Rash, A Modern Moron Review

Some world views are spacious and some are merly spaced...Rash reuniuted my mind with the wisdom of Neil Peart, the iconic late drummer and lyrcist for Rush. 

On a whim from Steve, I went to the Mystic Theater last night expecting only songs from "Permanent Waves." Rash immedialtly empressed when they started off the show with a powerful rendition of the "R30 Overture." 

Extreme Rush fans might point out some musical flaws, but I love how Rash immortalized Peart's words with a Geddy Lee look and sound alike.   

So much style without substance, so much stuff without style, it's hard to recognize the real thing, it comes along once in a while. Yes, Rash played 1985s "Grand Designs" A lyrical favorite of mine. 

Rash marvelously married the acid rock sounds of obscure songs from "Caress of Steel," to their radio hits like "Subdivisions" and "Spirit of Radio."

The bass and guitar player more then held their own with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeon, while the drummer was constantly in the pocket. 

Rash nailed "Jacob's Ladder" and "Natural Science" to say the least. Rash ins't just for Rush fans. Avid rock 'n' rollers who crave hard live music shoud be very impressed with Rash. Four and a half stars for Saturday night's music fest at the Mystic Theater.

Late into the show, I laughed, and I'm still laughing at the bass player making fun of people on their cell phones taking video and stills of the show, and I was one of those geeks snapping away. 

Mark Izzy Schurr

  

"Speak No Evil," A Modern Moron Movie Review

Don't let the bad things ruin the perfect, sometimes a man needs to be slashed across the face with a utility knife, and his face saturated in corrosive chemicals. 

"Speak No Evil" is difficult to review without having spoilers, but wow, the subject matter is intensity eerie. This flick is not a comedy, yet the writers still summoned laughter, especially when the two men were listening to a mellow pop song in the car. Brilliant writing by director James Watkins, Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup. The entire cast portrayed their roles in perfect synch.   

One couple is sadistically manipulative and murderous, while the other couple is not. "Speak No Evil" weaves the fabric of harmony into a myriad of too many evils. 

The previews, as the movie, did not disappoint, the psychological terrors punched my brain from underneath the skull. 

For those seeking instant gratifications to the senses, "Speak No Evil" might disappoint. This movie exposes the darkest recesses of evil's execution. Being forced into a kill or be killed situation is the ultimate buzz kill for any vacation. 

The ending and everything in-between weren't predictable, five stars for "Speak No Evil." 

Mass murder, kidnapping and grand theft are safe reveals for those still reading and want to see the film. 

This movie will be added to my October watch list for the rest of my life. 

Mark Izzy Schurr 

"Beetle Juice Beetle Juice," A Modern Moron Movie Review

A cascade of catastrophe amidst the imagination, or a blissfully bizarre and devious journey into realities realms? Crypt Addams has cool artwork, thank you Pinterest. 

Can the dead and the living coexist? "Beetle Juice Beetle Juice" has its theories on the matter, and be careful who you trust, or you just may end up in an eternity of a monotonous day, or the fury of Hell's flames.  

"Beetle Juice Beetle Juice" is certainly the most original mother daughter bonding story I've encountered. Tim Burton, his screen and story writers along with the music of Danny Elfman is solid. Burton's art is an appropriate display for the preschool aged, and sometimes it's a baleful parade of evil deeds shown with silly make-up. 

"I'm lightheaded," the headless man said in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"   

I forgot the other juvenile jokes, but there are more. 

Young love lures Jenna Ortega to the edge of hell's entrance, and her mother (Winona Ryder) has to journey into the afterlife without dying and save her daughter. and that's just a small portion of the story. 

Witchcraft certainly came in handy for the wife of Beetle Juice, and Monica Bellucci portrays a sexy dead woman who uses a staple gun to attach both her legs and nearly half her face to join the living.   

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" weaves dreams, deception, imagination, fantasy and fact onto the screen and bravo, three stars easy for "Beetle Juice Beetle Juice."  

Mark Izzy Schurr 

A Modern Moron Movie Review

Sadistically bizarre, yet blissfully entertaining, "Blink Twice" is a twisted tale of insane sexuality, murder, and over the top drug and alcohol use. 

Just before the movie started, a website is provided for anyone seeking mental health after they have seen the movie. Extremely disturbing rape is depicted, yet those scenes are brief and leaves many of the horrid details to the imagination.  

Slater King, aka Channing Tatum is a tech billionaire who owns his own island. Frida, (Naomi Ackie) a nothing in the work force yearns for King's affection and manages to get herself invited to a party on his private island along with her best friend.  

Upon arriving on the island, all cell phones are relinquished, and it's clear, "Blink Twice" is not going to be a typical comedy about excessive partying. 

"What the fuck we're we thinking?!?!? Jess said. Jess is Frida's best friend and realizes that doing hard drugs for several days, if not weeks with men on an island she's just met wasn't a smart choice. 

Sarah, extremely well portrayed by Adia Arjona is another one of the women who joins forces with the other ladies, and the justified slaughter begins. 

True love and sheer evil are weirdly weaved in "Blink Twice," three stars easy for this suspense / comedy. 

Mark Izzy Schurr

 

A Modern Moron Movie Review

Saleka Shyamalan showcases her musical prose as Lady Raven in "Trap." Shyamalan wrote or co-wrote the songs laden throughout "Trap." 

Lady Raven is a pop icon and her concert is a trap for the Butcher, a notorious serial killer. Like the 1930s movies, "Trap" relied on the dialogue rather than graphic violence or flashy imagery to get its point across, and it worked. 

All deaths in this movie are merely spoken upon and the most violent scene in "Trap" is when the killer pushes a much smaller adolescent girl down the cement stairs of a large concert venue. OK, I correct myself, the killer places a bottle of cooking oil in a commercial deep fryer and a girl gets glass blown up in her face. 

Lady Ravan is sly in her dealing with the Butcher. This movie was nothing like I expected, a very original story with doses of cinema intensity. Three and a half stars easy for "Trap." Don't leave too soon when the credits start rolling, or you'll miss something.  

Mark Izzy Schurr

  

  

Another Modern Moron Book Review

Whiskey peddling and gun running added fuel to fires already burning brightly between the whites, Mexicans and the Indians in the latter 1800s. 

Prior to 1850, Caucasians and the mighty Zuni Indians left the Apache's alone, because Apache's were an elite warrior force, able to use brute force and cunning with sagacious aplomb in battle or ambushes. Sometimes Apache's would surprise their enemies in their sleep and not kill a single person, but when their enemies awoke, most or all of their horses were gone, along with weapons, food and water.

No matter what age in time, before, during or after the Apache Wars, many whites, Mexican's and Indians coexisted and there were many white civilians who preferred the presence of Indians rather than the Army as did Mexican civilians with their military. 

Before the Apache warrior and medicine man Geronimo was 20-years-old, he was married to Alope, a shy slender squaw and daughter of an elite warrior, Noposo. Geronimo's native name was Goyathlay, but the Mexican nickname Geronimo stuck, a Spanish for Jerome.

Geronimo's wife Alope and his three children, all under the age of eight and his mother were killed by the Mexican military. 

The Apache mistrust for both the whites and Mexicans spawned the Apache Wars. Geronimo was one of the three Indian warriors responsible for slaying George Custer and all 210 U.S. Calvery troops in the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Weeks before the battle of Little Bighorn, Geronimo and Chief Magpie told Custer to leave the Black Hills or die. 

During all the battles of the Apache Wars, seven out of ten men hit anywhere by an Apache war arrow died. Apache war arrows were different from their hunting arrows. Hunting arrows where smooth, except for the tip of course. War arrows were jagged and poised with various venomous snakes or rotting animal livers, specifically saved for poisoning war arrows. 

Apache warriors could kill from 150 yards away with their bows. When vastly outnumbered, Apache's were able to attack suddenly and kill, and then in an instant, retreat and hide.  

Apache women worked constantly. They cared for the children, made the clothing, housing, cooked, woved rugs, weaved baskets and took care of family members who needed attention. 

"Apache Wars" is abundant with photo's of Geronimo and so much more from these nearly ancient times.  

This 17-chapter book is a four-star read simply for the one chapter titled, "Geronimo." 

Mark Izzy Schurr

   

A Modern Moron Book Review

The annelation of their childhood, stripped of their language, culture and spiritual believes, because the white man wanted it all. 

Jim Thorpe, a full-blooded Indian was born in 1888. The first 25-years of his life, he was dealing with the U.S. Army's mission to hunt down and kill every Indian in their path, including babies, women and children or enslave them into being white. 

Driven from their land again and again by broken treaties, subjected to every known spoliation and classified as beavers, buffalo and other wild creatures and compelled to give way to the march of civilization. The distorted cultural lens of whiteness is sagacious exposed in David Maraniss's 2022 book, "Path Lit by Lightning the Life of Jim Thorpe"   

In 1904, Jim began attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and for at least one year, Pop Warner ran it. It was a very football orientated school. The official policy at Carlisle was to exterminate the Indian, not in body, but in language, dress, tradition, behavior and soul. 

In 1912, Thorpe became the caption of the college Carlisle team and game by game he became the icon for the American Indian, reaching mythical proportions, he was an athletic odyssey. 

Thorpe excelled in college and pro football and did very well in Major League Baseball. In 1916, while playing for the Milwaukee Brewers, Thorpe lead the league in stolen bases and banged in 10 homers with a .274 batting average. 

In 1912, Thorpe won two gold medals, the last year the Olympic gold was solid gold. He won gold in the Pentathlon and Decathlon. The putrid politics of having his medals taken away and finally restored to him decades after his death is all covered. 

The director of "Casablanca" directed the 1950s flick, "Jim Thorpe-All American." Documentary ends, movie making begins, Pop Warner said upon the movie's release.  

Having read this book, it's clear, I'm not a man. Hiram Thorpe, Jim's father had 15 children with five different women and Jim recalls his dad killing and skinning two deer's and hoisting one on each shoulder and walking several miles to the house to feed the family. Both Jim and his father were avid hunters and fishers. Thorpe said hunting and fishing was his favorite sport. By the time Jim was 10 years old, he would trek more than five miles alone into the woods to hunt and fish, often being gone from home for days. 

Jim Thorpe was an Olympic track champion, all American college and pro football player. He also played in Major League Baseball and the World Famous Indians basketball team. Thorpe was also one the founding presidents of the NFL. 

Jim was an absentee father for all seven of his children. His first son, Jim jr. died of sickness when he was just 3-years old, and booze certainly didn't help in Thorpe's private life. In the 1920s while playing college football for the Canton Bulldogs, and Carlisle, Jim had bouts with the three B's. Booze, broads and brawls.

His life was an impressive legacy laden with the ecstasy of victory, the gnawing pain of defeat and the exquisite ecstasy of athletic dominance.  

I've simply tinged the tip of the ice burg of this amazing five-star book. You don't have to be a sports buff or have heard of Jim Thorpe to enjoy this book, it's simply and amazing tale of tragedy and triumph. 

Mark Izzy Schurr