The Problem With Speed Traps.

On my walk this morning, I had two experiences that reflect each other.

First, I was talking to two of my BP friends (about this blog, and particularly about the last post), and one of them suggested we need speed traps.  I told him I don't think we do, and that what we really need is conspicuous enforcement, or just patrolling.  My friend was thinking about attracting drivers' attention by nailing them with a ticket for speeding, and how they'd think about that next time they're in our area.  My thought was that if our cruisers are visible, then drivers are already thinking about the rules, and if we do no more than stop them for a little safety chat, we will have gotten their attention sufficiently (and wasted more of their time than they intended to invest driving through BP).

Second, I turned from Griffing onto 119th, on the final way home, and when I reached about 5th, I saw one of our cruisers on 119th heading west, and stopped at 6th.  The turn signal was not on, so I imagined maybe the officer was waiting for a break to cross 6th.  As I got to 6th, the cruiser turned onto 6th, going south.  By the time I could see where the cruiser went, I saw it tucked onto the swale off the right side of the road, maybe at about 117th or 116th.  This was very clearly a speed trap.

So, here's the problem.  Speed traps are intended to fool people into doing what they're not supposed to do, then punish them for doing it.  At the very best, the goal is either to raise money from writing tickets, or give the driver such a horribly memorable experience that s/he will either obey the rules in the future, or drive somewhere else.  But in the meantime, speed traps seduce, or enable, people to do exactly what we don't want them to do.  But if we don't want them to do it, then we should think of something preventative, and not just impose a consequence after they've already done this thing we don't want them to do.

From the driver's perspective, the best version of the bad news is that they get punished (hundreds of dollars in fines for maybe only going 36 mph on a 30 mph street, points, increased insurance premium).  The worst version of the bad news is that they crash, into another car, a house, a pedestrian, a concrete FPL pole, have lots of damage to their car, maybe get killed, or kill someone else.  Because we think we're being clever and mischievous, and popping out of hiding just in time to sting them with a radar gun and a ticket book.

Two days ago, someone on a motorcycle apparently got hit by a car crossing the street.  The motorcyclist was reportedly speeding, and the car driver didn't see him or her, or wasn't paying attention.  As best I understand, all of this happened in the southbound lane of 6th, right around 121st.  A BP cruiser stealthily waiting to pounce at 117th or 116th wasn't going to prevent any of that.  Had that cruiser been at that spot on that day, s/he would have missed the whole thing.  Is it a lot less work and trouble to sit in a cruiser with a radar gun?  Sure it is.  But we don't pay half of our budget for officers to take the easy way out of enforcement.

We simply need very visible cruising by marked BP cruisers.  It doesn't do good to blame people for doing the wrong thing.  We should try to prevent them from doing the wrong thing.  And if they need a safety chat, about their speed, or being distracted by their phones, we can add that as a bonus intervention.  No charge.

Paying For Our Mistakes is Sometimes Not Cheap.

I just got a text message from one of our neighbors who lives on 6th Avenue.  Apparently, we can stop waiting.  I am told there was a "possible fatality crash" on 6th Avenue, and it involved a motorcycle.

If it was only a motorcycle, then 1) I doubt the driver was using a mobile phone, and 2) there was presumably no other vehicle involved (if the person who sent me the text message was correct that this event only involved one vehicle, and it was a motorcycle).

It's not wet out this morning, and the only things that come to mind to account for this event are excessive speed or an oil patch.

I'm up and down 6th Avenue often enough.  It's very uncommon I see a BP cruiser there, and when I do, they're almost always sitting between sections of median (not driving/cruising on 6th Avenue).

The "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs are not posted in the Village any more.  I don't know where they are.  Either they're stored somewhere, or they've been discarded.

If we are a real municipality, and worthy of the designation, then we simply must do better than we have been.  We need those signs back, and we need the enforcement and cruising to show we mean it.

6th Avenue has always been our most precarious street.  It has always accounted for almost all of our speeding tickets.  It's a problem street, and it's not under our control.

What is under our control, and always has been, is enforcement.  We are endangering other people and ourselves by ignoring our biggest traffic problem.

If we can't man ourselves up, and rise to this occasion, then I agree with Bryan Cooper: we should close up shop as an independent municipality, and let ourselves be controlled by someone who cares.  Most likely, that would be CNM or the county.  Either one would be better than what we're doing.

Here's My Beef with Mac Kennedy.

I essentially don't have one.  Everyone in the world has his or her style, and those styles can be more or less effective, for whatever is the purpose.

I have spoken to Mac, who is a friend of mine, many times, and I've talked about it in this blog, that his tendency to fill a room with himself, and talk a lot, and remind everyone that he's a Commissioner, and that they voted for him, and that he works hard at being a Commissioner, is unnecessary.

The question is whether, apart from its being unnecessary, it works in any way counter to his goals.  The adverse possibility is that his Commission colleagues would either be offended or jealous, and take positions against him, because they don't like his style.  (They would take positions against the Village and its residents, who are their neighbors and constituents, because they want to get back at Mac Kennedy?  Yikes!)  But I'm sorry (for them) to say they're seemingly not sophisticated, strategic, or perhaps mature enough even for that.  They are essentially inert, and they offer nothing to any of us, or this place where we all live together.  Because we have chosen to live together, we depend on each other.  It's a small place.  To take one example, if your part of the Village looks nice, it's good for me, too.  And vice versa.

This blog is more or less about one thing: BP.  You might think that people who are, let's say, elected officials in BP would care about the topics discussed here.  Three (of the five) of them never comment (or request guest authorship, so they can talk to us about their vision, or whatever else is on their minds), and give no evidence of reading these posts, knowing what issues are discussed, or caring what's discussed.  Another chimed in a couple of times, but couldn't stand the heat, and asked me to remove him from the new post announcement circulation.  Yeah, someone who insists upon having a job in the kitchen, but can't stand the heat.  Great.

I don't agree with everything Mac thinks.  I don't have to.  But I trust him to have at heart goals that he genuinely believes are adaptive and progressive for the Village.  And Mac is the only one of the current five Commissioners who can be bothered to engage with his neighbors/constituents here.  There is no apparent alternative but to conclude that he's the only one who cares.  And all of the evidence is that he cares a lot.

 By: Kelly Mallette

Just this week, the state of Florida announced $404 million in flooding and resilience grants (http://publicfiles.dep.state.fl.us/CAMA/FRCP/Resilient%20Florida%207.14.21%20Resources/Resilient%20Florida%20Grant%20Program%20Awards%20Fiscal%20Year%202021-22.pdf).  A bipartisan vote on the 2021 state budget demonstrated a bipartisan commitment flood prevention and resilience throughout our state and provided communities with unprecedented access to funds to address such needs.  

The list includes over $160 million for Miami-Dade County - funds for dozens of projects for the County as well as cities both large and small.  Included in these awards were funds for our closest neighbors:  Miami Shores and El Portal.   Miami Shores received $1.0 million for its Bayfront Park Seawall Elevation project and the Village of El Portal received $926,962 for its El Jardin Storm Water Improvements. Guess which community is notably absent from this list?  That’s right… the Village of Biscayne Park.  I don’t know whether or not our community even put in an application for said grant, if they did not, it begs the question, why?  Don’t we have a need to address flooding in our community?

Now, now, I can probably predict what the response to my inquiry will be…we don’t have the money for matching funds, we don’t have the staff to write such a grant.

Well, that response does not hold much water for me.  Approximately 15 years ago, the Village of Biscayne Park voted to support a professional manager form of government.  As voters, we were told professional management would improve our Village and that a professional manager would be able to apply for grants and we would see progress like we had not seen in decades.  Early on, with Village Manager Ana Garcia, we did see some progress.  Renovations to park facilities and later, a new administration building.  The new admin building is nice, but did it do anything to increase your property values?  When that was approved, we were told that the Log Cabin could be rented out for events and that would raise funds and we would be able to use those revenues for other city improvements.  That never happened.

Of course, while Biscayne Park still cries poor, revenues have grown over time – without doing much.  That is because our taxable values have grown.  So, even if we don’t increase the millage, we are getting more money simply because homes are selling for more.  That does not include additional revenues from permits and redevelopment of existing properties.  Now, I know our expenses have grown too and that’s the case for everyone.  Who is working to find efficiencies?  On the occasions that I have asked, I am always given a list of all the things the administration needs to function better.  What about the residents?  Who is putting us first?

The resilience grant is not the only one we won’t be getting.  For several years, the state Legislature has fully funded the Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program (FRDAP) small project grant list.  The FRDAP grant is for recreation and the small development grant provides $50,000 for projects, no match required.  Does anyone think we could use $50,000 for our park? What about some of our larger medians that are, in many ways, passive parks?  Could any of those use $50,000 for irrigation, lighting, trees, benches?

Here’s some improvements that I think should be considered.  Some are urgently needed.

• Flood control on many, many streets
• Road paving (anyone driven down 121^st Street lately, between 6^th and 7^th.
• Tree trimming.  I have seen occasions where trees in the median have overgrown into resident properties.
• Reimagining of our park – our ball field is nice, but it’s not used much.  Lots of places have pickle ball courts – they are gaining in popularity.  Has that been considered? How about new play equipment, or programming?  These thoughts may not be what the residents want, but is anyone exploring what they do want?

I would imagine those reading this, my neighbors, probably have some thoughts about improvements as well.

We need to demand more – more effort and more accountability.  It’s been too long since we have seen progress.  

I Dare You.

We've talked before about Gaucho Ranch.  It is located at 7201 NE 4th Avenue.  If you drive south on NE 2nd Avenue, and take a left on 71st St, very shortly after the railroad track, you will take a hard left onto NE 4th Avenue.  If you drive south on Biscayne Boulevard, you'll take a right onto 71st St, then the right onto NE 4th Avenue.  There's a strip of retail and other outlets, and Gaucho Ranch is the first one you'll see.

Gaucho Ranch specializes in meat, although they also sell wine, cheese, tea, and various kinds of grilling hardware, and their product is meat from purely pasture-raised animals.  They sell more beef than anything else, but they sell other meats, too.  Many of them come from South America, especially Uruguay.

Over the years, Gaucho Ranch has had occasional (a few a year) evenings, where patrons paid a flat rate, and ate all the meats (several cuts were served), and salads, and cheeses, and related comestibles they wanted.  On some of these evenings, wine was included.  On others, it was BYO.

But Gaucho Ranch has a new program.  They, like everyone else, are trying to emerge from the pandemic, and either to increase their business, or to let their regular customers know they're there, and it's OK to come shop.

So, now, starting today, Gaucho Ranch has begun every Friday lunch gatherings.  The time listed is noon to 3:00.  Each Friday, a different cut of beef will be served.  Bread is included.  There is NO CHARGE.  They just want you to know they're there, and/or they want you back.  You can have as much as you like, and they'd certainly be happy if you enjoyed your lunch so much that you wanted to buy something.

Today, they served flatiron steak.  It was a bit tough, but it was very tasty.  By the way, Gaucho Ranch's owner, Pablo Liberato, appears to have an uncanny knack for finding exceptional grillmasters.  Today's grill operator was previously unknown to me, and his name is Fernando.  He grills a perfect steak.  I stayed for a little while -- enough time to get a nice lunch -- and at the end of my time, they brought out a new and somehow improved (I didn't think it could get any better) version of their marinated strip steak.  Unbelievable.  And that's their main menu item for next Friday.

I already know BrambleWitch can resist this, because she told me she has restricted to a vegetarian diet for decades.  But it's hard to imagine anyone else can resist.  Unless they're just not in the area between noon and 3:00 PM on Fridays.  And if you like what you can eat for free, then you can go right into the shop and buy some more for another time.  Or you can buy anything else that appeals to you, which I would guess a lot of things will.

Fernando, the grillmaster, told me an interesting story.  This has to be considered anecdotal, and it wouldn't be anyone's medical advice.  He told me about one Gaucho Ranch customer who buys $400 a week's worth of meat.  Because meat is the one and only thing he eats.  And his blood pressure is low, as are his cholesterol and lipids.  What's particularly curious about this is that Freddy Kaufmann, who, with his wife, owns Proper Sausages on NE 2nd Avenue at about 97th St, told me the same thing about himself.  He did an experiement, and for a year, he ate almost all meat.  (Freddy/Proper Sausages specializes in pork more than beef.)  He had the same experience: lowered cholesterol and lipids on a high red meat diet.

It would be irresponsible of me not to encourage you to go to Gaucho Ranch for lunch on Fridays.  And frankly, I dare you not to.

A Deficiency That Keeps Coming Back to Bite Us.

Mention of this problem was first made recently in this blog regarding traffic problems, and car accidents, on 6th Avenue.  Whether it was speed, distraction (my guess was mobile phones), or various causes of carelessness, it seemed we weren't enforcing enough.  And "enough" really has two operational indicators.  By definition, we weren't enforcing "enough" to prevent all the accidents.  But even as a Village theme, and a historical one, we weren't enforcing as much as we used to, when we told everyone, and were known for it, "Don't Even Think About Speeding."  Our ticket-writing statistics proved we meant it.  (Art Gonzalez dug up statistics to show how drastically our enforcement fell apart in recent years.). In the old enforcement days, if drivers did the next thing after thinking about speeding -- they sped -- they got ticketed.  And not only did they get a ticket, but they also got the message.

Now, we're talking about one particular issue, which is the driveways and swales Ordinance (update), and we're again noting some requirements that are not new, but also not followed.  They haven't been followed on some properties for several or many decades.  They're not followed, because we don't enforce even the Ordinance we already have.

There are some long time Village residents who will tell you that failure to follow rules, and lack of enforcement of those rules, has noteworthy consequences for how the Village looks.

What's unfortunate, and perhaps moreso now, as values/assessments and prices are climbing, is that some people chose to live in BP, because it was cheaper to buy a house here than it would have been to buy one in, let's say, Miami Shores.  And it was cheaper to buy a house here, because BP is not as nice a municipality as is the Shores, because we don't enforce enough to make it nicer.  Those people presumably didn't want to have to follow rules, and pay the cost of following them.  So, the people who are spending more now are living in a municipality that isn't as nice as it should be, because we don't bother to follow, or enforce, our own rules.  We don't do it on 6th Avenue, and we don't do it anywhere.  (It's true the speed limit on 6th Avenue isn't our own rule, but if we had had our way, the limit would be lower than it is, and we would still not be enforcing it.  At the cost of cars, physical health of drivers, and security of people who live on 6th Avenue.)

It's maybe not entirely clear whose fault this is.   In theory, it's the manager's fault, since the manager controls the police chief, and the police chief controls the police.  And the manager also controls the Code Compliance Officer.  But the Commission exerts very important control over the manager, including choosing which manager candidate to hire (and what to tell him or her is really important to us), and whether or not to retain the hired manager, so maybe it's the Commission's fault, too.

In any event, we seem to be sort of globally falling down on the job of enforcement, about most things in BP.  We still pay property taxes, though, so there's a disturbing disconnect somewhere.  To put it one way, we're not getting what we're paying for.

Some Good News. And Some That's Not Quite So Good.

Yesterday, Commissioner Mac Kennedy sent out the following e-mail to many of us on his general Village circulation:

SELECT “HOT DRIVEWAY TOPICS”

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER OR RANKING OF IMPORTANCE

1. All properties must provide off-street parking. That parking must be on private property rather than on “swales” or the public right of way along the street. The driveway must include an “approach” across the right of way. (This is not new.) Separate parking in the swale/ROW is allowed to an extent and addressed in a different part of the code, which we have just started working on to tighten that up, too.
2. All driveways must be permitted and approved by the village and PZ. Never start work on a driveway before your permit is approved and a physical copy issued to you, which must be posted on your property. (This is not new.)
3. No driveway may cover more than 40% of your front yard, regardless of the material you use. The rest of the front yard must be landscaped or green space. (This is new.)
4. January 2, 2023, is the deadline for all properties to include an approved driveway per the new code. After that date, Code can cite you. (This is new.) In several places in the new code, you'll see that the village is giving owners a full year to comply.
5. Properties with driveways that are not compliant with this new code may remain until they need 50% or more repaired. If any non-conforming driveway is added onto, it must be made fully compliant to the new code. (This is not new.) Existing driveways that need repairs of 50% or more now also have until January 2, 2023, to become fully compliant. That includes having an approach that reaches to the street, which is designed to match the driveway itself.
6. The required number of off-street parking spaces (plus separate off-street visitor parking) is determined by the number of bedrooms. A table is included in the code. (This is not new, but it has been updated to include larger homes.) Driveways with inadequate parking spaces are grandfathered in until they are replaced or substantially repaired. However, all vehicles must be parked on approved surfaces. No vehicles may be parked on grass on private property. (This is not new.)
7. All driveways must be of one material (list provided) or of one uniform design, all of which must be approved by the PZ before a permit is issued. Driveways may never be installed or replaced without a permit. (This has not changed substantially.)
8. Milled asphalt, crushed limestone and grass/sod are no longer approved driveway materials. (This is new.)
9. Gravel driveways must also be approved and permitted, and they must include a border. You may not simply dump gravel and spread it around and call it a driveway. (This is not new.)
10. Concrete driveways may be stained or painted, but the color must be approved by PZ first. (This is new, but the palette has not been finalized by PZ, and it must then be approved by the commission. As of right now, no concrete driveways may be painted or stained until the commission approves the palette.)
11. Edges along driveways must be relandscaped after installation. No bare soil, sand or gravel allowed along edges. (This is new.)
12. No raised driveways or edges are allowed. (This is new.)
13. Wheelstops have been determined to be a commercial application that is not allowed at single family homes or duplexes. Those are the concrete barriers commonly used in commercial parking lots. They will need to be removed. (This is new.)
14. Driveways may not drain water onto adjoining properties or public properties including the right of way (streets). (This is new.)
15. All driveways must be properly maintained, which includes sealing asphalt.
16. If you replace or repair 50% or more of a driveway, you must replace the entire thing. (This is new.)
17. If any part of a driveway is removed, it must be relandscaped or resodded.

https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/1186640/Proposed_Ordinance_Amending_Off_Street_Parking_requirements_-_Second_Reading_-_changes_from_12.7.21.pdf

This is the current Commission's effort to redo the driveways and swales Code.  Mac correctly pointed out that some Commissions have honed and reformed this Code, but that none had reached what it considered an end point.  And of course, from the end of 2016 until now, no Commission (represented by a majority that can cause anything to happen) has really worked on anything.

So, to the extent that Mac is right to say that the Commission has somehow come together to finish whatever adjustments were the ambition of this Commission, and possibly some former ones, this is good news.  To say that some of the adjustments proposed are improvements over the previous Code is also good news.

There are a number of entries that Mac says are "not new."  This means that we have had these parts of the Code already on the books, but we just haven't enforced them.  There is no reason we shouldn't have enforced them.  Because they have been part of the Code sometimes for decades, and we haven't enforced them (for who knows what reasons), there is no reason to assume we will enforce them now.  So this is not quite so good news.

And it's worth noting that some of the particulars that Mac says are new are in fact not new.  Items 3 and 16 are like that.  And item 5 disqualifies the deadline in item 4, so that's not great news, either.

And we have still not disallowed impervious parking surfaces, which in my opinion, is not good news.  For example, item 14 prohibits homeowners from designing parking surfaces that will drain into the street.  If the surface is impermeable, where would it drain water?  I realize this is an assertive stance for the Village to take, but it's the job of leadership to take assertive stances.  And it's what the Village needs.

Other than that, it's a good and progressive move for the Village if we tighten up the driveways and swales Code.  I hope we do it.  And whether we remember the requirements that are not new, or impose requirements that are new, if we don't enforce them, then we've accomplished nothing.

"Anonymous," Let Me Tell You a Story

Some years ago, I participated in a website for doctors.  The reason I joined was that they were looking for, among other things, psychiatrists who could author posts about things like depression, and bipolar disorder, and other psychiatric topics.  That's what they said they wanted.  So, my assumption, seemingly naturally, was that this site was for doctors who wanted to communicate with each other about medical topics.

What I soon enough discovered was first, that many other topics were discussed -- like about politics, and other things that had nothing to do with medicine -- and second, that many or probably most doctors who were members of this site used aliases, or what the site and the doctors/members bizarrely, and self-inflatedly, called "avatars."  Some of the doctors/participants were very well known in American medicine, and probably most were not generally known at all. 

The vast majority of my posts were medical, but once, I posted something to stimulate discussion of this peculiar preference many doctors had to be...anonymous.  I was curious why anyone would want to hide him- or herself that way.  (I didn't conceal my identity.)

Some of the responses (this discussion stimulated an unusually high number of comments) were interesting, in that some respondents acknowledged that they wanted to be able to say things they wouldn't say if anyone knew who they were.  To be clear, the comments they wanted to be "anonymous" were infantile and moronic rants, commonly with a predominantly ad hominem theme, and more or less always unrelated to the topic of discussion.  (Sound familiar?)  In other words, some people wanted to be able to say things they would not say, or would be too ashamed to say, if they could be identified.  My thinking, which I stated, was that if someone thought to say something they would be too ashamed to say if they could be identified, then they shouldn't say it at all.  And I advocated for the site to require open identification of members, at least to reduce the amount of dumb cracks.

As I have told you, you are not welcome to participate in any way in the Village Voice blog, and as soon as I see you have commented, I delete your comment without reading it.  You have nothing to offer, seemingly because you have no relevant thought process.  And you're infantile and moronic, and seem to want to use the opportunity you temporarily create for yourself to make irrelevant ad hominem rants, often of a grossly immature or scatalogical nature.

It is still beyond me why you waste your time and trouble, most certainly let alone the time and trouble of anyone else, to release your excrement as you do, but clearly, you're not interested in explaining this (nor probably capable yourself of understanding it).

So, apparently, you will continue to vomit your pathetic nonsense as you do, and I will continue to delete it as the meaningless drivel it is.  And I assume you will continue to feel very great relief that no one knows the identity of the loser who produces this foolishness.

"No Time To Die?" Way Past Time to Kill This Off.

Friday started out with two unheard-of, and very complicating, events.  One was that my alarm clock didn't work, for the first time ever, and the other was that I slept late, which I more or less never do.  The result of these two almost unheard-of things, that happened at the same time, was that I missed my 5:10 AM flight to Massachusetts.  I took off for the parking lot to get the shuttle to the airport anyway, and called jetBlue, to see if anything could be done, and before I passed 826, I realized I forgot something, so I had to go back home.  But the jetBlue agent set me up with another flight at 11:00 AM, so I had time to go home, get what I forgot, get to the parking, and get to the airport in plenty of time.

I got myself settled, and was waiting for the flight to board, when I noticed a woman wearing a teeshirt with the old/original New England Patriots logo.  I asked her if it was a really old shirt, or were they still printing them with the old logos, and she said they had stopped for a while, but resumed (presumably because there are a lot of people who very much dislike the new logo as much as this woman does, and I do).  She and I agreed that people just like to change things, and she agreed with me that most often, when someone changes or "improves" something, it makes it worse.  Anyway, this wouldn't be a very relevant conversation if it were not an introduction to something else during the flight.

The featured movie was "No Time to Die," which is a 2021 James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig.  I had never before seen this movie, but I had flight time to kill, so, since watching the movie was free, I thought I'd go for it.

There have been several actors who have played James Bond.  I have never heard of anyone who disputed that the first -- Sean Connery -- was by far the best.  Connery was magnificent as Bond.  I think I may have seen some of the others, but they don't hold a candle to Connery.  Daniel Craig has played Bond in the last few Bond movies, and I saw him in "Casino Royale."  It's frankly boring to watch James Bond movies with anyone but Connery playing Bond.  I thought boring was as bad as it got.

"No Time to Die" was, I would have to say, as bad as it gets.  It's probably as bad as it could get.  Craig was awful, and the script was not good.  The soul of James Bond was missing from this movie.  Bond is inept.  He actually falls in love.  There was the bevy of "Bond girls," of course, but they were moving, and substituting, so fast, that it was hard to keep track of them.  Bond fathers a daughter with one of them.  But he dies in the end.  (I really hope this means the James Bond catalogue will be historical, and no one will feel a need to resurrect Bond, as BrambleWitch and I agreed Guy Ritchie should not have felt a need to resurrect Sherlock Holmes.  Although Holmes didn't die.  Well, he did, but Doyle himself killed him and resurrected him,  as only Doyle had a right to do.)  But Bond?  No.  He must now be laid to rest.

There were so many things wrong with this movie that there was almost nothing right with it.  It turned out that Bond/Craig had retired, or somehow been replaced, and in the spirit of political correctness, 007 was no longer a "white guy."  007 was now a black woman.  So, there were sort of two 007s in this movie.  It was hard to tell if they were competing or cooperating.  They seemed ultimately to be on the same track, except that Bond/Craig died at the end, and the black woman didn't.

How could that possibly not have been the worst of it?  The second named lead in this movie (after Craig) was Rami Malek.  I saw Malek in the Freddie Mercury movie, and I thought he did a good job.  In this movie, he could not have been worse.  It may have been the worst job of acting I have ever seen.  And if the evil organization was called Spectre, Malek himself looked like a spectre.  He was pale, vacant, had some sort of weird accent, and was as ghostly as he was ghastly.  He ought to have been more evil, and threatening.  Even the actor who played the series-long (25 Bond movies, the last five starring Craig: I looked it up) Ernst Stavro Blofeld was empty.

And now, they had some strange character called Q, who was some sort of techie nerd, and who somehow couldn't keep up with what Bond was doing, even though his job was to guide Bond.  His place in this movie made no sense.  The movie seemed to try to make its living on special effects and CGI.

At the beginning of the movie, some young girl is present when her mother is shot to death by a guy (Rami Malek, as it later turns out) with a machine gun.  The girl runs away, over a frozen lake, on which the ice is cracking.  Malek comes after her.  Somehow (who on earth knows how), she has a gun, too, and she shoots him repeatedly until he falls.  Dead?  It seems so, but he then gets up, and resumes following her over ice that's too thin to hold her, but apparently not too thin to hold him.  (Oh, please.) She falls through the ice (he doesn't), and he starts shooting at her.  With his machine gun.  Repeatedly.  But she somehow doesn't die.  But now, she's under the ice, in frozen water, not having been shot by the machine gun (who knows how), and the next thing we know, she's back as an adult whose only problem is that her mother was killed.  There's some question as to whether she, too, is working for Spectre, but I couldn't figure out if she was, or she wasn't.

The end of this movie was the destruction, by rocket-bombing, of some bizarre post-apocalyptic hatchery/farming operation, that produced what I think was chemical weapons.  But it was really hard to tell.

It was way too much stuff -- way too many disconnected stories -- executed exquisitely poorly, and with no real coherent theme.  At one point, Bond and M (Ralph Fiennes) were talking about how good things used to be.  In the past.  Yeah, they were sure right about that.  If people really roll in their graves, I'm sure that's what Ian Fleming and Sean Connery are doing.

Movies, and the Two Reasons Not to Dislike Brad Pitt.

We talked about it, so I watched it again.  It's hard to know whether to say "Breakfast on Pluto" is magnificent, but crazy, or magnificent because crazy.  But it is most certainly both.  "Breakfast on Pluto" is a movie that couldn't be anything but good, or great, because it's a Neil Jordan movie.  Setting that aside, here's what's extremely intriguing about "Breakfast on Pluto."  The star is Cillian Murphy, on whom BrambleWitch already told us she has or had a crush.  The Wikipedia entry for Murphy says that his role in "Breakfast on Pluto" was as a "trans."  It was not.  He was a transvestite, and seeming homosexual, but he corrected at least one other character who said he was a girl.  He said he was a boy. Murphy was already married at the time of this movie (and he still is, almost 15 years later), and his first child was born the year the movie came out.  He did an unbelievable job of making himself (very highly) effeminate for this role.  And for what it's worth, every other actor in this movie was also spectacular.  As far as I know, Neil Jordan does not make movies which Susie Figgis does not cast, and her casting was perfect.  It always is.  BrambleWitch and Mac Kennedy will both highly recommend this movie, and so will I.

In my opinion, Brad Pitt is almost always an uninteresting stiff as an actor.  I haven't seen all of his movies, because I wouldn't want to, but he's almost always the same uninspired actor who walks through his parts all the time.  His appeal seems to be his looks, sort of like Tom Cruise, but the latter at least has a trademark smile.  Which he flashes until the viewer is sick of looking at it.  But Pitt found himself in two exceptionally good movies, and did a magnificent job with two exceptionally good roles.  One movie was Guy Ritchie's "Snatch," in which Pitt played an Irish gyspy with a special talent for boxing.  "Snatch" is weirdly one of my favorite movies.  It includes a couple of the things I very much dislike in movies -- like violence and a lot of swearing -- but I love it anyway.  And Pitt, I was told or read, worked for scale, even though he was already a big star at the time.  The other movie, which I rewatched recently, was one of the many spectacular Terry Gilliam productions.  Terry Gilliam first came to my attention in the late '60s or early '70s when he was one of the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus (he created very strange cartoons, but rarely acted in skits), and then, he became a movie director.  All of his movies, and his Python contributions, are wild fantasies.  The movie that included Brad Pitt was "12 Monkeys."  Pitt was alternately an out-of-control patient on a psychiatric ward, and the still clearly "not all there" son of Christopher Plummer, who managed a good enough American southern accent (Plummer, not Pitt).  Pitt's acting in both movies ("Snatch" and "12 Monkeys") was excellent.  It raises the question of why he appeared as he did in his other movies.  Were they easy parts that didn't demand anything of him?  Did someone just offer him a lot of money, and he couldn't say no?  Did he portray carefully crafted downplaying?  ("Meet Joe Black" and "The Mexican" are examples.)  The bigger star in "12 Monkeys" was Bruce Willis, who for me, also does not impress.  Watching Willis in a movie is watching Willis, not the character.  In "12 Monkeys," he was trying way too hard.

Between one thing and another, I've wound up with a little too much time on my hands, and this is how I take my breaks.

As always, if you have a DVD player, feel free to borrow.  I just want them back.