Summit with Crispin

September 24, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. As you may remember, last week I considered holding a summit involving a bobcat sighting in our neighborhood. I had posted the warning on Nextdoor and all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood stayed inside and waited for the danger to pass. This week, considering the terrifying incident Belle and Bernard D. Bunny experienced, I decided to call a neighborhood summit to discuss the matter. I even invited Crispin Z. Coyote to the meeting. I thought he might be able to bring some insight into the matter.

“Oh,” he said. “You mean Bebe.”

“Bebe,” Edison the Manx said. “This thing has a name?”

“You have a name. I have a name. So, of course this bobcat has a name. Bebe.”

I cocked my head. “Have you had a run in with Bebe?”

“I would not call it a run in. I would call it a civil discussion.”

“You had a civil discussion with a bobcat,” Charlotte the Chow said.

“Yes. More than once.”

“How is that possible?”

“Bobcats and Coyotes coexist. We don’t necessarily go after the same prey, and we don’t necessarily hunt at the same time in the same place. But, yes, we have had some heated but civil conversations.”

Edison the Manx stopped licking his paw. “About what?”

“Hunting for one. We Canis latrans like to hunt in the open where Bebe and the other Lynx rufus like to hunt in the woods. I kept telling her hunting in the open is so much better. No roots to trip over, no thorns getting into your paws. But can I convince her of this? Not a chance.”

“The point at hand,” I said, “is why did she wander into our neighborhood?”

“I believe she often wanders into neighborhoods. Especially if there are a lot of rabbits around. No offence, Bernard.”

“None taken,” Bernard said stiffly.

“They like to hunt in neighborhoods like yours.”

“That is most unsettling,” Madeline the British Shorthair said.

Crispin shrugged. “It is the way of the carnivore.”

“You really should try grass,” Belle Bunny said.

“Yuck.”

“Well, I like it.”

“To each his own, little bunny.”

“The point,” I said, “is for you to instruct us on how to avoid being the prey of Bebe.”

“Well, Bebe hunts in neighborhoods when the wildlife is scarce. My guess is that is why she showed up.”

“You live around here. Is the wildlife scarce?”

“I wouldn’t know. You and your friends have provided my friends with dog food in an agreement that I won’t hunt the neighborhood pets or your bunnies and squirrels.”

“Here, here,” Sergio the squirrel said.

“Are you saying we should make a similar deal with Bebe?”

“I think she might be up for a cat food alliance,” Crispin said.

“And how would we arrange a meeting with her?”

“I could give her a call.”

“And how would we know we would be safe?” Ruffles the Bulldog said.

“I would have your meeting in a non-wooded area.”

“We could meet her at the playground at the park, I suppose.”

“Excellent. I’ll let her know about the matter and give her a ring. Or a text. Maybe an email.”

Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI du COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975)-HBO MAX

For the past week or two I have been searching for films that would be considered cinema as opposed to motion pictures designed to merely entertain. Movies that stand out and what I would call literary films. This one was named the greatest film of all time by the Sight and Sound poll. The members of the Sight and Sound poll are a mix of esteemed film critics, industry professionals, and filmmakers held every ten years to re-evaluate the very best of the artform. Each member submits a list of their top ten films of all time to determine the top position. I personally would not call it the movie the greatest film of all time. But I would call it one of the greatest films of all time. Cinematic masterpieces that have held the title in the past are Citizen Kane, Bicycle Thieves, 2001 A Space Odessey, Tokyo Story and Vertigo. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles marks the first time a female director has taken the title. Her name is Chantal Akerman, and she was only twenty-five years old when she wrote and directed the film. She also made sure that her crew was 80% female, something that was unheard of at the time.

A note here: Jeanne Dielman will likely play better to a female audience than a male one, much like I think The Godfather plays better to a male audience than a female one. The reason for this is for a female audience, the story hits at a visceral level. A level that drives one to be both mesmerized and filled with fury. Women will find the film highly relatable today even though it takes place in the last quarter of last century because of the oppression it represents and the way women are, even to this day to some degree, considered second class citizens.

The story represents the grueling reality of what it has meant to be a woman for millennia. The boring, day-to-day nightmare of doing mundane yet necessary tasks the world takes for granted. And doing them mostly for indifferent thankless men. At times Jeanne is seen as a joke, in others an annoyance, yet others sexually objectified and worst of all being dismissed as irrelevant, unappreciated, and a mere shadow on the wall, out of sight. What Akerman does here is put the mundane on the screen like a horror story and quietly force the audience not to watch but to become immersed for no less than three hours and twenty-two minutes in Jeanne’s domestic prison like a ticking time bomb on the verge of explosion.

There is very little dialogue in the film. Mostly what we see is Jeanne doing her daily chores. The scenes in the apartment have a tight, claustrophobic effect. Usually there is some small item in the frame that is red like a thermos or a small glass bowl in the hutch, foreshadowing perhaps. We watch Jeanne (brilliantly played by Delphine Seyrig) get up out of bed, fix coffee and breakfast for her self-absorbed teenage son (not a daughter), Sylvain (Jan Decorte) polish his shoes, help him with his coat, and get him off to school. She then does housework, babysits a baby boy (not a baby girl) for a neighbor (voiced by Chantal Akerman herself) for free. She then goes shopping, not for herself per say but for food or a button her son needs for a sweater she’s knitting him. I might add she always wears a silk scarf when she leaves the apartment and it is also red, albeit a softer shade. When Jeanne goes out, she is always doing business with women who are shopkeepers, salesclerks, and waitresses. Except for one place: the bank. That worker is a young man. It is a man who stands between her and money. She deposits cash she keeps in a decorative ceramic pot on the dining room table.

Then she comes home and spends time preparing dinner. Right after she starts to cook the food, the doorbell rings. A man enters. She takes his coat and hat; they greet each other politely and then they go down the hall to Jeanne and her late husband’s bedroom and proceed to have sex. The hall changes from daylight to evening light quickly and the two emerge from the bedroom. Jeanne helps the man with his coat and hat, and he politely pays her and says he’ll see her next week. Every day brings a different steady client. Her oblivious son comes home from school where she serves him dinner and helps him with his schoolwork. During the rare moments when they do have a conversation, he often dismisses her or criticizes her offhandedly, like telling her there is a button undone on her housecoat. After dinner they go out for a walk, then they return home, pull out the couch bed, he goes to sleep, she goes to her bedroom and she goes to sleep. They get up the next day and do it all over again. And that drudgery is Jeanne’s hell. We follow her for three days through her unsatisfying life, moment to moment until …

Bobcat

September 17, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. I spent most of the week deeply concerned. After the bobcat, or rather the Lynx rufus sighting, I had not heard from either Bernard or his little sister Belle. I began to fear the worst. I went to meet them for tea every day, and they were not at home. I lay awake at night listening, trying to hear them moving about as poodles have exquisite hearing abilities. But it was all in vain. I could hear nothing but the breeze and occasional midnight rain.

My novelist noticed I was moping about and asked me what the matter was. I told her I was worried the bobcat might have harmed Bernard and his little sister Belle. My novelist told me brown bunnies are fast. Very fast. They can run at speeds of 30-45 miles per hour if necessary. Also, their fur helps them camouflage themselves, they have a keen sense of smell, 100 million scent receptors in their noses to be exact and have almost 360° vision. They also have a keen sense of hearing, up to around 20,000 hertz. And most importantly, they often have tunnels that they can hide in that a bobcat cannot crawl into. Also, if Bernard and Belle kept their nails well maintained, they can use them as a weapon.

Still, I was concerned that bobcats, being stealthy hunters, could also camouflage themselves so that Bernard and Belle might not see them. Bobcats can also leap ten feet if necessary and have terrifyingly sharp retractable claws. I imagined poor little Belle being snatched up by the cruel beast. What also concerned me was the fact that bunnies are crepuscular animals just like bobcats and are both out and about at dawn and dusk. Not to mention, bunnies are such high stress creatures if unexpectedly confronted with a predator, they can go into cardiac arrest. Hopefully neither of them saw the bobcat unannounced.

Then, yesterday morning, after the sun had risen, I saw them. Bernard and Belle came out from under a patch of ivy and greeted me. I was so excited I started jumping up and down in the air barking with utter delight. I asked them what happened and they told me, much like my novelist told me, they had hidden in their warren as the light was leaving that evening I ran into the bobcat. Bobcats don’t come around here too often, Bernard said, but Belle happened to catch the scent of one coming from about a quarter of a mile away and they ran and hid immediately. I was so delighted upon their return that I fixed up some Hibiscus tea and French butter cookies, and we sat and chatted until noon. Still, the concern of a bobcat around has made many of the animals in the neighborhood nervous and I am considering calling a summit. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (2026)-DISNEY+**

This week’s pick is a fun little ride for those of you out there who have watched and completed the Star Wars television series The Mandalorian. One of the fun parts about this installment is there is a long sequence of just Grogu and his exploits which you do not get much in the regular show. The movie is very watchable, very likable and has great pacing. I think kids and adults will both enjoy this next chapter in the life of a Mandalorian and his gifted little adopted child. The script was co-written by Dave Filoni, Noah Kloor and creator Jon Favreau who also directed and produced the film.

The story starts with Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), better known as Mando, and Grogu working for the New Republic. They report to Ward (Sigourney Weaver) a colonel and leader of the New Republic’s Adelphi Rangers. After finishing a job well, albeit unconventionally, Ward wants to send Mando on a new mission: to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s son and heir Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White). Rotta has been kidnapped by the elusive Commander Coin (Jonny Coyne). Mando is reluctant at first, not being a big fan of Hutts. But after Ward offers him a new Razor Crest ship as forward payment for his assignment, he and Grogu agree to go to Shakari to rescue Rotta.

After landing on Shakari, they meet an Ardennian fry-cook street vendor, named Hugo Durant (voiced by Martin Scorsese). Hugo is most reluctant to provide them with information at first but with some persuasion he points them in the right direction to find Rotta who is working as a highly touted gladiator. Mando and Grogu slip into the prison and locate Rotta in his cell. But they are surprised when Rotta tells them he has no intention of quitting his new-found career, that he likes his independence, and that his Hutt siblings, the ones who enlisted the New Republic to find him, only did so to bring him in and kill him.

Stop Making Stupid Shows

September 10, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. I must say it has been an adventurous week. Firstly, I made a dreadful mistake. Whilst outside for our morning sun I happened to wander about and go under a deck. My novelist saw me come out with cobwebs and pine needles threaded through my white and black curls. She was most displeased and claimed I smelled odorous. I was whisked back into our home where my beloved collar was unbuckled, and I was placed into a tub for a proper bath. It was, as always, most dreadful. Afterwards, when I’d had a good toweling, I was left damp and shivering for most of the day.

When nightfall came, I had a good supper and at the end of the evening, I went outside. Much to my surprise I nearly came face to face with a bobcat. A big scarry bobcat. It turned, noticed my presence and began sauntering towards me. …Him, who happened to be out there with me noticed it and quickly ushered me back inside.

I spent the last day typing up a warning for all the other neighborhood cats and dogs. I cannot let them be victims of this large and destructive beast. I posted my cautionary notice on Nextdoor with the hope that all the local Canis lupis familiaris and all the local Felis catus as well as the local squirrels and bunnies read it.

I also did a bit of research and found out that bobcats like to hunt twice a day. They go out hunting at dawn for three hours. Then they rest. Then at dusk until around midnight they hunt again before taking a second rest. This makes them crepuscular creatures. They are also quite flexible and, in the winter, if food is scarce, they will come out during the daytime to hunt.

My novelist and I watched a recent news report with…Him, where a 91-year-old lady had left a window open, and a bobcat chased her cats up a tree beside her house and into an open window. The woman heard something banging on her bedroom door and called 911. The police came, called the Department of Fish and Wildlife who came and sedated the beast, put it in a carrier and released it back into the wild. My novelist is keeping a close eye on me, monitoring all my outside time, and all the windows are closed for now.

On a sad note, we also found out this week Amazon Prime cancelled Spider-Noir. We are most displeased with this news. We believe it is one of the best and smartest new shows on television and Amazon Prime made a great error in dismissing it. Our hope is another streamer will pick it up. However, there is not one that has stepped up to do that right now. It is a shame with all the wasteland of mediocre television shows on all the streamers they decided to get rid of one of the best. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (2025)-HULU**

This week’s pick won the Palme d’Or in 2025 at the 78th Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for two Oscars this year for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay for Jafar Panahi who also directed and co-produced.

The film starts out with a man (Ebrahim Azizi) who has a prosthetic leg driving a small car through Iran with his wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) and young daughter (Delnaz Najafi). The daughter wants to listen to modern music, but there is danger in doing so. While out in the desert they perchance hit a dog and must stop at a garage to have the car looked at.

When they do, a mechanic named Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) thinks the man has an eerily familiar walk, due to the man’s prosthetic leg. He believes he may be Eghbal, the sadistic jailer they nicknamed “peg leg” who tortured him when he was a political prisoner. He follows the man and kidnaps him and takes him out to the desert to bury him alive. However, he finds himself unsure if he has kidnapped the right man.

He renders the man unconscious and goes to find some of his fellow political prisoners to see if they can identify the man who tortured them. He goes to Salar (Georges Hashemzadeh) who runs a bookshop, but he tells Vahid he is going down a dangerous path. However, Salar sends him to talk to a female photographer named Shiva (Mariam Afshari) who is taking wedding pictures of a bride Goli (Hadis Pakbaten) who was also tortured by Eghbal and her groom Ali (Majid Panahi). Shiva is reluctant but Goli is determined to see if this is the right man. Ali reluctantly goes along. The two women look at the man in the back of Vahid’s van but because they were blindfolded so much of the time during their incarceration, they too are not entirely sure.

Shiva says they must get in touch with her former partner Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) a hotheaded loose cannon who is more than happy to kill the man in the back of the van.

Beep Beep Zip Bang

September 3, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. Last week my novelist and I did something we have never done before. We went to the famous Twede’s Café in Snoqualmie Falls. The café is famously known as the RR Diner featured in the television show Twin Peaks. The show used both the interior and the exterior for scenes. I do not know how they got a film crew in there as it is narrow, but they indeed managed it. The booths, however, are large and comfortable.

We did have to get on a waiting list even though we went mid-week. So, we do recommend if you visit the place to plan accordingly. Our wait time was about twenty minutes. My novelist ordered a Garden Salad which is generous and a coffee with cream and sugar. I ordered a side of bacon. For dessert, we both enjoyed a slice of their famous Cherry pie. We both agree the pie is outstanding. We took pictures so you could get an idea of what the restaruant looks like. The place is very much like a mid-twentieth century diner. And they do sell magnets and stickers if you would like souvenirs. Unfortunatley, we were so excited about the pie we ate it before we could take a picture.

However, we purchased our Twin Peaks souvenirs from a couple of stores down at DT Vintage & More. We strongly recommend stopping here as well. They have a section of the store dedicated to Twin Peaks merchandise done by local artists. They have pins, earrings, metal signs, coasters, mugs, T-shirts, tote bags and more. My novelist and I were impressed, and the prices were very reasonable. So, if you do visit the restaurant, make sure you also visit that store as well. There is also a great looking little bakery next to DT Vintage and More.

We also took in a matinee of Coyote Vs Acme early this week. If you watch the trailers for the other animated movies out there (the new Shaun, the Sheep movie excluded) this one is a breath of fresh air. Most of the new films look like a hot mess. We believe Coyote Vs Acme, though part animation and part live action should be eligible for an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film despite not having the film be 75% animation. This is a stupid rule. Not only should it be eligible for the nomination for being a smart entertaining movie, but also because of the ridiculous journey it had to take to get to the big screen.

Warner Bros. might just be the stupidest Hollywood studio on the planet. How can you own Looney Tunes and not figure out how to make money with them? Warner Bros. even had their own brick and mortar stores at one time which were outstanding and successful. Better designed than the Disney Stores. And yet AOL, run by mentally inept turnips, could not figure out how valuable they were and sold them all off.

Paramount, who now unfortunately owns Warner Bros., also run by mentally compromised cabbage heads, did not think that they should merchandise the film. If you go to Warner Bros. store online, there is no Coyote vs Acme merchandise you can purchase. None. Zilch. Nada. When we attended the theatre, my novelist wore a Tweety shirt, Roadrunner Earrings, and a Wile E. Coyote necklace. All of whom are in the film. We saw someone else in a Wile E. Coyote T-shirt. But none of this licensed merchandise came from the now Warner Bros. online store because they did not sell any. What a bunch of maroons! If a small town with a restaurant that was in a once popular television show can figure out how to merchandise, how come a big corporation is too stupid to figure out how to do the same thing?

The only intelligent party here is Ketchup Entertainment who bought the movie for fifty million dollars and released it. They should receive an Oscar for merely having common sense, sadly a rare trait these days in Hollywood and quite frankly everywhere else as well. If you get a chance, go see Coyote vs Acme. It is worth the ticket. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: 9 TO 5 (1980)-AMAZON PRIME, NETFLIX, HULU**

In honor of Dolly Parton, our Stream of the Week is this terrific women’s liberation comedy for which she received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Song. The film was directed by Colin Higgins who co-wrote the smart and funny WGA nominated original script with Patricia Resnick. The movie was later made into a 2009 Broadway Musical for which Dolly Parton wrote several new songs, and AFI rightly named the movie one of the 100 Best Comedies of All Time.

The story takes place in an unnamed city in California, where recently divorced Judy Bernly (well-played by Jane Fonda) who has spent most of her adult life as a homemaker, gets her first job as a secretary for the company Consolidated Companies. There she meets the smart and witty senior supervisor Violet Newstead (wryly played by Lilly Tomlin) who shows her around the rat race. They both work for sexist, bigoted all-around narcissist, Vice President Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman who drolly steals just about every scene). Violet warns Judy about Hart’s bootlicker mole Roz (Elizabeth Wilson), and Hart’s cheery sexy secretary Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton in her breakout performance) whom the whole office believes is having an affair with Hart.

Hart often calls on Violet to do his bidding when Doralee is out of the office, a job which Violet tolerates because she is up for a promotion after working at the company for twelve years. But when Hart gives the promotion to the less-qualified Bob Enright, things begin to unravel. Hart viciously chews Judy out for a mishap with the copier and Violet and Judy find Doralee has not been having an affair with Hart but instead has been the victim of his constant sexual harassment. The three women meet at the nearby Charlie’s Bar and gleefully share their Hart revenge fantasies. But their seemingly innocent conversation takes an unexpected turn when Violet is asked to do one too many errands for her unappreciative boss.

Rounding out the cast is Sterling Hayden as board member Tinsworthy and Marian Mercer as Harts unsuspecting wife Missy Hart.

Don’t Head For the Freeway

May 21, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. As you may remember from last time, I came face to face with the dreaded Crispin Z. Coyote. I was, most fortunately, in Ruffles the bulldog’s owner’s van at the time which kept me safe from his sarcastic and sadistic jaws. He’s a genuinely vicious brute. He was attempting to devour my dear friend Bernard D. Bunny and his little sister Belle. They bounded onto the hood of the van and were begging us to let them inside. I defied my Canis Lupis Familiaris friends who wanted to drive off and allowed the bunnies into the van. I accomplished this just in time to give Crispin a stern talking to, before stealthily following the black-market buyers who have our dear Demeter locked in a crate inside their tasteless garish gas guzzling automobile.

“Faster,” Artemis the Persian told Ruffles. “They’re getting away!”

“I can’t go too fast or they’ll know we’re following them,” he said.

“We cannot lose them either. I cannot lose my dear sister.”

“Lost sister, lost sister,” the twin dachshunds barked in unison.

“Oh, do be quiet!” Artemis scolded.

“We must come up with a plan, so we know what to do when we catch them,” I said.

“Gigi is right,” Charlotte the Chow said. “Exactly what are we going to do when they stop?”

“I say we attack,” Edison the Manx said. “Nothing gets the point across better than a firm swipe of claws across the face.”

“A little barbaric, mind you,” Madeline the British Shorthair said. “But I do believe the Manx has a point. Sometimes the claws must come out.”

“I do not disagree,” Bruiser the Jack Russell Terrier said. “But they are humans and far bigger than we are.”

“True, but as a pack, we might be able to overrun them.”

The van headed down the hill to the street where we first found the melted Slurpee.

“Don’t head for the freeway,” Ruffles said panicked. “Don’t head for the freeway.”

We all looked out the windshield to see if the orange Hummer was going to turn right.

“I can’t drive on the freeway,” Ruffles said. “I can’t drive on the freeway.”

The Hummer turned right and headed in the direction of the freeway.

“They’re heading for the freeway! What if they go on the freeway?”

“You must follow them or we will never get Demeter back,” Artemis said.

Ruffles started to pant and whimper.

“Stay calm, Ruffles,” Charlotte said. “You can do this…”

We came to the light, and the orange Hummer got into the left turn lane. Ruffles breathed a huge sigh of relief before pulling into the lane behind them.

“Oh, goodie, goodie, goodie,” he said. “We are not getting on the freeway.”

“Where do you think they might be going?” Bernard D. Bunny asked me.

I looked out the window to the left. “I don’t know,” I said.

The van continued down the long suburban road. Large, elegant houses stood along the sides. We passed a church to our right and continued down the hill which was windy.

“This is scary,” Ruffles said. “I am scared.”

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Edison said. “We’ll go tumbling over the side if you don’t.”

“I am. I am keeping my eyes on the road.”

“They are turning left at the light down there,” Charlotte said pointing a paw.

Ruffles pulled into the lane behind the orange Hummer and the light turned green. We followed the van down the long road towards the next town.

Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: MARTY SUPREME (2025)-HBO MAX**

Nominated for nine Academy Awards, this week’s pick is a well-paced, well-written, seamlessly directed film with a spot on ending that has finally made it to streaming. Written by Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie and directed by Safdie, loosely based on the life of ping pong extraordinaire Marty Reiseman. It is the story of a little weasel named Marty Mauser (brilliantly acted by Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet who won both the Golden Globe and the Critic’s Choice Award) who has one dream and one dream only: to be the greatest ping pong player in the world. And he will do anything to see his dreams become reality.

Marty works in a shoe store owned by his Uncle Murray (Larry Sloman) when he isn’t competing in table tennis professionally. He wants to win the British Open to make table tennis an American household name. Everyone in his family is a hustler in one form or another including his mother Rebecca Mauser (Fran Drescher) who has a habit of calling him at tournaments feigning illness to get him to come home. Marty also has a married girlfriend named Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion), his childhood friend who is almost as good a grifter as he is. The two of them carry on a tryst in the back room of the store where the shoeboxes are stored. Uncle Murray promised to give Marty seven hundred dollars to fund his trip to the British Open but reneges. Desperate and determined, Marty robs the store’s safe and takes off with the money.

After reaching London, Marty plays magnificently. He cons the tournament heads to get him a room at the Ritz Hotel where the best players are staying. There he spies a beautiful older woman who turns out to be Kay Stone (Gweneth Paltrow) an aging movie star who is unhappily married to a wealthy businessman named Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). The couple had a son who died fighting in WWII. Marty hustles both Milton for money and Kay for sex and urges them to watch him play in the tournament. Marty continues to play well beating defending champion Bela Kletzki (Géza Röhrig). But he loses in the final round to deaf Japanese player Koto Endo (real life deaf Japanese player Koto Kawaguchi). Marty loses his temper and pandemonium ensues. Marty returns to New York to even larger conflicts which escalate with each attempt he makes to return to Europe to get another chance to triumph over Endo.

Tyler Okonma also stars as taxi driver and close friend of Marty’s, Wally and Abel Ferrara plays career criminal as Ezra Mishkin who asks Marty to look after his dog. Look for Penn Jillette as a gun toting territorial farmer named Hoff.

Sports Car

February 12, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. Before I begin, I would just like to alert you to my unbelievably romantic new photo on the front page of our site. Am I not the cutest thing ever? Of course, I am. Feel free to bathe in my adorableness.

My novelist’s illness worsened some this week but has since improved. And so, I returned to assist my fellow Canis lupis familiaris and our dear Persian cat Artemus. At the meeting concerning the yellow house with the catwalk we decided to stage a stake out. Ruffles somehow talked his owner into driving over and parking his van on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac so we could run surveillance on the place. We watched the house diligently all through the afternoon. It was most boring. Nothing happened except the twin dachshunds decided to play slap jack which was most annoying.

Around four-thirty in the afternoon when we’d all eaten through our treat bags and were quite tired, a car pulled up. A rather stylish car if I do say so myself. A sports car of some sort in stark white that looked like a Stormtrooper’s uniform. We all put our paws on the tinted windows and watched. A villain matching the photos Sergio got for us from the 7-Eleven pulled his girth from the car.

“He’s not driving his van,” Charlotte the Chow said.

“Likely he has more than one car,” Bruiser the Jack Russel replied.

Artemis narrowed her eyes and studied the sloppy figure in his baggy circus pants, Gargoyle sunglasses, and wrinkled Hawaiian shirt. “It’s him. It must be him. No one who dresses like that could be a good person.”

We watched the sadist take a long sloppy drink from his Slurpee and gasped.

“The brute has our cats,” I said. “We must take action!”

“Right now?” Ruffles said.

“No. We must hatch a plan.”

Until next week, I bid you a very Happy Valentine’s Day and adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (2025)-NETFLIX**

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I thought this might be an off-beat somewhat romantic film to feature as this week’s stream of the week. This is a gorgeous-looking movie with a terrific script that’s not just for tweeners. Deservedly nominated for two Oscars for Best Original Song “Golden” by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick and for Best Animated Film it is more than a solid contender for both honors. It is also proof that like last year’s outstanding animated films, animation is getting more unique and stronger.

At first, the concept of this film sounds bizarre. A female K-pop group is really three demon hunters who come to find their toughest enemy is a new male K-pop group made up of demons. Logically this should warrant a confused look followed by an eyeroll. But it works and it works well. The songstresses are Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) of the K-pop band Huntrix managed by their agent Bobby (Ken Jeong). They have gifted voices that allow them to create a magic barrier called Honmoon to hold back the demons. They are racing against time to create the Golden Honmoon which will permanently bar the demons from the human world.

But Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun), leader of the soul-stealing demons, finds amongst his minions Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop), a human-turned-demon, has a plan. Jinu and four other demons have formed a boy band called the Saja Boys. Their plan: to steal Huntrix’s fans and weaken the Honmoon.

As the Saja Boys start to set their plan in motion, one of the Huntrix singers finds she must come to terms with a secret she has been keeping for years…that is if she can thwart the scene stealing tiger and magpie.

Truth

February 5, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. It started late last week, my novelist feeling a little off and later feeling off turned into a full-blown cold. This greatly irritated her has she had both her flu and covid shots this year. I told my dear canine friends I would have to let them work on the missing cat dilemma whilst I nursed my novelist back to health. I was rather bored with the task since she slept a great deal and decided to go on the internet to see what was going on in the world. It is rather disturbing out there as there is a list of people who apparently went to an island and willingly hurt children. I was most distressed about this. My cups of tea did not settle me down. When my novelist woke up in the late afternoon, I confided in her what I’d been reading. She nodded her head and said, “I’m going to tell you two stories about two different people. Both stories are true and both people in them are real. I am going to call these two people B and C. I’m going to start with C.

“C was someone who worked at a place they called a video rental store. He was in his twenties, was a likeable man and he had a wife. One day he came into the video store to start work, and he went up to the counter and set a video or DVD down in front of his fellow employee. The video was a pornographic movie. He admitted he took it home and watched it and some other sordid details. He told his co-worker he was wrong, that he’d disrespected his wife, felt great guilt in doing it, and he apologized. His other co-workers thought this was hysterical. They laughed at him and made fun of him for quite a while. And then eventually life went back to normal and they left him alone.

“B was someone I met in kindergarten. The first time I saw him I said to myself, “I feel sorry for him. I don’t know why.” When B entered middle school, he became an underhanded bully. He got his friends to pick on other students and make them feel low and frightened and humiliated. He and his friends wrote mean things on students’ locker in permanent ink and made up cruel nicknames for them and got other students to call them those names. He never apologized to the people he hurt or tried to make amends.

Years passed and one day I was sitting in my room reading a book. My phone rang. I was surprised to find it was a friend I’d grown up and went to school with calling. They sounded distressed. They said, “Last night B stuck a shot gun in his mouth and blew the back of his head off.” I must tell you at that moment I felt stunned and then as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was filled with elation. I felt guilty feeling good about his demise, but it is what I actually felt.

I looked at my novelist with confusion. What does all this mean? I asked.

She said, “It means that some people on that list are B and some are C, dead, alive or otherwise. Some of them are going to take one road and some are going to take the other. In the present world people have come to believe in the illusion that truth is what you decide it is. But that is not so. Truth is reality. Not your reality, not my reality, not anyone else’s reality, but Truth’s reality. You can try and buy your way out of it, you can lie about it, you can run. But you’re only going to get so far. Because Truth is the house. And the house always wins. It may take a very long time for Truth to win but Truth never loses, and it always comes to collect its debt.”

I pondered her words and they gave me renewed hope for our missing cats. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: SINNERS (2025)-HBO MAX**

Nominated for sixteen Academy Awards including Best Picture, comes this period piece/vampire movie written and directed by Oscar nominee Ryan Coogler. The film is stylish and intriguing with excellent performances throughout. It blends the power of blues music with racial tensions during 1932 in Clarkston, Mississippi. I do think the film goes on a scene or two too long, but overall, it is a solid story.

Identical twin brothers World War I veterans Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” (both well-played by Oscar nominee Michael B. Jordan) return home from Chicago after working for the mob for several years. They have steadily siphoned money from their employers and have amassed enough to open a juke joint for which they employ their talented younger cousin Samuel or “Sammie” (Miles Caton), the son of a preacher named Jedidiah Moore (Saul Williams) to sing and play guitar. Jedidiah is not happy about Sammie’s musical talents, considers them tools of the devil, and does not want him to play at the juke joint. But Sammie is determined to perform.

The twins purchase an old sawmill from a landowner and local KKK leader named Hogwood (David Maldonado). They then enlist several locals to assist them including pianist and harmonica player Delta Slim (Oscar Nominee Delroy Lindo), a married singer named Pearline (Jayme Lawson) whom Sammie has a crush on, shopkeepers Grace and Bo Chow (Helena Hu and Yao) to be suppliers, a field worker named Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to be their bouncer, and Smoke’s estranged wife Annie (Oscar Nominee Wunmi Mosaku) who practices Hoodoo, to be a cook. Smoke and Annie have a difficult past because their daughter died in infancy. During their recruitments, Stack runs into his old girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) who is mixed race. Because she passes as white, Stack left her in order to protect her.

Meanwhile, an Irish-immigrant vampire named Remmick (Jack O’Connell) hides away from Choctaw vampire hunters looking for victims.

Other Oscar nominations for the film went to Autumn Durald Arkapaw for Cinematography, Ruth E. Carter for Costume Design, Michael P. Shawver for Film Editing, Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine and Shunika Terry for Makeup and Hairstyling, and Ludwig Göransson for Original Score.

Happy Oscar Nominations Day

January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to bring you the latest update on our catnapping situation. But first, my novelist wanted me to wish you Happy Oscar Nominations Day. Clearly, she thinks this is more important than what happened to Demeter, Edison and Madeline. Apparently, all the big holidays and events are happening on Thursdays these days. I might add it is also the first day of the Sundance Film Festival, making it a movie day all around. So, there it is, Happy Oscar Nominations Day. You can watch the announcement here. Let’s get to business.

As you know, last week we put a tracking collar on the last remaining feline member of our little motley crew. Edison put up a valiant fight in the park but still our dear Manx was carried off into the night by the evil catnapper. Charlotte the Chow followed the trail to one of the streets that leads to the main arterial with the rest of us in hot pursuit. The only clue we found was spilled Cherry Slurpee, which the twins Titus and Tyler lapped most of. The rest of us focused on the receipt that lay nearby. We now have a concrete clue to the identification of our predator.

We took the receipt back to the van and studied it. We found the villain paid with a debit card. We know there must be footage of this wretch on the camera at the 7-Eleven. But how would we get our hands on such precious information? Then it occurred to me that Wednesday was Squirrel Appreciation Day. Sergio! I told the others a dog could not sneak into a store without being noticed. But someone as small and as dodgy as a squirrel just might. My compadres agreed it was worth a shot and we all scampered home.

The next morning, and it was a cold and frosty morning, I went out and found Sergio up on a fence munching on a nut. I told him about the predicament and our precious Sciurus carolinensis was sympathetic to our plight. He said he would go to the 7-Eleven and view the previous night’s footage. He scampered off and I went back inside to brew a delicious cup of tea and await his return.

It took the better part of the morning but as I was perusing the comics in last Sunday’s newspaper I was delighted to look up and see the familiar furry grey face at the window. I hurried out and he showed me his phone. He had taken a picture of the brute: a burly fellow with mean eyes. Sergio sent the pictures he’d taken of the surveillance footage to all the other dogs, and we are studying the pictures as we speak. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: TRAIN DREAMS (2025)-NETFLIX**

This week’s movie was nominated for two Golden Globe awards and should have made a solid showing at the Oscars as well. It is gorgeously directed by Clint Bentley with cinematography by Oscar Nominee Adolpho Veloso. Though it is a profound and well-told story you’ve been forewarned, this is not for the faint of heart. It is a movie for grown-ups, and it may haunt you for days after seeing it. If you can’t handle that, go sit at the kid’s table and play on your phone.

Brilliantly adapted by Oscar Nominee Greg Kwedar from the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson, it is the story of a logger named Robert Grainier (another homerun performance by Joel Edgerton who clearly should have also received an Oscar nomination for his work here). We know at the beginning of the movie, he will live into his 80’s. The story opens at the turn of the 20th century where Robert starts out building the railroad in the pacific northwest. He headed out that way as a child and worked to survive ever since. After witnessing a shocking event he believes he might have been able to prevent, he turns to logging and floats through life without meaning. That is until he meets the luminous Gladys Olding (beautifully acted by Felicity Jones) at church. Throughout his life, Robert is haunted by dreams of things that are real and things that are not. Determining what is real and what is not real will become a harrowing challenge for him as the story unfolds.

Amazingly, the film was shot in the Pacific Northwest in Washington State in Colville, Spokane, Metaline Falls, Snoqualmie Falls, and Tekoa. This is marvelous and sadly shocking as Washington State has been a royal pain in the ass to film in thanks to its reputation of being too expensive and not lucrative enough. So, filmmakers have had to go to Oregon, Montana and Vancouver BC to get films made and I don’t blame them. It’s starting to get better but despite all it’s good points, Washington, though being the birthplace of companies like Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, and Microsoft is the ass clown of states when it comes to knowing how to make money.

Rounding out the cast is William H. Macy as explosives expert Arn Peeples, Nathaniel Arcand as storekeeper Ignatius Jack, Kerry Condon as forestry services worker Clare Thompson and Will Patton as the Narrator. The film also received an Oscar nod for Best Song for the title track “Train Dreams” by Nick Cave and the film’s composer, Bryce Dessner.

Madeline

December 19, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. Not only is Dimiter missing but another one of our beloved cats has gone rogue. Madeline the British Shorthair vanished last week, and everyone is on edge. Especially Edison the Manx. He is quite wound up about the whole thing. Artemus is beside herself because she fears her sister Demeter is lost forever. We are now quite certain whoever is the kidnapper is focused on kidnapping cats. The rest of us Canis lupus familiaris are a bit more relaxed. But we certainly understand and sympathize with Edison’s concerns. The question is why is this kidnapper or perhaps kidnappers stealing cats? I shudder to think.

Earlier this week, we all went to the park to see if perhaps we could locate clues to Madeline’s disappearance. We searched around the fruit trees and the little bridge and around the climbing equipment. We were about to give up when Bruiser the Jack Russell went over to get a drink in the water dish that is set up as part of the water fountain. As he lapped up his hydration he suddenly saw something shiny at the base of the nearby bench. He let out a distressed bark, and we all came trotting over. Sure enough, there was Madeline’s nametag discarded by the foot of the bench.

“What the dickens do you think is going on?” Artemis asked as Ruffles the Bulldog hooked the ring of the tag onto his lower fang so we could all examine the evidence. Charlotte the Chow, who came from a pedigree breeder, sat on her haunches and pondered the possibilities. “Well, she said at last. “It is quite evident someone in the neighborhood is responsible. They show a pattern in the way they are abducting our neighborhood felines. “That’s what I’ve been thinking all along,” Edison the Manx said. The twin Dachshunds Tyler and Titus were so excited about this revelation they ran around chasing each other’s tails.

Later that afternoon I went and visited Bernard D. Bunny. We discussed the idea of the kidnapper or kidnappers being a local resident as we enjoyed a lovely spread of raspberry herbal tea and French cookies. We mutually agreed that a local must be the perpetrator. The next question we discussed was whether the villain was an animal or a human. As Madeline’s tag, much like Demeter’s tag was found without blood or a scuffle we are leaning towards a human. But which human and why? Until next week, I bid you Happy Holidays and adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE TRAITORS (2023)-PEACOCK**

In continuing my list of streaming TV shows to watch this holiday season, here is something completely different. I wouldn’t usually recommend a reality TV program for my stream of the week. But there is something extraordinary about this one. Winner of eight Prime Time Emmys, the story premise is so good it makes for a better plotline than most Hollywood movies. The show is hosted by Alan Cumming who does a great job leading us through the twists and turns of this sometimes bizarre always entertaining romp.

Season One is set in Scotland where twenty contestants arrive at a beautiful castle. Alan Cumming welcomes them and after they settle in, they sit around a table with eyes closed. Mr. Cumming then circles the table a few times and taps three of the contestants on the shoulder. These contestants become The Traitors. The remaining seventeen players are called The Faithfuls. The object of the game is for The Faithfuls to figure out who amongst them are traitors and who are not. The Faithfuls do not know how many players cannot be trusted. Every day there is an event in which the contestants can win money to add to the pot. The total pot goes to which ever Faithfuls remain at the end of the game…if no Traitors are left in the game. But if there are Traitors left in the game at the end, then those Traitors split the pot.

Each day after the event, they hold a round table and choose one contestant to banish from the game to try and eliminate a Traitor. And each night The Traitors secretly rendezvous to choose one of the remaining contestants to “murder” or rather to eliminate from the game. The Traitors must lie, cheat and con to stay in the game and the Faithfuls need to figure out who to align with and who not to trust.

What’s great about the game is what an interesting psychological study it is. It’s fascinating, if not disturbing at times, to see how people act under these circumstances. And there is no lack of tension right up to the very end of the season. The show is based on De Verraders which is based on the party game Mafia or Werewolf. The game was created in 1987 at the Psychology Department of Moscow State University by Dimitry Davidoff. I personally wouldn’t recommend playing the game, for the sake of your psyche, but it is certainly an interesting study to watch.

Holding a Gathering

November 21, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good evening. It is I Gigi the parti poodle and Demeter the Persian cat is still missing. The Dachshund twins agreed to host our meeting. Ruffles the bulldog was there, Madeline the white and black cat that lives next door, Charlotte the Chow, Edison the Manx and of course Artemis, Demeter’s sister who is still in shambles. Bernard D. Bunny accompanied me and the group of us discussed what may have caused her disappearance. Madeline said she thought she saw her heading down the hill that night towards the park. Artemis said it is possible as her sister loves to take night strolls by the park. The park is small. A swing set, a climbing apparatus, some trees in the back. It is usually a safe place at night, but I pointed out my novelist saw a raccoon the other day. We all shuddered at this. Sometimes there have even been coyote sightings but not recently. Edison said it might be a good idea if we were to still consider she could have been kidnapped. And the park at night would be an excellent place to disappear. Especially since there is a trail that leads through the woods which is short and comes out in a bright area with houses. We all nodded in agreement. But what to do next? We are thinking of going as a group to the park tomorrow to try and see if there are any clues Demeter may have left behind if she was there. I will keep you informed on the matter. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE PENGUIN LESSONS (2024)-NETFLIX**

Here’s a heartwarming and poignant comedy-drama told with surprising depth. The movie was directed by Peter Cataneo and written by Jeff Pope and Tom Michell based on Michell’s true-life book about the time he spent as an English teacher in 1976 Argentina. The film varies from the book somewhat as Michell was twenty-three at the time the story takes place, and the arc of the penguin is a little different.

Tom (well played by Steve Coogan) is a risk adverse misanthrope who bounces around teaching at different schools until 1976 when he ends up at exclusive boy’s school St. George’s College in Buenos Aries. The academy is a haven of sorts from the political conflict happening in Argentina. When the school is forced to close for a week due to safety, Tom and his friend, Tapio (Björn Gustafsson) a science teacher at the school, take a trip to Uruguay to pick up women in bars. Tom meets a lady named Carina (Micaela Breque) at a dance club. They spend the night and early morning dancing, talking and walking on the beach. They happen to come across a large group of penguins lying on the sand covered in oil. They appear to be dead, but one starts moving. Carina encourages Tom to save the bird, take it back to his hotel room and wash it. They do and the bird survives. Carina tells Tom she cannot stay because she is married and leaves him with the penguin. Tom then must smuggle the creature through customs and brings it back to the school where Headmaster Timothy Buckle (Jonathan Price) has specifically said the teachers cannot keep pets. Tom hides him on his balcony and day by day the penguin begins to change his outlook on life.

Rounding out the cast are Vivian El Jaber as Maria, Alfonsina Carrocio as Sofia, and David Herrero as Diego.