Saturday
Friday night’s movie fix, courtesy of Netflix by mail, was a winner. Don’t Tell a Soul (2020) is the story of teenage brothers who steal a large sum of money from an old woman’s home, which is covered in canvas due to termite infestation. I suppose that’s symbolic of what eats at homo sapiens, especially those from a troubled background. The teens’ father was an abusive alcoholic done in by gunfire, and their mom is suffering what seems terminal cancer. One of the film’s best aspects is the suspense surrounding the younger brother. Will he go the way of his angry elder? The four main principals are fantastic. The older brother is played by London’s Fionn Whitehead, who also has Dunkirk (2017) in his list of credits. The younger, played by Jack Dylan Greer, not yet out of his teens, already has 17 titles under his name at IMDb. Rainn Wilson of The Office plays a guy who chases the brothers after the theft and falls into a hole 20 feet deep. I did not recognize Mena Suvari as the mom. I don’t believe I’d seen any of her work since she broke big in American Pie (1999) and American Beauty (1999). She now has 86 titles under her name. While there are aspects of the narrative that don’t seem to make sense, it is absorbing despite its bleakness. It is the brainchild of writer/director Alex McAulay, his second full length feature. He has two others on tap. His future seems promising. Anyone turned off by the dark side of human nature should pass. Although there isn’t much blood flow, the violence is gritty. It runs only 84 minutes. In terms of financials, I found info only on DVD sales and rentals, so the flick may not have been released theatrically. 3000+ users at IMDb have rated Don’t Tell a Soul, forging to a consensus of 5.9 on a scale of ten, a bit low in my view. Here are the four leads, the top two obvious, the bottom, left to right, Whitehead and Greer:
Headline from nypost.com regarding the phony Trump-Russia collusion hoax: “WaPo walkback: Paper yanks chunks of stories based on discredited Steele dossier.” Is that virtue signaling? The damage has long been done. The left won, getting Trump out of office, and the perpetrators will likely not suffer any consequences. If only we could shout “Do over!” like we used to on the streets of Brooklyn.
How ‘bout this headline from foxnews.com: “Journalists welcome Biden bill’s $1.6B tax credit to local news outlets, despite ethics questions.” It would be a first — if the next boondoggle passes.
The rain held off longer than forecast, allowing the floating book shop to get in a full session. My thanks to the kind folks who ponied up. Here’s what sold: a collection of short stories and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe; Hollywood Husbands by Jackie Collins; The Funhouse by Dean Koontz; 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson; Bible Readings for the Home by Vance Ferrell; the last two Russian DVDs in stock; Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard; Clapton, the guitar god’s autobio; Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, The Berlin Wall, and the Most Dangerous Place On Earth by Iain MacGregor ; Spontaneous Healing: How to Discover and Embrace Your Body’s Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself by Andrew Weil M.D.; and a book I thought would never sell: Aung San of Burma: A Biographical Portrait by His Daughter by Aung San Suu Kyi.
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