Hark Valley

According to IMDb: “As the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and with her films grossing over $5.5 billion worldwide, Jennifer Lawrence is often cited as the most successful actress of her generation.” Sure, it’s been a few years since she banked-out on the Hunger Games flicks, but J-Law cashed a $25 million check for Don’t Look Up in 2021, the latest in a string of big-budget, quality movies starring Lawrence.

Part 1 of “The Phoenicians” left off with the narrator checking into a hospital, looking for relief from the diabolical villain that is summer in Phoenix. And now, as the actual summer here lingers like a bad houseguest, the chilling (if not thrilling) conclusion: It was crowded, and a man with two stumps for hands wrapped in bloody bandages came over and asked in a rather demanding sort of way if he could have my seat.

For those wondering, “What’s Phoenix like in the summer?” — and those suffering through “upper hell,” a fictional satire on Valley heat called The Phoenician. “Something something something.” A leather-faced man at the corner of Scottsdale and Indian School made an utterance more or less to me; I smiled tensely, assuming he was a street person asking for spare change. He took a step toward me, and I prepared myself to say, “Sorry, no.” Or maybe I would give him a buck?

HARK! I hear … an echo… You may get a creeping feeling, while watching – and, probably, laughing your way through – Jury Duty. That incredulous look into the camera … Jim, right? The guy in denial about his girlfriend cheating on him – is that straight up Andy, or what? And, though hardly and thankfully not a full-blown homage, the defense attorney fumbling his way through an animation-gone-bad is a faint echo of the Michael Scott School of (Mis) Management.

Like an Elon Musk rocket, Unstable had a great, exhilarating takeoff … only to crash and burn. Unlike the latest Space X blowout, the Netflix series from Rob Lowe and son John Owen Lowe was able to maintain altitude for much longer. Indeed, I laughed so frequently during the first four episodes of the startup parody that I had to ask myself: Have you lost your mind? Seriously — this is Rob Pretty Boy Lowe, have you been blinded by St. Elmo’s Fire?

HARK — I hear … confusion. I don’t understand — why am I laughing at … Rob Lowe? Worse — is that me laughing with him? Moments after rolling my eyes and groaning at the trailer, featuring him dancing, goofily? This couldn't be me — could it? — actually rolling right into a second episode of a Rob Lowe show? Then a third, a fourth, a fifth… Netflix, what have you done to my pride??? Here's the thing about Unstable: Rob Lowe is actually OK, and he's the worst thing in it.

Infinity Pool is Midsommer meets Dostoyevsky's The Double, with the resulting blob crashing into Midnight Express;  a shot of Rosemary's Baby, with a— Face/Off chaser. Brandon Cronenberg — aka Cronenberg II: The Shock Director Sequel, as he’s the son of David— swings big, or, perhaps better put, slices big; this movie pumps blood, guts and gore.

Few, if any, can wax poetic over Pittsburgh like the great Dr. Sam Hazo, a former professor at Duquesne University, brilliant poet/essayist and humanitarian.

Two things on The Last of Us, the new hit series from HBO Max (image, above). Even though a pandemic threatens to wipe out humanity, don’t call it “a COVID knockoff.” The series is based on a video game, from way-pre-COVID 2013.

(Reposting/emailing the Foreword, even though the first three chapters have been sent, as this didn’t make it to the intended audience previously.) Welcome to this wild novel–picture, if you will, a head-on collision between Ulysses and Mad Magazine, written in "aggressive Pittsburghese,” all taking place during the chaotic final week of 1972. Below, please find the novel’s Foreword, which sets the stage for the intense vernacular that is to follow.