The Patriot Post® · Movies & the Impeachment

I have pretty much worked my way through all those DVDs the studios sent to WGA members in December. I have already commented on some of them, but I have now watched 10 and so that it isn’t a total waste of my time, I feel I should at least share my reaction to them in case any of you still go to see movies.

Most of them aren’t worthy of comment, so I decided I would grade them. But even that isn’t as easy as it might seem. After all, if I were to compare them to the likes of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “My Favorite Wife,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “The Remains of the Day,” “Top Hat,” “My Cousin Vinnie,” “The Farmer’s Daughter,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” or “Angels on Tap,” none of them would receive a passing mark.

But since none of those all-time greats is playing at your local Bijou, it’s probably more legitimate to compare them against each other.

Using that measurement, I’d say that “JoJo Dancer,” a movie set in WWII Germany about an 10-year-old whose fantasy friend is Adolph Hitler, rates an A. I’d give “Richard Jewell” a B+; “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” a B; “The Two Popes” a B-; “Ford v. Ferrari” ©; Knives Out (C-); “The Aeronauts” (D+); The Laundromat" (D); “Uncut Gems” (F); “Parasite” (F-).

I should admit that there were several DVDs I simply chose to ignore.

Three of them were “Dolemite is My Name,” “Harriet” and “Queen & Slim.” They are all black movies with all-black casts and I’ve yet to like any of those I was silly enough to watch. In fact, unless a movie stars Denzel Washington, who gets roles that would otherwise go to a white leading man, I generally give any movie starring a black actor a very wide berth.

I also neglected to watch a couple of movies with female leads I suspected were not made with me in mind, “Hustlers” and “Wonder Woman.”

I also decided to ignore the rave reviews and skip “The Irishman.” The way I looked at it, I have never liked a movie directed by Martin Scorsese, so what are the odds that if I didn’t like all those 2 ½ hour ones, I’d like one that was 3 ½ hours long?

I watched as much of the opening day of the Senate impeachment hearings as I could, feeling it was my job as your faithful servant. But after a while, when I found myself wishing my torturers would show me some mercy and move on to the rack and thumb screws, I realized that very few of you would demand that I continue to sacrifice myself to the torment doled out by Adam Schiff and his fellow House hacks.

The Democrats did themselves no favor by placing racial diversity above the ability to read. Val Demings and Hakeem Jeffries obviously failed remedial English and should have been allowed to lip sync their lyrics the way that Milli Vanilli did back in 1990s. On the other hand, they both tried to make up for their failing by pounding the podium and delivering their lines with the sort of over-the-top emotionalism rarely seen since the death of Rod Steiger.

The best you could say for Rep. Adam Schiff is that he reads better than his colleagues.

The single biggest laugh line came when Chief Justice John Roberts told the two sets of lawyers that in debating the rules of the trial, things were getting too heated, and he felt called upon to remind them that “Those addressing the Senate should remember where they were.”

Where they were? Where they were, John, was in the marble-walled mental ward where the likes of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Byrd, Harry Reid, John McCain and Ted Kennedy, have all been lionized.

The few things I actually learned were that the senators could not bring their electronic devices to the trial. Neither could they bring food or alcohol to the floor; all they could have in the way of beverages was milk or water (the milk, at the insistence years ago of Illinois senator Everett Dirksen) and the only food were the products of the Pennsylvania-based Hershey Candy Corporation. The donated candies were kept in a drawer overseen by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

If this had been a big budget movie instead of a big budget impeachment, Hershey would have paid upwards of five million dollars for the product placement.

After I pointed out that Paul Krugman, the NY Times’ resident Nobel Prize-winning economist, had never been held up to public scorn for insisting that Trump’s election would lead to a crash from which the Stock Market would never recover, Jack Hughes sent me the following email: “You are right about Mr. K. He is a devoted disciple of John Maynard Keynes, more or less the creator of what is laughingly called ‘Keynesian Economics,’ the theory that all wealth and success flows from government to its willing and grateful recipients. There are no REAL economists who are still followers of Keynes. Those who do are all Democrats or Socialists.”

“Jack,” I replied, “you are so 2016, pretending there’s a difference between Democrats and Socialists.”

My announcing that I am putting myself in contention to succeed Prince Harry as the next Duke of Sussex hit many of you harder than I would have ever imagined. Several of you pleaded with me not to go even if Queen Elizabeth personally invited me. While I appreciated the concern expressed over the possibility of my no longer posting daily articles, I felt that they didn’t fully appreciate what they were asking.

Giving up a title is pretty easy for those of you who, being commoners, would never be faced with the decision. But, assuming that the Queen takes me up on my offer, I’m the one who’d be giving up the castle, the servants, the royal guards and the ladies in waiting. Although to tell you the truth, at 80, those ladies would be waiting for a very long time.

Karen Glasgow lived up to her name by suggesting that if there was a royal dress code, I might consider giving up my shorts for a pair of kilts. God knows I have the legs for it, but I wouldn’t wish to be accused of cultural appropriation, unless, of course, changing my name to McPrelutsky would allow me to clear that hurdle.

Pat Miano, who is obviously pulling for me, only asked that I bring capital punishment back to England and that I use my influence to make him Lord High Executioner. He assured me he even had his own axe. I asked him if in that case his title might not better be Lord High Axecutioner.

He’s been strangely silent ever since.

I will be dropping a note to Queen Elizabeth in the next day or so. I don’t want to appear to be too eager. On the other hand, I don’t want some cheap pretender butting in line ahead of me.

On the chance that she doesn’t grant me royal status, I just might to have to settle for granting myself the title in the proud American tradition of the Duke of Ellington and the Duke of Snider.