Grannie Will Love It

Thelma

starring June Squibb

  Fred Hechinger 

  Richard Roundtree

  Parker Posey

  Clark Gregg

  Malcolm McDowell

written and directed by Josh Margolin

 This is a cute little movie about an elderly lady who gets taken in by a scammer, and decides to seek revenge. At some point in the writing of the script, Josh Margolin decided what he had was good enough, and ran with it. Too bad: it could have used another two or three read-throughs for a little punching up. And when he put on his directing hat, it would have been nice if he hadn't been in such a hurry to get the thing done. 

 For example: in one scene Thelma (June Squibb) forgets to engage the handbrake on the scooter she's stolen from Ben (Richard Roundtree). She left it on a sidewalk as the two of them argue. When she turns to go back to it, it's sitting in the roadway, and of course gets hit by a passing car. It's an amusing bit, but I was distracted by the fact that, even if it had really rolled away unattended, it could not have ended up there, as it would have had to go uphill past a deep-ish gutter to its final perch on the crown of the roadway (where any driver not in a movie would have had plenty of room to go around it); and it was oriented in the wrong direction, neatly stopped perpendicular to the curb, as though, upon its improbable arrival on the crown of the road, it executed a sharp ninety-degree turn before coming to a stop. Here it is hours later, and I'm still thinking about that. It would have been so easy to get right in the filming.

 The performances were uniformly okay. Except for Malcolm McDowell as the villain, who delivered at a higher standard, all the capable actors (and the ones that I only assume are capable) were half a beat slow on the dialog. That consistent flaw makes me suspect the editor (who is, probably not coincidentally, also the writer and director), Josh Margolin. 

 If there were such a thing as dollar movies these days, this would have been perfect, As it is, though, I was disappointed at having paid full matinee price to see it. Now, if I hadn't read any of the promotional material for this movie I might have liked it a whole lot more than I did.The promos promised "a clever spin on movies like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE..." That is a promise far beyond this production group's ability to deliver; and a couple of shots of Tom Cruise and a clip from one of the films in that franchise don't take the place of intricate high adventure. 

 The audience, when I saw this movie, consisted of me, one husband-and-wife couple, and about two dozen elderly women, attending in pairs and small groups of up to four. I found the film amusing, if a bit trying of my patience for oft-seen tropes and stereotypes. They, however, hooted and laughed like kids at their first circus. Everything in the movie resonated with every one of these women. 

 So take your grandma to see Thelma. She'll love it.

A Modest Proposal

 The Supreme Court, seemingly determined to force US law back to a time before FDR's court-packing scheme, has decided that the President is not to be accountable for any "official" action taken during his tenure in office, even after he leaves that office. The Court's radical-right majority evidently believes that no one in their right mind would take the sort of actions that the Maga Cheeto is propounding in tweets and speeches; and they're not worried about him, even though he's not in his right mind, because, of course, he only threatens people they don't like anyway.

 Maybe ol' Sleepy Joe should surprise them, by embracing their ruling while he still has a majority in the Senate. Maybe he should order the FBI or whoever one would order to do such things inside the territory of the United States, to shoot the six members of the Court that moved such abominable actions outside the scope of the law's review. He could then quickly nominate six replacements and get them confirmed, and the entire court could then revisit the question. Having taken this action -- this official action -- in furtherance of his obligation to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from the sort of unprincipled interpretation that produced such a ludicrous holding (not to mention a score of other, similarly unprincipled interpretations of the law), the Court would then be able to overrule itself, and return us to the rule of law. Of course, since Biden's official action was performed while immunity was in force, he wouldn't be subject to any accountability for that.

 I'd say that's a win-win. And if he were to take out the big Cheeto too, well, that'd just be the icing on the cake. And I couldn't object if he were to deal with a few of Putin's Senators, too.

/s, with apologies to Jonathan Swift