Tonight, after several week of HBO using 'new movie' Saturday night to air very non-new films like KILL BILL and Brendan Fraiser's THE MUMMY, they showed 2020's IRRESISTABLE. This is the film Jon Stewart directed and that's the only reason I watched.
It wasn't a bad movie. It was worth watching at least once. I thought it was miscast.
The only person who really delivered was Debra Messing in a small role.
Steve Carrell has never been that funny to begin with but when he's not properly surrounded, he's even worse.
I would have either have gone with an unknown cast or with actors who are actually funny.
I would have given Chris Rock the lead role, for example. He would have been great. Chris Cooper was awful as a Marine general. Seth Rogen or Steve Martin would have been funny. I could have seen Goldie Hawn in the part too. I think she could have put a good spin on it. The female lead? Rose Byrne is not a bad actress. She's good in drama and in comedy. But the role was underwritten and the 'big reveal' in how she lied comes out of nowhere and means little.
It shows promise, but it's miscast and that really hurt the movie.
I would offer praise for Jon Stewart as a director and I would offer praise for Debra Messing who delivers the finest performance in the film.
(I don't like Debra's Tweets and she gets on my nerves as a personality but she was very good as Grace in WILL & GRACE and she's very good in this movie -- she was good in that other movie where she was the bad guy. I forget the name. But when Debra's good I praise her. I set the politics and screeds aside and focus on the talent and she does have real talent.)
CALL YOUR MOTHER airs on ABC on Wednesday nights. It stars Kyra Sedgwick and it is a very funny show (created by Kari Lizer). This week, Jean (Kyra) had to start her new job and to get a car. She was being driven around LA. Though she had to work and had a lot of work to take home, she ended up having no time to do it because Freddie and Jackie wanted to spend time with her -- which meant that they wanted her to do for them -- cook for them, Freddie wanted his wash done, etc.
The guy she likes, Danny, her landlord, told her she needed to set boundaries but she said she didn't move to Iowa from LA to set up boundaries with her kids. Lane (Jackie's roommate) has to tell the kids to back off and start doing for their mother. As Lane walks off, Freddie asked, "Is he our new dad?" Which was one of the funniest lines in the show -- it still makes me laugh.
It's a really funny show.
I still say Sherri Shepherd needs to be a regular. She's Jean's best friend but she's still in Iowa. We need Sherry on more.
Porsha from EMPIRE, Ta'Rhonda Jones, has been on the last two episodes as Amy -- Jean's boss -- but we still need Sherri. She needs to visit LA -- Viv visited Lucy on HERE'S LUCY.
I should note that Austin Crute plays Lane. That's three African-American regulars in the cast -- Sherri, Ta'Rhonda and Austin.
Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, February 5, 2021. The Yazidis are 'honored' while they continue to be abandoned, Nancy Pelosi's spoiled daugther thinks she has something worth sharing, US convoys in Iraq remain under attack and much more.
Let's start with stupidity. Which means, let's start with the Pelosi family. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has several entitled children who have been unable to make a go of it on their own. Fortunately, Nancy always there to prop them up. Christine Pelosi Tweeted:
There is so much wrong with that Tweet.
For example, leave it to the entitled to Tweet 'about Iraq' by noting freedom fries. I guess it helps Chrissy pretend like her whole family doesn't have Iraqi blood on their hands. Nancy didn't end the Iraq War. US troops are still on the ground in Iraq. In the lead up to the 2006 elections, she told the American people that if they gave her party (the Democratic Party) control of one house of Congress, they would end the Iraq War.
The American people gave them control of both houses. They didn't end the war. It had been so good at turning out the vote in 2006 that they wanted to use it for the 2008 presidential election as well. Of course, Nancy had her excuses. THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE didn't buy them when she spoke to them but, hey, let's toss it out there, Nancy swore she had done her part and that it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who was keeping US forces in Iraq. Strange though, doing her part never meant a House vote.
So much wrong with the Tweet. Including her being a 'staffer.' That's a job that someone else could have used. But time and again, she's gotten government jobs because of her mother. She has no real skills -- so she really can't use that useless law degree -- so she counts on the people loyal to Mommy to employ her. Heaven forbid a child should ever have to make a living by not trading on their famous parent's name.
Another thing wrong with the Tweet? Some imaginary worker told her "They can't give us a damn raise." And she Tweets that as her mother refuses to give the American people the $2,000 stimulus check that Joe Biden promised last month.
"We feed them! We feed them!" snarled Nancy to CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
To the Pelosis, Iraq is nothing but the 'pain' they suffered when they had to order 'freedom fries.' In the real world, over a million Iraqis are dead. In the real world, Nancy Pelosi's failure to keep her promise -- or even work to keep it -- has left many Americans dead and injured.
Iraqi sources reported Thur. that a convoy carrying US military logistics equipment was targeted in Babil province in central Iraq and the other logistics convoy was hit in Basra province in the south.
With regard to the second attack in Basra province, the "Saberin News" telegram channel reported that the convoy was targeted in the "Al-Lahis" area.
As for the first attack in Babil province, the news website Shabka al-Alam al-Moqawm reported that the Qasim al-Jabbarin Resistance group had carried out the attack.
The Thursday blasts are the latest in a string of such attacks in the Arab country in recent weeks.
On January 31, a roadside bomb exploded in the central province of Babil, targeting a US military coalition's logistics convoy. The blast damaged a vehicle.
Meanwhile, JP Lawrence (STARS AND STRIPES) reports:
Lawmakers want the military to end a multibillion-dollar program meant to win over the people of Afghanistan and Iraq through cash and work projects.
The Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which gave $3.71 billion to commanders in the field to disperse through small grants, is to be phased out this year, lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee have said.
“The Committee believes that after nearly two decades the time has come to wind down this program,” it stated in congressional minutes in July, as cited in a recent report by the Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Grasp that's the US Congress. They'll end a program but not the war itself. They'll ignore their promises and the Constitutional authority that they have and let the war drag on and on.
Next month, Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Iraq. If the visit does take place, he will be the first sitting Pope to ever visit Iraq. VATICAN NEWS notes, "According to the journalists present, the Holy Father spoke about his great desire to go to Iraq, a visit that will take place in March, barring a new wave of the Covid-19 contagion. Pope Francis said he wanted to show his closeness to the Iraqi people, as Pope St John Paul II had intended to do in 2000, although the latter was unable to make the journey." THE CENTRAL MINNESOTA CATHOLIC Tweets:
Cindy Wooden (CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE) explains, "Even if social distancing requirements mean most Iraqis will see the papal events only on television, he said, they will see that the Pope is there in their country." AL ARABIYA Tweets:
Elise Ann Allen (CRUX) reports:
One Iraqi priest voiced hope that if Pope Francis’s scheduled visit to Iraq next month takes place as expected, the trip will help not only to heal the wounds of the country’s lacerated Christian community, but that it will also advance efforts to restore trust with the Muslim population.
“For us to welcome the pope is to welcome someone whose presence will heal many wounds inside the hearts of our faithful,” and who will show “that the Church has not left its faithful,” Father Karam Qasha, Chaldean pastor of Telskuf, said during a Feb. 4 roundtable with journalists.
Like many, Qasha, whose village is located roughly 19 miles north of Mosul, believes Pope Francis’s visit will not just be for Iraq, “but for the whole Middle East,” because throughout the region, whether they are refugees or still at home, Christians have faced enormous difficulty.
In other news, the Netherlands Deputy Ambassador in Baghdad, Rochus JP Pronk, Tweets:
FRANCE 24's Jack Hewson offers a video report. EFE notes:
Iraqi authorities held a funeral in Baghdad on Thursday for 104 members of the country’s Yezidi minority who were killed by Islamic State militants.
After the funeral, their bodies will be transferred to their home village in the country’s north for burial on February 6.
Iraqi President Barham Salih said in a post on Twitter that the victims were to be buried in the Yezidi village of Kocho, which is “the scene of a terrorist crime that embodies the bloody IS.”
“What happened to our sons and daughters from different religions and sects is a wound to the whole nation. Achieving justice for the victims is the state’s duty,” he added.
Does it mean anything? Is it just words on the part of the Iraqi government? It's worth asking because Samya Hassan (RUDAW) reports:
Yazidi residents of Sardasht camp on Mount Sinjar (Shingal) are struggling in the winter cold.
Camp residents say they have been abandoned by both the government and
aid agencies since the Iraqi government announced in October 2020 that
all camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) would have to be shut
by the end of the year. Many say their homes in Shingal are in ruins,
and that they can’t afford to rebuild them. Shingal is lacking in basic
services and in security.
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