Blogroll Spotlight #176

It is time for the weekly round up of favorite posts from my blogroll. These are not ranked, but in alphabetical order by blog title.  If you would like a specific post listed next week, you may email it to me and I will include it.

Adrienne's Corner-Wild Bill: How to wreck the military...
American Perspective-Congratulations Graduate! Son graduates UC Merced today!
Bluegrass Pundit--Hillary Clinton: “We still live in a state of denial,”
Camp of the Saints-The TCOTS Six Days Of Cheesecake: Saturday
Classic Liberal-Heroes and Their Tazers: theCL Report
Daley Gator--Diversity? Not for White students apparently
Diogenes' Middle Finger-Media To Add Laugh Track Audio to All Future Jay Carney Press Conferences
Fishersville Mike-The Battle Continues
Gormogons-A Telling Tale
In a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World--The Friday Pin Up
Motor City Times-Video: Venom GT Runs 0 to 265.7 mph in 2 Miles
Other McCain-Should IRS Standards for 501(c) Groups Require Proof of ‘Social Welfare’ Purpose?
Paco Enterprises-Sunday Funnies
Pirate's Cove-If All You See...
Proof Positive-Quote du Jour
Randy's Roundtable-Thursday Nite Tart: Kate Bocik
Reaganite Republican-Reaganite's Sunday Funnies
Sentry Journal-Politics is Scandalous
Teresamerica-Rep. Mike Kelly Hammers IRS Official at Hearing
Troglopundit-“Booyah,” said the Stormtrooper as he gave knucks to the other Stormtrooper.
We the People-Islamic Compounds in America are Training for Jihad
Woodsterman--Lying in Bed Pondering
Zilla of the Resistance-Under the Fedora IRS Orioles and it ain’t over

The Three Stooges--If a Body Meets a Body

If a Body Meets a Body is a very disappointing short.  For one thing, it relies too heavily on a single gag that runs on too long.  For another, it is the first short filmed after Curly’s hospitalization.  His performance is noticeably off.  Poor Larry takes twice as much punishment so Curly can have it easier. 

Curly’s subdued performance is ironic considering he is the focus of the plot.  The Stooges are unemployed looking for want ads in the newspaper when they run across a news item Curly’s wealthy uncle has died.  Assuming he has inherited a fortune, the trio go to collect the money.  Once there, they discover his uncle was murdered.  When another murder occurs, everyone is stuck at the mansion by order of the investigating detective. 

This is where that one running gag comes in.  While the Stooges try to sleep even though they are terrified, a parrot crawls into a skull and waners around.  At various times, curly and Larry see it.  They assume it is a host, but the skull always runs or flies off before Moe can see it, too.  There are some funny its with it, but the scene drags out beyond the laughs. 

Once the Stooges have had enough, they head for the exit.  In their haste, they knock over the maid.  The maid is revealed to be a man in drag who murdered Curly’s uncle for the money.  Once he is arrested, the will is read.  Curly inherit’s a meager $ .67, much to the Stooges chagrin. 

If a Body Meets a Body has some funny moments, but they are overshadowed by Curly’s illness.  His timing is off, and he is visibly struggling to get through filming.  He is painful to watch at times.  The short relies too much on the parrot gag, too.  There are not enough funny visuals with it to fill the time demanded. 

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Nina Fjalestad (Miss Norway)

I generally post actresses and singers rather than amateur beauty contestants, but Miss Norway, 2013 representative to the Miss Earth Pageant, could not be ignored.  She is nigh flawless.  

The Miss Earth Pageant is a new one on me, too.  Iyt sounds like someone decided to organize another beauty contest solely for the sake of parading around pretty girls. 

Not that it is a bad idea, mind you....

Doctor Who--"The Name of the Doctor"

“The Name of the Doctor” is the seventh seri4es finale of Doctor Who.  It is also the best series finale since 2006’s ’Doomsday.”  Although it does suffer from the usual too many revelations packed into too short a time, it is really not a uge problem.  I am going to spoil the finale completely, including the cliffhanger ending which leads directly into November’s 50th anniversary special, so if you do not want to know everything, stop reading now. 

The most interesting aspect of the episode, aside from the wild cliffhanger, is the emphasis on the supporting cast.   Clara, river, Vastra, Jenny, and Strax all have major roles to play and are highly entertaining in tem.  Alex Kingston in particular kills it as River.   I like how the character has become less catty as time goes on.  With each subsequent appearance--one figures this is the last--she is more battle scarred and weary.  But all the characters do their thing here. 

Vastra invites the others to a séance-lie meeting because she has discovered from a condemned prisoner in Glasgow the doctor has a dark secret on a planet calle Trenzalore, a place he must never go.  Before they can figure out the secret, the group is attacked by the enormously disturbing looking Whipsermen, who are faceless albinos.  Clara and river escape, but the others are captured.

Clara fins the doctor and informs him of Trenzalore.  He is visibly shaken at the name.  Rightfully so--it is his final resting place.  A time traveler should never visit his own grave, but to save his friens, he must travel to Trenzalore.  Trenzalore is visually stunning.  Ark, fiery, and full o brimstone and obsidian.  It looks like the literal hell.    It feels strangely appropriate considering the Doctor’s often dark past.  His actual tomb is the none dead, skyscraper size TARDIS.

Inside is the Great Intelligence monk eying around in Dr. Simeon’s body.  (*rimshot*)  He forces the TARDIs doors open by threatening the Doctor’s friends and enters.  His plan is to step into the time stream and erase the doctor from history, whih he does.  As the Doctor lay dying, the universe changes around him as his past incarnations are wiped from history. 

Enter Clara, who enters the time stream as well in order to save each incarnation of the doctor.  The glimpses we catch of the past Doctors is a special treat for old school Whovians like me.  I particularly like the scene in which Clara directs the First Doctor, though CGI and dubbing, to take the TARDIS with the screwy navigation because it will be more fun.  The multiple Claras explain why he has appeared throughout the Doctor’s travels and saved him multiple times.

Clara restores the universe proper, and the doctor goes in after her.  In the time stream, they discover the Doctor, played by John Hurt in an unbilled cameo.  This Doctor has committed an unspeakable act that he nonetheless justifies, but “our” Doctor is appalled.  What has he one/  We will have to wait until November to find out.  

I liked “The Name of the Doctor” quite a bit.  We never get to learn the doctor’s real name, but I did not want to do so.  There is a lot of stuff packed in the episode with a large part of it not featuring the Doctor at all.  But it does not feel rushed for the info dump or empty for the lack of Doctor action.  On the contrary, the guest cast is excellent.  The cliffhanger ending truly caps it all off.  I cannot wait until November. 

Rating: **** (out of 5)

Full Metal Jacket Reach Around #186

It is time once again to round up all the bloggers gracious enough to link to me this week.

Pirate's Cove links to FMJRA, Blogroll Spotlight, and Jenna-Louise Coleman.
Proof Positive links to Scarlett Johansson, Thelma Todd, and Kaley Cuoco.
Motor City Times links to Three Stooges Busy Buddies
Sentry Journal links to I Spent a Fine Morning in the Emergency Room.
Woodsterman acknowledges the Rule 5.
Reaganite Republican links to Dawn Wells.

A sincere thank you to all who linked this week.  If you linked to me in the last week, but I do not have you here, you unfortunately fell through the cracks of Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Sitemeter. Please drop me a note in the comments and I will update with your link.

The Three Stooges--Idiot's Deluxe

After all these years of putting up with Larry and Curly’s incompetence, Moe has finally suffered a nervous breakdown.  Idiot’s Deluxe is told in flashback from courtroom testimony in which moe defends himself from attempted murder charges involving his cohorts.  The heart of the story, however, is the stooges outwitted by a bear. 

The short opens with moe on the witness stand.  He defends himself against attempted murder charges by explaining he is a sick man whose doctor ordered six months of peace and quiet.  Larry and Curly, who are bad musicians practicing their songs, do not help matters.  But they decide to take Moe on a camping trip to make it up to him. 

They settle in for breakfast at a cabin, but a bear arrives to stealth fully steal the food.  After realizing what has happened, Moe sends his cohorts out to kill the bear.   What follows is an escapade that makes Elmer Fudd look like a safari master.  Larry and Curly manage to knock the bear unconscious with a rock.  Believing it dead, they put it in the car.  The bear awakens, and the trio are forced to abandon the vehicle.  The bear promptly takes the wheel an rives the car into a tree. 

The judge acquits Moe after hearing the story.  He returns the ax that was the alleed weapon to Moe.  Moe than chases Larry and Curly out the courtroom, wildly swinging the ax. 

Curly’s decline is becoming far more obvious with each new short.  He is highly subdued in Idiot’s Deluxe and takes far less punishment than usual.  After filming, Moe insisted his brother check himself into a hospital.  Curly admitted himself to Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara.  He was found to be suffering from obesity, hypertension, and retinal hemorrhaging.  The diagnosis was the first evidence of the  impending stroke. That would end his career. 

Idiot’s Deluxe is unusual for a Stooge short.  I made the Elmer Fudd comparison above deliberately.  The short has more in common with a Bugs Bunny cartoon than anything the Stooges have produced before.  But I like Bugs Bunny, so that is all right with me.    Idiot’s Deluxe is not a lauh riot, but it is definitely good.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Jenna-Louise Coleman

The Doctor Who seventh series finale airs tonight.  After that, there are no new episodes until the 50th anniversary episode in late November.  Enjoy the show while you can. 

I will be back later with a review for "The Name of the Doctor" after it airs. 

The Three Stooges--Booby Dupes

Booby Dupes is another less than stellar short from the Stooges.  It feels kind of thrown together  with the middle coming across as filler before segueing into the heart of the story, which is not that great.  At least Booby Dupes is the last time the Stooges take swipes at the Japanese. 

The Stooges are unsuccessful fish salesmen who decide to buy a boat to cut out the middle man and fish for their own stock.  They do not have a boat, so they naturally swipe sailor suits from a tailor.  Curly steals a police chief’s uniform instead, then inadvertently starts flirting with his wife before being chased off.

The trio buy a lemon of  a boat for $300 and promptly sink it while incompetently fishing.  They make it to a dingy before drowning, and signal some American bombers overhead for help.  Unfortunately, the rag Moe waves to get the bombers’ attention has a paint stain identical to the Japanese flag.   The bombers let them have it.  Moe fashions a makeshift motor out of a rotor and Curly’s portable record player.  The Stooges escape unharmed. 

Booby Dupes is one of the few shorts in which the Stooges actually refer to themselves as The Three Stooges.  Moe identifies themselves as such in a futile attempt to stop the bombing. 

Booby Dupes is a lackluster effort.  The Stooges have already played fish salesmen.  The middle bit with curly and the hot tempered, jealous police chief is moderately funny filler before the fishing expedition which is supposed to be the main focus of the short.  But the fishing trip is not all that funny.  The short is very disappointing. 

Rating: * (out of 5)

Flashback Friday: Dawn Wells

Mary Ann over Ginger.  Always. 

The Three Stooges--Three Pests in a Mess

Three Pests in a Mess is the first Stooge short of 1945.  The year will feature the fewest number of shorts released in any year of the Stooges’ career.  There will only be five.  It would appear the physical toll of filming the usual seven or eight plus personal appearances promoting the sale of war bonds was finally too much for them.

The Stooges arrive at the patent office with their latest invention.  It is an elaborate fly catcher that supposedly prompts the insects to jump to their death.  The patent officer is not impressed, but says if the Stooges can make a hundred dollars with it, he will give them a patent.  At a penny a fly, they figure they will need to kill a hundred thousand flies. 

Their math is incorrect.  They would actually only need ten thousand flies, but the plot requires a group of con artists to overhear the one hundred thousand number and assume the Stooges are talking about dollars, not flies.  The point is the math error is probably deliberate to make the “dollar amount” more enticing for crooks. 

When the crooks discover the truth, they chase the Stooges into a sporting goods store.  Curly accidentally fires a gun while hiding and shoots a mannequin.  Assuming the mannequin to be a real man, the trio take it with them when they escape to cover up the “murder.”

They fin a pet cemetery to bury the body in, but the night watchman summons the cemetery’s owner.  The owner just happens to be throwing a costume party,  so he and his cohorts arrive dressed as the Devil, a skeleton, and…well, I do not know what.  A wizard, I guess.  There is a predictable chase as the Stooges suspect the ghouls are real.  The attempt to bury the mannequin is abruptly halted when the ghouls are found hiding in the intended grave. 

Three Pests in a Mess is quite macabre for the Stooges.   Not a bad thing, mind you.  The short is hilarious, and there will be quite a few more like it to come, especially during the Shemp years.  There is a blackface joke in the middle of the short after Moe is sprayed in the face with ink.  I assume the scene is cut out of television broadcasts,  but Larry’s impression of Al Jolson in response is too funny to miss. 

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Kaley Cuoco

There was a bonus Kaley Cuoco photo earlier this week to celebrate The Eye's three millionth hit, but we are back to regular Kaley Cuoco Day. 

Until the summer hiatus, at any rate.

The Three Stooges--No Dough Boys

The Japanese return to menace the stooges in No Dough Boys.  As with a couple other shorts poking fun of wartime Japanese, this one has not been aired often on television out of racial sensitivity.  This is the first time I have seen it myself.   There are some funny bits here that were probably funnier when anti-Japanese sentiment was running high.  I can see why No Dough Boys is not often aired on television these days.

The Stooges are actors posing for a commercial dressed as Japanese soldiers.  The director is called away, so he sens the Stooges off to lunch while he is gone.  The trio do not bother to change out of costume when they head to a nearby café.   To make matters worse, a Japanese submarine has recently been sunk off the coast of California with three crew still missing.  The café owner assumes the Stooges are the three Japanese submariners and does battle with them.

The Stooges, realizing they cannot convince the guy they are not Japanese, flee into what turns out to be the head quarters of an Axis spy ring full of Germans.  They have been expecting the submariners, so the Stooges must play the part convincingly in order to break up the spy ring.

So here we go with major Japanese stereotypes.  The Stooges do all their dialogue in pigeon English while squinting.  They do mock jujitsu on each other to entertain the Germans, and finally do a “traditional” acrobatic routine that looks like toddlers rough housing.  These are the scenes in which the Japanese mocking grows uncomfortably intense. 

When the real submariners show up, the Stooges o through the old routine of switching the lights off during the ensuing fight, only to have someone turn them back on periodically to discover allies are accidentally fighting one another.  The Stooges finally come out on top wen the lights are switched on for good.

The ‘No Dough” part of the title is a play on the Japanese accent answering two oath of loyalty questions before they are allowed to join the American military.  The oath taker must answer no to both, which apparently sounds like ‘no, dough” enough to merit mocking.  Take it for what it is worth.

As I said above, I can see why No Dough Boys is not aired much, if at all, on television.  The Japanese are brutalized.  I respect the short as a product of its time, and it is really funny even outsie of the racist humor.  The Stooges perform some impressive feats of athleticism during the acrobatics routine.  The short is definitely worth seeing if you can find it outside the massive DVD collection of Stooge shorts. 

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Olivia Munn as Princess Leia

The Slave Girl Leia Metal Bikini has yet to get old. 

The Three Stooges--Gents Without Cents

Gents Without Cents is an unusual critter.  It is very thin on plot even by Stooge short standards.  Instead, it is largely a showcase of the Stooges performing old vaudeville acts.  It remains a fan favorite, however, because the trio perform the famous “Niagara Falls”  skit. 

The Stooges are small time actors preparing a routine for a booking agent when their upstairs neighbors begin making a racket yet again.  The trio stomp upstairs to discover three beautiful women practicing a tap dance routine.  Flo, Mary, Shirley quickly beriend the Stooges and accompany them to the audition. 

The audition does not go well, but the Stooges are booked as an opening act for castor & Earl (castor oil?) at the Noazark Ship building Company.  They wow the audience by finally getting the “Niagara Falls” skit down pat.  When Castor & Earl cannot go on, the Stooges and the girls perform the rest of the show.  They are such a smash, they earn their on Broadway show.  All parties get married and honeymoon in--you guessed it--Niagara Falls. 

Gents Without Cents is low on plot, but it is definitely fun to watch the Stooges and the girls do their thing regardless.   You will not feel gypped at all watching this one, and you will probably wind up doing the famous opening of the “Niagara Falls” skit yourself for quite a while afterwards. 

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Celebrate Three Million Blog Hits with Kaley Cuoco

Sometime over night while I was snoozing, Siemeter recorded The Eye’s 3,000,000th hit.   The actual visitor was off the radar by the time I checked my stats, so I cannot identify what he was looking for the way I did when The Eye rolled over the previous million visitor milestones.  Bummer.  Missing out on such things is tough for a stats junkie. 

I am going to take a wild guess and say my three millionth visitor was a European searching for Kaley Cuoco photos.  The time of night was right, and Cuoco is the main attraction here as of late.  If not, here is a bonus Kaley Cuoco Day to celebrate regardless.  No complaints, I assume?

Thanks to all my visitors who made reaching three million possible.  I am particularly grateful to those who did not give up on The Eye  in the months after surgery when I virtually disappeared.  I am the first to admit the blog has done little more than limp along in recent times, but it does me good to know you are all still hanging in there with me. 

The Three Stooges--Idle Roomers

Idle Roomers, a play on the term idle rumors, is thankfully far more lighthearted than yesterday’s entry.  The short features one of the first of many to come encounters the stooges have with the supernatural.  Such shorts really hit their strie in the Shemp years, which we are about to enter.

The stooges are bellhops at the Hotel Snazzy Plaza where they do battle with one another for the attention of a lovely new guest played by Christine McYntyre.  The short is her debut.  She will appear in many others throughout the Shemp years.  The Stooges’ plays for her affection when her jealous husband, who has a penchant for knife throwing, makes his appearance. 

Not only is the husband a knife throwing, but a sportsman.  he has captured Lupe the Wolfman and is keeping him in a trunk with plans to sell tickets for the public to see him.  His wife is afraid of the monster, but is assured Lupe is docile unless he hears music.  Naturally, when the Stooges are cleaning the room later, curly turns on the radio.  Lupe goes berserk, breaks free, and gives chase to the Stooges.  They wind up all trapped in the elevator rocketing through the sky. 

I mentioned deliberately the Shemp shorts are starting soon because Idle Roomers is well lnown among fans as the beginning of Curly’s fade.  Curly had spent four years up until this point drinking and womanizing all night, every night since his third divorce in 1940.  The strain is starting to show.  He has clearly aged, is not as nimble, and can no longer maintain his in character voice.  It will not be the drinkin that fells Curly--he suffers a stroke instead--but his brother moe will ignore the early signs of a stroke by blaming them on the alcohol.  So the conspicuous changs in Curly are still signs of a tragic downfall. 

Idle Roomers has a strange story structure.  It looks like the short will be about the stooges nearly killing each other to be the one to court a beautiful woman, then shifts ears to a monster movie romp.   The segue could probably be done better, but the short is entertaining regardless.  At one point, Curly and Lupe play with the Groucho/Harpo mirror scene in Duck Soup to hilarious results.  Not a classic, but very funny.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis on a Monday.