Da 5 Bloods: A Review

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

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A terribly disappointing movie not worthy of anyone’s time.

Da 5 Bloods, directed by Spike Lee and written by Lee, Kevin Wilmott, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, tells the story of four black Vietnam veterans who return to that country as old men to search for the remains of their fallen comrade and to search for buried treasure. The ensemble cast includes Delroy Lindo, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Norm Lewis, Clarke Peters, Jonathan Majors and Chadwick Boseman.

It is difficult to remember now, but at one point in time, Spike Lee was arguably the most important filmmaker in the world, and certainly one of the most interesting. Blessed with a Scorsese-esque cinematic confidence and an artistic defiance reminiscent of Oliver Stone, Spike Lee was a director who demanded attention back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Lee’s Do the Right Thing had exploded onto screens in 1989 and revealed its director to be an innovative artist and daring provocateur.

Lee’s follow-ups to Do the Right Thing, Mo Better Blues (1990) and Jungle Fever (1991), weren’t as combustible as his noteworthy first hit, but they were solid films that showcased Lee’s deft craftsmanship.

All of these films led up to Lee’s crowning achievement, Malcolm X, which hit theatres in 1992. Malcolm X is an extraordinary cinematic achievement and is an absolute masterpiece that capped Lee’s remarkable artistic run from ‘89 to ‘92.

After that though, the wheels started to come off the Spike Lee wagon, as his movies became less and less relevant as his mastery of craft diminished rapidly. From this point on Lee became famous for being famous and was more identifiable as a Knicks fan than as a filmmaker.

For all intents and purposes, Spike Lee’s movie making had been on a very precipitous decline from 1994 until 2018…then BlackKklansman came out.

BlackKklansman was not a perfect movie, but it did crackle with a vibrancy and vitality which had been notably absent from Lee’s films in the preceding two and half decades following Malcolm X.

It was due to the return of Lee’s trademark cinematic dynamism in BlackKklansman that the sense that maybe, just maybe, we were going to be treated to a late stage artistic renaissance from Spike Lee, gathered momentum.

It was with all of this in mind that I watched Lee’s newest film, Da 5 Bloods when it premiered on Netflix last Friday.

To say I was disappointed would be a dramatic understatement. Whatever artistic momentum Lee garnered post BlackKklansman has quickly bogged itself down in a foolish quagmire north of Ho Chi Minh City in the dramatic mistake that is Da 5 Bloods.

Lee indulges his very worst instincts on Da 5 Bloods, and produces a bloated, boring, derivative, meandering mess of a movie that pulsates with an amateurism that is shocking to behold coming from someone with Lee’s past success.

There are so many things wrong with Da 5 Bloods it is difficult to narrow it down to just a few…but I will try.

The script is absolute garbage, as the narrative and the dialogue all feel like they were stolen from a high school freshman’s drama diary. There are so many narrative threads wandering aimlessly through this movie it seems like a dramatic daycare center…and absolutely none of them work…none of them!

The dialogue is only remarkable because it is so disingenuous, inhuman, pretentious and mannered.

Matching the on-the-nose, cringe-worthy dialogue, are the over-the-top performances.

I think Delroy Lindo is a terrific actor, as is Jonathan Majors, but even their talent cannot overcome Lee’s preference for posturing over acting, and theatricality over subtlety.

The entire cast gives performances that feel out of rhythm and forced. Lindo is given the heaviest load to bear, and he definitely strains under it, as his work feels contrived and empty.

As for the filmmaking, Da 5 Bloods contains action sequences, which is something Lee has never really delved into in his previous films…and it shows. The battle scenes in this movie are not just bad, but an embarrassment, like something out of an old tv show.

Lee also made the decision to use his 60 year old actors to play themselves as young men, and while I understand what he was trying to do with that, it ended up reducing the action scenes to pure farce.

The battles are also devoid of all realism and cinematic ingenuity. I watched the movie wondering how the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese won the war but were so damn easy to shoot, especially when they would continuously just run straight at their adversaries.

The technical aspects of the movie are equally amateurish, as it is visually dull and stale, lacking all vibrancy and vitality.

There is one scene, which contains a pivotal plot point, that occurs at the hour and a half mark, that is so poorly executed and so ham-handed in its telegraphing that I was left groaning in disgust. What the hell happened to the director who made the masterpiece Malcolm X? Where is the Do the Right Thing Spike Lee who was an absolute master of his craft? Sadly, that Spike Lee is long gone, and we are left with a director and writer who simply does not remember how to make a worthwhile movie.

Added to those woes is Terence Blanchard’s relentlessly bombastic score, that is so distractingly awful it boggled my mind. Blanchard’s swelling music intrudes anywhere and everywhere it can, suffocating the movie with a monstrosity of musical plushness.

The film does have some bright spots in the form of documentary montages that are sprinkled throughout the film and crackle with insight and intensity, but they are so few and far between they are an afterthought.

In conclusion, the promise and the prowess Spike Lee showed decades ago and ever so briefly in BlackKklansman, seem a very distant memory when watching the abysmal Da 5 Bloods. I simply cannot recommend this movie for any reason, but would encourage you to revisit Spike Lee’s earlier works, most notably Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, as well as Blackkklansman, in order to see what used to be, and what might have been.

©2020

Spike Lee's 'Da 5 Bloods' is a Dreadful Disappointment, but Virtue-Signaling Establishment Critics Lack the Courage to Tell the Truth About It

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 17 seconds

There’s only one good thing about this film: it exposes mainstream film critics for their self-serving racial paternalism and their pandering to fellow woke elites.

Spike Lee’s new movie, Da 5 Bloods, starring Delroy Lindo, Chadwick Boseman and Jonathan Majors, tells the story of four black Vietnam veterans who return to Vietnam as old men in order to retrieve the body of their long lost comrade and search for buried treasure, premiered this past Friday on Netflix to much fanfare.

Lee has long been an artistic provocateur on issues of race, so as the U.S. once again struggles with civil unrest and social upheaval over racial injustice, you would think now would be a perfect time for a new movie from the Academy Award winner who brought us Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X and BlacKkKlansman.

You would be wrong.

While Da 5 Bloods does have some intriguing moments, particularly the documentary montages interspersed throughout the film, the majority of the movie is a sloppy, bloated, decadent, incoherent, endlessly meandering, melodramatic mess.

Sadly, the movie, which features a trite and derivative script, a relentlessly bombastic score and painfully amateurish action sequences, is too cinematically inept to be of any socially conscious value.

Ironically, the film’s lone insight into race relations in America is entirely unintentional as it exposes liberal film critics for their self-serving racial paternalism and their complete lack of professional integrity.

It is inconceivable to me that any cinematically literate person could conclude Da 5 Bloods is anything but a pronounced disappointment but, remarkably, critics have been falling all over themselves to praise the film, some even claim it is an Oscar favorite.

On the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, critics have given it a staggering 92% score.

What was striking to me about the critical fawning over the movie was that in contrast, audiences at Rotten Tomatoes scored the film a much more reasonable 62%.

A look at the Rotten Tomatoes scores of other prominent films directed by black artists in recent years reveals a similarly suspicious divide between critics and audiences.

For example, in 2015 another Spike Lee film, the abysmal Chi-Raq, garnered an 82% critical score and a 50% audience score.

In 2015, Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’ compelling but flawed Best Picture winner received a blistering 98% critical score compared to a more rational audience score of 79%.

In 2018, the middling Black Panther somehow overcame its notable faults to become a box office smash and a Best Picture nominee while receiving an extraordinary 97% critical score compared to its more accurate audience score of 79%. The 97% critical score makes it the highest rated superhero movie of all time.

Black Panther’s negative18-point disparity between critical score and audience score is three times larger than any other superhero movie in history. 

In 2019 critics adored Barry Jenkins’ film If Beale Street Could Talk at a rate of 95% while audiences gave it a discerningly tepid 70%.

Also in 2019, critics slobbered over Jordan Peele’s confounding horror hit, Us, with a 93% score while audiences recoiled from it with a 59% rating.

The social justice warrior contingent will no doubt deduce from these numbers that the significantly lower audience scores are a result of hordes of incorrigible racists intentionally under rating a movie purely out of racial animus.

The facts betray that argument though, as other unquestionably brilliant black films, such as Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (92 critical/90 audience) and Malcolm X (88 critical/91 audience) as well as John Singleton’s iconic Boyz n the Hood (96 critical/93 audience), have received universal praise and are devoid of such large differences in rating.

It seems obvious to me that mainstream critics are judging current black films not on their merits but on a politically correct curve.

Maybe this biased perspective is born out of fear of being labeled a racist or a heretic in the church of wokeness if they criticize a black film, or maybe it is some sort of pandering paternalism, which in and of itself is its own pernicious form of racism.

Sadly, these critics, just like those public health officials who recently went against their own expert opinions and declared that people needed to get out and protest racism despite the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic, are frighteningly quick to trade their professional and personal integrity in order to satiate the woke mob and be seen as politically correct “allies”.

Critics that judge films on a racial curve in order to signal their virtue and moral superiority are doing a great disservice to both cinema and artists of color, as neither is well served by their blatant disregard of their professionalism and their pathetic woke posturing and pandering.

In conclusion, Da 5 Bloods is an awful film but it has done a service by exposing the untrustworthy critics in the establishment media for only caring about their social status among woke elites and not giving a damn about the art of cinema.

Now, if you want to watch a worthy Spike Lee film pertinent to this tumultuous time, go watch his unadulterated masterpiece Malcolm X, or the dynamically brilliant Do the Right Thing or the uneven but insightful BlacKkKlansman…but definitely avoid the dismal Da 5 Bloods.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Thanks to the Courage of HBO Max, Racism is Now Gone With the Wind...and Frankly My Dear, I DO Give a Damn

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 29 seconds

 HBO Max has deemed Gone With the Wind racist and has pulled it from its service because viewers are apparently too fragile and too stupid to be allowed to watch it.

In recent weeks, as protestors carrying Black Lives Matter signs filled the streets, I have often heard it said that, “racism is a virus”. If that is true, then the new streaming service HBO Max just found the cure.

HBO Max’s simple and brutally effective treatment to eradicate racism from the world is to pull the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind from its service…for now…at least until it can bring the film back “with a discussion of its historical context”. Take that racism!!

Gone With the Wind, which is based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Mitchell, won 10 Academy Awards, including, ironically enough, the first ever for an African American – Hattie McDaniel for Best Supporting Actress. The movie is also the highest grossing film of all-time (adjusted for inflation) and is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all-time.

The film’s unforgivable sin though is that it is set in the American South during the Civil War and Reconstruction and depicts black slaves as a happy, content and well-treated bunch that adored their benevolent white masters.

Thankfully, HBO Max’s swift action will put an end to that highly popular theory, that seems to be everywhere nowadays, which states that African-Americans were much better off during the happy-go-lucky slavery era than today.

My fervent hope is that the geniuses at HBO Max and across Hollywood will now set their sights on other famous films from the past that cross the line of wokeness and offend the delicate sensibilities of us all.

For instance, all of the Star Wars films need to be tossed onto the woke bonfire immediately for their disgusting homophobia, which manifests itself in the C3PO character, an offensive stereotype of all closeted gay robots.

And how do you think members of the Sasquatch community feel when they see Chewbacca denying his obvious Sasquatch heritage and calling himself a “Wookie”, all while speaking some guttural, primitive language and carrying a laser-shooting crossbow? Won’t someone think of the Sasquatch?

Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List has got to go too, as while it may be historically accurate that doesn’t matter because you just know that anti-Semites watch that thing like its Nazi porn, which is just gross, and I simply cannot abide anybody enjoying anything for the wrong reasons…or the right reasons for that matter.

While we are on the subject of Nazis, The Sound of Music feels really Nazi friendly to me too, especially since its filled with all those smiling singing white people…so into the delete bin it goes.

As a student of history I can tell you that Dr. Zhivago is about Russia…I think… and the mainstream media and Hollywood have made it clear to me that Russians and Nazis are the same thing…so torch that damn movie!

Speaking of my vast knowledge of history, the 1956 classic, The Ten Commandments, needs to be exorcised from American screens immediately. Have you seen how negatively it portrays Egyptians? That seems really Islamophobic to me!

Titanic needs to be erased, not just because it has only white people in it, but because it sheds a bad light on the cruise ship industry and come on guys, corporations are people too.

Same thing goes for the Terminator franchise, which really slanders the tech industry with its negative portrayal of SkyNet. How do you think the folks in Silicon Valley feel when tech is seen as a malevolent force?

Speaking of the tech industry…in order to spare the feelings of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, if he is even capable of feeling, The Social Network needs to be banned forever and ever.

Boogie Nights really offended me personally because of its negative depiction of people with extremely large appendages, so it has got to go too!

And what about Citizen Kane? Yes, it does highlight the unconventional love between a boy and his sled, but on the other hand it really belittles the media-owning billionaire class (of which HBO Max is a member) and I just can’t abide by that…onto the bonfire it goes!

In fact, I think every film that makes anyone, anywhere, even slightly uncomfortable for any reason at all, needs to be not only banned, but all copies destroyed and the ashes then scattered to the winds. That way all hatred and prejudice of any kind will be permanently eradicated from the universe forever and ever…amen.

As for HBO Max, I think we should all take a knee in honor of their brave decision to save us from our own fragility and stupidity, and from the burden of freedom of choice, by not allowing us to watch Gone With the Wind without “context”.

The bottom line is this: where Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela all failed, HBO Max has gloriously succeeded. Racism is now definitively and irreversibly Gone With the Wind!

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 20 - The Last Samurai

This week things get combative on the pod as Barry and I do battle over his newest choice for a quarantine watch, 2003’s The Last Samurai, which stars Tom Cruise and is directed by Edward Zwick. We also play another round of everybody’s favorite games - Hollywood Mogul. The stakes are high as the loser of the game and the debate must commit seppuku at the end of the podcast!

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 20 - THE LAST SAMURAI

Thanks for listening and stay safe out there!

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 19 - The Social Network

This week’s choice for a quarantine must see re-watch is David Fincher’s nearly decade old masterpiece The Social Network (currently playing on Netflix). This film boasts a remarkable pace, stellar editing, an extraordinary script from Aaron Sorkin, a mesmerizing score from Trent Reznor, as well as incredible performances and masterful direction. Join Barry and I as we breakdown this often under appreciated film that is fascinating to look back upon during our socially distanced quarantine.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA PODCAST: EPISODE 19 - THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Thanks for listening! Stay safe and healthy out there!

©2020

Top 5 World War II Films of All-Time

IN CELEBRATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF V-E DAY, HERE’S THE DEFINITIVE LIST OF BEST WORLD WAR II FILMS OF ALL TIME.

Some of the greatest films ever made have been about World War II, so narrowing it down to a top five wasn’t exactly storming the beaches at Normandy, but it also wasn’t easy.

75 years ago the Allies officially defeated the Axis menace in Europe. To honor those who sacrificed and made that momentous victory possible, I have decided to do something ridiculously less heroic…rank the top five World War II films of all time.

Without further ado…here is the list.

5. Europa, Europa (1990) – Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, the story follows the travails of a German Jewish boy who in trying to escape the Holocaust goes from being a hunted Jew to a Soviet orphan to a German war hero to a Nazi Youth. Perel runs from Germany to Poland to the Soviet Union then back to Germany, but no matter where he goes the war relentlessly follows.

A magnetic lead performance from Marco Hofschneider and skilled direction by Agnieszka Holland make Europa, Europa a must see for World War II cinephiles.

4. Downfall (2004) – Set in Hitler’s bunker during the final days of the Third Reich, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film focuses on the Fuhrer’s struggle to maintain his delusions of grandeur as the cold hand of reality closes around his neck.

The glorious Bruno Ganz gives a transcendent performance as Hitler descending into the grasp of a mesmerizing madness.

Downfall masterfully reveals Hitler’s bunker to be the maze of his mind, and a prison to those who fully bought into his cult of personality.

3. Dunkirk (2017) – In Christopher Nolan’s perspective jumping cinematic odyssey, we are taught the hard but important lessons that survival is not heroic, but rather instinctual, and that it is in defeat, and not victory, where character is revealed.

Dunkirk is a visual feast of a film, exquisitely shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and magnificently directed Nolan, that boasts a stellar cast and terrifically effective sound design, sound editing and soundtrack. 

Dunkirk succeeded not only as a pulsating World War II masterpiece, but upon its release in 2017, also as a deft metaphor for Brexit.

2. Das Boot (1981) – A taut and at times terrifying, psychological thriller set on a German U-boat, U-96, as it wages war in the Atlantic.

Like a sea serpent , Wolfgang Peterson’s film dramatically wraps itself around you and then slowly constricts, leaving you gasping for air.

Das Boot is as viscerally imposing a war film as has ever been made as Peterson’s directing mastery makes U-96 feel like a claustrophobic, underwater tomb.

1.The Thin Red Line (1998) – After a 20-year hiatus, iconic director Terence Malick returned to cinema with this staggeringly profound and insightful meditation on war.

Unlike Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, which came out that same year and was a highly popular, flag-waving hagiography to the Greatest Generation that focused on the physical toll of war, Malick’s masterpiece concerns itself not with physical carnage, but the emotional, psychological and spiritual cost of war.

The Thin Red Line isn’t so much about fighting a war as it is about how living with war ravages your soul. This is exemplified by the most heroic act in the movie being when a soldier risks his life to administer morphine to a wounded comrade just so he could die more quickly.

The Thin Red Line is unconventional in its storytelling approach, and refuses to conform to the strictures of Hollywood myth making, preferring instead to force audiences to confront their own complicity in the evil insidiousness of war.

In the movie, Private Edward Train eloquently gives voice to the film’s philosophical perspective with the following monologue on the inherent evil of war.

“This great evil, where's it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doing this? Who's killing us, robbing us of life and light, mocking us with the sight of what we might've known? Does our ruin benefit the earth, does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?”

The Thin Red Line is the best World War II film ever made because it is the most poignantly human World War II movie ever made. 

As you may have noticed, my list leans more toward modern cinema, the reason being that the art and technology of filmmaking have advanced enormously over the last 75 years.

I also favor more serious fare over populist entertainment, so terrific movies like The Dirty Dozen or Inglorious Basterds, fail to make the cut.

Classics like Casablanca and From Here to Eternity were left on the cutting room floor because they are more set in WWII than about WWII.

Movies like Schindler’s List weren’t considered because I somewhat irrationally consider them to be “Holocaust films” rather than “WWII films” – which may be a distinction without a difference – but it is a distinction I make.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Bridge Too Far, The Enemy at the Gates, Stalingrad (1993), Patton, and The Great Escape, all just missed the cut and had to settle for honorable mention even though I love them.

In regards to my definitive list I will quote Nick Nolte’s bombastic Lt. Col. Tall from The Thin Red Line, “It's never necessary to tell me that you think I'm right. We'll just... assume it.”

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 17 - A Very Special Episode on the Career of Director John McTiernan (Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, The Thomas Crown Affair)

This week we are doing a “very special episode” of the podcast where we dive into the strange career of director John McTiernan…and the bizarre twists and turns of his insane life. McTiernan’s films include Predator, Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Thomas Crown Affair and many more.  On the pod, Barry and I discuss McTiernan’s dying breed of non-auteur but skilled directing, and how filmmakers like him are rare nowadays…and what a treat it is to revisit some of his work. We also dip our toe into the sordid tale of how his career got sidetracked.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 17 - (A Very Special Episode) The Movies of John McTiernan

Thanks for listening! Stay safe and healthy out there!

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 16 - There Will Be Blood

This week Barry and I dive into our Quarantine Watch List to ponder the often overlooked modern classic from Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood (2007).  This movie features director P.T. Anderson and acting great Daniel Day Lewis at the top of their games in a museum worthy movie you can watch over and over again in order to study their mastery of craft. If you are a cinephile you can watch the movie, listen to the podcast and then re-watch the movie, or if you’re a little worried the movie might be a bit slow or complicated, you can listen to the podcast and hear our thoughts, favorite scenes and what to watch out for that will help keep you engaged during your cinematic experience.  Check out There Will Be Blood on Netflix today!

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 16 - THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Thanks for listening and please stay safe and healthy out there!

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 15 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

This week we dive into my second Quarantine Watch List pick…the overlooked 2011 British movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  This movie is one of the best crafted movies of the last 10-20 years but has a little bit of an unorthodox story structure for a spy movie.  This film makes you think, doesn't spoon feed you nor does it lay everything out with a nice bow on it. That is precisely why Barry and I want you to check it out. Be forewarned there are some plot points and minor spoilers revealed in the podcast.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 15 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a slow burn so don't turn it on late at night when your eyelids are heavy.  If you are a cinephile you can watch the movie, listen to the podcast and then re-watch the movie. Or if you’re concerned the movie might be a bit slow or too complicated you can listen to the podcast and hear our thoughts, favorite scenes and what to watch out for that will help keep you engaged during your movie experience and then check out the movie on Netflix today!

Thanks again for listening, and stay safe and healthy out there!

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 14 - Hell or High Water

This week on Looking California and Feeling Minnesota we go with Barry's next choice for a must see (rewatch) movie while on quarantine…2016’s Hell or High Water (currently playing on Netflix). Come join us in breaking down this extraordinary modern masterpiece that is remarkably relevant to the current political moment.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 14 - HELL OR HIGH WATER

Thanks for listening and please stay safe and healthy!

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 13 - Zodiac

This week Barry and I continue our top picks for often-overlooked movies that are currently streaming that you should take advantage of coronavirus fueled free time to check out or to take a second look. This week is my selection - David Fincher’s Zodiac (currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Crackle.com).  Tune in and listen to Barry and my thoughts on the movie and then check it out online for free.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 13 - Zodiac

Thanks for listening and stay safe and healthy out there!

©2020

The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Veiwer's Guide

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 03 seconds

BORED IN CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE? HERE ARE THE BEST EPIDEMIC MOVIES TO CRANK UP YOUR PANIC!

The best way to prepare for Covid-19 and endure quarantine is obviously to watch as many pandemic related movies as possible. Here is a list of the very best ones to catch.

Coronavirus now seems on the precipice of an outbreak here in the United States. Even before Los Angeles was hit with any cases, here in La La Land we made the decision to preemptively panic.

For example, hand sanitizer is liquid gold in Hollywood right now. Drug stores are stripped so bare that hand sanitizer currently costs more per gram than cocaine…or at least that’s what my cocaine dealer told me.

Since we all seemed destined for quarantine, be it mandated or self-imposed, I thought I would do my part to prepare readers for how to survive the coming Coronapocalypse by putting together a quarantine viewers guide.

Here is a list of pandemic themed movies graded on a scale of one to ten for how similar they are to the real world circumstances of Coronavirus.

OUTBREAK (1995) – Outbreak is a decent movie about an Ebola epidemic, most memorable for a scene where a guy coughs in a movie theatre and infects everyone. That visual is pretty unnerving and will make you glad you are watching in a plastic quarantine bubble and not at the Cineplex.

Coronascore: 4/10 Coughs are really scary these days.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) – Tells the story of a viral based drug meant to treat Alzheimer’s that goes wrong and kills or turns humans mute while making apes super-smart and able to talk.

There has been no news about apes being susceptible to Corona, but they do say that dogs can get it. No word yet on if the infected dogs gain the power of speech…but I wouldn’t be surprised. Thankfully, they lack opposable thumbs so that is a war we can definitely win.

Coronascore: 5/10, the Coronavirus scare has not made anyone smarter yet.

12 MONKEYS (1995) – This mind-bending meditation on time travel and destiny tells the story of a group of eco-terrorists who release a deadly virus into the world in order to eliminate humans, and the band of survivors who travel back in time to stop them.

Corona probably wasn’t released by eco-terrorists, but since China imposed quarantines satellite photos show its pollution has come to a screeching halt…hmmm, makes you wonder.

Coronascore: 6.5/10. Think about it.

28 DAYS LATER (2002) – In 28 Days Later a highly contagious virus is accidentally released upon the world turning people into hyper-kinetic zombies.

Corona may not directly lead to zombie-ism, but the panic around it sure turns people…like me… into mindlessly frantic and fearful beings who attack old ladies in drug stores to obtain a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer!

As for Corona being “accidentally” released into the public, maybe by a biological weapons facility in China, I have heard crazier conspiracy theories…that’s for sure.

Coronascore: 7/10. If the virus doesn’t start a zombie apocalypse, at least it will prepare you for one.

WORLD WAR Z (2013) – Another entry where a virus turns people into zombies…this time who are attracted to sound. In order to overcome the zombie hoards Brad Pitt travels the globe looking for a vaccine. He eventually finds one and hope is restored to humanity. I have considerably more confidence in Brad Pitt solving Corona than the U.S. government.

Coronascore: 7/10…same as above plus Brad Pitt.

ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971) – In this film a satellite falls to earth carrying an alien organism, which upon contact with humans crystallizes their blood. I have yet to read of any blood crystallization regarding Corona…but to be fair I am not a big reader.

Scientists have praised Andromeda Strain because “it accurately details the appearance of a deadly agent, its impact, and the efforts at containing it, and, finally, the work-up on its identification and clarification on why certain persons are immune to it."

For scientific accuracy I give it a Coronascore of 8/10.

CONTAGION (2011) – The gold standard of pandemic movies tells the story of a virus that starts with a bat in China and then spreads across the planet due to an inter-connected global economy. Sound familiar?

Contagion also has the distinction of killing off super annoying actress Gwyneth Paltrow. The filmmakers knew audiences would love Gwyneth’s demise so much they even put it in the trailer.

The superbug in Contagion is much more potent than Corona, but the movie’s depiction of the struggle of health officials to contain and identify the virus and the ensuing collapse of social order all seem to be spot on if Corona gets really bad.

Coronascore: 9/10…It even has a bat!

In conclusion, while I am not “technically” a doctor…here is my very cinematically informed opinion of what will happen with Corona.

I believe some guy will Corona cough in a movie theatre and then Gwyneth Paltrow will fall ill and her Goop inspired vagina scented candles won’t save her.

The virus then mutates and turns people into mute hyper-zombies attracted to sound and gives apes extreme intelligence and the power of speech, which predictably leads to a zombie-ape war.

Then a time traveling space ship, hopefully piloted by Charlton Heston, lands carrying a space virus that wipes out the zombies and apes, leaving behind a rag-tag bunch of surviving humans, led by Brad Pitt, who live in the eco-utopia that is now earth.

Either that or this whole Corona thing blows over and we all live happily ever after…at least until the next pandemic comes along and scares the living hell out of us once again.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

The Invisible Man: A Review

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

My Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This movie starts off well but spins out of control and becomes ultimately a whole lot of silliness. Even if you are a big horror fan, you can wait to see it for free on a streaming service or cable.

The Invisible Man, written and directed by Leigh Whannell, is the story of Cecilia Kass, a woman in an abusive relationship whose controlling ex-boyfriend goes to remarkable scientific lengths to torment her. The film stars Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia, with supporting turns from Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer and Michael Dorman.

The Invisible Man is H.G. Wells’ iconic story of a mad scientist who tries to play God and turns himself invisible, this film version however is set in modern times and turns the story on its head by giving the viewer not the perspective of the scientist, but that of his long suffering girlfriend trying to get away from him.

The trailer for The Invisible Man was terrific and while I am not much of a horror film aficionado, I was excited to see it. The film’s opening sequence lives up to the trailer’s promise, as it is extremely well-done and directed, and immediately captivates the audience by throwing them directly into the tension. The problem though is that the opening sequence is scuttled by its illogical conclusion, as the film quickly deviates from a real-world setting into make-believe movie-dom, thus defusing the tension and knee-capping the suspension of disbelief. Things go down hill from there.

The first half of the film is a decent thriller, and director Whannell effectively uses long, slow pan shots that hold on seeming nothingness, as well as natural sound and a paucity of music, to convey an ominous sense of tension.

In the second half of the movie though, Whannell abandons this successful restrictive directorial approach for more conventional movie making and the film and its narrative spiral out of control and stumble into a morass of melodrama.

Whannell, who also wrote the screenplay, made the fatal error of not committing entirely to his perspective choice, namely having the audience see the world through Cecilia’s eyes. By breaking perspective and periodically showing things from other viewpoints besides Cecilia’s, the connection between audience and Cecilia, and spell of the movie, are broken, and thus we are left with a rather mundane movie of little impact.

Whannell’s other error is that he expands the story beyond the bounds of its natural power. This film, about an abusive relationship, needed to stay within the intimate confines of that relationship, and eschew the wider world, which dilutes the claustrophobia and terror of the premise. Whannell’s failure to contain things neuters the drama as well as the film and its feminist message.

I genuinely like Elisabeth Moss as an actress, as she is a highly skilled and compelling screen presence, but with The Invisible Man she repeats herself and comes perilously close to caricature. Since 2017 Moss has played Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale, and won an Emmy for doing so, but her Offred and her Cecilia seem to be the exact same person.

Cecilia, like Offred, is the noble female victim who finally “stands with fist” and fights back against the deplorable patriarchy that has its hands around her neck. The seams of Moss’s work are definitely showing as she spends a lot of her time on screen in both A Handmaid’s Tale and The Invisible Man, not blinking so that her eyes well up with tears, and then blinking so that the tear gracefully falls down her cheek. She also locks her jaw and steels her eyes in an act of defiance that always feels a lot more faux than formidable.

Moss certainly has greatness within her, but I wish I could see her get lost in a performance rather than being forced to see her act.

The rest of the cast are fine, if underwhelming.

Aldis Hodge is a very likable actor and does the best he can with his under written and rather illogical character James.

Stormy Reid is another likeable screen presence but she too is handed a thin character that doesn’t amount to much.

Michael Dormand and Oliver Jackson-Cohen fall pretty flat in their roles which needed to be much sharper for the premise of the film to work.

The Invisible Man is obviously a #MeToo allegory about the patriarchy and the “gaslighting” of women, and that is actually a pretty fascinating take on the story. The feminist politics of the movie and the portrayal of an abused woman’s PTSD work very well in the first half, but they do lose steam and coherence in the second half.

Another troubling thing of note in the movie is its racial politics, which can be boiled down to this… The Invisible Man movie doesn’t hate all men…just the white ones. It is made very clear throughout that The invisible Man wants all white men to vanish. Not only is every single white man in the movie is bad, but every bad person in the film is white. Every single one. The villain, his brother and even some throw away small characters are the token evil white men.

I have no issue with the villain and his brother being white…but what I find disturbing is the film’s decision to paint all of the even mildly prominent white male characters as bad.

For instance, there is a scene where Cecilia goes for a job interview and her interviewer is a nerdy white guy. The scene and the nerdy white guy character are not very important…which is why it is so striking that the choice was made to have this nerdy white guy sexually harass Cecilia. Instead of just a throw away character with meaningless dialogue, this choice of having him be a predator sends a clear and undeniable message, that all white men are intrinsically evil. The choice to have this sexually harassing nerd be white is also no accident. He could have been any race or ethnicity…but he was specifically white.

Further proof of the film’s anti-white racial politics are seen when James, who is a black cop, sits down with a white cop to speak with Cecilia. Cecilia won’t speak freely with the white cop in the room, so James asks him to leave. You may think that this scene makes sense devoid of the cop’s race as Cecilia is friends with James and wants to confide in him…this is true…but just like the sexually harassing nerdy architect, the choice here is subtle but very deliberate. They could have had the other cop be of any race or ethnicity they wanted…he could have been black, Asian, Latino…a woman…but they didn’t, they made him white and once again reinforced the message that not all men, but just the white men, cannot be trusted.

Of course Aldis Hodge’s character, James, is black and is a really good guy…a great father and friend who is patient and kind and never even considers being inappropriate with Cecilia.

The only reason I bring this up is because it struck me as being such a blatant piece of racist misandry (with racism defined as - "prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity” and misandry defined as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men”) as to be propaganda. I would certainly mention the same thing if other races, ethnicities or genders were universally painted with such a negative brush by a film.

Regardless of this questionable ideology, I would still have been all on board with The Invisible Man if it had just been consistently good, and sadly, it isn’t.

In conclusion, The Invisible Man never lives up to the hype, to its trailer or to its source material, and thus squanders a golden cinematic opportunity. I do not recommend spending your time and money seeing this film in the theatre, but if you are interested in seeing it at all then you should check it out on Netflix, cable or a streaming service when it becomes available.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 10 - The Invisible Man

This week we talk (with spoilers) about the new movie The Invisible Man, which is a re-telling of the classic story with a decidedly modern twist. Join us to hear our thoughts on some of the good and not so good things about the film and what we would have done differently.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 10 - THE INVISIBLE MAN

Or on iTunes

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 10 - THE INVISIBLE MAN

Thanks for listening!

©2020

Birds of Prey: A Review

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

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: NEVER SEE THIS MOVIE.

This is an extended version of a review that was originally published at RT.

The new film Birds of Prey is populated by despicable men, and feminist women who want to be just like them. The outcome: Financial losses and moral bankruptcy.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), written by Christina Hodson and directed by Cathy Yan, is the story of Joker’s ex-girlfriend, Harley Quinn, as she navigates Gotham and a series of bad guys trying to take her down. The film stars two-time Academy Award nominated actress Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, with supporting nods from Ewen McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rosie Perez.

Birds of Prey is marketed as a girl power manifesto that re-imagines Harley Quinn without the condescending sexism feminists felt was so prominent in Suicide Squad (2016), the last movie that featured Margot Robbie as Harley.

Suicide Squad was a horrifically shitty movie, and was regarded as a box office under-performer with a notoriously troubled production history, but it still was able to scratch out $750 million in total.

Despite oddly positive - to the point of delusional - reviews from woke pandering mainstream critics, Birds of Prey won’t do half that number in its theatrical run. With a reported production budget of $100 million (which includes re-shoots) and additional marketing costs, Birds of Prey is going to lose big money for the douchebag suits at Warner Brothers.

How did things go so wrong?

Birds of Prey banished the problematic “male gaze” of Suicide Squad that allegedly dehumanized Harley by making her purely an object of desire, by employing an all female creative team that included producer Margot Robbie, writer Christina Hodson and director Cathy Yan. The production goes so far in exorcising men as to even have a soundtrack with all-female artists on it.

The problem though is Birds of Prey tries to thread the needle and make a chaotically cool combination of Deadpool meets Wonder Woman, only it doesn’t have the first clue about the sardonically masculine humor of Deadpool and the appealing feminine power of Wonder Woman, or masculinity and femininity in general.

The film’s sexual politics are aggressive to say the least. In our current cultural moment, toxic masculinity and masculinity have become synonymous, so it is no surprise that Birds of Prey goes to great lengths to denigrate and disparage all its male characters and yet also to venerate all its female ones.

Every man in the movie, with the lone exception being a character (played by the criminally underused actor Eddie Alfano!) with fifteen seconds of screen time and no dialogue, is either entitled, conniving, maniacally violent, a rapist or all of the above.

In contrast every female character wears the noble crown of resilient victimhood after having suffered at the cruel hands of men.

The portrayal of men as misogynist beasts is pretty heavy handed, as at one point Harley and female friends are surrounded and the sadistic Roman Sionis (Ewen McGregor) yells to his army of all-male thugs, “Men of Gotham, go get those bitches!”

What’s so bizarre about the supposed girl power message of the movie is that while it relentlessly tells us that men are despicable creatures, all of the female characters are lionized for trying to behave like men. Like the recent batch of feminist movies such as Charlie’s Angels (2019) and Terminator: Dark Fate, Birds of Prey believes that feminism means women should act like men.

Even more baffling is the cinematic schizophrenia of Birds of Prey, as it obviously loathes men yet is so desperate for their attention it serves up a steady supply of hyper-violence. As Harley Quinn says, “nothing gets a guy’s attention like violence…blow something up, shoot someone.”

Totally coincidentally, The New York Times published an op-ed by an actress, Brit Marling, titled “I Don’t Want to be the Strong Female Lead” on the day Birds of Prey premiered.

In the piece Marling describes strong female leads as, “She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.”

In some ways this applies to Birds of Prey, since the women in it are smarter, tougher and stronger than the men, except they have been stripped of their sex appeal in a convoluted attempt to be pro-feminist.

For instance, Harley Quinn wore short shorts and alluring outfits in Suicide Squad, but in the female empowering Birds of Prey she dresses in baggy, Bermuda length shorts and a pink sports bra. It’s as if Harley went full Lady MacBeth and cried “unsex me here” and the filmmakers dutifully complied to stick it to the patriarchy.

Contrast this with the Super Bowl halftime show where Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were declared fiercely feminist when they wore skimpy outfits and literally danced like strippers.

How can female filmmakers like Cathy Yan properly tell an empowering feminist story if feminists haven’t even figured out what feminism is just yet?

This confusion manifests when Birds of Prey defines women solely in opposition to men, but then has them emulate masculinity as a show of their feminine strength.

Brit Marling wasn’t commenting on the troubling Manichean anti-male sexual politics of Birds of Prey, but she could have been, when she eloquently wrote, “I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance?”

That is a good question, but Birds of Prey is oblivious to balance…and quality for that matter. It’s a hot mess of a movie that features derivative, repetitive and dull action sequences, and that tries to be funny, but isn’t…hell…there is a hyena in the movie and even he wasn’t laughing. Watching this thing felt like wading through an Olympic-sized swimming pool of radioactive girl power vomit.

The cast, including lead Margot Robbie, who is one of my favorite actresses, are dreadful. Robbie’s New Yawk accent is brutally distracting and completely idiotic. Robbie’s Harley Quinn makes no sense dramatically, comedically or artistically.

The supporting roles are equally incoherent. Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary and McGregor’s Sionis are cardboard cutout caricatures that are embarrassing to behold….as is Winstead’s Huntress. The biggest crime these actors commit is that they are all suffocatingly dull in their roles. There isn’t a spark of life at all from them…or from Rosie Perez who is wildly miscast as a girl cop done wrong.

In conclusion, if equality is women making misandrist, hyper-violent, incoherently vapid and dreadful movies…then Birds of Prey is a smashing success for feminism. It is also an abysmal failure for cinema…and probably humanity. It deserves to fail.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 8 - Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

This week on Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, we take a deep dive into Quentin Tarantino's 9th film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  We go in-depth into the film, its impact on cinema, its influences, its mysteries and why this is such a complex and layered movie.  

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 8 - ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

Or check us out on iTunes…and please leave a review or comment.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA - ITUNES

Thanks for listening!

©2020

6th Annual Mickey™® Awards: 2019 Edition

Estimated Reading Time: The Mickey™® Awards are much more prestigious than the Oscars, and unlike our lesser crosstown rival, we here at The Mickeys™® do not limit acceptance speech times. There will be no classless playing off by the orchestra here…mostly because we don’t have an orchestra. Regardless… expect this awards show article to last, at a minimum, approximately 5 hours and 48 minutes.

The ultimate awards show is upon us…are you ready? The Mickeys™® are far superior to every other award imaginable…be it the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony, the Grammy, the Pulitzer or even the Nobel. The Mickey™® is the mountaintop of not just artistic but human achievement, which is why they always take place AFTER the Oscars!

This year has been a fantastic one for cinema with a multitude of outstanding films eligible for a Mickey™® award. Actors, actresses, writers, cinematographers and directors are all sweating and squirming right now in anticipation of the Mickey™® nominations and winners. Remember, even a coveted Mickey™® nomination is a career and life changing event.

Before we get to what everyone is here for…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!

The Prizes!! The winners of The Mickey™® award will receive one acting coaching session with me FOR FREE!!! Yes…you read that right…FOR FREE!! Non-acting category winners receive a free lunch* with me at Fatburger (*lunch is considered one "sandwich" item, one order of small fries, you aren't actors so I know you can eat carbs, and one beverage….yes, your beverage can be a shake, you fat bastards). Actors who win and don't want an acting coaching session but would prefer the lunch…can still go straight to hell…but I am legally obligated to inform you that, yes, there WILL BE SUBSTITUTIONS allowed with The Mickey™® Awards prizes. If you want to go to lunch I will gladly pay for your meal…and the sterling conversation will be entirely free of charge.

Enough with the formalities…let's start the festivities!!

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

Ladies and gentlemen…welcome to the fifth annual Mickey™® Awards!!!

Best Cinematography

Joker - Lawrence Sher : Sher was a relative unknown, at least to me, prior to Joker. His work on the film is truly remarkable as he composes really exquisite classical shots and juxtaposes them against fluid shots that in a thrilling dance with lead actor Joaquin Phoenix.

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood - Robert Richardson : Richardson is one of my all-time favorite cinematographers. His work with Oliver Stone in the late 80’s and early 90’s was revolutionary (JFK for instance). He has proven himself to be a very flexible and adaptable talent and his work in this film is sublime. The last shot of the film, where Leo Dicaprio’s Rick Dalton walks up Sharon Tate’s driveway, is a glorious piece of cinematic myth making.

1917 - Roger Deakins : Deakins is Deakins. The guy is a master, as evidenced by his previous Mickey award for Sicario (2015) and he brings all his formidable talent and skill to bear on the “one-shot” structure of 1917. For all the gimmickry of the one-shot approach, what impressed me so much about Deakins work here is how he was able to continually frame such gorgeous shots while constantly on the move.

Ad Astra - Hoyte Van Hoytema : Hoytema is another of my favorite cinematographers working today. He is already a Mickey Award winner (Dunkirk 2017) and his work on Ad Astra is magnificent. He paints the film with a bleak palette and vivid contrast that accentuates the narrative and is gorgeous to look at.

The Irishman - Rodgrio Prieto : Prieto’s work on The Irishman is superb as he perfectly paints the film with a rather lush and nostalgic sense that contrasts well with his camera movement and framing.

Parasite - Hong Kong-pyo : Hong is someone I am not familiar with…but his work on Parasite is so precise it is a joy to behold. Hong’s greatest strength is in his camera placement, as he uses it as a a way to draw the audience into the narrative while also keeping them at a cool emotional distance.

And The Mickey goes to…Lawrence Sher - Joker : Sher pulls off the big upset going against heavyweights like Deakins, Richardson and Hoytema. Joker is beautifully and artfully photographed and Sher’s work was a major factor in the films artistic success.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Irishman - Steven Zaillian’s ability to contain and focus the sprawling story of Frank Sheeran while keeping things tight and dramatic, is impressive.

Joker - Todd Phillips was able to imbue comic book intellectual property with profoundly insightful political and social commentary. Wow.

The Two Popes - Anthony McCarten created multi-dimensional characters where others would have made card board cutouts. Too bad his director undermined his fantastic writing.

Transit - Christian Petzold adapted a book about the holocaust and made it about modern times. It is chillingly effective in subtly showing the similarities of the rise of fascism then and now.

And The Mickey goes to…Todd Phillips - Joker : Todd Phillips must have sold his soul to the devil because nothing in his prior career would give any indication he was capable of such intelligence and artistry. Now he has a Mickey™®! The world is a wonderful place.

Best Original Screenplay

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood - Tarantino is an even better writer than he is a director…which is a staggering thought to contemplate considering his directing greatness. OUATIH is a crackling script that holds on tight…but not too tight that it loses its humanity. Extraordinarily well done.

Parasite - Bong Joon-ho’s script is a whirling and twirling piece of magnificence. As original and well-crafted a screenplay as you’ll find.

Ad Astra - James Grey’s script is the most psychologically mature and resonant of the entire year. It is an utter field day for anyone with any background in Jungian psychology.

A Hidden Life - Terrence Malick brings the spiritual struggles of a anti-Nazi crusader down to earth in the most glorious and profound way.

Ford v Ferrari - James Mangold gives us a rip-roaring script that covers a lot of ground but never loses its way.

And The Mickey goes to…Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood : Tarantino’s ability to write characters, dialogue and story is unparalleled in modern cinema. Guy is amazing…now he has a Mickey™® to prove it!

Best Supporting Actress

 Margaret Qualley - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood: Qualley, a Breakout Performance Mickey™® Award winner (2017), makes good on her promise and delivers a deliriously intoxicating turn as one of Manson’s seductive minions.

Margot Robbie - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood : Robbie doesn’t say much as Sharon Tate…because she doesn’t have to. An effervescent and luminous performance that highlights her supreme craft and skill and proves she is way, way more than just a very pretty face.

Park So-dam - Parasite : Park is super sexy cool as the sister who poses as an art teacher. She imbues her character with a certain sense of almost spiritual fatigue cloaked in a devilish charm that is beguiling to witness.

Lee Sun-kyun - Parasite : As the mother of the rich family, Lee is wonderfully funny as her desperation to be worthy and perfect keeps wrapping her tight and unwrapping her too quickly.

Zhao Shuhzhen - The Farewell : Zhao’s turn as an ailing grandmother is delightful for its humor, humanity and power. Zhao’s Nai Nai is no wilting flower, she is both tough and tender…and reminded me so much of my late wee Scottish grandmother I was thoroughly enchanted.

The Mickey goes to…Margot Robbie - Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. The usual suspects complained this film was misogynistic because Robbie’s Tate had a paucity of dialogue, but it’s a testament to her talent and skill that she was able to convey an affecting story with more than just words.

Best Supporting Actor

Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. In an industry with a paucity of genuine stars, Pitt gives the movie star performance for the ages…where women want to be with him and men want to be him.

 Joe Pesci - The Irishman : Pesci is usually plays combustible characters, but his Russ Buffalino is an imposing figure of self-containment. Maybe the very best and most subtle work of his career.

Al Pacino - The Irishman : Pacino brings Jimmy Hoffa to life with a vibrancy and dynamism only he could muster. A truly masterful performance.

Jonathan Majors - The Last Black Man in San Francisco : A finely crafted and glorious performance that is filled with a deep humanity and vivacity.

Sam Rockwell - Jojo Rabbit : Rockwell is an absolute joy to behold as he subtly but magnificently devours scenery as a down on his luck Nazi.

Song Kang-ho - Parasite : Song is the epicenter of Parasite as a man without answers trying to figure out the questions. He is blessed with a face that tells a story all its own.

The Mickey goes to…Al Pacino - The Irishman. Pacino has become a sort of parody of himself in his later years, but his portrayal of Jimmy Hoffa was a perfect manifestation of self-defeating tenacity and combustibility that is one of the highlights of his superb career.

Breakout Performance of the Year - Julia Butters : Butters is mesmerizing as the whip smart child actor who works with Rick Dalton as he hangs on to his career by his finger nails. Butters is just a kid but has the presence and magnetism of someone twenty years older. I hope child stardom does not weigh heavy upon her…because down the road she has the opportunity to be very special.

Best Foreign Film

Transit - This is a close-up view of what fascism feels like…and it does not feel good.

A Hidden Life - A profound examination of the spiritual battle a man must wage to save his soul in Nazi Germany.

Parasite - A masterful contemplation of class and family dynamics set in Korea.

Rojo - A terrific under the radar movie that shows the corrosive effects of our old friend fascism as it descends upon 1970’s Argentina.

Shadow - A terrific Chinese Wuxia film with spectacular fights and inventive visuals.

And The Mickey goes to…Parasite - Exquisitely directed with an amazing cast. One of the very best films, foreign or domestic, of the year.

Best Actress

What a dismal year for female performances. I literally cannot think of any actresses worthy of even nominations never mind wins. After a very testy emergency meeting of the Mickey™ council, a compromise was reached.

The Mickey goes to…Florence Pugh - Midsommar. Pugh, a Breakout Performance Mickey Award winner (2017), is on her way to becoming a movie star and her two Mickeys will no doubt only accelerate her ascent.

Best Actor

Robert DeNiro - The Irishman : DeNiro does the very best work of the latter part of his career as Frank Sheeran, the cog in the wheel of the mafia and union who sells his soul to survive.

Franz Rogowski - Transit: Rogowski is just a phenomenal actor and his intricate work in Transit is transcendent for its humanity and honesty.

Robert Pattinson - High Life : Who knew Pattinson could actually act? In High Life he does surprisingly complex and detailed work as a man condemned to be lost in space.

Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood : DiCaprio has been among the biggest movie stars for decades now…but his performance as Rick Dalton is the very best of his remarkable career.

Joaquin Phoenix - Joker : As precise, dynamic and committed a performance as we’ve seen in years. Phoenix is the best actor of his (and maybe every other) generation and he proves it with Joker.

Brad Pitt - Ad Astra : :Pitt proves himself to be more than a pretty face with a powerfully subtle, skilled and nuanced performance as a man in search of his father. This is easily the very best acting Brad Pitt has ever done.

The Mickey goes to…Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix’s work in The Master (2013) was a gargantuan evolutionary leap for the craft of acting, and his performance in Joker is a powerful continuation of that evolution.

Best Ensemble

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood - DiCaprio, Pitt, Margot Robbie, Pacino, Bruce Dern…an absolutely loaded cast that all give top notch performances.

Parasite - This cast overcomes the language barrier and does exquisite work in bringing Bong’s twisted vision to life.

The Irishman - DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci do some very heavy lifting and elevate Scorsese’ late era masterpiece.

And The Mickey goes to…Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood - The very best of Pitt, Robbie and Leo is the very best of the Mickeys™®!

Best Director

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood : Tarantino truly is one of the great directors of his time, and OUATIH is his very best film . Not a flaw to be found.

Martin Scorsese - The Irishman : Scorsese brilliantly turned this late era gem into a referendum on his entire stellar career and imbued the movie with an existential power than would have been missing in any other auteur’s hands.

Todd Phillips - Joker : Who knew that Todd Phillips, the guy who made The Hangover movies…was capable of such exquisite direction as Joker. This movie is so well conceived and executed it is astonishing.

Bong Joon-ho - Parasite : As detailed, specific and skilled a piece of direction as you’ll find.

James Grey - Ad Astra : Grey finally puts all the pieces together and makes the great movie he’s been striving for for years.

Terrence Malick - A Hidden Life : Malick is a master…and A Hidden Life is a monument to his talent, skill and spiritual inquisitiveness and intellect.

And the Mickey goes to…Bong Joon-ho - Parasite : All of the nominees did extraordinary work but Bong’s direction of Parasite was extraordinary. Parasite is an intoxicatingly detailed, precise and specific master class in the art and craft of film directing.

Actor/Actress of the Year - Brad Pitt : Pitt flexed his movie star muscles in Once Upon a Time and also proved himself to be a formidable thespian in Ad Astra. That sort of high level versatility earns him the Mickey™®. Now maybe women will find him attractive.

Best Comedy of the Year - Jojo Rabbit : Taika Waititi hysterically dons Hitler garb and brings an ecstatic Mel Brooks-ian humor with him to great affect. The film isn’t great...but the comedy parts of it certainly are.

Best Blockbuster of the Year - Joker . Avengers: Endgame was the obvious favorite in this category…and it is a fitting end to this phase of the MCU, but it got out beat by the scrappy lunatic from Gotham. Joker cost $60 million to make and grossed over a billion dollars, and actually made more profit than Endgame and is the most successful R-rated movie of all-time. That is a blockbuster by any standard. The fact that it was a real movie hidden within the cloak of a comic book story, makes it the most unlikely, but most delicious blockbuster in recent memory.

Best Picture

10. Transit - This is such a finely crafted and effective film. I can’t recommend it enough to people who think in the abstract about fascism. The suffocating sense of impending doom is palpable…and unnerving.

9. High Life This ingenious movie can be at times frustratingly French (even though it is in English), but I found it mythologically resonant and dramatically impactful.

8. The Last Black Man in San Francisco A fantastically interesting and entertaining film that tackles a serious subject but never panders or takes the easy road.

7. Ford v Ferrari Good old fashioned Hollywood movie making at its very finest. A captivating tale of men trying to accomplish something great…and overcoming the corporate overlords who kill everything worthwhile.

6. A Hidden Life Malick puts us into the shoes of a man who must choose between Hitler and God…and must face the consequences of his choice. A deliberate, contemplative and deeply moving film that should be required watching for any and all Catholics.

5. Ad Astra This movie is devastatingly profound and it is among the most insightful movies made in recent years about the psyche of men and the meaning of masculinity. It also boasts a great Brad Pitt performance.

4. The Irishman – Martin Scorsese turned the story of a mafia hitman’s regrets into a surprisingly poignant and existentially insightful referendum on his own spectacular career. Seeing Scorsese being Scorsese and meditating on what it means to be Scorsese…is glorious to behold.

3. Parasite – A startlingly original film and one of the most entertaining and interesting dramatic investigations of class struggle and social structure to come along in ages. A brave and unflinching movie that never pulls a punch.

2. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood – A fork in the eye of woke Hollywood, this film is the very best of Tarantino’s career as it is chock full of outstanding performances and crackling dialogue.

1. Joker - The best picture of the year….and also…

The Most Important Film of the Year - Joker

The fact that Todd Phillips, the guy whose previous claim to fame was making The Hangover movies, made the dramatically electrifying Joker is one of the great miracles of modern cinema.

Joker is a deeply profound and insightful film that eloquently and artistically expresses the palpable sense of despair and rage that permeates the consciousness and animates the intentions of the dispossessed in society. Disguising this sentiment within the cloak of comic book intellectual property was a stroke of genius.

The elites loathed Joker because it didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, but rather had the temerity to speak the ugly, unvarnished and unnerving truth.

For its efforts Joker made over a billion dollars…and now it earns the equivalent of that in prestige with the coveted Mickey™ Award for Best Picture.

Thus concludes The Mickey™® Awards…SEE YOU AT THE AFTER PARTY!

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

La Resistance est Mort! The Cesars, L'affaire Polanski and the #MeToo Virus

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 37 seconds

Cesar Awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars, has promised to make sweeping changes to increase gender parity and “diversity”, after a #MeToo outcry sparked by 12 nominations for Roman Polanski’s newest film.

Anger over Polanski’s abundant accolades for An Officer and a Spy motivated producer Alain Terzian to spear head the protest, which includes 400 notable French film figures, including stars Omar Sy, Lea Seydoux and directors Jacques Audiard and Michael Hazanavicius.

Polanski, an Academy award winner for The Pianist (2002) and one of the great filmmakers of his time, has long been a controversial figure. In 1977 he pled guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” and served 47 days in jail. Due to an erratic judge, he then fled America for France in order to avoid the possibility of more prison and has never returned.

In recent years a handful of other women have come forward with rape and sexual assault accusations against Polanski from the same general time period as the California crime.

The spark of this current French #MeToo conflagration began in November when, just as An Officer and a Spy – a film about the falsely persecuted Jewish-French officer Alfred Dreyfuss, which many said obliquely referenced the director’s own public reputation battle, was about to premiere. Actress Valentine Monnier made headlines by accusing Polanski of beating and raping her in Switzerland in 1975 when she was 18. In response, women’s groups quickly staged protests at the movie’s premiere, forcing Polanski to surreptitiously exit through a side door.

November also saw bombshell accusations from acclaimed actress Adele Haenel who claimed director Christophe Ruggia sexually harassed her starting in 2002 when she was just 12, which furthered the #MeToo fervor.

France, with its very distinctive and liberated attitudes towards sex, has been left reeling and questioning its own identity in the wake of these #MeToo Cesar Award protests.

Prior to this, the French long held out on importing the more hysteria driven aspects of #MeToo. For example, in January of 2018, at the height of the #MeToo mania in America, esteemed actress Catherine Deneuve and 99 other prominent French women signed a public letter denouncing #MeToo as being “puritanical” and born of a feminism that “beyond denouncing the abuse of power takes on a hatred of men and sexuality”.

The latest revelations about Roman Polanski and the fury over his Cesar nominations appear to be the final straw though that has broken the back of la resistance de #MeToo and its distinctly American neo-feminist beliefs.

It is easy to understand the outrage over Polanski, an admitted statutory rapist, being celebrated by the Cesar Awards. But the problem is that what the protestors are really interested in has little to do with Polanski’s repulsive depravity.

The Cesar protestors’ main demands are based on identity politics, as they are not targeting him specifically, but want more diversity and gender parity, no doubt regardless of ability, among the Cesar Academy.

This once again proves that #MeToo outrage is a quick gateway drug to the more toxic narcotic of woke totalitarianism.

Polanski may be both a repugnant sexual predator deserving of prison and a cinematic genius deserving of awards, but contrary to the protestors’ position, the Cesar Academy’s job is not to judge Roman Polanski’s guilt or innocence but rather the quality of his film.

In the case of An Officer and a Spy, it did its job well as even anti-Polanski critics have found the movie to be very good.

One film critic claimed they were “surprisingly taken by it” and another declared it a “technical master work” and “one couldn’t wish for a more painstakingly researched or beautifully rendered account” and another still that “the longer you look at it, the more impressive it grows.” One anti-Polanski critic even admitted, “I was wary of seeing An Officer and a Spy. Then I did. And it is excellent.”

I would tell you my opinion of the film and whether it was worthy of acclaim…but I haven’t been able to see it since it never got distribution, even on streaming sights, in the U.S. or U.K. The movie is essentially banned here as distributors don’t want to face the fury of the #MeToo mob. And therein lies the problem, and the future, for French cinema.

With l’affaire Polanski, France has let the tyrannical and insatiable wolf of wokeness into the chicken coop, and it won’t just eat the bad roosters, it will devour anything it can get its jaws on.

America’s recent history with #MeToo shows that neo-feminists and woke authoritarians despise the quaint notions of individual rights and freedom of expression. They feel accusations are convictions, political correctness trumps quality and that art and artists must conform to their dogma or be canceled.

Just as happened in the U.S., Polanski’s films may soon be banished down the memory hole in France and “diversity”, “inclusion” and “gender parity” will become cudgels used to beat the institutions like the Cesar Awards into submission and force them to disregard quality in favor of political correctness.

Sadly, it seems the contagion of America’s pernicious cultural colonialism continues to spread with the #MeToo virus now jumping the Atlantic.

La Republique du cinema francais held out as long as it could…Madame Deneuve, aidez-nous, s’il vous plait!

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

'Birds of Prey' Hates Men, but Wants Their Money - No Wonder It's Bombing at the Box Office

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 28 seconds

The new film Birds of Prey is populated by despicable men, and feminist women who want to be just like them. The outcome: Financial losses and moral bankruptcy.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) opened on Friday and stars two-time Academy Award nominated actress Margot Robbie reprising her role as DC Comics super villain Harley Quinn.

The film is marketed as a girl power manifesto that re-imagines Harley Quinn without the condescending sexism feminists felt was so prominent in Suicide Squad (2016), the last movie that featured Margot Robbie as Harley.

Suicide Squad was a horrifically shitty movie, and was regarded as a box office underperformer with a notoriously troubled production history, but it still made $750 million in total.

Early numbers suggest that despite oddly positive reviews from woke pandering mainstream critics, Birds of Prey will struggle to do half that number in its theatrical run. With a reported production budget of between $80 and $100 million, and additional marketing costs, Birds of Prey looks primed to lose money for the suits at Warner Brothers.

How did things go so wrong?

Birds of Prey banished the problematic “male gaze” of Suicide Squad that allegedly dehumanized Harley by making her purely an object of desire, by employing an all female creative team that included producer Margot Robbie, writer Christina Hodson and director Cathy Yan. The production goes so far in exorcising men as to even have a soundtrack with all-female artists on it.

The problem though is Birds of Prey tries to thread the needle and make a chaotically cool combination of Deadpool meets Wonder Woman, only it doesn’t have the first clue about the sardonically masculine humor of Deadpool and the appealing feminine power of Wonder Woman, or masculinity and femininity in general.

The film’s sexual politics are aggressive to say the least. In our current cultural moment, toxic masculinity and masculinity have become synonymous, so it is no surprise that Birds of Prey goes to great lengths to denigrate and disparage all its male characters and yet also to venerate all its female ones.

Every man in the movie, with the lone exception being a character (played by the criminally underused actor Eddie Alfano) with fifteen seconds of screen time and no dialogue, is either entitled, conniving, maniacally violent, a rapist or all of the above.

In contrast every female character wears the noble crown of resilient victimhood after having suffered at the cruel hands of men.

The portrayal of men as misogynist beasts is pretty heavy handed, as at one point Harley and female friends are surrounded and the sadistic Roman Sionis (Ewen McGregor) yells to his army of all-male thugs, “Men of Gotham, go get those bitches!”

What’s so bizarre about the supposed girl power message of the movie is that while it relentlessly tells us that men are despicable creatures, all of the female characters are lionized for trying to behave like men. Like the recent batch of feminist movies such as Charlie’s Angels (2019) and Terminator: Dark Fate, Birds of Prey believes that feminism means women should act like men.

Even more baffling is the cinematic schizophrenia of Birds of Prey, as it obviously loathes men yet is so desperate for their attention it serves up a steady supply of hyper-violence. As Harley Quinn says, “nothing gets a guy’s attention like violence…blow something up, shoot someone.”

Totally coincidentally, The New York Times published an op-ed by an actress, Brit Marling, titled “I Don’t Want to be the Strong Female Lead” on the day Birds of Prey premiered.

In the piece Marling describes strong female leads as, “She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.”

In some ways this applies to Birds of Prey, since the women in it are smarter, tougher and stronger than the men, except they have been stripped of their sex appeal in a convoluted attempt to be pro-feminist.

For instance, Harley Quinn wore short shorts and alluring outfits in Suicide Squad, but in the female empowering Birds of Prey she dresses in baggy, Bermuda length shorts and a pink sports bra. It’s as if Harley went full Lady MacBeth and cried “unsex me here” and the filmmakers dutifully complied to stick it to the patriarchy.

Contrast this with the Super Bowl halftime show where Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were declared fiercely feminist when they wore skimpy outfits and literally danced like strippers.

How can female filmmakers like Cathy Yan properly tell an empowering feminist story if feminists haven’t even figured out what feminism is just yet?

This confusion manifests when Birds of Prey defines women solely in opposition to men, but then has them emulate masculinity as a show of their feminine strength.

Brit Marling wasn’t commenting on the troubling Manichean anti-male sexual politics of Birds of Prey, but she could have been, when she eloquently wrote, “I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance?”

That is a good question, but Birds of Prey is oblivious to balance…and quality for that matter. It’s a hot mess of a movie that features derivative, repetitive and dull action sequences, and that tries to be funny, but isn’t…hell…there is a hyena in the movie and even he wasn’t laughing. Watching this thing felt like wading through an Olympic-sized swimming pool of radioactive girl power vomit.

If equality is women making misandrist, hyper-violent, incoherently vapid and dreadful movies…then Birds of Prey is a smashing success for feminism. It is also an abysmal failure for cinema…and probably humanity. It deserves to fail.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

92nd Academy Awards: The 2020 Oscars Prediction Post

THIS IS NOT A BETTING GUIDE. THE OSCARS ARE SACRED AND ANYONE WHO DARES GAMBLE ON THEM IS GOING TO STRAIGHT TO HELL!

The Oscars are once again upon us.

Man’s distant descendants crawled out of the primordial ooze millions of years ago and began the arduous journey to the apex of their evolution…which is Oscar night.

The Oscars are like a Presidential election, Royal coronation, Papal conclave and public execution all at once. It is majestic, glorious, somber and gratuitously gruesome…and that’s why we love it more than life itself.

This has been a particularly good year for cinema, which translates into it being a frustratingly bad year at the Oscars, as the Academy will no doubt over look greatness in favor of blandness.

So sit back, buckle up and let’s take a deep dive into my 2020 Oscar predictions!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell : My patience with Clint Eastwood movies has worn perilously thin…so I have not seen Richard Jewell. Kathy Bates is terrific actress though so I assume she’s good in it.

Laura Dern - Marriage Story : The praise Dern is getting for this performance is baffling. Not only is she not great in this movie, she is actively bad. This performance feels so contrived and mannered to me.

Scarlett Johansson - Jojo Rabbit : I really like ScarJo as an actress but I have to say that I found her grating in this role. It is not all her fault as the writing is paper thin but boy oh boy did this performance not work for me.

Florence Pugh - Little Women : I have not seen Little Women…I know, I know…I am a terrible human being. That said, Florence Pugh is undeniably one of the best young actresses working in cinema.

Margot Robbie - Bombshell : I have a screener of Bombshell but just have never found the time to watch it. Margot Robbie is an actress I usually admire a great deal so I have little doubt she does solid work here.

WHO SHOULD WIN - None of the Above. This is an abysmal year for female performances. The one I thought should win…Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…wasn’t nominated.

WHO WILL WIN - Laura Dern. This is set in stone. Dern is well-liked and respected in Hollywood and this is one of those “it’s her turn” awards.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood : I haven’t seen this movie…and have no interest in seeing this movie. But here is a hot take for you…and I’ve been saying this for a long time. Tom Hanks is not that great of an actor. Yes…I agree…I am a horrible human being.

Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes : Hopkins is fantastic in this movie as he gives Pope Benedict a humanity that has never been evident in real life.

Al Pacino - The Irishman : Pacino has ocassionally spiraled into self-parody in his later years, but his turn as Jimmy Hoffa is fantastic. He brings a palpable sense of self-destructive tenacity to a role that would have been farce in any other hands.

Joe Pesci - The Irishman : Pesci’s self-contained yet vibrant work as mobster Russell Buffalino is among the very best of his stellar career.

Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood : Pitt goes full on movie star while, ironically, playing second fiddle to a fading movie star. I have yet to meet a women who hasn’t swooned when Pitt goes shirtless on the roof to fix an antenna. This is as charismatic and magnetic as Pitt has ever been…and that’s saying something.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Pacino and Pesci technically do the best work in this category. While they have very different parts, they both do supremely subtle and complex work. That said, Pitt also is spectacular in his less complicated but very dynamic role. It would be fine if any of the three won.

WHO WILL WIN - Brad Pitt. Pitt is a lock to win this thing as he turned in a glorious movie star performance and has kept it up with his speeches in at other awards shows. Pitt is well liked and has worked hard to be respected out here in Hollywood…his victory will be roundly cheered, including in my home.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Knives Out - Rian Johnson : This movie and this script are utter horseshit. Awful.

Marriage Story - Noah Baumbach : A narcissistic and vapid script.

1917 - Sam Mendes : This script could have been written on the back of a napkin…and probably was.

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino : Tarantino is a great director…he is an even better writer. A crisp and crackling script that is astonishing for its brilliance.

Parasite - Bong Joon-ho : An absolutely fantastic script filled with genuine human characters, profound political and social insights and a plethora of entertaining twists and turns.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Quentin Tarantino…with Bing Joon-ho a distant second

WHO WILL WIN - This is a very tough category as Mendes may win this as part of the 1917 Oscar tsunami…but I am actually going to go upset with Quentin Tarantino.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Irishman - Steve Zaillian : Yes the movie is long…but Zaillian’s script is pretty tight considering the vast swath of history it covers.

Jojo Rabbit - Taika Waititi : I thought the script was a weak point in this uneven film.

Joker - Todd Phillips : A masterful script that turns comic book intellectual property into dizzying social commentary.

Little Women - Greta Gerwig : I haven’t seen the film or read the book…yes…I agree…I must be a misogynist.

The Two Popes - Anthony McCarten : this is a very well crafted script (that was scuttled by very poor direction) that was able to create context and complex characters all at the same time…not a common feat.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Zaillian or Phillips. Both scripts are truly inspired pieces of work.

WHO WILL WIN - This is another tough one. In some ways I think Gerwig has the edge as the Academy wants to reward women…but I also think that a lot of Academy members think the Little Women script is not very good. Jojo Rabbit isn’t very good either…but I may be in the minority in that belief. Coin flip…my pick is…Greta Gerwig.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Irishman - Rodrigo Prieto : A beautifully and subtly photographed movie.

Joker - Lawrence Sher : Sher’s work is the most profound of the bunch as he came from nowhere to produce one of the most visually intriguing movies of the year.

The Lighthouse - Jarin Blaschke : Nice black and white and some inventive use of aspect ratio…but he stands no chance.

1917 - Roger Deakins : The master. One of the greatest of all-time…and 1917 is a major flex.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Robert Richardson ; Richardson is one of my favorite cinematographers of all time. His work here is absolutely stellar.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Deakins is a god and his victory is well earned but I actually think Lawrence Sher also deserves to win here.

WHO WILL WIN - Deakins by a mile. 1917 is really his movie and it is going to clean up at the Oscars this year. Nice to see Deakins get his second award after being left at the altar so many times.

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Corpus Christi - Poland : I haven’t seen it…and yes…I am sure that makes me a Pole-phobe.

Honeyland - North Macedonia : I haven’t seen it…and yes…I loathe North Macedonia…I’m a South Macedonia fan…GO SOUTHIE!!

Les Miserables - France : Not a great movie and certainly not worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Pain and Glory - Spain : Almodovar is a terrific filmmaker, and I enjoyed this movie on a certain level as it was his most quiet and reflective work I can remember.

Parasite - South Korea : A stunningly great piece of film making.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Parasite.

WHO WILL WIN - Parasite.

BEST DIRECTOR

Martin Scorsese - The Irishman : Scorsese is Scorsese…little else need be said, but I’ll say something anyway. This movie, bad old man face altering aside, is a fantastic piece of work.

Todd Phillips - Joker : Phillips made the The hangover movies…what the hell is he doing at the Oscars. Well…he belongs after making one of the very best and most insightful films of the year.

Sam Mendes - 1917 : Mendes is about to win his second Best Director Oscar and he has no business even having one, nevermind being in the rarified air of two.

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood : This film may very well be Tarantino’s best…and his direction on it is superb.

Bong Joon-ho - Parasite : Technically as well directed a movie as I have seen in years. Magnificent.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Tarantino is due…and deserving but will get passed over again. Phillips and Bong Joon-ho are also more than deserving but will be left in the dust.

WHO WILL WIN - Mendes. Sam Mendes is literally the only director in this group who SHOULDN’T win the award…which means he is going home with another Oscar. Awful.

BEST ACTRESS

Cynthia Erivo - Harriet : Haven’t seen the movie…you know what that means…

Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story : ScarJo is actively awful in this dreadful movie.

Saoirse Ronan - Little Women : Haven’t seen it, but i think Ronan is a phenomenal actress.

Charlize Theron - Bombshell : Haven’t seen it but I hear Theron is good.

Renee Zellweger - Judy : I, along with every other human being on the planet, have not seen this movie…i wonder…does that make me a homophobe?

WHO SHOULD WIN - Shrug…no idea.

WHO WILL WIN - Zellweger. For some reason this has been a lock from day one. If there is an upset I think it is ScarJo winning for Marriage Story…but I don’t think that will happen.

BEST ACTOR

Antonio Banderas - Pain and Glory : Banderas does the best work of his not so great career in this film.

Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood : Leo has had one hell of a career and he isn’t even 50 yet…and his work as Rick Dalton is the very best acting in a leading role he has ever done. Truly fantastic.

Adam Driver - Marriage Story : The mystery continues. I don’t get it. I don’t get it here or anywhere else. I just don’t get it. How is this dopey mother fucker a thing? How?

Joaquin Phoenix - Joker : Transcedant performance from the greatest actor of his generation.

Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes : Pryce is a pro and he brings all of his skills and craft to bear in an impressive piece of work.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Phoenix (but Leo is astounding). He should have won for The Master…but now he gets his due.

WHO WILL WIN - Phoenix. Discussion over.

BEST PICTURE

Ford v Ferrari - I really enjoyed this film and am glad it was nominated. In some other years it could have been a real contender.

The Irishman - This is a late period Scorsese masterpiece and a sterling piece of work.

Jojo Rabbit - At times brilliantly funny in a Mel Brooks-ian type of way, but not an Oscar worthy film at all.

Joker - A staggering piece of work that is remarkably profound and terrifyingly insightful.

Little Women - There are women and they are little. Why hasn’t anyone made this movie before?

Marriage Story - An over-rated, bad stage play of a movie. This thing is just God-awful.

1917 - This is juicy Oscar bait for the older Anglophile Academy members who adore these sort of morally simple war movies.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Tremendous, stupendous and glorious. A masterwork from a master writer/director. Everything a movie should be.

Parasite - Sublime direction and a sterling cast combined with a terrific script make for an electrifying cinematic experience.

WHO SHOULD WIN - Joker/Once Upon a Time - Both films are masterpieces in their own right and both deserve recognition for their artistry.

WHO WILL WIN - 1917. 1917 is going to dominate this year’s Oscars. That is depressing news but it is true. It is depressing because there are so many films much more worthy of attention and adoration that 1917. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Joker, Parasite and The Irishman would all be worthy champions but they won’t get the chance.

If there is an big upset in this category it will either come from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Parasite. I tend to think Once Upon a Time has a better chance than Parasite to sneak in for the win…but what the hell do i know?

THE BEST OF THE REST

My best guesses…

Visual Effects - Lion King - If 1917 wins this then it is going to win big all night.

Makeup and Hairstyling - Bombshell

Animated Short - Hair Love

Live Action Short - Brotherhood

Documentary Short - Learning to Skateboard

Sound Mixing - 1917 : If this doesn’t win than maybe the night won’t be as predictable as I worry it will be. Ford v Ferrari could pull the upset. If Once Upon a Time wins…LOOK OUT! That could mean a big night for Tarantino!

Sound Editing - 1917 : Same exact scenario as above in sound mixing.

Costume Design - Once Upon a Time

Production Design - Once Upon a Time : If 1917 wins here then it will clean up across the awards.

Film Editing : Ford v Ferarri : If Parasite wins here it could portend a big night for the foreign film…and maybe a Best Director or Best Screenplay or even a Best Picture victory.

Original Score : Joker - If 1917 wins here, a distinct possibility, it may be a long night.

Original Song : Rocketman - The Academy likes stars and Elton John is a star.

Documentary Feature - American Factory : It is possible that Sama or Honeyland sneak in for the win, but I think the fact that Obama produced American Factory will put it over the top. The Academy likes stars after all.

Animated Feature - Toy Story 4 - An outside chance that Klaus wins but i think familiarity pushes Toy Story to victory.

POTENTIAL NARRATIVES

1. 1917 dominates - This is the most likely scenario as it seems to be the default pick for Academy members in most categories. Could win in screenplay and editing and is the odds on favorite to win in director and picture and definitely will win in cinematography. If it wins in the sound and design categories than the blowout is on.

2. Once Upon a Time upset - it is unlikely but the film could go on a run and win screenplay, director and picture while winning a bunch of under the line awards too. Look to the sound awards as a bellwether…if it wins there than it has a shot to upset the 1917 apple cart in the big time awards like director and picture.

3. Parasite upset - It is within the realm of possibility that Parasite wins screenplay and sneaks in to win either director or picture. Long shot but possible. keep an eye on the editing award…if it wins there than it has a legit shot to upset in major categories…if it doesn’t win in editing…game over.

4. Joker shocks the world! - Highly unlikely but remotely possible that Joker goes on a miraculous run and ends up with a bevy of awards including picture and/or director. Again…the longest of long shots. if it wins in costume, makeup and editing…then hold tight because we are in for a wondrously bumpy Oscar night.

5. Splits - The most likely shockers would be a split ticket with 1917 winning picture and Tarantino or Bong winning director. It is possible for a reverse of that with Parasite or Once Upon a Time winning picture and Mendes winning director…but that is less likely than the reverse.

©2020