to the best of them.

So back to who is Samantha Jones. I don't know. My first choices are now dismissed, so on to the new young and beautiful blonde up-and-comers, of which there seems to be no shortage. I'll keep my eyes open. They are many. Just need one who can act.

A Star is Born - Here We Go Again

Hollywood - here we go again. I've lamented that Hollywood has been promoting the concept that the woman is the competent one, the brave one, the strong one, and the winner. And I would have no problem with that if not for Hollywood's flip-side, which is the concept that the man is the incompetent one, the coward, the weakling, and the loser.

It's bad enough Hollywood has transformed great franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars into feminist versions of the prior shows. Especially bad is the brainwashing of our children by the constant portrayal of male characters in cartoons as stupid, cowardly, incompetent and degenerate, while the female characters are the opposite. But it's not just cartoons anymore. And it's not even a new thing, evidenced by the many times remade movie, A Star is Born.

So don't watch these shows, right? I don't. But it's still disappointing. For example, I used to like the Star Trek franchise. Well, the original series, anyway. The Next Generation version was the start of its downfall. When TOS had a captain who was brave, dashing, competent, and self-assured, Star Trek was great. But then TNG had a captain who was the opposite. He needed "counseling" for practically every command decision he made. (And, oh, yeah, counseling from a woman.) Which, imo, brought the franchise down. Way down. Way, way, way, down.

It was a slow downward spiral, but it bottomed out with the current Star Trek which now features only female heroes. A female captain. A female first officer... etc... etc... In Star Trek now, the males are relegated to secondary characters with no impact. I stopped watching after the first episode.

I also stopped watching Star Wars. In those movies, the male characters are cowardly and/or incompetent fools. It's only the female characters who are the heroes. I've made the point already, that a woman can be as heroic as a man. But when it's only female characters who are the heroes, like in every single Star Wars movie since Disney bought the franchise, it's like, what the hell?

So back to A Star is Born. Sure, with this twisted Hollywood mindset, what better movie to remake than the ultimate Hollywood story of a man who is incompetent, stupid, drug-addicted, and self-destructive next to a woman who is talented, competent, self-determined, brave, and virtuous? Of course it's A Star is Born. Its fourth rendition to boot.

Which underscores my point. It had already been done three times. But hey...like I said, it's the ultimate depiction of the male vs. female scenario Hollywood has been promoting for more than two decades. Which begs the question: why does Hollywood want male characters portrayed as stupid, incompetent, degenerate, weak, and cowardly? Hollywood is run by men. Isn't that right? I keep hearing that. The feminists keep lamenting that. I think it's a good question.

Apparently, the answer is they want to see men as weak, degenerate cowards and women as strong righteous heroes. Is Hollywood catering to women? Not if you listen to the "Me-too" movement. Women have been abused by these high positioned freaks in Hollywood like forever, there's no questioning that. But it's weird and plain disgusting to me when a 120 pound woman beats up twenty men all at the same time without breaking a sweat. I just can't buy into that.

Sure, Supergirl can and so can Wonder Woman. That works because it's comic book fantasy. But here's the kicker. Iron Fist is comic book fantasy, too. But with Iron Fist, instead of just a woman who's a hero, we have to see a man who's too cowardly and insecure to be the hero, and thus passes his power to...a woman, who's not too cowardly or insecure. I mean how many times do we have to put up with this same concept? And this "Black Sky" character? Please...no.

So through it all, the solution is simple. I'm sticking with Killer of Killers. And Killer Eyes. In those stories Trent Smith is a strong, self assured, and self determined male hero. And he stays that way. He is the righteous one, and he has no insecurities in his quest for justice. Apparently it's up to me to write about a male hero who's brave enough and competent enough to be a hero. And to stay a hero. Unless there's  more Jason Statham movies in the works. Or John Wick. Speaking of which, I can't wait for John Wick chapter 3. Thank goodness, someone in Hollywood hasn't wimped out.

TV's Male Heroes Nothing But Wimps

So, I've complained about Arrow...where the hero saves peoples' lives but after doing so, those same people hate him and put him in jail or want to kill him. And indeed the hero goes to jail for the crime of saving lives. And he goes willingly. For those same people who hated him.

We saw Flash go to jail for the frame job put on him by the villain The Thinker. And I had complained about the "hero" Red Reddington who saved Lizzy's life multiple times, (and the lives of most of her friends also, btw) only for her to then hate him and put in motion a plan to "destroy" him.

Now, I'm watching this new show Iron Fist, and guess what. He turns out to be a wimp. He had already said that possessing the "iron fist" was so important to him like it was part of him. But now he no longer wants it. Say what? Yeah, he says he doesn't have the strength of will to possess it without it "consuming" him. So who does he want to have the iron fist? Who is it that's strong enough to possess it? Well, his girlfriend, of course.

I mean what the heck. So why do I want to watch a show about a "hero" who doesn't want to wield the power to be a hero because he believes he isn't strong enough? He's a cowardly wimp. Why do I want to watch a cowardly wimp? I don't. It seems only the girl is strong enough and brave enough to wield the power.  Likewise, why do I want to watch a show about a chump who goes to jail? I don't. Why do I want to watch a show about a chump where everyone he saves hates him and wants to destroy him? I don't.

So yeah, in the show Iron Fist the woman is now the iron fist because the man is not strong enough or confident enough to hold the power. This is bullshit. What is going on with Hollywood? The men who are supposed to be the heroes are instead wimps and cowards. They are weak and they are chumps. They go to jail for saving lives and saving entire cities. Like the Green Arrow. And who was it that put him in jail? A woman, of course. Who is it that wants to destroy Red Reddington? A woman, of course. And who is it that's strong enough to hold the power of the iron fist when the man who had it wimps out? A woman, of course.

This is an extension of the cartoon shows. Most if not all the cartoon shows for the last twenty years feature male characters that are stupid beyond belief. In addition to that, they are cowards and degenerates. Whereas the female characters are the smart ones, the brave ones, and the ones who have all the answers. It's like Hollywood is trying to brainwash America's kids to believe that if you are a boy, you are stupid, weak, and a coward. On top of that you are also a degenerate and a detriment to society. If you are a girl, then you are smart, strong, and determined, even more so than men. And it's like that in most of these shows, like I said, for the last twenty years.

I don't get it because that's not the reality. Look, I know women can be as smart and as strong as men, generally speaking. But this Hollywood nonsense is just going too far. It's the same thing over and over again with every show, seemingly. It's nauseating. I don't buy it. It makes me very glad I created my own hero: Trent Smith, the world's greatest martial artist. He's featured in two of my books, Killer of Killers and Killer Eyes. No one can match him in a fight, male OR female.

No Woman would last one second against Brock Lesnar

One point I want to make clear. As strong as women can be, there is no woman in the world who would be able to last more than five seconds in a ring against the best male fighters. Take Brock Lesnar as an example. No woman in the world would last one second in a ring against him. And I don't mean this to be an insult to women. I know they are strong and many women are trained to fight. But against a man with equal training? It wouldn't be a contest. Not even close.

So all this crap about how men are weak and cowardly and don't possess strength of will, like we've been seeing in Iron Fist, Arrow, and even the current Star Trek and Star Wars franchises is just that. Crap. It makes me want to go back and continue my Trent Smith series. I think I will.

Homeland Season Six

It sucked. Really. They ruined my favorite character and then killed him off. Yeah, yeah, he died as a hero saving the lives of Carrie and the president-elect, but so what.

To me it was like this. Carrie was the star of the show. No doubt. From the beginning. And Claire Danes did a fantastic job of acting. I believe no actress could have done better. She was tops.

Rupert Friend as CIA assassin Peter Quinn

But then they introduced a new character. Peter Quinn, played by Rupert Friend from Hitman Agent 47 fame. And just like he was in Hitman Agent 47, he was a hitman. An assassin. For the CIA. Rupert Friend is a great actor too. He was great as Agent 47, and he was great as super assassin Peter Quinn. I was thinking he might be great as Trent Smith from my Killer Series. (But no, he's too tall: six foot one.) But the character of Quinn was so great that he was stealing the show from Carrie, (Claire Danes.)

But of course we couldn't have that. Meaning we couldn't be allowed to have someone steal the show from Carrie. So what do they do? They turn him into a brain-damaged, handicapped, near crippled sideshow. And then they finished the job and killed him.

Right. So there goes my interest in the show. The entire Season Six sucked. From start to finish. All twelve episodes. In Episode One we saw Quinn's disability, and in Episode Twelve we saw him die. Just great. Not my cup of tea for a fictional story that had a great hero.

Make no mistake, I still believe Carrie is a great hero. Sure she makes mistakes. It was her mistake that turned Quinn into the brain-damaged person he became. And that was not what I ordered. I don't mean any disrespect to any brain-damaged persons out there, but watching the antics of a brain-damaged person was not very appealing to me.

So the two characters who were there from the beginning and are still there going into Season Seven are Carrie and Saul. And what does Season Seven have in store? It seems this new president is going loony. At least that's the impression the final shots of Season Six's finale implied. We see her sitting at her desk with this loony look on her face while everyone who had helped her avoid assassination, including Saul but not including Carrie, is being arrested. It could be she was drugged. No further clues were given.

My feeling is this: There's a new character by name of Wellington. And I predict it's this Wellington guy who is taking over the presidency while keeping the president in a drug induced haze. It's not original. It's been done before. Sheesh, it was the plot of a Star Trek episode from the original series. It was the episode when Captain Kirk and the Enterprise visited a planet that had copied the Nazis. A Federation guy had implemented the Nazi system of economic growth to bring stability to an otherwise floundering native population. But then the Federation guy's chief of staff drugged him and kept him in a drug-induced haze while he took over and proceeded with the original Nazi "policy" of extermination and war.

Yeah, it's a plot that we've seen many times since. So is that what's going on? Is the president drugged, or is the president really going loony? My guess is the former. Will it be worth watching? Don't know. Season six wasn't. That's for sure.

Homeland Three Seasons Down

Okay, so I've completed watching season three of Homeland, and it wasn't what I expected. None of this has been what I expected. In fact, this show has been the least predictable show I've ever seen. That's a good thing, btw.

So the Marine dies. This is the guy who was a Marine turned Muslim suicide bomber, turned CIA plant, turned Muslim asylum seeker, turned  CIA assassin. Say what? Well, yeah.

This show is full of surprises, and for the U.S. government to betray the dude was a surprise to me. I mean what happened to leaving no Marine behind? They left this guy to get hanged. Wait, they actually told the Iranians where he was so they can catch him. That was so their other plant could be more believable, and I don't think it was necessary. It was somewhat of a disappointment.

Still, Homeland delivers. It is filled with suspense, twists, and turns. I am caught off guard often during the course of this show. Unlike Blacklist, which I can't help but find myself comparing it to. Blacklist is so predictable. Thanks to the Dizzy Lizzy character. I mean has there ever been a dumber female character who is supposed to be a top FBI agent? I don't think so.

I mean look at it this way. The dude Red, has saved this dizzy dame's life multiple times. And he's saved her friends' lives multiple times. And their careers too, btw. Yet Dizzy Lizzy is quick to believe she has to destroy the man due to some mealymouthed explanation from one of Red's top enemies. It is hard to swallow, and I won't anymore. If they can't fix this ridiculously stupid character, the show is doomed. Of course Megan Boone's lack of credibility as an actress doesn't help.

Which brings me to what makes Homeland a success. It's not just the writing and the plots and the story lines. It's Claire Danes' acting ability which I've already pointed out is spectacular. I don't keep up with acting awards, like the Oscars, the Emmy's, or the Tony's, or whatever. I mostly can't stand actors or movie stars. I think most of them are spoiled idiots living charmed lives. And when they spout off their mouths about things other than acting, they reveal their idiocy.

But I will say that Claire Danes deserves a best actress award if anyone ever did. No, I won't bother looking it up to see if she ever got one. I don't care that much if she did or didn't. I only say in my opinion, shes' the best actress I've seen since...well since...oh yeah, since Amanda Hale from The White Queen show. Yeah, that actress was top notch. I remember blogging about her once upon a time. Intense acting. That's the ticket. Wouldn't mind finding an intense actor playing the role of Trent Smith in my Killer books. That would be a dream come true.