Licorice Pizza: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT: A rather disappointing work from the usually brilliant PT Anderson that you can skip at the theatre and check out when it comes to a streaming service.

If Paul Thomas Anderson isn’t the greatest filmmaker working today, he is certainly in the discussion. From his earliest masterpiece Boogie Nights to his most recent, Phantom Thread, as well as with There Will Be Blood, The Master and Magnolia in between, Anderson has shown himself to be a true auteur and master craftsman.

After having suffered through this apocalyptically awful year of cinema, my hope was that PT Anderson would ride in and save the day with his newest film Licorice Pizza, which opened in L.A. and NY on November 26th and went nationwide on Christmas Day.

Unfortunately, Licorice Pizza cannot redeem 2021, as it is not a great film. Yes, it’s well shot and occasionally amusing, but also often meandering and repetitive. Ultimately, it’s little more than an endearing and pleasant but mostly forgettable movie. That said, cinema this year is the land of the lollipop kids and Licorice Pizza may very well be the tallest midget.

When glancing at PT Anderson’s filmography, it’s a staggering collection of brilliant works, and Licorice Pizza wouldn’t even come close to cracking his top 6, despite arguably being one of the best film’s of 2021, which is more an indictment of the cinema of 2021 than it is an endorsement of Licorice Pizza.

The film is a coming of age story that revolves around Gary, a 15 year old child actor, and Alana, a 25 (or so) year old ne’er do well, as they navigate their tumultuous friendship/relationship. Making their feature film debuts, Cooper Hoffman (Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son) plays Gary and Alana Haim (member of the pop-rock sister band Haim) plays Alana.

Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are fine in the film, a bit one-note, but fine. They aren’t particularly charismatic or compelling, but they aren’t repulsive either. They don’t seem overwhelmed on-screen, but they also don’t quite have the tools to do the work necessary to make the rather thin story work.

Less a coherent narrative than a series of loosely related vignettes, the film deftly transports the viewer back in time to Los Angeles in the 1970’s. The 70’s were a great time for music and a lack of bras, both of which are duly highlighted in Licorice Pizza.

This loose cinematic structure results in an often meandering movie that lacks heft, both dramatically and psychologically, and creates an absence of character evolution and dramatic arc.

The film’s decided lack of character arc, development and depth, and its superior sense of setting, transform the film into a “hang out” movie, one of my least favorite genre of film (other famous hang out movies are American Graffiti, Dazed and Confused and Frances Ha). Gone is a driving narrative and in its place the audience just gets to hang out and experience rather than being taken for a ride.

The one thing I found somewhat intriguing about Licorice Pizza was that it often seemed like a savvy but subtle meditation on American capitalism, as the movie’s de facto lead character, Gary, is incessantly entrepreneurial. Also feeding that notion are the featured gas shortages of that era - and their accompanying rage, as well as upper class tyrants like Jon Peters (a savage Bradley Cooper) and “Jack” Holden (Sean Penn) preying upon those beneath them.

The film is, not surprisingly, beautifully shot, with PT Anderson and Michael Bauman sharing Director of Photography credit, and boasts a terrific and well utilized soundtrack that features The Doors, Paul McCartney and Wings, David Bowie, Gordon Lightfoot and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

But while the beautiful visuals and luscious soundtrack elevate the movie, they also highlight its lack of substance and dramatic vigor. Licorice Pizza isn’t a case of the emperor having no clothes, it’s more a case of a beautiful wardrobe having no emperor.

There just isn’t enough meat on these bones to satisfy the most basic hunger for drama and character, and thus Licorice Pizza ultimately feels fanciful but also fleeting and forgettable.

The bottom line is that Licorice Pizza is a disappointment, a beautiful disappointment, but a disappointment none the less. If you’re a fan of PT Anderson, lower your expectations and try to find a 35 mm screening, and then it might be worth it. For everyone else, just wait for it to come out on a streaming service and check it out then…when you can “hang out” with it in the comfort of your own home.

©2021

The Power of the Dog: A Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!! THIS IS NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW - YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A self-indulgent, dramatically inert and suffocatingly dull piece of empty Oscar-bait and arthouse fool’s gold that is as vapid as it is predictable and trite.

There has been a considerable amount of Oscar buzz and critical acclaim swirling around the new Netflix film The Power of the Dog, and understandably so, as it stars one-time Oscar nominee Benedict Cumberbatch and is written and directed by Jane Campion, who won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award back in 1993 for The Piano.

The movie, based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, tells the tale of the Burbank brothers, Phil (Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons), two cattle ranchers in Montana in 1925. The brothers are very different people, with Phil the grizzled, hard-edged cowboy and George the more reserved, rotund and less respected suit-wearer.

When George marries a local widow, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and becomes step-father to her very “special” son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the story takes a turn.

As a devotee of the arthouse, The Power of the Dog, which on its surface appears to be an intricate, gritty, western drama in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant There Will Be Blood, would seem to be right up my alley.

After having watched the film all I can really say is looks can be deceiving.

Critics are fawning all over the self-indulgent, dramatically inert and suffocatingly dull The Power of the Dog, giving it a 95% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but I think the only reason for that is because the film is allegedly a mediation on “toxic masculinity” and it’s directed by a woman.  

For instance, Brian Truitt of USA Today gushed over the movie declaring it “a picturesque, enthralling exploration of male ego and toxic masculinity, crafted by an extremely talented woman…”

Peter Travers of ABC ejaculated, “Can Jane Campion’s western about toxic masculinity and repressed sexuality win Netflix its first best Picture Oscar? Let’s just say that no list of the year’s best movies will be complete without this cinematic powder keg.”

The problem with these critics, and with director Jane Campion, is that apparently, they not only have no idea what great cinema is anymore, but they also have absolutely no idea what genuine masculinity is either, nevermind its toxic variety.

The biggest example of that is the praise Benedict Cumberbatch is receiving for his portrayal of Phil, the supposedly toxically masculine cowboy who bullies and berates those around him with abandon.

I like Benedict Cumberbatch as an actor, but let’s be honest, he isn’t exactly the picture of robust masculinity. In fact, he is so miscast as Phil that watching him strut and prance around in his cowboy regalia and put on a faux tough guy pose, takes on a most comical of airs. The main reason for that is Cumberbatch’s inherent delicateness and utter lack of manliness.

Phil needs to be a menacing, ominous physical presence, but Cumberbatch is a dainty posh Englishman and with his mannered American accent he comes across, as they say in Texas, as ‘all hat and no cattle’.

Phil is supposed to be an emasculating bully – so much so that, just like Jane Campion slaughters subtlety, he actually castrates young bulls by hand. But Phil comes across less like a bully and more like a High School mean girl brat who isn’t going to beat anyone up but sure as hell will say something catty and hurtful.

One of the main targets of Phil’s “toxic masculinity” is Rose’s teenage son Peter. Peter is a painfully thin, very effeminate young man who dresses like a dandy and likes to make flowers out of paper. Just so audiences are made completely aware of how effeminate the character is, and also so that nuance can be completely dispatched and unintentional comedy heightened to the maximum, when Peter is demeaned by Phil and a bunch of ranch hands at a dinner, he responds by going out behind the house and frantically blowing off steam by using a hula hoop. No, I’m not making that up.

The film’s insight regarding masculinity and its toxicity is as deep as a pool of cow’s piss on a flat rock. For example, not to ruin the surprise for you, but… in a plot twist you could see coming from miles away like a steam train crossing the plains on a cloudless morning…the reason Phil is a mean-spirited son of a bitch is because he’s a closet case homosexual.

Let’s be clear, you don’t exactly need the most advanced form of gaydar to see Phil’s hidden, super-secret sexual yearnings. Phil’s sexual proclivities are pretty obvious when he’s waxing nostalgic about his dead friend Bronco Henry as he delicately strokes Henry’s old saddle.

One of the few things I did like about The Power of the Dog was its score by Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood. But even that has its downside, as Greenwood’s score for The Power of the Dog is very reminiscent of his score for There Will Be Blood…and conjuring that masterpiece does no favors to this flaccid film.  

Come to think of it, I suppose The Power of the Dog is sort of like a cross between There Will Be Blood and Brokeback Mountain, but just without the powerful performances, insightful scripts or deft direction.

Ultimately, The Power of the Dog is not man’s best friend because it’s a movie about masculinity made by people who know nothing about the subject. It’s empty Oscar-bait and arthouse fool’s gold that is nothing more than a symptom of the plague of mediocrity that is currently ravaging the art of cinema.

So don’t waste your time on The Power of the Dog as this mangy old mutt needs to be taken out behind the barn and put out of its misery.  

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 42: No Sudden Move and Top Five Heist Movies

On this episode Barry and I try to make sense of director Steven Soderbergh's latest half-hearted effort No Sudden Move, and then shift gears for a wild discussion on their top 5 heist movies of all-time. Topics discussed include Frank Oz out in the cold in Montreal, the brilliance of Michael Mann, and an open invitation to John McTiernan.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 42: No Sudden Move and Top Five Heist Movies

Thanks for listening!

©2021

The Underground Railroad: Review and Commentary

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 19 seconds

This article contains minor spoilers for the series The Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad takes viewers on a long and ugly journey to nowhere

The highly anticipated drama about a runaway slave devolves into a vapid exercise in torture porn.

The Underground Railroad is the new critically-acclaimed limited series from Oscar winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) now streaming on Amazon Prime.

The show, based on the Pulitzer prize winning novel by Colson Whitehead, tells the story of Cora, a slave who escapes the hell of a Georgia plantation by taking a train on a literal “underground railroad”.

Having the underground railroad be an actual subterranean train system as opposed to a collection of secret routes and safe houses is the lone piece of magic in this magical realist version of the much-told story of slavery in America.

Unfortunately, The Underground Railroad attempts to be profound and poignant but ends up being a shamelessly pretentious and egregiously pornographic arthouse poseur that reinforces the suffocating stasis of stereotypes by pandering, placating and patronizing to the lowest common racial denominator.

There are no insights to be found in this series, just a tenuous narrative and cardboard cutout characters used as torture and victimhood porn delivery systems.

Thuso Mbedu plays Cora and lacks the gravitas to carry the project. Mbedu is not a compelling actress and her decision to use a close-mouthed mumble as her dialect was a poor one, as I literally had to turn on the close caption in order to understand her (and only her).

Cora escapes the stereotypical cruel, fat white overseer and her viciously sadistic slave owner in Georgia, only to find the villainy and brutality of white supremacy is omnipresent across America.

In South Carolina she finds a society welcoming of blacks, but under that veneer she discovers the pulsating hatred of white supremacy in the form of eugenics. In North Carolina, the murder of blacks is ritualized as white supremacy is codified into law and religion. In Tennessee, white supremacy and its American imperative of expansion and domination has laid waste to the state and left it a veritable wasteland. In Indiana, blacks have carved out a seeming utopia, but the menace of white supremacy lurks on the margins ready to pounce at the slightest imagined provocation.

If that sounds narratively repetitious, it’s because it is.

The problem with The Underground Railroad in terms of storytelling is that Cora’s journey is simply physical and not a character arc. She undergoes no mythological, spiritual or psychological transformation at all. All Cora undergoes is one torture after another, with the only lesson learned being that all white people, including abolitionists, are awful if not evil.

The series is difficult to watch because of the relentless brutality, all of which seem gratuitous especially since there’s no emotional connection developed with the characters. All of the victims, Cora especially, are just one-dimensional punching bag props in the ten-hour diatribe against white supremacy. Maybe the novel does the hard work of character development, because the mini-series sure as hell doesn’t.

I couldn’t help but think of the cancelled-before-it-started HBO show Confederate, while watching The Underground Railroad. Confederate, which was the brain child of Game of Thrones show-runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, imagined an alternate history where the Confederacy survived and slavery still existed. HBO backed away from the project in 2017 after social media went nuclear over the notion of “exploiting black suffering for the purposes of art and entertainment.”

The Underground Railroad is being hailed by critics despite doing that exact same thing.

Granted, the show is beautifully shot by cinematographer James Laxton, whose camera dances through the ugliness like a feather floating on a soft breeze, but using the best china and most elaborate garnish will not elevate a painfully thin gruel into a satisfying meal.

Director Barry Jenkins has said that he made The Underground Railroad to counter Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again”. “I think in that world there’s this vacuum in the historical record or this failure to acknowledge those things, then slogans like this, and even worse actions…will continue to proliferate. So I think it’s important to fill in those cavities and to acknowledge the truth of what this country is.”

Does Jenkins really think Americans, even lowly MAGA adherents, want a return of slavery? Or is he simply building an absurd strawman to give his vacuous mini-series some meaning in hindsight that it lacks upon viewing?

Jenkins strikes me as being as deluded about America as those people who in a recent poll believed that police killed over 10,000 unarmed black men in 2019.

He is as detached from reality as the MAGA monsters in his head that he sets out to counter with his magical realist enterprise The Underground Railroad.

The truth is that the story of how the savagery and barbarity of slavery in America distorted and damaged every soul and psyche it touched is an extremely important one, but there is no paucity of significantly better films and tv shows that express that horror more effectively. The iconic and epic Roots, the bone crushingly brilliant Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave and even Quentin Tarantino’s exhilarating revenge fantasy Django Unchained are better resources worthy of your time because they create catharsis through creativity by utilizing originality, insightfulness and generating profundity.

Hell, even dismal cinematic efforts like Amistad, Beloved, Free State of Jones and The Birth of a Nation(2016) are superior to the slog that is this mini-series.

Ultimately, you have no need to buy a ticket to ride on The Underground Railroad because it’s an arduous ten-hour circular journey where you learn absolutely nothing and end up in the same damned place you started.

A version of this article was originally published at RT. 

©2021

7th Annual Mickey Awards™®: 2020 Edition

Estimated Reading Time: Ever prone to narcissistic indulgence, expect this awards show article to last, at a minimum, approximately 5 hours and 48 minutes.

Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin…

After what seems like an endless year, the pinnacle of cinematic achievement, the Mickey Awards™®, is finally upon us.

The Mickeys™® and its shadow award the Slip-Me-A-Mickey™®, are always the final awards of the awards season, but since everything was pushed back due to covid, we are in the unprecedented situation of giving out awards in May. I realize this seems odd, and while the Mickey™® committee considered giving out our awards sooner, we decided to stick to tradition so as to not make the other awards (looking at you Oscar) even more irrelevant than they already are.

To be blunt, 2020 was not an a good year for movies. While there were certainly some good movies, none of them were great. This is especially apparent when contrasted with the stellar output of movies in 2019, which featured a murderer’s row of cinematic heavyweights.

On the bright side, at least some smaller movies got the spotlight this year, I just wish those movies could have been more convincing in making a case for others to join me in the cult of the arthouse.

Regardless of all that, the God of Cinema declares we must give out Mickey™® awards. For those of you who are unfamiliar…here is a quick rundown of the rules and regulations of The Mickeys™®. The Mickeys™® are selected by me. I am judge, jury and executioner. The only films eligible are films I have actually seen, be it in the theatre, via screener, cable, Netflix or VOD. I do not see every film because as we all know, the overwhelming majority of films are God-awful, and I am a working man so I must be pretty selective. So that means that just getting me to actually watch your movie is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself…never mind being nominated or winning!

Winners of Mickey™® Awards receive an appropriately socially distanced meal at Fatburger and/or Shake Shack…on me! And yes, you can order a shake for your beverage! And the sterling conversation with me is included with the meal! You’re welcome.

Now that all that is out of the way…buckle up…IT’S MICKEY™® TIME!!

Best Cinematography

The nominees are…

Mank - Eric Messerschmidt : Gloriously shot film that utilized a luscious black and white and also featured a visual aesthetic that was an homage to its famous subject matter.

Nomadland - Joshua James Richards: Used gorgeous shots of vast, sparse and beautiful landscapes to set an intriguing mood and propel the story.

The Vast of Night - M.I. Litten-Menz : On a shoe string budget this movie looks like a big budget project and its intricate camera movements were astoundingly complex.

THE WINNER IS…. Mank. Messerschmidt won the Oscar with his crisp bleck and white cinematography but now he reaches the ultimate summit of cinematic excellence with his first Mickey award.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The nominees are…

Nomadland - Chloe Zhao: A solid integration of the original subject matter into a loosely coherent mood piece.

The Father - Florian Zeller: A fantastic adaptation of his own stage play that actually elevates the material instead of denigrating it, which is a rarity.

THE WINNER IS… The Father: The Father is an absolutely phenomenal script and Zeller justly deserves his first Mickey Award.

Best Original Screenplay

The nominees are…

Mank - Jack Fincher: An unruly behemoth of a story that is wrestled and transformed into a brutally insightful political statement. Astoundingly impressive piece of screenwriting.

Another Round - Thomas Vinterberg: A story about a mid-life crisis and death that focuses on life and manages to make its day drinking protagonist sympathetic and compelling.

Sound of Metal - Darius Marder: On the surface this is the most predictable and mundane of ideas…but Marder turns convention on its head and discovers profundity.

THE WINNER IS… Sound of Metal: From the mundane to the magical and the predictable to the profound, Darius Marder so fleshed out this story as to never write a cliche or false note. A well-deserved Mickey Award is his reward for excellence.

Best Supporting Actress

The nominees are…

Sierra McCormick - Vast of Night: A nobody from nowhere, McCormick absolutely crushed a role that was mind-bogglingly complicated and did it with enormous aplomb and magnetism.

Olivia Colman - The Father: The most intricate work of Colman’s career, she fills every scene and every shot with unstated meaning and anguish.

Amanda Seyfried - Mank: Who knew that Amanda Seyfried could be so good? As Hollywood starlet Marion Davies she looks amazing and matches her beauty with a nuanced and inspired performance.

Maria Bakalova - Borat: An absolutely balls to the wall performance that only she could pull off.

THE WINNER IS… Sierra McCormick: There’s an extended scene in The Vast of Night where nothing happens except McCormick talks and listens on a telephone…it is utterly mesmerizing, and is a testament to her talent, skill and craft.

Best Supporting Actor

The nominees are…

Daniel Kaluuya - Judas and the Black Messiah: Kaluuya is deliriously magnetic as Chairman Fred Hampton and completely owns the role and the film. It isn’t quite Denzel as Malcolm X, but it is still electrifying to behold.

Bo Burnham - Promising Young Woman: Burnham is fantastic in the darkly comedic/rom-com portion of this movie, and his chemistry with Mulligan is believable and charming.

Kingsley Ben-Adir - One Night in Miami: Ben-Adir masterfully avoids imitation and mimicry as he re-creates Malcolm X as less a cocksure firebrand and more an insecure outsider yearning for acceptance. A truly brilliant piece of acting.

Chadwick Boseman - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: Boseman has always been more movie star than great actor, but in Ma Rainey he taps into an energy and emotion that he had avoided in previous roles. This is far and away Boseman’s greatest performance.

THE WINNER IS… Daniel Kaluuya: Kaluuya is fast positioning himself as one of the best actors in the business…and his resume just got a tremendous boost with a prestigious Mickey Award.

Breakout Performance of the Year - Sierra McCormick: I had never heard of McCormick before The Vast of Night, but her unforgettable performance impressed me no end. I am willing to bet it impressed other Hollywood big wigs too…and I hope we get to see a lot more of her in movies that matter going forward.

Best Foreign Film - Another Round: Thomas Vinterberg is a great director and Another Round is a gloriously Vinterbergian film. Complex and layered yet darkly funny and philosophical, Another Round is unpredictable, satisfying and the type of movie that keeps you thinking about it and talking about for days afterward.

Best Actress

The nominees are…

Carey Mulligan - Promising Young Woman: Mulligan is one of the best actresses of her generation and she brings all her powers to bear on this absurdist and twisted dark fantasy. Impossible to imagine any other actress pulling this off.

Frances McDormand - Nomadland: McDormand gives a rare nuanced performance as Fern, the grieving wanderer searching for something out there on the fringes of society. I think McDormand is over-rated as an actress, but this is one of her very best performances.

Vanessa Kirby - Pieces of a Woman: The luminous Kirby gets down and dirty in this misfire of a movie, but her performance is powerful and poignant. I hope we see much more of this Vanessa Kirby going forward.

THE WINNER IS… Carey Mulligan: Mulligan’s versatility is extraordinary and is on full display in Promising Young Woman. In lesser hands this role is a disaster, in her skilled mitts it is artistry…and the Mickey Award is rightfully hers.

Best Actor

The nominees are…

Riz Ahmed - Sound of Metal: Ahmed is one of the best actors out there, and he brings all his talent to Sound of Metal. Ahmed has the uncanny ability to fill himself with an inner life that is vibrant and dynamic and it shows on screen. A stellar piece of acting.

Anthony Hopkins - The Father: Hopkins, ever the master of controlled fury, gives arguably his greatest performance in The Father, as he unravels the character with each passing scene.

Gary Oldman - Mank: Oldman brings a sloppy slice of life to the Hollywood legend and it makes for a combustibly cantankerous experience. Few, if any, actors would even attempt this, nevermind pull it off as well as Oldman.

Mads Mikkelson - Another Round: Mikkelson transforms throughout this film from a burdened, defeated man to a confident king, to a struggling sad sack. Mikkelson is one of the great under appreciated actors of his time, and Another Round is evidence of his brilliance.

THE WINNER IS…Anthony Hopkins: Hopkins is one of the very best actors of his generation, and his stunning work in The Father, filled with precision and specificity, has now given him the most prestigious award in cinema, The Mickey™®.

Best Ensemble - Mank - Gary Oldman is the straw that stirs Mank’s drink, but the cast is loaded with solid actors giving career best performances. Amanda Seyfried, Arliss Howard and Charles Dance in particular do stellar work that elevate the film.

Best Director

The nominees are…

David Fincher - Mank : Fincher’s fearlessness is on full display in Mank as he throws caution to the wind and makes a dizzyingly complex film that is a thumb in the eye to his corporate overlords.

Chloe Zhao - Nomadland : Zhao’s comfort with silence and space make Nomadland the film that it is, and lesser directors would have scuttled the ship.

Florian Zeller - The Father : Zeller masterfully puts his audience through the horror of dementia by relying on his exquisite script and his stellar cast. This movie was no easy task and Zeller proved himself a formidable filmmaker.

Darius Marder - Sound of Metal : Marder brought all the craft of old school movie making to Sound of Metal. A fundamentally brilliant bit of directing that drew the most out of his cast and his crew.

Thomas Vinterberg - Another Round : Vinterberg is one of the most interesting directors around, and Another Round is him at his most accessibly artistic.

Andrew Patterson - The Vast of Night: Patterson’s feature debut is stunning for its confidence and technical audacity. I truly cannot wait to see what he does next.

THE WINNER IS…Darius Marder : Marder’s artistic courage, commitment and deft directing touch brought his profoundly unique vision to life on Sound of Metal…and now he’s got a Mickey Award!

Best Documentary - Can’t Get You Out of My Head : Director Adam Curtis is the best documentarian in the business and has been for nearly two decades. His newest project is a six part series that debuted on BBC in February. Like Curtis’ other revelatory series Century of the Self, The Power of Nightmares and HyperNormalization, Can’t Get You Out of My Head is brilliant for taking a sprawling subject matter and profoundly transforming it into the psychological and personal. it is currently available on Youtube, and though it may feel impenetrable at first, I highly recommend you watch every episode.

Best Picture

9. One Night in Miami - Four excellent performances propel this stagey drama and make it a worthwhile watch.

8. Promising Young Woman - Director Emerald Fennell wraps a disturbing revenge fantasy in a bubblegum aesthetic, and though it is flawed it possesses an intriguing cinematic power.

7. Judas and the Black Messiah - An uneven but captivating film that highlights two fantastic performances from Daniel Kaluuya and LaKieth Stanfield.

6. The Vast of Night - This is a little movie with big ideas and it nearly pulls them all off. A staggering piece of technical filmmaking that boasts an intricate and detailed performance from Sierra McCormick.

5. Nomadland - An arthouse meditation on the dark side of the American dream that somehow manages to be decidedly corporate friendly. Despite its shallow philosophy, the film is well-made and well-acted and very well shot.

4. Another Round - A compelling Danish drama that is gloriously acted and exceedingly well directed. This movie not only has a sense of humor but a deep sense of the profound.

3. Mank - Mank got lost in the shuffle this year, and although it isn’t a perfect movie, it is a very good one. Filled with solid performances and Fincher’s brilliance, Mank gets better upon each re-watch.

2. The Father - I expected little from The Father, and got a whole hell of a lot. This movie is like a horror film as it traps viewers inside the experience of dementia, and it makes you pray you never suffer that fate. An exquisitely jarring cinematic experience.

1. Sound of Metal - A pretty basic movie and idea that is phenomenally well-directed and acted. A quiet movie that finds profundity in the silence.

Most Important Film of the Year: Nomadland

Nomadland is the most important film of the year…but not in a good way. What makes Nomadland so important is that is symbolizes an artistic acquiescence to corporate power and reinforces working class impotence.

As I’ve written before, it is shocking that Nomadland is a story about people who are victims of American capitalism but the movie entirely ignores that reality, and in fact bends over backwards to portray the corporate behemoths (like Amazon) that cause the suffering we see in the film, as the good guys. The film might as well have been produced by Gordon Gekko or the Koch brothers.

It isn’t an accident that Amazon were so happy to let Nomadland shoot in their workplace and create the impression that working there is a wonderful experience where they treat you well, you make new friends and you make good money. Of course, the reality is much, much different.

The thing that is so horrifying is that Hollywood, and most importantly - the artists in Hollywood, refused to speak up against Nomadland’’s deception and Amazon’s evil. The film, its director and lead actress won a bevy of awards and yet not once in their acceptance speeches did they hold Amazon to task for their poor treatment of workers or anti-union practices or even speak up about those left behind by American capitalism.

Just think, Sally Field once iconically held up a “Union” sign in Norma Rae, and now Frances McDormand shits in a bucket while swearing that anti-union Amazon is a terrific place to work. What a sign of the very bad times.

Last time McDormand won an Oscar, the brassy actress shouted and touted diversity and inclusion…but this time around she was as quiet as a church mouse in regards to Amazon and unionization and its poor treatment of working people. Funny how McDormand was so courageous when it costs her nothing but so cowardly when biting the hand that feeds would be the right thing to do. Class act that McDormand…loud when she can self-aggrandize but silent when it matters.

Nomadland and the universal and uncritical love for it, signals an end to artists pushing back against corporate hegemony, and instead genuflecting to corporate power. This new era feels Orwellian, as the only thing that matters now is identity politics. If Nomadland hadn’t been written and directed by a “woman of color”, I doubt it would’ve received so much critical love, or avoided the Amazon controversy.

And so…this is why corporate America is attached at the hip with woke politics, it is a means to a dastardly end. Corporate America can be as evil as it wants and can exploit its workers all it wants, just as long as it spouts woke platitudes about diversity and inclusion and “black lives mattering” or whatever other politically correct smokescreen it wants to use…and as Nomadland proves, this distractionary measure will work…and cinema, art and humanity will all suffer.

On that very down note….thus concludes an uninspired Mickey™® awards for an uninspired year of movies!! Congratulations to all the winners and to all of my readers for surviving this decidedly heinous year. Keep an eye out for the Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® Awards…which will be coming soon to celebrate the very worst in cinema and culture!

Here’s to a better 2021! See you next year!

©2021

The Oscar Train Wreck

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 20 seconds

My biggest question regarding last night’s egregiously bungled and boring Oscar telecast is…if an awards show collapses but no one is watching, does it make a sound?

Interest in the Oscars has been in steep decline for years now, and after suffering through the entire three hour and twenty-minute show last night I can dutifully report that the 93rd Academy Awards came in with a whimper and left with a whimper too.

The night’s climactic moment was a dud as the show ran long, as usual, and then rushed to announce Best Actor, which everyone thought would be an emotional moment as it was expected to go to the late Chadwick Boseman. The award instead went to went to Anthony Hopkins. Uh-oh.

Hopkins is most deserving of the award, but his victory will no doubt spur more cries of “racism” from the usual woke suspects. Adding to the discomfort was the fact that Hopkins wasn’t present at the show, and so the telecast ended basically with everybody standing around looking at one another like they were waiting for a train.

Speaking of which, the show was held at Los Angeles’ Union Station – which is a train station, which is apropos since the show was an absolute train-wreck.

Union Station is known as a hub for hordes of homeless in Los Angeles, and I’m sure that as much as homeless people have defecated in that public space over the years they’ve never made a stink as odious as Oscar’s producer Steven Soderbergh did last night.

Soderbergh put his stamp on the show as he shot it like a movie, with more handheld cameras than static shots, and by mixing up the order of awards. For instance, contrary to previous Oscar ceremonies Best Director came early in the proceedings and Best Picture wasn’t the last award.

Of course, the Oscars are going to be the Oscars, so the show was filled with the usual rambling speeches, self-righteous political pandering, and the airing of racial grievances, but what it didn’t have was any clips of the nominated work. Want to see the nominated cinematography, acting, costumes, hair and makeup or production designs? Not on Soderbergh’s watch!

Instead Soderbergh had presenters share inane “fun factoids” about each nominee like a kindergarten teacher handing out Valentine’s Day cards in class. This was accompanied by a roving camera desperately whirling around searching the room for these unfamous nominees like a toddler lost in a train station frantically looking for its parents.

The lowlight in the evening of lowlights was a “music game” where nominees guessed if a song played by DJ Questlove (who replaced the traditional orchestra) was an Oscar winning song. This hapless and ham-handed bit deteriorated into Glenn Close pretending she knew the song “Da Butt” and then humiliating herself by getting up and doing “Da Butt” dance. If Glenn Close ever had a relationship with dignity, it ended in a ferocious divorce last night.

The entire endless evening felt like one long extended version of Glenn Close doing “Da Butt”, and conjured all the gravitas of a junior high school drama club awards night.

The Oscars did make history though regarding diversity with “artists of color” winning two of the four acting categories and Chloe Zhao being the first woman of color ever to win Best Director and Best Picture.

So maybe #OscarsSoWhite has transformed into #OscarsSoWhat*? Unfortunately, I’m sure the Academy would prefer even the righteous anger of racial resentment to the overwhelming apathy that hangs over the festivities like a toxic cloud of poisonous gas.

Even the stars who came out to aid Soderbergh in his time of need, like Halle Berry and Harrison Ford, looked disinterested. The usually luminous Berry looked like she had slept at Union Station or was suffering a hellacious flu when she presented an award, while Ford just seemed like he was baked off his ass as he mumbled through a presentation.

Soderbergh did not limit the award winners in the length of their speeches, which led to some unnecessary verbosity, but also to some moments of profundity. Director Thomas Vinterberg’s speech after winning Best International Feature Film for Another Round, was painfully poignant as he spoke about the tragic death of his daughter Ida during filming.

In contrast, Frances McDormand’s grating short speeches managed to remind everyone she’s the most annoying person in all of Hollywood, which is an achievement even greater than her three Best Actress Oscars.

As shrill and grating as she is, McDormand’s movie Nomadland was the biggest winner of the night as it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress.

The biggest losers of the night though were any poor bastards like me who stayed up to watch, and of course, the Academy Awards themselves.

If last night’s abysmal Oscar ceremony proves anything it is that the Academy Awards are on the fast track to irrelevancy, and even though the show ran late, that train left Union Station right on time.  

*Joke courtesy of Leo - Da Irish Poet!

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Epsidoe 34 - Oscars Predictions

On this episode of everybody's favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I get all dressed up and go to the Oscars. Tune in to listen to our Oscar predictions, Oscar dream scenarios and Oscar nightmares, as well as lamentations for the sorry state of the movie industry.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 34 - Oscar Predictions

Thanks for listening!

©2021

93rd Academy Awards: The 2021 Oscar Prediction Post

Estimated Reading Time: 3 hours 47 minutes 22 seconds

The Academy Awards are once again upon us and the biggest question about them is…does anyone give a rat’s ass?

As the show’s dwindling ratings prove, interest in the once mighty Oscars has been in steep decline in recent years. It would seem the perfect storm of a plethora of streaming service tv shows and reduced attention spans, as well as a paucity of genuine movie stars and a plenitude of identity politics has wounded, maybe fatally, the once iconic awards.

As a denizen of Hollywood, I’ve never experienced an awards season that has generated so little interest. It appears that even though, due to streaming services, movies are more available to more people than ever before, they seem to have never mattered less.

Part of the reason for that is that, for a vareity of reasons - not the least of which was Covid, 2020 was just a cinematically lackluster year. A handful of good movies came out this year, but no truly great ones, and certainly no films that ignited the public’s passions.

With that said, the reality is that it is my sworn and solemn obligation to share with you my Oscar picks. Please remember that these picks are NOT TO BE USED FOR GAMBLING PURPOSES!!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Who will win: Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari) - Not a fan of this movie or this performance, but it checks a diversity box Academy members want to celebrate. I personally think Amanda Seyfried (Mank), Olivia Colman (The Father) and Maria Bakalove (Borat) are considerably more deserving. There’s an outside chance Bakalove pulls the upset…but don’t bet on it.

Who should win: Seyfried or Colman.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Who will win: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) - This is a slam dunk, and deservedly so. While I liked Paul Raci (Sound of Metal) and LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah), Kaluuya crushes his role as Fred Hampton.

Who should win: Kaluuya

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Who will win: Promising Young Woman - Emerald Fennel : This is one of the few interesting categories. I think Fennel wins because the Academy is desperate to to appease the woke wolves at its door, and Fennel is a woman so she qualifies. There’s a pretty good chance that they give the award to Aaron Sorkin for his atrocious The Trial of the Chicago 7. That movie is dreadful and the script a joke, but it taps into the whole self-righteousness of the moment. That said…I think Fennel gets the nod.

Who should win: Sound of Metal - Darius Marder

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Who will win: Nomadland - Chloe Zhao: I think Zhao and Nomadland are the big winners come Oscar night…but if Florian Zeller wins this award (which I think he should) for his adaptation of The Father, it could be a monkey wrench into the Nomadland dominance.

Who should win: The Father - Florian Zeller

ANIMATED FEATURE

Who will win: Soul. This is a no-brainer. I liked Soul and it is certainly an antidote to our tumultuous times. Also…the Pixar machine is unstoppable.

Who should win: Soul I guess.

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Who will win: Mank - I think Mank finally gets on the board here. if it loses this category it may very well get shut out of all awards. The big competition will come from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Who should won: Mank.

COSTUME DESIGN

Who will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - I think Ma Rainey and its popular costume crew win here for a variety of non-merit based reasons. If Mank wins, which it could, that is a big deal and could portend a mini-Mank run in some behind the camera categories.

Who should win: Mank.

MAKEUP AND HAIR

Who will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Same as above.

Who should win: Mank.

EDITING

Who will win: Sound of Metal - There’s a chance that Trial of the Chicago 7 could win (God help us), but I think Sound of Metal pulls it off. If Nomadland win then look out, that is a sign it will win a huge amount of hardware on Oscar night.

Who should win: Sound of Metal

SOUND

Who should win: Sound of Metal - Outside chance that Mank or Soul win, but that seems very unlikely. if Mank wins it is another sign of a big night for that movie…but that seems unlikely.

Who should win: Sound of Metal

VISUAL EFFECTS

Who will win: Tenet - This seems like it’s going to happen.

Who should win: I’ll be honest…I don’t know.

SCORE

Who will win: Soul - Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross: This seems like a slam dunk too. An outside chance Terence Blanchard wins for his bombastic score to the equally awful Da 5 Bloods.

Who should win: Soul.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Who will win: My Octopus Teacher - I’m not sure why but people love this movie and I think the votes for potential winners Collective, Crip Camp and Time get split and the octopus wins.

Who should win: No idea.

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Who will win: Another Round - I think this beats out Qou Vadis, Aida by a nose.

Who should win: Another Round.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Who will win: Nomadland - This is a bellwether award…if everything goes to plan then Nomadland should win and clean up at the Oscars. If Mank wins…its gonna be an interesting night because that signals Mank has a ground swell of support and Nomadland is floundering.

Who should win: Mank. Nomadland is extremely well shot by Joshua James Richards, no doubt about it, but my tastes run slightly more towards Erik Messerschmidt and Mank.

BEST ACTOR

Who will win: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) - This is set in stone. With Boseman’s tragic death and the narrative around the award, it would be an absolute shocker of the highest order if anyone else won. The only other potential winner is Anthony Hopkins for The Father…but that ain’t happening.

Who should win: Anthony Hopkins. Boseman is very good in Ma Rainey…but Hopkins is on another level in The Father.

BEST ACTRESS

Who will win: Viola Davis - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom : This is one of the very few interesting categories. Frances McDormand is the front runner but I think that the fact that she won recently (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and a win here would put her in Meryl Streep territory with 3 Oscar wins, the Academy will look to feed the diversity beast by awarding Davis for her sub-par performance in that dreadful movie.

Who should win: Carey Mulligan - Promising Young Woman : I thought Mulligan was better than everybody else.

BEST DIRECTOR

Who will win: Chloe Zhao - Nomadland : This too is a slam dunk. No way Fincher or Vinterberg pull of an upset. Just impossible.

Who should win: Fincher, Vinterberg or Zhao. Three different directors making very different films all did solid work.

BEST PICTURE

Who will win: Nomadland - This is happening. There is no stopping the Nomadland juggernaut. If Mank or (GOD HELP US ALL) The Trial of the Chicago 7 win, that is a sure sign of the apocalypse.

Who should win: Mank or Sound of Metal. They won’t win but I think they should. Nomadland is a good movie, but I thought these two were a little better.

Here’s the rest of the categories of which I have no opinion just a guess…

ORIGINAL SONG- One Night in Miami

LIVE ACTION SHORT - Two Distant Strangers

DOCUMENTARY SHORT - Concerto is Conversation

©2021

The Father and the Media's Dementia Simulation Machine

The Oscar-nominated The Father is a masterful film about living with dementia…and a reminder that the mainstream media is a dementia simulation machine.

The film immerses viewers in the confusion of dementia – the same sort of bewilderment caused by US media misinformation to disorient the public and make them easier to control and manipulate. 

The Father is a terrific movie that tells the story of an aging man struggling with dementia, and it has left me rattled as it’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the delusional and disorienting nature of American life.  

The film is rightfully nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards as it showcases a superb performance by Anthony Hopkins who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his stellar work.

What makes The Father such a poignant and insightful film is that director Florian Zeller doesn’t just show the effects of dementia on the screen, he immerses the audience in the excruciating experience of dementia.

Watching the film and experiencing that disease-imposed confusion, I couldn’t help but think about how, here in the U.S. at least, it feels as if our entire culture is suffering from a collective dementia. The disorientation and detachment from reality that come with that dreaded disease are entirely commonplace in America, where we seem incapable of remembering the past, or of clearly seeing the present.

This rapacious American dementia is fueled first and foremost by the mainstream media’s manipulation and misinformation.

The establishment media have long distorted reality in order to manufacture consent around a desired narrative. This is why Americans always see themselves as the “good guys” on the world stage and not as the imperialist aggressors and colonialist exploiters that we are.

For proof just look at the flag-waving coverage surrounding the Iraq war and the WMD nonsense, or the egregious media assaults on Julian Assange and Edward Snowden compared to the genuflecting coverage of infamous bs artists like Chris Kyle, George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.

This duplicitous media approach can often be so blatant as to be ridiculously absurd, such as when CNN described the rioting, looting and arson last Summer as “mostly peaceful” protests.

The same is true regarding the current wave of anti-Asian violence. The media blame the attacks on the ever-expanding yet conveniently amorphous label of “white supremacy”, but the videos and statistics regarding these repugnant attacks against Asians show black people are the majority of perpetrators, a fact the media steadfastly fail to mention.

Another dementia-like distortion caused by the media is the perception that police are killing black people en-masse.

As a 2021 Skeptic Research Poll found, most Americans greatly over-estimate the number of unarmed black people killed by police.

When asked “How many unarmed Black men were killed by police in 2019?”, 53.3 % of those self-described as “very liberal” estimated that over 1,000 unarmed black men had been killed by police, even though the actual number is believed to be between 60 – 100.

According to the same study, 24.9% of people killed by police are black, yet those self-describing as “liberal” or “very liberal” estimated the number to be 56% and 60% respectively.

This detachment from reality is no shock as according to a Gallup poll over half the country already over-estimates the size of the black population in general, believing it to be over 30% when in reality it is roughly 14%.

The over-estimation of police killings of unarmed black men is to be expected as every killing of a black person by the police or by a white person results in massive media coverage and a declaration that the only motivation for the incident is racism. In contrast the deaths of white people at the hands of police or by black perpetrators are not considered noteworthy.

The anti-Russia hysteria is another establishment media manufactured narrative that is directly at odds with reality, but that is deeply rooted in the American psyche.

Russiagate, hacking of electrical grids, using super-secret microwave weapons to attack U.S. diplomats, and putting bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, are just a few of the dominant pieces of anti-Russian disinformation devoid of fact that the media tout as gospel truth.

The immigration crisis is another bewildering story disorienting Americans. The media vehemently chanted the mantra “kids in cages” when Trump detained children at the border, but were silent when Obama did the exact same thing during his presidency. And now that Biden is doing it too, the media are back to downplaying its significance or ignoring it entirely.

And of course, the most perplexing media coverage surrounds the coronavirus. Originally the press excoriated anyone who raised the notion that the disease may have come from a lab in China, but now the truth that they aren’t sure where it initially came from is acknowledged.

The medical establishment is just as perfidious and deceitful as the media.

For example, Dr. Fauci knowingly lied early in the pandemic about the need for masks.

And last Summer a collection of medical professionals said that no large groups should gather, except for Black Lives Matter protests, making the obscene and absurd claim that the media manufactured “epidemic” of racism was just as bad as the coronavirus pandemic.  

In addition, concerns over vaccinations are broken down by race, with white concerns stigmatized and black concerns gently understood.

Just like dementia, this insidious media and medical duplicity creates stress, irritability and aggression among the populace.

In conclusion, The Father is a masterful film insightfully exploring the tragedy of dementia, and the hypocritical, pernicious, frivolous and mendacious establishment media are a relentless dementia simulation machine. The former is worth indulging, the latter is terminal and should be avoided at all costs.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT. 

©2021

Another Round: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A fascinating film featuring a terrific performance from Mads Mikkelson.

Language: Danish with English sub-titles.

Another Round, written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, tells the story of Martin, a teacher suffering a mid-life crisis. The film, which is nominated for Best International Feature Film at this year’s Academy Awards and is currently streaming on Hulu, stars Mads Mikkelsen as Martin, with supporting turns from Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe.

Director Thomas Vinterberg is a fascinating filmmaker. Vinterberg was, along with Lars von Trier, one of the founders of the Dogme 95 movement from the 1990’s which featured a bare bones cinematic aesthetic that emphasized story, acting and theme over elaborate special effects and technology.

His 1998 film The Celebration, which was the talk of the arthouse at the time, was the first of the Dogme 95 films and is not just a fantastic representation of that philosophy but also just a terrific film. If you have never seen The Celebration, I highly recommend you do.

Dogme 95 no longer exists, but the spirit of it lives on in Another Round, and the film is a wondrous example of that yearning for cinematic purity in action.

Another Round is an amazing film in that it is a dark comedy but also a profound drama. This merging of humor and profundity may be the result of the tumult and tragedy which surrounded the film’s production.

The idea for the film came from a play Vinterberg was writing which was partially inspired by stories his daughter Ida told him about drinking in Danish youth culture.

Ida was set to have a supporting role as one of Martin’s daughters in the film, but tragically, four days into filming, Ida was killed in a car crash. She was 19.

In this context it is no surprise that the existentialism of Another Round hangs over the film (which is dedicated to Ida) like a heavy, dark storm cloud, and gives it the gravitas that makes it such an interesting drama. And yet, Vinterberg is still able to masterfully turn the movie into a yearning for life rather than a commentary on death.

Vinterberg’s ability, both as writer and director, to create compelling characters and dynamic drama is extraordinary, and he is assisted in this endeavor on Another Round by the magnificent Mads Mikkelsen.

Mikkelsen as Martin adds to the weight of the project, as he opens the film looking like a man carrying the heavy cross of a lifeless existence, a burden under which he is suffocating. Martin’s fear of an empty life trapped within the prison of middle-class respectability make him a tortured soul, and a compelling character.

Mikkelsen is as unique an actor as Vinterberg a director. Mikkelsen is blessed as an actor, as he is impossibly handsome, yet not a pretty boy, and his face conveys a depth and complexity that draws in viewers and tells a story all its own. Mikkelsen brings a magnetism and power to the screen and combines it with a high level of craftsmanship, which results in a truly dynamic and captivating performance as Martin.

If you’re interested (and you should be), another Vinterberg/Mikkelsen film of note is 2012’s The Hunt. The Hunt, like Another Round, is a remarkable film and it highlights what is best about both Vinterberg and Mikkelsen as artists.

Another Round is also elevated by terrific supporting work from Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe. This trio, as well as Maria Bonnevie as Martin’s wife, bring a grounded complexity to roles that in lesser hands could have been caricature.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m intentionally being elusive about the plot of Another Round because I think it’s definitely worth seeing and it’s best seen with as little information about the story as possible.

In conclusion, Another Round is very deserving of both the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and of your attention. I highly recommend you see it. But be forewarned, it is an arthouse, foreign film (Denmark), so its pacing and plot may feel a little unconventional to viewers used to more mainstream fare, but also note that it isn’t so unorthodox as to be incomprehensible or off-putting. The bottom line is…if you like great cinema and great acting, you should see this movie.

©2021

The Father: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An astounding performance from Anthony Hopkins and skilled storytelling make this movie an arthouse gem.

The Father, written and directed by Florian Zeller (based on his stage play Le Pere), tells the story of Anthony, an aging man suffering from dementia. The film stars Anthony Hopkins with supporting turns from Olivia Colman, Imogen Poots and Rufus Sewell.

Anthony Hopkins has long been one of the very best actors on the planet. Ever the consummate craftsman, Hopkins has throughout his career managed to conjure remarkable performances in roles as dramatically diverse as Hannibal Lecter, Richard Nixon, John Quincy Adams and Pope Benedict, not to mention his measured and constrained brilliance in The Remains of the Day, Howards End and Shadowlands.

Now at age 83, Hopkins surpasses all of his previous brilliance in The Father.

Hopkins is not going to win the Best Actor Oscar this year solely because the late Chadwick Boseman is such an overwhelming sentimental favorite, but that doesn’t mean Hopkins’ loss will not be a travesty.

As the dementia-addled Anthony, Hopkins brings all his astounding talents, skill and craftsmanship to bear for what might be his final piece of artistic genius. Hopkins’ performance is utterly astounding and is an exquisite masterclass in precision, detail and specificity.

Hopkins’ Anthony is a modern day King Lear filled with a ferocity and fear that gives him a sharp edge and a pulsating fragility that is never flamboyant or showy, just devastating.

Hopkins has always been a master of placing emotional circles within physical straight lines, this is how his Hannibal Lecter is so frightening and his Nixon so compelling. It is the vibrant inner life within the controlled and contained outer facade that gives Hopkins his power as an actor, and in The Father, that power goes supernova.

Aiding Hopkins is Olivia Colman who is stellar as Anthony’s daughter and caregiver Anne. Colman too gives Anne a pulsating inner wound and emotional vibrancy that makes her a complicated, compelling and captivating In some ways screen presence.

Imogen Poots and Rufus Sewell bring their considerable talents to bear on smaller roles, but elevate them and the film considerably.

In some waysThe Father feels like a horror movie because it so viscerally immerses the audience into the terror of life with dementia. The disorientation Anthony and the audience experience is unnerving and leaves you praying that this movie is the closest you will ever come to that level of dreaded disorientation.

The credit for that experience is first time feature film writer/director Florian Zeller. Zeller is a playwright of some renown and The Father is his major first step/leap into the art of filmmaking. Zeller’s wonderfully constructed script and deft direction magnificently flesh out the intricacies and insanities of Anthony’s dementia-addled mind. His storytelling is confident and seamless, and his ability to never rush, push or over-explain, turn The Father from a potential movie-of-the-week afterthought into an arthouse masterwork.

With The Father Florian Zeller is declaring himself as a filmmaker to watch going forward, while Anthony Hopkins is simply proving he is one of the greatest actors of his generation. We should appreciate him while he is still with us.

If you have ever known or cared for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s, The Father will be a difficult but worthwhile watch, as art of this caliber can be greatly cathartic. For lovers of great acting and storytelling, The Father is definitely for you, and I highly recommend you seek it out.

The Father is currently in theatres and on VOD.

©2021

Exterminate All the Brutes: A Documentary Review

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!! THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A pretentious disappointment.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be stuck on a four-hour flight sitting next to a rambling, drunken college student who just read their first book about colonialism, genocide and white supremacy and mistakenly thinks they have some profound insights, have I got a documentary series for you…

Exterminate all the Brutes is the new unconventional, four-part docu-series from filmmaker Raoul Peck now available on HBO and HBO Max that explores the vast history of colonialism, genocide and white supremacy from a non-white and non-European perspective.

The documentary is based on the books Exterminate all the Brutes (Sven Lindqvist), An Indigenous People’s History of the United States (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz) and Silencing the Past (Michel-Rolph Trouillot), and chaotically mixes documentary footage, home movies, popular films, animation, and fictional scripted scenes to create a sort of experimental, impressionistic cinematic essay instead of a straight forward documentary.

Exterminate All the Brutes, a phrase which comes from Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece Heart of Darkness, highlights the greatest hits of horror in the history of humanity and is divided into four parts titled, “The Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance”, “Who the F*ck is Columbus?”, “Killing at a Distance”, and “The Bright Colors of Fascism”.

From Europeans explorers, to the plundering of Africa and the slave trade, to the eradication of the Native American population, to Hitler, the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima, the documentary leaves no stone of brutality, barbarity and white supremacy left unturned.

The series attempts to tie together the genocide of the American Indians, slavery and the Holocaust in order to expose the unique evil of white supremacy and its impact on modern Western civilization.

The writer and director Raoul Peck, who’s documentary on James Baldwin, I am Not Your Negro, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2017, should be applauded for his ambition on Exterminate All the Brutes, but certainly not his execution. Ultimately, in his attempt to create a profound, personalized poem, Peck instead produces a painfully pretentious polemic.

The series is not so much thorough as it cluttered, and while it has a specific topic, it is devoid of a distinct thesis. I would probably agree with Peck’s argument regarding colonialism if I could actually discern what exactly it was. As a result of this lack of a detailed thesis, the documentary comes across as a distracted, incoherent, stream of consciousness diatribe fueled by an adolescent, if not infantile, intellectualism. It feels more like a tantrum resulting from deep frustration and helplessness than a dissertation born out of intense study.

Peck’s journey into the heart of darkness of colonialism, slavery and genocide may very well be a noble venture but it is also egregiously narcissistic. Peck not only tells you what he knows but endlessly recites how and from whom he came to know it.

Peck also vents his rage at individuals he dislikes, like Donald Trump, and groups he despises, like the Scots-Irish…boy does he have a bug up his ass about the Scots-Irish.

Peck’s anger also distorts his argument as he makes contradictory statements regarding his flawed premise. For instance, he brushes aside the “Guns, Germs and Steel” hypothesis and calls early Europeans backward and uncivilized, but then describes that Europeans came to dominate African peoples simply because they were able to create advanced technology and weapons that Africans could not.  

The greatest flaw of the documentary though, and there are many, is that as it guides viewers through the history of white European atrocities, it never breaks new ground or reveals unearthed truths. Anyone with half a brain in their head is aware of the horrors of colonialism, slavery and genocide by now. The fact that the U.S. was born on the back of African slaves and the genocide of American Indians isn’t exactly breaking news. But as Peck himself states in the film, “it is not knowledge that we lack”, which begs the question…if we don’t lack knowledge then what is the purpose of this four-hour monstrous mess of a docu-series?

Peck is also his own worst enemy as a storyteller as he narrates the series and his voice-over is, without exaggeration, the worst in the history of the spoken word. Never has someone talked so much (and so inaudibly) and said so little. Peck’s droning, garbled voice isn’t helped by the insipid platitudes he mutters like “neutrality is not an option” and “there are no alternative facts”.

That sort of overwrought emotionalism and intellectual vapidity is the life-blood of Exterminate All the Brutes. This is most evident in the cringe-inducing and laughably ludicrous scripted dramatic scenes haphazardly inserted throughout the series.

Actor Josh Hartnett is tasked with playing the embodiment of white supremacy and white privilege throughout history in the series of amateurish scenes, and his performance entails shooting a lot of brown people in the head and looking menacingly at the ones he hasn’t killed.

These scenes, and the scenes from Peck’s earlier dramatic films also shown, reveal the director to be a middling-at-best filmmaker, and Exterminate All the Brutes seems to be a case of an artist and pseudo-intellectual biting off considerably more than he could ever possibly chew.

In conclusion, I watched Exterminate All the Brutes so that you don’t have to. And trust me…you don’t have to…you really don’t have to.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Sound of Metal: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An insightful and captivating drama that boasts a simple but layered narrative, a fantastic performance from Riz Ahmed and some exquisite filmmaking craftsmanship.

Sound of Metal, written and directed by Darius Marder, tells the story of Ruben Stone, a drummer in a heavy metal duo that loses his hearing. The film stars Riz Ahmed as Ruben, with supporting turns from Olivia Cooke and Paul Raci.

Sound of Metal was released on Amazon Prime streaming service back in November of 2020. I would see the advertisement for it whenever I went online but was always hesitant to watch it as it looked like a rather predictable movie on its surface. I finally made the plunge last week and watched…and boy am I glad that I did.

Yes, Sound of Metal is about a drummer who loses his hearing, but it is infinitely more than that.

For some viewers, the premise of the movie and the opening scenes may be a hurdle, but I wholly encourage you to stick with the movie because it is a multi-layered, dramatically precise, profound and powerful piece of cinema well worth your time.

Director Darius Marder apparently developed this story for over a decade, and successfully navigated the minefield of Hollywood to get it made the way he wanted it made…and it shows.

Marder’s confidence as a filmmaker (this is his first feature) oozes through every scene of the film. The movie never takes the easy or predictable route in storytelling, and every time I thought I knew what was coming I was wrong. Marder’s refusal to rely on conventional narrative arcs and story turns makes Sound of Metal very compelling viewing.

The technical proficiency on display in the movie is impressive, as the film’s use of sound to propel the narrative and heighten the drama is masterful. The way the movie allows the audience to experience Ruben’s hearing loss creates a visceral intimacy that is captivating, jarring and mesmerizing.

The film is nominated for six Oscars, two of which include Best Sound and Best Editing and it should win both awards. The sound design on this movie is exquisite and is a pivotal part of the storytelling. The editing is seamless as scenes are never rushed nor linger too long and the film is perfectly paced.

The cast are terrific. Riz Ahmed is just one of those guys…he is an exceptional actor who has an innate presence to him that is compelling and undeniable. Ahmed is able to draw viewers into him rather than needing to be showy to attract their attention. His work as Ruben is specific and complex, and he never falls prey to the desire to overly emote. This role in lesser hands could have been a great deal of volcanic histrionics, but with Ahmed it is an exquisite exercise in subtlety and nuance.

Ahmed is nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance and while be probably won’t win, he certainly deserves to.

Paul Raci plays a counselor named Joe and is outstanding. Raci is a knock around type of actor who has been nibbling away at the periphery of the business for decades. This is the most prominent role in his career and he makes the most of the opportunity. Raci is so grounded and genuine as Joe I wasn’t sure he was a professional actor when I was watching him. I don’t say that as an insult, I say it to highlight how real he comes across and how devoid of performance his work truly is.

Olivia Cooke also acquits herself quite well as Lou, Ruben’s girlfriend and bandmate. Cooke is an intriguing screen presence and she makes the most of the small role she is given.

What makes Sound of Metal so profound is that it is extremely accurate and insightful when it comes to the issue of drug and alcohol recovery. The film expertly maneuvers through the choppy waters of recovery and never flounders.

Director Marder connects the audience to Ruben and we too fall under the spell of his unseen wound and issues. He seems fine to us because we want him to seem fine. When the reality of the situation is revealed it is a breathtaking moment and a staggeringly well executed piece of cinema.

I loved Sound of Metal because it’s a “simple” bit of filmmaking that makes use of the craft and skill of moviemakiing to create a piece of cinematic art. Obviously, just because something is simple does not make it easy. For instance, if you are an addict the simple solution to your problem is to stop using…but that ain’t easy.

The beautiful simplicity of the storytelling and filmmaking of Sound of Metal is why this movie is so impressive and this type of moviemaking so exceedingly rare.

I also loved Sound of Metal because of Riz Ahmed’s heartfelt and absurdly well-crafted performance. This is Ahmed at his very best and it is glorious to behold.

And finally, I loved Sound of Metal because it dramatically presents the important truth about the intricate process of recovery, one with which I am all too familiar and which America needs to learn in a hurry…that returning to normal isn’t the panacea the addicted mind thinks it is. Becoming sober doesn’t mean your life is perfect and you are instantly happy, it means life is still suffering but now you have to feel it because you aren’t drunk or high.

Recovery doesn’t end with sobriety, it BEGINS with sobriety. Once sober, you can start the journey of self-discovery to find the wounds that cause the pain you’ve been trying to self-medicate away. Returning to normal for the addict isn’t a return to a good place, it is a return to the place that instigated the drug and alcohol use in the first place (An example of which is establishment liberals wanting to ‘return to normal’ after the nightmare of Trump - well…the pre-Trump normal is what got us Trump!). Those in recovery must discover a new normal, one that is based on integrity and isn’t self-deceptive or self-destructive.

If you’re in recovery, Sound of Metal holds important lessons for you. If you love someone in recovery and want to understand what it is like, Sound of Metal is for you too. If you just like exceedingly well made movies, then Sound of Metal is for you too. Sound of Metal is just a terrific film and I highly recommend it.

©2021

Minari: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An over-hyped venture that ultimately underwhelms.

Minari, written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, tells the semi-autobiographical story of Chung’s South Korean immigrant family as it tries to achieve the American dream in 1980’s Arkansas. The film, which stars Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Youn Yuh-jung and Will Patton, has received six Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Yeun) and Best Supporting Actress (Youn).

Having survived the slog of cinema that was 2020, where even the very best films of the year like Mank, Nomadland and Judas and the Black Messiah are not great films, I held out hope for Minari to ride in on a white horse and save this year of cinema from death by a thousand mediocrities.

Unfortunately, Minari is not up to the task.

Minari is not a terrible movie, but it is not a very good one either. It suffers from many flaws, most notable being it doesn’t know what it is or what it wants to be and therefore ends up being a whole lot of nothing.

For example, in theory it has all the trappings of an arthouse movie but is so painfully conventional in execution it becomes devoid of interest and artistic credibility.

Minari is sort of like a working class Korean immigrant version of Marriage Story mixed with a culture clash/fish out of water/American Dream story, but it never successfully or even adequately tells any of those stories, preferring the approach of throwing everything into the stew yet creating no flavor.

A major flaw with the storytelling approach of Minari is that it has a generalized perspective, so there is no one particular protagonist to lead us through the story. Since Chung is writing auto-biographically, it would have been interesting to have his childhood perspective lead the way. But Chung seems incapable of the skill that would require, and therefore he halves the baby and spreads perspective around which saps the story of dramatic power.

Chung is also a rather unimaginative visual stylist, as Minari is a painfully flat film with sub-par framing and composition as well as a dull and stale color palette.

There are some interesting performances in the movie, most notably by Yeun and Will Patton of all people, but Chung’s lackluster direction is unable to contain these performances and therefore the drama dissipates even when the actors are running on all cylinders. Chung’s inability to break through the conventional leaves viewers detached and disinterested in the plight of these characters despite some skillful acting work.

Chung’s biggest failing though is as a writer, as he is incapable of trusting his audience with a pure arthouse experience and therefore sprinkles in narrative arcs and beats that are cookie-cutter conventionalities that fall dramatically flat. The contrast of this conventional story being wrapped in the deliberately paced trappings of an arthouse movie creates a frustrating movie decidedly at cross purposes with itself.

Ultimately, with the generalized perspective, the conventional narrative arcs and the tedious visual aesthetic, Minari feels like a bad tv drama more than a serious piece of cinema and Oscar contender.

As evidenced by the plethora of Oscar nominations and a stunning 98% critical score at Rotten Tomatoes, Minari is being lauded as a phenomenal film. But it seems to me that this is wishful thinking rather than accurate analysis of the film on screen.

In the wake of last year’s stirring success of Parasite, a spectacular piece of filmmaking by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, Minari has no doubt been given a boost among the critical elite in the hopes of bolstering “diversity and inclusion” and recreating Parasite’s stirring success.

In the flat earth society that is our culture, Parasite and Minari are in the same category despite having nothing in common except that they share the same language and ethnicity of director. This is absurd, but it is how our culture thinks and works, especially in the era of identity politics.

If Minari were the same story but centering around the struggles of some white family, critics would rightfully ignore it for the uninspired, middling movie that it is. The fact that mediocrities like Chung and Minari are nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay speaks to how precipitous the decline in the art of cinema has become and to the hyper-delusional nature of a film business glorifying “diversity and inclusion” instead of talent, skill and craftsmanship.

In conclusion, there is absolutely nothing interesting or remarkable about Minari. It is an underwhelming and instantly forgettable film that is not deserving of any accolades or praise. If you want to see a mundane, middle-of-the-road movie, Minari is definitely for you.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 31 - Nomadland

On this weeks episode of everybody's favorite cinema podcast, Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, Barry and I hop in a van and hit the road with Chloe Zhao's film Nomadland starring Frances McDormand. This episode contains discussions on grief and the meditative nature of the film, the required arthouse mindset, and the power of non-actors on-screen. Also featured are scintillating conversations about Jeff Bridges' Snicker bar diet, Chocolatey Chocolate Balls, Amazon's nefariousness and a live blow-by-blow account of a Wild Kingdom moment in Mike's backyard.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 31 - Nomadland

Thanks for listening!

©2021

Nomadland: A Review and Commentary

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An exquisitely crafted film that boasts a powerful yet grounded performance from Frances McDormand.

Oscar front-runner Nomadland chronicles the working class despair wrought by American capitalism, but still manages to kiss Amazon’s ass.

The film gives a gritty glimpse into the struggle of the working poor but genuflects to corporate power instead of exposing it.

Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand and written and directed by Chloe Zhao, tells the story of Fern, an older woman who lives in a van and survives as a seasonal worker in various locales across America.

The film, which is currently in theatres and streaming on Hulu, is based on the non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century and uses some of the real people from the book to play themselves in the movie.

Nomadland is fantastic and an Oscar front-runner, but it’s not for everybody as it’s an arthouse, verite style film with a loose narrative structure that lacks predictable dramatic beats. It is less a straightforward story than it is a melancholy and mournful meditation.

It is the topic of that meditation - American capitalism, impermanence and grief that makes Nomadland such an intriguing piece of cinema.

The story begins with Fern being forced to leave her long time residence in Empire, Nevada after the town’s US Gypsum plant closes and the once bustling area is abandoned.

Fern then takes to the road to run from her grief over losing Empire and her husband and travels throughout the west searching for seasonal employment.

She makes friends with fellow travelers, all suffering in similar circumstances, as she lives out of her van while working menial jobs in Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Chloe Zhao’s deft directorial touch gives the film a looser pace which results in a narrative with great space to breath. Zhao allows space, silence, framing, lighting and a very effective soundtrack work in unison to finely cultivate the drama instead of imposing it upon viewers.

The sense of isolation and desperation felt by Fern is heightened by cinematographer Joshua James Richards’ gorgeous panoramic shots of the vast and beautifully bleak western landscape.

Like the desolate landscapes, the deep lines in McDormand’s gloriously cinematic face also tell the story of all the hardships and heartbreaks throughout the years that have brought Fern and her working class kind to the brink of extinction.

Speaking of extinction, the film repeatedly refers to dinosaurs, and the sub-text is clear, the meteor of globalization, financialization and anti-unionism has hit and Fern and the working class in America are dinosaurs destined to aimlessly walk the darkened earth searching for scraps until they drop dead from exhaustion.

The film also frequently references carnivores, the symbolism of which is that American capitalism eats up and spits out working class people like Fern. In one scene Fern is horrified watching a crocodile in a zoo devour skinned rabbits for lunch, her primordial horror is driven by the fact that American capitalism is the crocodile, and she and all the poor people she loves are the rabbits.

Fern and her friends all bought into the lie that is the American dream, and now they find themselves older with dwindling energy and resources, alone and vulnerable living out the American nightmare. They’ve worked hard their whole lives and have nothing to show for it except for the existential terror of life without any safety net.

Despite the finely crafted filmmaking, McDormand’s powerfully grounded performance and the film’s chronicling of the wandering underclass and rightfully bemoaning the Titanic-esque economic state of America, it disappoints because it refuses to name or chastise the corporate villains hiding in plain sight.

For example, Fern works every Christmas season at an Amazon warehouse. The film actually got permission to shoot in a real Amazon fulfillment center, and that undoubtedly compromised its integrity.

The Amazon related scenes seem as if they were scripted by the company’s human resources and marketing departments as they’re basically shameless ads for the corporate behemoth.

Fern is shown leisurely meandering down vast warehouse walkways smiling and waving to other employees, and having fun in the break room with new friends, and telling others about how much money she makes and how the company covers the cost of her long-term van parking while she is an employee. The reality of employment at Amazon is much different, as the union busting, worker exploiting Bezos beast brutally cracks the whip on its employees like a frantic pharaoh building a pyramid one box at a time.

On its surface Nomadland is a descendant of the Sean Penn directed film Into the Wild and John Ford’s famed adaptation of Steinbeck’s working class masterpiece Grapes of Wrath.

Fern is somewhat a cross between Into the Wild’s free-spirited protagonist Alexander Supertramp and The Grapes of Wrath’s Tom Joad. The problem though, as highlighted by Nomadland’s shameless acquiescence to Amazon, is that Fern is Supertramp without spirit and Joad without spine.

Maybe the film’s lack of testicular fortitude in regards to Amazon is just another piece of sub-text, surreptitiously alerting viewers that the real problem is the modern demonization of masculinity and the feminization of America. In this way Fern is a castrated Tom Joad, not only unable, but unwilling, to fight against oppressors, instead preferring to collaborate in her own exploitation and denigration. 

More likely though is that the film’s Amazon ass-kissing is a function of that corporate monstrosity’s massive influence over Hollywood. Amazon is now a major movie and tv studio, and the suck ups and sycophants in Hollywood know that to get on Amazon’s bad side is a potentially fatal career move…so they pucker up and play act at caring about working class concerns rather than actually doing something about them.

Nomadland will probably win a bunch of well-deserved Oscars, but unfortunately the film is The Grapes of Wrath without the wrath, as it ultimately genuflects to the corporate power that created the working class tragedy it masterfully chronicles.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Promising Young Woman: Review and Commentary

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. This flawed, very dark comedy has a certain cinematic vitality to it that is compelling, and it also features a stellar performance from the beguiling Carey Mulligan.

Promising Young Woman is a #MeToo revenge fantasy that is both galling for its hatred of men but glorious for its artistry

****This article contains spoilers for the film Promising Young Woman****

Sometimes a movie says something you intensely dislike, but it says it so well you have to tip your cap. A case in point is the darkly comedic #MeToo revenge fantasy Promising Young Woman,

The film, written and directed by Emerald Fennell, tells the story of Cassie (Carey Mulligan), a med-school dropout consumed with grief and anger over her best friend’s rape and death.

In search of cathartic revenge, Cassie spends her time trolling bars pretending to be drunk to the point of incapacitation so that predatory men will attempt to prey upon her. Once they try and take full advantage of her she transforms to reveal herself to be a sober social vigilante shaming men for their repulsive behavior towards women.

Not surprisingly considering the subject matter, Promising Young Woman seethes with vicious misandry that is as disturbing as it is relentless. The film is an unabashed girl power polemic and propaganda piece that espouses the imaginary boogeyman of a pervasive “rape culture” that has only ever existed in the warped minds of Woman’s Studies majors and feminist fanatics. 

The film’s approach re-imagines the misogynistic tropes of Hollywood’s old male dominated storytelling by replacing it with an aggressive man-hating that manifests itself as every male character in the film being an utterly irredeemable predator, a sniveling coward, or both.

In this way it is like a feminist dark comedy version of an old Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly Stallone, Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood movie where one identity group, be it blacks, Mexicans, Russians or Arabs are reduced to stereotypes and are all the bad guys, except in this movie every guy is the bad guy.

Another movie that I kept thinking about while watching Promising Young Woman was Falling Down, the flawed but intriguing 1993 Michael Douglas film directed by Joel Schumacher. In Falling Down Douglas plays William Foster, a rampaging regular guy who keenly feels that modern life is unjust toward him. Promising Young Woman is the #MeToo version of Falling Down in that it takes a person’s frustrations at perceived injustice and pushes it to absurd extremes.

Besides finding all men deplorable, Promising Young Woman film does have some other flaws. For instance it runs about a half hour too long in an attempt to find a satisfying conclusion, but the ending is ultimately unsatisfying because it tries so hard to be satisfying. 

The film’s yearning for ultimate girl power catharsis also transforms it from biting satire into pure revenge fantasy, which ironically ends up neutering the film’s feminist/anti-male social commentary. 

When Cassie finally gets her revenge at the end of Promising Young Woman, this actually proves the alleged problem of a dominant patriarchal rape culture is just an imaginary dragon slain by Cassie in a Quixotic fantasy. But if the film had stuck to its artistic guns and let Cassie fail and be left to stew in her rage, fury and failure until the end of time, then the movie would’ve succeeded in highlighting the prevalence and power of the patriarchal rape culture its premise so adamantly claims.

It may come as a surprise after reading what I’ve already written that while I found the cultural politics of Promising Young Woman to be as repulsive as the film finds my gender, I also found that the movie possessed a rage-fueled vitality and artistry that at times was intoxicatingly entertaining, which is a credit to first time feature director Emerald Fennell.

My appreciation of the film is also a testament to the beguiling work of Carey Mulligan. Mulligan gives an incisive and insightful Oscar-worthy performance that is stunning to behold for its dynamism and detail. Mulligan masterfully imbues Cassie with a seething and righteous fury that animates her every action and it results in a gloriously magnetic performance.

Supporting actor Bo Burnham is also terrific as Ryan, a man with a crush on Cassie. Burnham, a comedian and director himself, is compelling as he tries to be both charming and passive in Cassie’s presence. The chemistry between the two actors comes across as grounded and genuine, and it elevates the film considerably.

It may seem odd that I am praising a film that has such a pronounced cultural and political perspective that I find distasteful and with which I vehemently disagree. But unlike so many writers and critics of today who find it impossible to tolerate anything or anyone in life that doesn’t agree with them fully, I am not only able to tolerate things I disagree with, I can actually appreciate them.

Promising Young Woman is both a testament to the worst totalitarian and draconian instincts of modern feminism and the #MeToo movement but also a glorious monument to Emerald Fennell’s bold direction and Carey Mulligan’s mesmerizing acting.

I recommend you see the film and judge it for yourself, and even though it viciously judges all men, audiences should have enough integrity to honestly judge it on its merits, not just on its pernicious cultural politics.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Pieces of a Woman: Review and Commentary

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. After the first thirty minutes the film isn’t very good but Vanessa Kirby is very good in it.

Pieces of a Woman is a story of forgiveness… so why is Netflix so keen to cancel its star, Shia LaBeouf?

Pieces of a Woman, the new arthouse film starring Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf that is garnering some Oscar buzz, premiered on Netflix on January 7.

The film, written by Kata Wéber and directed by Kornél Mundruczó tells the story of a Boston couple who suffer a traumatic home birth of their daughter. 

The film’s theme is the power of forgiveness, even for the most egregious of injuries. This would seem a prescient and poignant lesson in our current age of relentless cancel culture and shameless embrace of victimhood. Unfortunately, while that is a theme we need right now, this muddled misfire of a movie is not an adequate delivery system.

Pieces of a Woman starts off spectacularly, with a masterfully executed, compelling and captivating opening thirty minutes. But after that it quickly deteriorates into a maudlin, melodramatic exercise chock full of every dramatic cliché imaginable.

On the bright side, the film is an actor’s showcase and the luminous Vanessa Kirby makes the very most of the opportunity. Kirby, best known for her work on Netflix’s The Crown, gloriously transcends the mundane script and middling direction by giving a subtle, specific, dynamic and magnetic performance as the grieving yet resilient Martha.

Netflix is pushing for Kirby, already a Best Actress winner at the Venice Film Festival, to get a much-deserved Oscar nomination.

Netflix is also promoting the rest of the cast to get awards consideration… well, almost all of the rest of the cast. Every cast member is featured on Netflix’s “For Your Awards Consideration” webpage, except for Shia LaBeouf.

Why has LaBeouf, the main supporting actor in the movie who some critics – not me – claim is “remarkable”, been excluded from Netflix’s awards consideration material?

The answer is that LaBeouf’s former girlfriend, singer FKA Twigs, filed suit against him in December of 2020 for past sexual, physical and emotional abuse. In the wake of this lawsuit other women, including singer Sia, have come forward making varying claims of mistreatment.

In response LaBeouf wrote to the New York Times, “I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behavior made them feel. I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years…I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I'm ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt."

He later stated that many of the allegations were not true but that he owed the women “the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done.”

He added that he was “a sober member of a 12-step program” and in therapy. “I am not cured of my PTSD and alcoholism, but I am committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way.”

So, in a surreal twist, LaBeouf’s character in Pieces of a Woman is an at-times abusive alcoholic and in real life the actor is now accused of being an abusive alcoholic.

This is obviously a complex situation, one that requires a foregoing of our culture’s compulsive and muscular Manichaeism. But it would seem Netflix has not absorbed the nuanced message of forgiveness highlighted in Pieces of a Woman and are, ironically, purging LaBeouf from promotional material for a film about the power of radical forgiveness.

LaBeouf is not alone in being tossed into the memory hole by Netflix over allegations of past misdeeds. Johnny Depp recently lost a libel case against The Sun whom he sued for calling him a “wife beater”. In response, Netflix removed all of Depp’s films from its service.

It’s important to note that neither LaBeouf nor Depp have been proven to have committed any crime, they’ve only been accused. And yet Netflix didn’t hesitate to swiftly punish them anyway.

It’s also curious that Depp’s former wife and alleged victim, Amber Heard, has also been accused of abuse (by Depp) but has faced no public consequences from Netflix or anyone else.

Another indicator of our culture’s victimhood bias is in nearly every internet article I’ve read detailing FKA Twigs’ lawsuit against LaBeouf and Netflix’s punitive actions, there was a notice informing readers of specific resources available to them if they ever “experience domestic violence”.

This is a commendable public service, but it’s striking that despite these articles also referencing LaBeouf’s alcoholism and mental health issues, none of them ever direct readers suffering from those conditions to equally helpful resources.

The reality is that these notices and Netflix’s punitive disappearing of LaBeouf and Depp are simply exercises in virtue signaling and pandering to the online outrage mob.

LaBeouf and Depp may be terrible people who’ve done terrible things, but dispensing punishment and condemnation before accusations are proven is unwise and unhealthy. Even after findings of guilt, we should attempt the difficult but imperative task of foregoing vengeance and victimhood in favor of cultivating repentance and forgiveness, which would have longer lasting effects and be a path to a more decent, kind and compassionate culture.

In conclusion, Pieces of a Woman doesn’t live up to the stellar work Vanessa Kirby does in it, just like Netflix doesn’t live up to the enlightened principle of forgiveness at the heart of the film.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 26 - Mank

In this episode of everybody’s favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I debate David Fincher’s polarizing new film Mank. Topics discussed include Gary Oldman’s brilliance, Fincher’s frustratingly complex genius and an obscure old movie named Citizen Kane.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Ep. 26 - Mank

Thank you for listening!

©2020

Mank is a Tale of Old Hollywood - and of our Corrupted Modern Age

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 42 seconds

Hollywood loves stories about Hollywood but Mank doesn’t glamorize Tinsel Town’s golden age but rather reveals the wound festering beneath the mythology…the same wound inflicting modern America.

On its surface, Mank, the new film by esteemed director David Fincher, chronicles the life and times of famed screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, most notably his struggle to write the Oscar winning screenplay for Citizen Kane.

Just below that gloriously photographed black and white surface though, a complex story of class struggle, financial control and political corruption lives, and it is that narrative that makes Mank a story for our time.

Herman Mankiewicz a.k.a Mank, brilliantly portrayed by Oscar winner Gary Oldman, is a disheveled drunkard and degenerate gambler with an undeniable roguish charm. A brilliant wordsmith, Mank’s quick and erudite wit gets him in the good graces of the media mogul William Randolph Hearst, and by extension, the Hollywood heavyweights at MGM, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg.

It is from this privileged perch at the luxurious dining tables of W.R. Hearst and in the offices of L.B. Mayer and Thalberg, that Mank is shown the diabolically deceptive practices and devious machinations of those in power. Mank’s growing discomfort and disgust at the charade of these powerful but hollow men eventually manifests in some alcohol-fueled, but extremely insightful diatribes.

But Mank, ever the slave to his own destructive impulses, is impotent to do anything about these men…until the opportunity to write a screenplay for the “boy genius” Orson Welles comes along.

With Citizen Kane, Mank uses his mighty pen to embarrass and eviscerate the all-powerful Hearst while also extending a middle finger to the repugnant Mayer.

Mank resonates in our current time because like Hearst and Mayer in the time of Citizen Kane, the new generation of decadent robber barons from Wall Street to Silicon Valley (Netflix – the film’s producer and distributor, prominent among them) wield their financial, cultural and political power to dominate and control society from their gilded castles while the rest of us scratch and claw just to stay alive.

In Mank there is a terrific scene where Louis B. Mayer tearfully speaks to a collection of MGM workers, whom he calls family, asking them to take a 50% pay cut in order to save the company. Mayer’s performance in that meeting is better than any acting he financed during his long reign at the movie studio, as he gets the workers to give up their money while he walks away giving up nothing.

That scene speaks to the nefarious political and media narrative of the last forty years since the Reagan (and Thatcher) revolution brought us the unmitigated horrors of financialization and trickle-down economics cloaked in the waving flag of an empty patriotism. It also perfectly encapsulates America since the financial collapse of 2007-08, where a plethora of too big to fail corporations with big bosses receiving huge bonuses got bailed out while working people picking up the tab got financially beaten down and will never recover.

It is the anger over that blatant economic unfairness and injustice that fueled movements as disparate as the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Bernie Sanders and even Trump’s rise to power. But as Mank shows us, the game is rigged, as the propaganda mills promise to strangle any working class movement in its crib.

As the last two presidential elections proved, oligarchs and their media minions will relentlessly wield identity politics like a cudgel to bludgeon the working class and cease any chance at any economic change. Divide and conquer has never been so easy as in our current age of manufactured victimhood.

The character Mank embodies the impotent confusion of so many American voters. He is a compulsive contrarian and as much as he loathes the malignant management class he is also wary of labor unions. Intuitively a man of the left, Mank is still clear-eyed enough to see that both sides of the duopoly are thoroughly compromised.

The devil’s bargain Mank makes with the power structure costs him his soul, and Citizen Kane is his attempt at personal redemption and revenge for the little guy. Like the rest of us, all Mank is able to do is take pleasure in his small and ultimately inconsequential victory.

Mank’s triumph with Citizen Kane is public but completely personal, as it garners him an Oscar but leaves the power structure that so infuriates him, unbowed, unbent and unbroken…even to this day.

For proof of this one need look no further than the recent election. Americans were forced once again to choose between two vacuous avatars for the same oligarchical ruling class.

Even in the midst of a pandemic and government forced shut down resulting in an economic holocaust for working class people, both parties in Washington steadfastly refuse to consider universal healthcare, universal basic income, or even stimulus payments but are united in their insatiable desire to fellate the corporate class. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, same as every boss we’ve ever had.

As for Mank, it is a slightly flawed, but thoroughly worthwhile, art house film that boasts some A-list talent, chief among them Fincher and Oldman. For those with the patience to stick with it, Mank does what very few movies attempt to do, never mind accomplish…it tells the uncomfortable, complicated and ugly truth about America and Americans. Bravo.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A complicated film that pulls no political punches. Gary Oldman and David Fincher flex their consider artistic muscles in this challenging but worthwhile drama.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020