Keeper of the Clown Bell

The critical battlefield was outlined by POTUS 44 with the mid-December release of  his annual list of favorites  from the closing year (2025) which includes the top movies he has watched in the hours that remain after reading many books and listening to a lot of music. Because he's a capitol (D) donkey I figure Barack gets to watch all of these pictures for free plus hear the industry chit-chat about what celebritards are paid to promote. As longtime KOTCB readers know, I do NOT usually watch the films critiqued here because, for the most part, I don't need to but unlike Barry I do give commentary regarding the themes in these flicks to explain WHY they make anyones list. The Enigma just lobs his picks skyward like he's shooting hoops with LeBron and hopes the rock falls into the hole.* For me it's one battle after another in the cinephile war and in the spirit of years past I humbly submit my reviews. Through a series of odd circumstances, I have actually watched a mo...

In 1975, nostalgia was a powerful cultural force in the Techno-Fascist Imperium, with movies and TV shows tapping into America’s longing for a time before the JFK coup d'état, Great Society Cultural Revolution and Watergate-era bloodless coup. Though the KOTCB pegs the year 1973 as the start of 50 years of failure (see disposable butane lighter) there is a strong argument that '75 was the cultural nadir of America and we've been climbing our way out of the psychological abyss for the past 18,250 days. The 50's were very popular in the mid-70's zeitgeist with ShaNaNa on the radio, "Grease" on Broadway and "Happy Days" on TV painting an idealized picture of All-American innocence. As for the cinema, which is the primary focus of this blog bost, the output from Hollywood was very au courant. The Oscar best picture contenders were "One Flew Over The Coockoo's Nest" (winner), "Barry Lyndon," "Dog Day Afternoon," ...

 " Why is the Moon exactly the same apparent size from Earth as the Sun? Surely this cannot be just coincidence; the odds against such a perfect match are enormous. " I've often thought the exact same thing and was thinking it very hard three weeks ago on April 8th at 3:17pm ET when I witnessed a 91% solar eclipse while standing bearfoot in the grass caveman style and staring up at the sky. As the disk of la luna moved across the face of the sun I bore witness to what appeared to be random evidence of a grand design drawn up and established by a creator God with infinitely inscrutable motives. And that's just the caveman level observations but when I contemplate the vastness of our solar system (to say nothing of the expanding universe) and the true size and distance of the planetary objects involved in this dance I am truly humbled and in awe of the divine proportions in this phenomenon. What are the odds? For me the odds are infinitesimally tiny to the point of absu...

  When I was a young man I had the opportunity to travel around the world on a 9 month odyssey with a crew of cinephiles under the direction of an organization called  The International Honors Program .  The tale of this extravagant boondoggle will be told another day but for the purposes of this commentary I will say that the expedition took place in a mid-80's cold war world when movies, radio and television (even newspapers) actually had cultural and political impact - that is to say, before the digital age. I started scribbling these musings weeks ago and (in my mind) went down many paths; some lead to the past, others to the future and still others to places that don't exist. How did I get to the paragraph I'm presently composing? Well, it started with Noah Hawley and the TV series Fargo which he writes and directs because, as it happens, this talented auteur graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1989 and that means he might have known one of the Steve's on the ...

  It’s been a few years since I did my last Oscars review because I don’t watch these movies anymore and ever since the “Moonlight” win I’ve lost interest in the spectacle but this year… this year I’m back. Still haven’t watched any of the movies (except Oppenheimer) but I did see a film that should have won but didn’t. Read all about it. BEST PICTURE NOMINEES AMERICAN FICTION -  Black Lives Matter. West World season 1 on HBO was okay, and Jeffery Wright’s awakening to the fact that he wasn’t what he thought himself to be was moving and sad. We’ve all been there - realizing a truth that everyone else already knew but were too embarrassed to mention. I wish these guys would make a movie about Kanye. ANATOMY OF A FALL -  Guerre tout le temps. I just don’t care. Die. Go to jail. Or be free. Whatever you need to do but don’t drag me into your horrible dramatic life with massive disfunction and French ennui.  BARBIE -  White Loves You. Great memes. I mean, honestly,...

The backend fortnight of November is a nostalgic time when celebrations of Thanksgiving, remembrance of the JFK assassination and addressing the annual Xmas card revive memories of what has been lost. This year was the 60th recurrence of the magic-bullet psyop inflicted on America so there was an avalanche of Oliver Stone, Roger Stone and every stone cold IC disinformation operator in the media-sphere telling stories about the shooting in Dallas and who was behind it. Whoever the killer(s) was picked the most sentimental national tradition to bloody forever by blowing the president's head off a few days before  the harvest feast and blessing . Thanks a lot dude(s) - I've had to live with the psychic effluvium of Jack's smiling wraith for my entire life and I do resent it. My uncle John loved to tell stories about his childhood and most of them revolved around experiences he had with his dad, my grandfather, which are unconventional or, in some cases, incomprehensible to a 2...

One of the pleasant oddities located in the central Virginia town of Staunton is a replica of the Blackfiars Playhouse which is where the thespians studying at the American Shakespeare Center practice their craft. It's an authentic experience with open bench seating, "lights on" staging and minimal set design just like they did it in merry old England back in 1608. Even with the rainbow stew anachronism, woke LBGT++ transposition of she for him and he for her casting, and modern day antiseptic slovenliness of the audience these plays still deliver astounding insights due to the physical location of  their performance.  Last week I took in The Taming of the Shrew and was overjoyed to see this play performed straight and, to my mind, incorporate the authentic "sly" twist in the Bards massage that so many contemporary drama critics miss. This years troop at the ASC is great and, as is their custom, the actors perform a few popular music covers that resonate with th...