Oddball Magazine January 2026.

One of my trump portraits along with a poem by Chad Parenteau. Click on the link

https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-chad-parenteau-20/

Valentino Garavani 1932-2026

 

Elle Simone Scott-1976-2026

 

First piece of the new year 2026 Mixed on paper

 

Sinners 2025

 

For the first half of this Ryan Coogler audacious movie I sat in awe and pleasure as I was expecting a large and imaginative take on African American life in the Jim Crow south of 1932. I had really no idea what was coming and knew very little about this blockbuster movie and even its blockbuster status surprised me before seeing it. Now of course I understand why it was such a huge hit and it has nothing to do with African American history in the deep south of 1932. More about that later on.

The story concerns two grown twin brothers both played by the fine charismatic handsome actor Michael B. Jordan. The first surprise for me. They are home from Chicago where they were members of the Al Capone gang and are now ready to spend some of their ill gotten bucks on opening a big Juke Joint for the pleasure and enjoyment of their down beaten community in a huge abandoned sawmill that they buy from an obvious racist and maybe even a KKK member.

The two twins are nicknamed smoke and stack cute right? and upon returning they are greeted by close friends and some new buddies. Among the new buds is Sammy a young cousin of theirs who sings and plays the guitar beautifully, and is soon taken under the twin's enveloping wings. Sammy has conflicts with his father who is a no nonsense minister of a small southern church and does not like what Sammy is doing.

The film actually opens with Sammy all battered and bruised holding the remains of his guitar driving confused up to his father's church in a vintage red convertible. We know nothing of what happened until the movie flashes back in time to a few days earlier. For some reason known only to Coogler the screen ratio keeps going from wide screen to 4.3, one of the annoying things I didn't like.

Its in the long flashback that takes up most of the movie's running time of 138 minutes and where the story unfolds we meet all the major and minor characters of the movie We meet the Chinese couple Grace and Bo Chow and their teenage daughter Lisa who own two groceries one selling to whites only and the other to blacks. They are old friends of the brothers and I love the affection and feelings that they have for each other. I knew nothing about the vibrant Chinese community who had homes and lives in the deep south during this period or indeed any other period so I welcomed this new addition of knowledge.

One of my favorites in the film is played by the great Nigerian British actress Wunmi Mosaku who gives another terrific performance as Smoke's estranged wife and practitioner of hoodoo and mother of their dead infant. She is a majestic and monumental figure.


There is a lot of great music in the film, and a highlight is the large dance number at the juke joint where dancers come back from the far and recent past to perform in this wonderful dance and music number. It is a successful attempt at mixing music, fantasy and dance and the look of this number brought back to me images of paintings by some of the great African American artists of the time including Archibald John Motley, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence whose works I've posted with the review.

Spoiler Alert

However my admiration for the film starts to go downhill with the introduction and take over of the story by the far fetched appearance of vampires. Why vampires? Are they a metaphor for the racists and KKK? This strange brew just didn't work for me, it was as if another film had stumbled into this movie and it's a silly intrusion into what was for me, a marvelous interpretation of the period and the African American experience during this time. It just didn't work for me. I know I am in the minority about this vampire thing, but that's ok.

I can only think that Coogler who has made some of the Marvel films and the Rocky spinoff “Creed”wanted to capture the younger audiences which he did. However I pretty much turned off during the last part of the film with all the vampire bloodshed and bullshit. He also adds two Addenda endings both of which were unnecessary and mawkish including a one man bloody attack on the KKK and a later look at the character of Sammy also unnecessary.

None of this has hampered the generally very good critical response, and the film's appearance in most of the year end award nominations and winners, and then there are those stunning blockbuster box office returns. Listen I have nothing against the mixing of history with fantasy. In fact one of my favorite series of the recent past is “Lovecraft Country” that wonderfully mixed fantasy, sci fi and horror with the African American experience in Chicago during the 40's and 50's and featured a stunning group of African American actors including Wunmi Mosaku.

Renee Nicole Good 1989-2026. The shame of this nation.

 

Robert Heide 1934-2025

playwright and author of many books of nostalgia, I knew him from my days working at Cinemabilia.

Bela Tarr 1955-2026.

Saw one of his films, that was pure torture for me to get through. I understand his importance to many but not me. Still I must make note of his passing.

Eva Schloss 1929-2026. Anne Franks step sister

 

Jon Korkes 1945-2025

 

Weapons 2025

My recent viewings of horror-fantasy-sci-fi movies have been mostly disappointing and usually after watching them I would throw down my remote in disgust and disappointment over wasting my time with them. Happily I can say that my recent viewing of the newish horror film “Weapons” was greeted by me with pleasure and dread. Finally a smart and successful horror movie that creeped me out in a big way. Directed with flair and assurance by the youngish director Zach Cregger who joins the ranks of several other audacious creators including the “Daniels” that's Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, (Everything Everywhere All At Once) Sean Baker (Anora ) and Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems co directed with his brother Benny and Marty Supreme which he did on his own) all of these mavericks have had and are having major critical and popular hits and winning Oscars galore. They are the children of the Coen Brothers.

A usual and common trait that many horror movies like “Weapons” have is that they generally take place in quiet bucolic small towns across the U.S.A where horrible things can and usually happen. The sweeter the town the more horrible things will happen there. This is indeed the case with “Weapons” that opens with a voice over narration from a young girl who tells us about the time seventeen young school children disappeared from the same 3rd grade class. This begins chapter one of six that gives us the perspectives of six of the main characters that intersect with each other and caused me great stress, excitement, and dread.

The opening scenes of the children mysteriously running out of their homes very late at night will remain with me for a long time. They are haunting, strange and easily the most beautiful scenes that I have seen in a film this year. The stills give some idea of their strangeness and haunting beauty. When I first saw the trailer for the film on t.v. These scenes stopped me dead in my tracks and I would watch the trailer over and over. Why are they running with their arms outstretched like birds in flight and where are they running to at this very late night or very early morning hour of 2:17 a.m.

Let's not forget that this is a horror film and it is as far fetched and far out as any film of this genre I have ever seen. That it is far fetched is not a put down as the history of this genre is full and filled with far fetched and far out plots and images. Remember that big ape sitting on top of the Empire State Building?

So this film, this horror of a movie is also a mystery since we don't know what happened to these 17 children and won't really know until the final shocking and fantastic last minutes of the film that runs a little over 2 hours, quite a long length for a B horror flick. And even then the mystery will remain unanswered left up to our imaginations to figure out what we just witnessed.

In the meantime the stories of the 6 major characters flow past us including the school teacher of the kids who is played by the always marvelous Julia Garner. She is blamed for this incident by the parents of the missing children, especially by the nasty dad played by a surprising Josh Brolin who gives Julia a very hard time but will come to change his mind as the story moves on. A big snort of pleasure comes when we are presented with the character of Aunt Gladys played with relish and vividness by Amy Madigan who might just win a supporting actress Oscar this spring. I can say no more about her as I will be accused of being a spoiler and we can't have that, but oh Mary that red wig of hers. And you will never look at a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup the same way after seeing this movie. One of the ten best films of 2025 (so far).

All By Myself. The Eartha Kitt Story 1982. Streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Made by the noted documentary filmmaker Christian Blackwood in 1982 I can highly recommend this revealing and very entertaining look at the great Eartha Kitt. My recollections of her are mainly from my childhood years of seeing her on the Ed Sullivan show on sunday nights and in 1958 when I was 11 going to my local Loew's to see one of her few films she did Anna lucasta. I also loved her late career disco hit in 1984 "Where is my Man" and I of course was admiring of her political views and her strong anti viet nam stance especially her infamous white house luncheon with Lady Bird Johnson where she spoke her mind about the war, made Lady Bird cry and pretty much ended her career in these United States of ours for a decade.

Happily that didn't stop the lady and the documentary touches on this political matter among other revealing stuff about her that she lays out without remorse or embarrassment. In the doc. she takes a trip back to her childhood home and this was for me very moving. She talks about her being an ugly duckling but hell to me as a kid growing up in Brooklyn she was exotic and striking. She is brave appearing here in a lot of the film without make up or wigs showing us her face inward and out.

Happily Blackwood includes quite a bit footage of her performing and my my this was where I just about lost it and realized how great she was. I had of course no memories of her performing, a glimpse of her as the cat woman but not of her doing her thing. It was a revelation for me, my mouth opened wide in awe and wonder, and I thought to myself man Eartha you were fucking great. This film stayed with me this cold morning in the new year which so far doesn't look very hopeful, but Eartha made it little less awful. See this one.

Carmen de Lavallade 1931-2025

 

Tatiana Schlossberg 1990-2025

 

Brigitte Bardot 1934-2025

 

Amos Poe 1949-2025

 

Everything I made in 2025 part 6