I really like John C. Reilly

I do admire Will Ferrell

However, with the reviews and the external news reports I’m getting on “Holmes & Watson,” I don’t think I’ll waste my time on it.

When respected (by me) media site AV Club reports “Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly hit career lows in the abysmally unfunny Holmes & Watson,” this ought to be a wakeup call to someone.

Straight-industry-news website “Deadline” reported dismal audience response “… however audience gave the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly PG-13 comedy a D+. which is lower than Ferrell’s Zoolander 2 (C+) and Land of the Lost (C+).” And last year — remember ” last holiday season’s comedy Father Figures, which tanked with a final gross of $17.5M.” ?

That can’t be enough for a profit.

“Deadline” reports: “We had heard for quite some time that test scores for Holmes & Watson were so bad that Sony tried unloading the movie to Netflix, but the streamer wouldn’t buy it.”

“Rotten Tomatoes” gave it a 9% favorable (critics) rating and a 27% favorable (audience) score.

“Rolling Stone’s” reviewer said, “It’s so painfully unfunny we’re not sure it can legally be called a comedy.”

“The Wrap” sums it up nicely: “Stan and Ollie (Reilly plays Oliver Hardy) is a movie about a comedy duo that has seen better days, while Holmes & Watson merely stars one.”

Where have the formerly-great gone wrong?

Well, perhaps Ferrel’s judgment isn’t the best. After all, he told “Altpress.com” (Headline): WILL FERRELL ADMITS HE THOUGHT ‘ELF’ WOULD RUIN HIS CAREER.

That was made 15 years ago and is now a Christmas perennial.

Even his “Funny Or Die”schtick is getting criticized. “The Daily Beast” sniped: ” ‘The Campaign’: Will Ferrell Phones It In . Will Ferrell’s new movie The Campaign is perfectly fine—but Richard Rushfield wishes the once inventive comedian would try harder.”

At least Reilly is getting some respect for his Extra-Ferrell work, like “Stan and Ollie” and “Ralph Wrecks The Internet.”

But we’ve seen the greats who seem to lose direction and wander off into their own little space/time continuum — sometimes never to return. Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler … and the list could go on.

Let’s hope for a pleasant surprise — and the return of Will Ferrell’s funnybone someday.

Now listen up and listen good — I don’t like to repeat myself.

I like film-noir, see … I can get lost in the action when the tough guys start slinging the lead and the cars come squealing around corners.

There ain’t many to live up to the great Bogart or Cagney or that crazy Mitchum macho. But every once in a while, a new style update makes it worth going back to the movies to see what’s going to happen next.

Like that current movie, “Bad Times at the El Royale.” It’s really got the goods. A seedy motel outside of Reno, a shady travelling salesman, a daffy old guy who claims to be a priest — but we know better. The nightclub floozie and the runaway girl — they all get together at the motel, and you know it ain’t gonna be a happy ending.

The director lifted some good ideas from Tarrantino, and the pacing is as tight and tense as “The Maltese Falcon” 80 years ago. Bullets and fistfights? Present and accounted for. Lots of evil and maybe, just maybe, no good guys at all.

Jeff Bridges as the off-kilter priest and Cynthia Erivo as the nightclub singer carry the movie along. The big surprise is Lewis Pullman as the creepiest desk clerk since Dennis Weaver in “A Touch Of Evil.” And when Chris Hemsworth — Thor Himself — drops the hammer, he sure ain’t gonna save the day.

You haven’t seen it yet? There are other ways to waste your time. But if you haven’t had a tension headache and if your blood pressure isn’t abnormally high, this might be the ticket to buy.

A mouse is 1940s jive slang for a pretty girl. In the movie “Pal Joey,” Frank Sinatra flips his lid for Kim Novak when he sees her in the chorus line (skimpy dress, of course) and says with a leer, “Who’s the mouse with the built?”

The wolf is a frequent symbol of the predatory male. In Tex Avery cartoons of the 1940s, the wolf is dressed in a zoot suit and when he sees a mouse his eyes pop out, his tongue unrolls like a carpet, and he issues a sound like a flivver’s horn — “OOOOOooogah! Ooooogah!”

Now in that historical context, I will give you my recently completed updated lyrics for this fine song.

THE MOUSE: I simply must go

THE WOLF: Baby it’s cold outside

THE MOUSE: The answer is no

THE WOLF: Oh, in that case, I’ll call you an Uber. Good night.

(Total running time: 16 seconds)

COPYRIGHT 2018 WADE B WARD

It’s bad enough Joe didn’t get a reservation, the inns are all sold out, and we gotta sleep in the barn, but have you ever tried to get a baby to sleep in a manger?

I finally get him down — he’s gotta sleep in the manger, fer heaven’s sake! — and a bunch of shepherds drive their flock into the barn. Wake the baby, he’s crying! I shout “whattaya doin! can’t ‘cha see we got a baby sleepin’ here?”

They claim it’s a barn and what did I expect — camels? And the kid is sleepin’ on the sheep’s hay. I tell Joe to give them the Bum’s Rush but he just waves them away and says “have a heart!”

So I get the baby asleep again and whattaya think?  It IS camels now! Three idiots from who-knows-where come trotting into the barn babbling in some kinda crazy tongue about following stars and traveling forever. Wakes the kid again, and now I gotta rock him and the camels smell like they ain’t been washed for ages — horrible stink fills the barn.

And what do you think else could happen?

Dis little runny-nose brat comes into the barn banging on a drum! He’s shouting, “I play my drum for him!” and he thinks he’s Gene Krupa or something! Baby starts crying all over again.

Ever have one of those nights?