'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

Do You Believe in Miracles? Parasites Shocking and Glorious Upset Win at the Oscars

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 37 seconds

The 92nd Oscars were a chaotic and turbulent train wreck, until Parasite shocked the world and won Best Picture.

In 1980 the overwhelming underdog U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey beat the juggernaut Soviet Union 4-3 in the semifinal game of the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. As a result of this improbable win, dubbed the Miracle on Ice, the rag tag U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.

When the final seconds of the Miracle on Ice ticked down the play-by-play announcer Al Michaels gave his now iconic call of “Do you believe in miracles?”

It is a shame Al Michaels wasn’t doing the play-by-play for the Oscars last night…as the heavy favorite and presumed winner, 1917, went down hard in defeat to the Korean film Parasite, not only in the Best Picture race but also in Best Director. Parasite became the first foreign language film to ever win Best Picture. Do you believe in miracles?

The irony of Parasite’s completely unpredictable victory is that the Oscar show itself, was a predictably scattershot mess.

The show dragged on for three hours and thirty-one interminable minutes.  Renee Zellweger’s Best Actress acceptance speech alone took up three hours and twenty minutes. Do you believe in miracles? It would be a miracle if Renee wasn’t still talking over at the Dolby theatre right now, rambling on as she named all the people that are heroes in the world…one by one.

The show opened with a very disjointed musical number by singer and actress Janelle Monae who was pretending to be Mr. Rodgers. Monae had a mild wardrobe malfunction where her blouse was accidentally unbuttoned in front of her breasts and she couldn’t get her coat off and Mr. Rodger’s sweater on. Welcome to the Oscars everybody!

After that the evening was chock full of the same stereotypical politically correct posing and pandering we’ve come to expect from Hollywood on its big night…all of which was greeted with unabashed adoration by the audience in the echo chamber that is the Dolby theatre.

A plethora of stars and award winners, including Best Supporting Actor winner Brad Pitt, trotted out a variety of political and social complaints that were all too familiar. Among the buzzwords that made appearances were ”representation”, “inclusion” and “diversity”.

Another one of the night’s big topics was women’s issues.

There were proclamations from stars Brie Larson, Gal Gadot and Sigourney Weaver that all women are superheroes, and that it is tiresome and maybe misogynistic for women to have to keep answering the question of “what is it like to be a woman in Hollywood?”

I wonder, would Larson, Gadot and Weaver also complain if no one asked them what it was like to be a woman in Hollywood? Do you believe in miracles? Well, it would be a miracle if the answer is anything other than yes.

As the evening wore on the show became more and more unintelligible. Eminem performed a song to pay homage to how songs are used in movies sometimes. Greta Thurnberg showed up in a film clip. Some guy I have never heard of who was dressed like a waiter at a moderately priced suburban restaurant did a rap that summarized the night. A group of foreign women sang some terrible song from Frozen 2 with Idina Menzel for some inexplicable reason.  It would be a miracle if any of these things made any sense.

As the night wore on and on and on…things became more and more unhinged. A highlight was Joaquin Phoenix’s entirely expected win for Best Actor, and his acceptance speech was…well…something else.

Phoenix is a weird dude, and his speech fantastically on brand. That is not to say that he didn’t make some valid and profound points.

For instance, Phoenix was the only speaker of the entire evening who had the courage to not tell the Dolby audience what it wanted to hear. In fact, Joaquin took the audience to task and talked about cancel culture and how destructive it is. Between referencing artificially inseminating a cow and stealing its calf and milk, he also said that he and the other people in that room had a tendency to think of themselves as the center of the universe. What?! Do you believe in miracles, indeed!

Then, after having won earlier for Best Original Screenplay, Bong Joon-ho won for Best Director and Al Michaels was in my head whispering about believing in miracles.

The Oscars rarely get anything right but Bong winning Best Director is a shockingly fantastic turn of events as Parasite is impeccably directed and most worthy.

And then Best Picture was up and I was ready to throw my shoe at the television when the middle-brow 1917 won, but then Parasite was announced and I was yelling like Al Michaels in my living room “Do you believe in miracles!”

And then during Parasite’s producer’s acceptance speech the Dolby Theatre house lights went down and in response the audience chanted for them to be turned back on…and they were! And I believed even more in miracles.

And then Jane Fonda did one pump fake, then another and then another…and then the greatest miracle of all occurred and she finally and officially ended the 92nd Oscars. And then I really believed in miracles!

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 5 - Parasite

In the new episode of Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, Barry and I have a spoiler free discussion about Academy Award Best Picture nominee Parasite and dive headfirst into crazy our new segment titled Studio Boss!

Please check us out on iTunes and be sure to leave a comment or review.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA

Thank you for listening and please spread the word.

©2020

The Two Popes: A Review

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

My Rating: 2.85 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. The movie is free on Netflix so it is worth seeing since the acting is superb… but be forewarned, the directing is third rate, so best to go into it with low expectations.

The Two Popes, written by Anthony McCarten (adapted from his stage play The Pope) and directed by Fernando Meirelles, is the story of the relationship between Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bergoglio, who later becomes Pope Francis. The film is currently streaming on Netflix and stars Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Bergoglio.

Being the nice Irish Catholic boy that I am, I am a sucker for Vatican intrigue stories. For instance, I adore HBO’s edgy Vatican drama The Young Pope, which this season has morphed into The New Pope. My Vatican-philia, which is a love of the Vatican and is not to be confused with pedophilia in the Vatican - which is pretty rampant, has been with me for as long as I can remember. As a child I was pretty sure that I was going to be Pope one day, but alas, my stubborn attraction to women of a legal age all but disqualified me from not only St. Peter’s throne but a life in the priesthood.

When The Two Popes came to my attention I was definitely intrigued, but when it was released on Netflix, for some reason I just never made watching it a priority. I did finally get around to watching it over the weekend and my feelings on it are mixed. The film has a terrific cast, highlighted by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, who both give sublime performances, but sadly those performances get hung out to dry by really dismal direction.

Director Meirelles and his cinematographer Cesar Charlone, go to great lengths to undermine the stellar performances of Hopkins and Pryce, preferring to visually obscure integral dramatic scenes for no apparent reason other than a misguided attempt to be “artsy”. Two examples of this are when Pryce’s Bergolgio walks down a street in Argentina talking with a female aide and Meirelles shoots them with a tracking shot that is on the other side of food carts so that our view of the conversation is scattered and limited at best, and more often than not completely blocked. This sequence is so poorly executed and bungled as to be embarrassing.

Another instance is when Benedict and Bergoglio have a crucial meeting in the Pope’s garden and Meirelles shoots it wide from behind a row of trees so that the entire scene is obscured. Why would you obscure two great actors like Hopkins and Pryce as they square off in a pivotal scene? It is like recording a Beatles album but leaving the doors open to the studio so you can capture the conversation of people walking by on the street. It is insane and a cinematic crime of epic proportions.

Now, I suppose you can do that sort of thing in the hopes of adding a certain visual flair to a film, but you can’t do it at the pace they did in The Two Popes, because as things become visually muddled the viewer naturally responds by becoming confused and agitated. For instance, with the Argentina scene mentioned above, you can use that visual approach but you have to do it for a shorter amount of time, at a slower pace and you need to have the characters and camera stop moving for the crucial part of the scene where relevant dramatic information is revealed.

What is so confounding about this visual approach is that story is adapted from the stage and is at its core a parlor drama…and to visually obscure dramatic conversations in order to impose a sort of artistic style upon a story like this is so misguided as to be cinematic malpractice. Meirelles and Charlone seem so far over their heads in trying to stylize a stage adaptation they end up becoming artsy bottom feeders. Making a staid cinematic parlor drama is not as easy as it sounds, it takes a great deal of craft and skill…and these guys don’t have it.

Meirelles is a strange director as his first big film, the Brazilian crime saga City of God, was spectacularly good. When I first saw that film it grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. City of God was a riveting and pulsating drama that felt fresh and urgent. Meirelles was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for that film and Hollywood seemed to be his oyster.

When I saw Meirelles’ second major film, The Constant Gardener, the cracks in his talent, skill and craft began to show. The Constant Gardener had all the trappings of a good, serious and important film, but in actuality it was none of those things.

Now with The Two Popes, Meirelles is once again treated with a respect he has not earned and does not deserve. It is amazing to me that any film maker in their right mind would mess with Hopkins and Pryce’s work by adding cinematic bells and whistles that do not accentuate the acting. Audiences want to watch Hopkins and Pryce, two astounding actors…actually act. Why not let these great actors square off and find the nuances of the relationship and the characters…and stay out of their god damn way?

As for the acting, Hopkins performance is remarkable as he gives Benedict, who is a rather distant and at times loathsome creature, a deep wound that accentuates his genuine humanity without ever softening his nature. Hopkins work as Benedict is very reminiscent to me of his staggering performance as Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone’s often overlooked masterpiece, Nixon. Hopkins turns both Nixon and Benedict not into heroes, but into humans, and by doing so does them and the audience a great service as he reveals the Benedict and Nixon within us all.

Pryce is an actor that I can find hit or miss at times. He is undoubtedly brilliant but he is often miscast, last year’s The Wife being a perfect example, but here as Bergoglio he gives the greatest performance of his career. Pryce, like Hopkins, imbues his character with a wound, but unlike Benedict, Francis covers his pain with a vivacious hospitality and unrelenting good will. Just because he is being so nice and thoughtful does not mean he is perfect, as his generosity can sometimes feel manufactured and manipulative. What I liked most about Pryce’s work is that he makes Francis, often seen as a jolly and loving man, profoundly sad. Francis’ good works almost seem like a manic attempt to keep that profound sadness from engulfing and obliterating him entirely.

The scenes between Hopkins and Pryce feel like a great prizefight, like Ali v Frazier, where two heavyweights with clashing styles make for a dynamic and magnetic combination. The two actors, and the film itself, hit a stride in the second half of the story and things become genuinely moving and maybe even a bit profound and it was, despite the directing missteps, a joy to behold.

The story of The Two Popes is genuinely fascinating, as are the main characters, their back stories and the theology and philosophy at the center of the internecine Catholic debate. The battle between Benedict and Francis is the same battle that rages in my own Catholic heart, mind and soul. What is the path forward? What direction should we take? Should the Church embrace its classical tradition in order to survive or should it adapt to modern times? What does the Christ-led life even look like anymore? I don’t know the answer, and as The Two Popes reveals, neither do the two Popes currently living.

In conclusion, if I ask the question What Would Jesus Do? in relation to The Two Popes, I think the answer would be that Jesus wouldn’t get in the way of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce exercising their God-given talents. Too bad Jesus didn’t direct the movie, but someone who thinks they are did.

The bottom line is this…I loved the acting in The Two Popes but was bitterly frustrated by the directing as it left me feeling that a great opportunity was missed. If you are a Catholic, I definitely recommend you see the film as it does express the current conundrum the Church find itself in. If you are an actor or aspiring actor, watch the movie just to watch Hopkins and Pryce cast their spell. As for everyone else, I would say it is worth watching since it is free on Netflix, but have very low expectations and try not to get too angry about the piss poor directing.

©2020

1917 Dazzles the Eye but Fails to Stir the Soul

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 32 seconds

Sam Mendes’ visually stunning new war film may generate Oscar hype, but it is ultimately an underwhelming and totally forgettable cinematic venture.

With the media telling me that the world, or certain parts of it, is once again potentially on the verge of war, I did the brave and noble thing and ventured out to my local movie theatre to see Oscar winning director Sam Mendes’ new World War I film, 1917.

My hope was that 1917, a recent winner of the Golden Globe for Best Picture and Best Director, would be a powerful film that would remind audiences, particularly the more belligerent American ones, of the spiritual, emotional and physical toll of war and the inherent inhumanity, futility and barbarity of waging one. Sadly, 1917 is not up to the task.

The film, which boasts a solid cast that stars George MacKay with supporting turns from Dean Charles-Chapman, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Colin Firth, is the story of two British soldiers in World War I sent on a dangerous mission to save hundreds of their countrymen from an impending German ambush.

 1917 has all the makings of a great movie as it tells a compelling war story, is beautifully shot and proficiently acted, the problem though is that those ingredients never coalesce into a cohesive cinematic meal that satisfies and viewers are left still feeling hungry after the closing credits roll.

The best thing about 1917 is the exquisite cinematography, as it is beautifully shot by one of the great cinematographers in film history, Roger Deakins, a 14 time Oscar nominee. The film has generated a lot of buzz because it is shot and edited so that it appears as if the entire movie were filmed in one long take. That ‘one long take’ approach could be thought a gimmick in lesser hands, but Deakins uses it to expertly draw the viewer into the narrative and escort them through the film’s journey. Deakins’ ability to use camera movement, framing, light and shadow to propel the story is sublime and visually gorgeous to behold.

No, the problem with 1917 is certainly not the look of the film, but rather the feel of it. As impressive as the movie is visually, it never resonates emotionally and ends up being a rather hollow cinematic experience. The blame for that failure lay squarely at the feet of writer/director Sam Mendes.

Mendes’ shallow script has fundamental structural and dramatic flaws, such as plot points that hit too soon or too late, that keep viewers at arms length from the two main characters, Lance Corporal William Schofield (MacKay) and Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Charles-Chapman). Due to the script’s failures, viewers never really have too much invested in Schofield and Blake as they are whisked along on their perilous odyssey. This emotional detachment reduces the twists and turns of the story into mere storytelling devices without emotional power, and thus the movie often feels reduced to a roller coaster ride or a video game, which can be exciting but predictable and never dramatically profound.

I have long found Mendes to be a middling talent, and a brief perusal of his filmography is a study in underachievement and wasted opportunities. American Beauty (1999) won Mendes his Best Directing Oscar but is a movie that has not stood the test of time and is, in fact, like its star Kevin Spacey, quite embarrassing in retrospect. Other Mendes films, like Road to Perdition (2002), Jarhead (2005) and Revolutionary Road (2008) had fantastic casts and interesting stories but, like 1917, never coalesced into cinematic greatness.

Another issue plaguing 1917 is that as a war movie it will inevitably be measured against other notable films in that genre, and it does not fare well in comparison. For instance, it is not as technically superior, particularly in terms of the sound, or as artistically ambitious as Christopher Nolan’s time and perspective bending WWII tour de force Dunkirk (2017). It lacks the emotional resonance and spiritual profundity of Terrence Malick’s thoughtful The Thin Red Line (1998), and has nowhere near the psychological and political insights of a masterpiece like Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957). It also fails to convey the sheer madness and depravity of war like Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1978), Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987).

On the surface, 1917 is somewhat evasive in its political, moral and ethical perspective, and avoids dirtying its hands in the complexity of war. Mendes shows his true bourgeois colors though by choosing to focus the narrative exclusively on the nobility and heroism of the soldiers who fight the war and never even hinting at the malignancy of those in the officer and ruling class who cynically wage it. In Mendes’ hands, World War I is a morally sterile and ethically antiseptic venture that was little more than a stage to showcase the better angels of British soldier’s nature.

Mendes sticks to this painstakingly straight forward and uncomplicated approach in 1917 because he wants the audience, particularly the older, Anglophile viewers who vote for the Academy Awards, to mindlessly gobble up his middle-brow Oscar bait and not get bogged down with too many difficult questions he is ill-equipped to ask, never mind answer.

Sadly, in the hands of the artistically obtuse Sam Mendes, 1917 is incapable of being the great and profound war film the world needs right now, the type that challenges audiences and changes hearts and minds. At its best, 1917 is a stunning piece of technical virtuosity reduced to a mildly entertaining, but ultimately forgettable, film.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast!

HELLO READERS!

Well, after many requests over many years, I’ve finally broken down and done a podcast. Whether that is reason to celebrate or mourn will be left up to you.

The podcast is dedicated to cinema and my co-host, the inimitable Barry Andersson, a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Minneapolis. In general we will discuss a film per episode although that format is not set in stone.

The title of the podcast is Looking California and Feeling Minnesota.

Our first film discussed in Marriage Story.

The podcast is a work in progress, so thanks for giving it a listening!

Golden Globe-Winning 'Feminist' Fleabag is Adored by Woke Critics - Does That Mean It's Actually Terrible?

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 27 seconds

We’ve become wary of watching something just because it’s been hyped by critics with an agenda. But does that mean we are missing out on great shows? I tried to watch Fleabag without all the baggage…

Sunday night at the Golden Globes, Fleabag, the British comedy about a serially self-destructive and sexually voracious woman, which is created by, written and starring Phoebe Waller Bridge, was a big winner as it snagged trophies for Comedy Series and Actress in a Comedy.

Fleabag’s Golden Globe success comes on the heels of its domination at the Emmys this past September, where it won awards for Best Comedy, Lead Actress, Writing and Directing.

Fleabag started as a one-woman stage show back in 2013, and after being adapted for tv and premiering on Amazon’s streaming service in 2016, it has over two seasons gradually built an audience through positive word of mouth and critical acclaim.

Fleabag had successfully eluded my attention up until 2019 when its second, and allegedly final, season arrived with much fanfare. I found myself immediately resistant to watching the show as I was very dubious of the relentless critical praise for it.

My reticence regarding Fleabag was fueled by the assumption that critics loved it not because it was good but simply because it was created by a woman. In other words, I assumed the critical adoration was because it was a “feminist” show that checked all the right cultural and political boxes.

My skepticism regarding critical opinion has been hard earned, as it seems all criticism of entertainment nowadays is rife with political agendas that far outweigh quality in a critic’s professional criteria.

A prime example of this biased critical approach is the 2017 film Lady Bird. Lady Bird, which was directed by Greta Gerwig, was met with unabashed critical swooning upon its release. Amidst all of this vocfierous praise I was excited to go see Lady Bird…and then I saw it. To call Lady Bird a raging mediocrity would be an insult to raging mediocrities.

It was readily apparent to me that Lady Bird, which boasts a 99% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, was being graded on a woke political curve simply because it had a female writer/director at the helm. By pointing this fact out I became the turd in the punchbowl at Greta Gerwig’s coronation as the new Queen of Cinema and was quickly labeled a misogynist for my treason and cast out of the Kingdom of Right Thinking People.

Contrary to woke opinion, I didn’t find Lady Bird to be overrated due to misogyny but rather because I am a devout cinephile whose assessment of a film is based first and foremost on its quality, not its diversity and inclusion. By that measurement, I found Lady Bird to be amateurish and trite, more akin to a collection of bad Saturday Night Live skits than to a serious piece of cinema.

Transparent, the 2014 Amazon comedy/drama about a father who becomes a trans-woman, is another example of critical judgment skewed for symbolic political purposes. The show, which was created by Jill Soloway and starred Jeffrey Tambor as Mort - who becomes Maura, won eight Emmys over its four seasons. Critics gushed over Transparent, as it received critical scores on Rotten Tomatoes of 98, 98 and 100 over its first three seasons.

I watched the show because I had heard that Tambor, an actor I deeply respect, did amazing work in it…and he did…but the show itself was so God-awful it made my stomach hurt. I have never seen a collection of more repulsive characters and vapid caricatures on one show in my entire life. My loathing of Transparent was met with predictable accusations of transphobia, which is ironic since the characters I found so repellent weren’t the trans-gendered ones, but the cis-gendered ones.

The critics who love Lady Bird, Transparent and even Black Panther, which is a painfully middling and unimpressive Marvel movie, do so because those movies represent a sort of utopian dream of diversity and inclusion, not because they are creative and artistic masterpieces. Having the “correct” politics now trumps great artistic achievement in the eyes of critics, which is why I am so suspicious of their opinion.

Which brings me back to Fleabag. By the time I had become aware of Fleabag I was already thoroughly jaded by my experience of Lady Bird, Transparent and Black Panther among others. Unfortunately, in response to critics pushing their political bias I had reflexively formed my own bias against the shows they endorsed. I realized that assuming Fleabag was just another vacuous “girl power” show solely based on critic’s love for it was just as vapid an approach to criticism as the woke critics I abhor. So I took the plunge and watched Fleabag.

Contrary to my contrarian instincts, Fleabag is absolutely, insanely and infectiously fantastic. The show is not some recipient of a woke-inspired critical leg up, but rather is an off beat, gutter dwelling, low-brow, sort of masterpiece of the half hour comedy genre.

The writing is gloriously crisp and comedically precise while the cast, most notably Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Olivia Colman, Bill Patterson and Andrew Scott, are spectacular.

Fleabag is a feminist show, but not in the sense of how that term is misused in our popular culture at the moment. Fleabag does not embrace victimhood or blame men, instead the lead character, brilliantly played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is a fully formed, multi-dimensional person who has agency in her life and is solely responsible for the hysterical mess she’s made of it.

If, like me, you have a plethora of pop culture scar tissue and stayed far away from Fleabag out of fear that it is just another piece of politically correct garbage, I promise you that it isn’t. The show may not be for everybody, it is pretty raunchy for instance, but it is as good a comedy as you will find anywhere on television and is deserving of its praise and worthy of your attention.

 A version fo this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

1917: A Review

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

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. this is a good but not great film that never rises to meet its ambitions. If you are a cinephile who loves the great cinematography of Roger Deakins, then see this movie in the theatre, everyone else can wait for it to arrive on Netflix or cable and see it for free.

1917, written and directed by Sam Mendes, is the story of two British soldiers sent on a dangerous and desperate mission to deliver a message warning of an ambush in World War I. The film stars George MacKay and Dean Charles-Chapman, with supporting turns from Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Colin Firth.

1917 is a cinematically ambitious and athletic film that has all the trappings of a great war movie, and yet, I found the film to be a bit of a hollow, soulless experience. The movie is shot and edited in a way so as to give audiences the impression that it is all done in one long take. This ‘single take’ is an interesting approach, and it does help to draw viewers in and push the pace of the film, but that said, it also feels a little bit like a gimmick (especially since they didn’t really shoot it in one take) most notably because the film lacks specificity and detail in script and character development.

For this reason 1917 reminded me somewhat of Saving Private Ryan, which is much remembered for its very athletic opening D-Day sequence. Beyond that sequence, Saving Private Ryan was a rather pedestrian rehashing of every patriotic war movie trope that had come before it. Similarly, 1917 is very cinematically athletic in its execution with its illusion of one long continuous take, but it is also just as conventional in its narrative structure and theme as Saving Private Ryan.

In 1917, just as in Saving Private Ryan, the protagonists must go from point A to point B through enemy lines on a mission to save someone. That journey, in both films, certainly has its moments, but never breaks any new cinematic or storytelling ground.

The film is also thematically and politically the same as Saving Private Ryan, as it refuses to embrace any skepticism or cynicism in regards to the futility and inhumanity of such a heinous war, and only ends up taking a rather limp-wristed, neo-liberal stance rooted in misplaced patriotism and ham-fisted heroism.

As beautifully as 1917 is shot, and the cinematography of Roger Deakins is unquestioningly exquisite, the film is devoid of emotional resonance. It all feels more like a detached exercise than a drama, as the film fails to generate the requisite emotion needed to propel it to great cinematic heights. Characters are certainly put in peril in 1917 but it all comes across as rather empty and soulless.

I also thought of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which is a war movie unlike any other war movie made, while I watched 1917. In Dunkirk, Nolan messes with time and perspective and puts on such a technical tour de force that his film overwhelms viewers. With 1917, while the ‘one long camera take’ does add to the drama and compel the viewer along the journey, the rest of the filmmaking feels a bit underwhelming…especially in comparison to Dunkirk. For instance, Dunkirk’s music, courtesy of Hans Zimmer, is a ticking time bomb throughout the film, heightening the sense of peril and existential dread. In 1917, Thomas Newman’s music is more conventional and swells used to indicate when viewers should feel emotions the film hasn’t yet earned. In addition, the sound desing and editing in Dunkirk is vastly superior to that of 1917.

As is evident by my review so far, the biggest issue facing 1917 is that it is impossible to see a war film and not compare it to other war films. 1917 is not a bad movie, it just isn’t anywhere near the caliber of film as say Dunkirk, The Thin Red Line or Kubrick’s World War I masterpiece Paths of Glory. Director Sam Mendes has very big shoes to fill in tackling the war film genre, and the unfortunate truth is that his cinematic feet are much too small.

I did like the cast of 1917, and thought the film’s lead George MacKay did excellent work. MacKay has a sort of everyman appeal to him and he embraced the rigors of the movie with aplomb. MacKay carries the weight of the film upon him and endures the slings and arrows of his mission with enough charisma to keep viewers engaged.

The rest of the cast have small roles and tackle them with the usual British professionalism that we’ve come to know and love. Mark Strong is particularly British with his stiff upper lip and all that, and Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch do Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch type of things in small roles.

The cinematography of Roger Deakins is stellar. Deakins camera flows through the movie and feels like a string pulling viewers along. Deakins is one of the great cinematographers of all time and his framing and use of light in 1917, particularly the orange glow of fire during the night time scenes, is sublime.

As previously stated, and much to my chagrin, I found the sound and the music of 1917 to be lacking as they never rose to the level of Deakins photography. The soundtrack in particular felt very forced and lacking in coherence and originality.

Sam Mendes is a celebrated director but he has always seemed like a second rate talent to me. Mendes won a Best Director Oscar for his work in American Beauty back in 1999, but that film and his work on it, have not stood the test of time in the least. Watching Ameican Beauty now is a cringe-worthy experience as the performances, most notably Best Actor winner Kevin Spacey, are so “theatrical” as to be embarrassing, and Mendes’ direction is equally geared toward the overly expressive. Since American Beauty, Mendes has churned out a series of films that always felt like they should be great but just never were. These ambitious but seriously flawed films, such as Jarhead, Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road and Away We Go, all suffered under Mendes’ lack of vision, style, specificity and detail. Mendes also made two Bond movies, Skyfall and Spectre, which are certainly fine in terms of Bond films, but are not exactly cinematic masterpieces.

I think the bottom line regarding Sam Mendes is that he is a theatre director at heart and he has never fully been able to shake off the stink of the stage. Mendes does not have the vision of an auteur or strong cinematic instincts and his film’s have suffered greatly because of it. I think 1917 is another example of Mendes simply being a bit out of his natural element.

If you want to see a really great and profound World War I film I highly recommend you check out Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) starring Kirk Douglas, in maybe his greatest role, or check out Lewis Milestone’s 1930 epic, All Quiet on the Western Front. Both films not only do a better job of being emotionally resonant and cinematically engaging than 1917, they also have the artistic courage to make a dramatic statement about the inherent madness of war.

In conclusion, I liked 1917 well enough but did not love it. The film is compelling for what it is but never rises to be anything more than a good war film, not a great one. If you want to be mildly entertained and enjoy Roger Deakins gorgeous cinematography, then I recommend you see 1917 in the theatres, but if you are lukewarm on the subject matter and aren’t a big cinephile, then you should wait until 1917 is on Netflix or cable and see it for free.

©2020

Marriage Story: A Review

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

My Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A vacuous, vapid and phony film riddled with mannered and manufactured performances that are so grating as to be repulsive. This interminable mess of a movie is an art house poseur and critical fool’s gold.

Marriage Story is written and directed by Noah Baumbach and is his pseudo-autobiographical tale of the Barbers, a married couple with a young son going through a divorce. The film stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson with supporting turns from Laura Dern, Ray Liotta, Alan Alda, Julie Haggerty and Merritt Weaver.

Marriage Story has marketed itself as a dramatically potent and poignant domestic drama, which is a genre that, when properly executed, appeals to me greatly. Due to its marketing campaign and the overwhelming amount of critical acclaim Marriage Story has been receiving, I was very excited to watch the movie over the Christmas holiday. Thankfully the film is currently streaming on Netflix which meant I wouldn’t have to trek out the theatres to catch it, but I would have to find two hours and sixteen minutes of my life to dedicate to watching it uninterrupted…no small task. Last night I finally got the chance to see it…and to say it was a let down would be the understatement of the new decade…and maybe the last one too.

The bottom line is this…Marriage Story is awful. It is really, truly awful. The acting, which has gotten resounding praise and is generating very loud awards buzz, is abysmal. The directing and writing is utterly atrocious. I am genuinely shocked and appalled that serious people think this mess of a movie is a serious film.

Marriage Story is supposedly loosely based on writer/director Noah Baumbach’s own divorce from actress Jennifer Jason-Leigh in 2013. Like Baumbach, the lead male character Charlie is a director and New Yorker, and like the female lead character Nicole, Jennifer Jason-Leigh is a Los Angeles born and bred second generation actor (her father was Vic Morrow), and like Baumbach and Leigh, Charlie and Nicole have a young son caught in the middle of their divorce.

Writing about yourself, even under the guise of slightly different characters, is standard operating procedure for artists, but in Baumbach and Marriage Story’s case…it feels like some pretty toxic narcissistic behavior. The reason for this is that the film unabashedly holds Charlie in the highest regard and can’t stop saying what a genius he is…going so far as to bestow upon him a MacArthur Fellowship Grant. Charlie’s greatest fault is that he cares about his art too much and is too dedicated. Baumbach seems to be using Marriage Story as some sort of art house fake out in order to humble brag.

The issues with Marriage Story are numerous, and one of the most glaring is the acting. The film is a sort of character study with the character being a married couple played by Scarlett Johannson and Adam Driver. The acting approach deployed in this film by the vast majority of the cast is a heightened, very theatrical style. The end result of this acting approach is that the characters all all feel incredibly phony and manufactured…like something you’d see in any acting class on any night of the week in New York or Los Angeles. I have lived my entire adult life in the New York and Los Angeles acting world and I can tell you that none of the characters in Marriage Story even remotely resemble real people. Marriage Story is populated by hyper-shticky, sitcom level cardboard cutout characters.

Nothing on screen in this movie is genuine, grounded or even remotely interesting. Due to the acting in Marriage Story getting so much acclaim, I have a genuine fear that this movie will set back the art and craft of acting decades, if not millennia…and if there are any aspiring actors out there, please listen to me now, do not try and emulate the style of acting on display in Marriage Story as it is the polar opposite of what you should be trying to do.

Now, to be fair, the two main characters, Charlie and Nicole, are a theatre director and actress, so I understand somewhat the theatrical flair on display, but the tone-deaf, over-the-top nature of the entire cast is so pronounced that no one and nothing in this world rings true. The lack of genuine characters and situations drains the film of all potential drama and emotional impact, thus rendering the film entirely impotent.

Adam Driver is getting serious Oscar hype over his performance as Charlie, the esteemed theatre director. Driver’s work in Marriage Story barely rises above being not-embarrassing, and should never in a million years be considered Oscar worthy. Driver tries to push and prod himself to give his performance depth and meaning but he strains so hard against the flaccid script it is like watching a constipated dog trying to take a much needed dump. Regardless of how hard he is working, the end result is the same as the dog…an itchy case of hemorrhoids and/or a stinky mess on the carpet.

Scarlett Johansson play Charlie’s wife and one-time theatrical muse, Nicole. It is difficult to put into words how repulsed I was by Johansson’s performance. At one point Johansson does an extended monologue that is so mannered and forced I felt like I was watching a high school drama student rehearse her audition for the school play in her bedroom mirror. It was at this point that I turned to my movie watching companion, an actress of some note who shall remain nameless, and asked, “is the acting in this movie as bad as I think it is?” She turned to me and in the most droll way possible simply replied, “yes…it most certainly is.”

Laura Dern plays Nora, Nicole’s divorce attorney, and she one ups Johansson in acting awfulness. Dern’s performance is so relentlessly fabricated and false it actually made my stomach hurt. I consider myself a fan of Laura Dern but her work in Marriage Story is excruciatingly vacuous and fraudulent.

By far the worst performance of the film is Julie Haggerty as Nicole’s mother, Sandra. Haggerty’s work in Marriage Story would be considered ‘too big’ even if she were wearing a red nose and big shoes center stage at a circus. Haggerty is not quite matched in acting awfulness by Wallace Shawn, but he does give it the old college try.

The only quality performance in the entire film is delivered by none other than Alan Alda. Alda plays Charlie’s lawyer Bert, and does such subtle and grounded work it is remarkable, especially considering the shitshow of acting going on around him. Alda’s Bert is the only character in the entire film who even remotely seems like a real person living in a real world. I found Alda’s performance, which is not very big, to be the most profound and poignant in the whole movie.

As for the direction and writing of the film, Noah Baumbach gets to take all the blame. Baumbach is obviously trying to pay a little bit of homage to movies like Scenes From a Marriage and Kramer vs Kramer, but he is simply in way over his head in trying to make a movie of any meaning or worth. Marriage Story proves, without question, that Baumbach is no Bergman (Scenes From a Marriage), hell, he isn’t even in the same class of movie makers as Robert Benton (Kramer vs Kramer).

It is Baumbach’s fault that the film is disjointed dramatically and entirely devoid of any notable craft or skill. Baumbach’s writing rings completely false and is akin to a really bad stage play for its artistic bombast, faux sincerity and grandiosity. In addition, all of the film’s characters are cutesy caricatures that bear no resemblance to any normal human being, they are one-dimensional props in Baumbach’s autobiographical fantasy. The film even has a couple of musical numbers that are so trite and contrived they made me throw my shoe at the television in frustration. Nothing in this film is believable, no dramatic notes ring true, none of the settings or characters feel in any way, shape or form, to be genuine. The entire film is a fraud and at best a farce.

The visual style of the film is flat and dull, which only emphasizes the absurdity of the performances and writing. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan, whose most notable work was on The Favourite, is filming a serious and gritty domestic drama (which is what the film is marketing itself as), but Baumbach and cast are making a farcical, near-absurdist comedy, and the mismatch is painful to watch.

I am not a superfan of Noah Baumbach, but I have enjoyed some of his other work. I thought The Squid and the Whale, another but much better “divorce movie”, was excellent, and was even pleasantly surprised by While We’re Young. But beyond those two films, I find his work to be strikingly sub-par. Other critics absolutely adore Baumbach…but I have yet to figure out why that is. My best guess is that, much like Van Halen front man David Lee Roth once said about critical adoration of Elvis Costello, maybe critics like Noah Baumbach so much because they look so much like Noah Baumbach.

Another theory I have as to why Baumbach is a critical darling is that critics are desperate to fill the Woody Allen void now that the old pedophile is radioactive. So critics have chosen Baumbach to be the perpetual winner of the Woody Allen Memorial - Critical Darling For Writing Hackneyed Shit Award. Woody Allen’s critical success has always baffled me, as his movie’s cinematic value are minimal at best, and it seems I will have the same relationship with Baumbach going forward. In my opinion, Noah Baumbach is not much of a serious director but is instead a cinematic charlatan, a maker of vacuous and shallow films who is incapable of creating anything of much artistic significance or dramatic profundity.

Marriage Story is nothing but vacant critical hype and, as a friend said to me after I saw it, is akin to a “Hallmark movie for hipsters”. The film is nowhere near worthy of your time or attention and should be avoided at all costs. Besides Alan Alda’s Bert, I had a visceral hatred for every single character in this movie, even the little kid, so much so that at one point Charlie walks into Nicole’s house and asks if anyone is home and is met with eerie silence and I said out loud “God I hope there was a gas leak that killed every single one of them”. Sadly, there was no gas leak, in the movie or in my own house, to end the suffering that was my experience of Marriage Story.

In conclusion, do not wed yourself to Marriage Story, instead run as fast as you can from this piece of fraudulent phony baloney. There are other cinematic fish in the sea besides this movie, and I promise that there is no possible way they will stink as much as Marriage Story.

©2020

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker - A Review

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

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Just an awful and incoherent film that gets the most simple of storytelling basics wrong. A frustrating and irritating way to end the iconic Skywalker Saga.

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, written and directed by J.J. Abrams, is the story of Jedi Warrior Rey as she leads the resistance against Kylo Ren and the First Order. Rise of Skywalker is not only the third film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy that began in 2015, but also the final film in the nine part Skywalker Saga that began all the way back in 1977. The film stars Daisy Ridley as Rey with supporting turns from John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Carrie Fischer, Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams.

While I am not a Star Wars fanatic, I have seen all of the films and thoroughly enjoyed the first three when I was a kid, and even managed to like some of the Lucas helmed prequel trilogy. My feelings about the Star Wars films post-Disney 2012 takeover has been decidedly lukewarm at best.

What appealed to me about the first movies and even the prequels was the mythology and theology at the heart of the story. Lucas is well-known to be a disciple of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung’s ideology regarding myth and heroes, as am I. The Lucas controlled Star Wars universe had a mythological and religious underpinning to it that gave the rather flimsy characters and narrative arcs a profundity that elevated the material.

After Lucas sold Star Wars franchise to Disney, in 2012, the corporate behemoth unabashedly stripped the story of all its mythological and religious power and reduced it a a rather vapid, nostalgia-inducing money making machine devoid of spirit and a soul.

Disney failed to grasp why the Star Wars franchise was so successful in the first place. The franchise succeeded with audiences because its mythological and theological foundation resonated with people on both a conscious and unconscious level. The conscious level was all the cool stuff…like a lovable Bigfoot character, cool light sabers, a rockin’ villain and all of that. The unconscious level was all of the mythological stuff, like Luke’s hero journey, Han’s reluctant hero journey, and the Skywalker family dynamics.

What is so striking about Disney’s failure with Star Wars is that it only more greatly illuminates their success with Marvel. With the just concluded Marvel series of films, Disney stuck to the source material and all of the sacrifices that went with it, and the film’s flourished. I am assuming that a great deal of the credit for Marvel’s success lies with producer Kevin Feige, who navigated the treacherous franchise and corporate waters to successfully bring the Marvel ship to harbor with the ridiculously successful films Infinity War and Endgame.

The Rise of Skywalker’s failure…and it is a massive failure…only elevates Endgame and Feige’s accomplishment all the more. Rise of Skywalker is a perfect embodiment of everything that has gone wrong with the Star Wars franchise over the years, most notably since Mickey Mouse took the reigns.

The film is absolutely dramatically and narratively incoherent. The direction is listless and lazy, and the script is an outright abomination. The most basic fundamentals of storytelling are thrown out the window for this film which ends up being little more than a two hour and twenty minute commercial for itself.

It is difficult to discuss the problems of the film without talking spoilers, so I will add a spoiler section after my review, but suffice it to say that this is a dreadful film that denigrates the entire franchise and could very well scuttle the brand name for years to come.

As stated, the directing and writing are awful, so the cast don’t have much to work with. That said, they do not do much with what they are given.

I have been trying to figure out Daisy Ridley for three films now and I just can’t do it. I mean, I am sure she is a nice person, but she is so lacking in charisma and magnetism it is sort of shocking that she has the lead role in as billion dollar franchise. I will be astounded if Ridley has any success in her career outside of Star Wars as she seems to bring absolutely nothing to the table whatsoever.

To emphasize how charisma free Ridley is, one need look no further than Keri Russell, who plays Zori Bliss, a fringe criminal character in Rise of Skywalker. Russell never shows her face in her performance except to flash her eyes for a brief moment, but even with a mask and helmet covering her she has a palpable magnetism about her that is undeniable. The fact that even with her face covered the whole time she outshines Daisy Ridley is much more an indictment of Ridley than and endorsement of Russell, who is a fine actress but not exactly Meryl Streep.

The men of Rise of Skywalker fare no better. John Boyega consistently underwhelms as Finn, a character so thinly developed he’s nearly transparent. Oscar Isaac proves that he is officially definitely not a good actor once again with his flaccid Poe, which is a second rate Han Solo, which makes Isaac a third rate Harrison Ford. Yikes.

Adam Driver plays bad guy Kylo Ren. Driver is another great mystery of life. For some reason I cannot quite grasp, Driver has become the “it” guy in Hollywood. People think he is amazing. I do not think he is amazing. In fact, I think he is an actively shitty actor. The Driver adoration reminds me of another quirky, weird looking actor who everyone in the late 80’s and 90’s thought was astonishing but who I always thought was a poseur and clown. That actor was Nicholas Cage. Cage won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and everyone thought I was proven wrong…but I was playing the long game…and in the end cinema history has proven me right about Cage and I think I’ll be proven right about Driver too.

As for the action and all of that…I found none of it compelling in the least. The action sequences seemed derivative and contrived and like the storytelling, painfully boring and redundant.

Obviously, I found Rise of Skywalker to be a frustrating and irritating mess and major disappointment. There is no reason, even for huge Star Wars fans, to ever see this movie as it doesn’t wrap up the Skywalker Saga so much as to cancel it due to lack of interest. Of course, most everyone will go see it because Disney controls the universe, but if you do go see it realize that you will never think of it again after the leaving the theatre. Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, was so bad it made me desperately want to commit light saber supukku while watching it. Seeing J.J. Abrams and Mickey Mouse take a dump on George Lucas’s creative vision simply is not entertaining in the least.

SPOILERS!!

Out of narrative incompetence and an impotent attempt at fan service, Rise of Skywalker does away with death. I know that sounds weird but it is true. The movie opens with the signature scroll to get us up to date on the happenings in Star Wars world and it tells us that for some reason Emperor Palpatine, who was supposed to have died in Return of the Jedi, is back and is the main plot point in Rise of Skywalker.

Palpatine’s resurrection is absurd, but the film continues this theme throughout. Chewbacca is killed right before our eyes…and then in the very next scene, there he is alive and well. C3PO goes through a similar “death” when his memory is wiped clean but then miraculously his memory is restored by R2D2.

The whole gang, Rey, Poe, Finn and company get sucked under into quicksand…which usually results in death but for them it results in falling into a cave that hides the exact thing for which they are looking. (The physics of quicksand that sucks people in but empties them out into a cave is dubious at best, but that is the least of the logic issues in this movie)

Luke died in The Last Jedi but his “force ghost” shows up in Rise of Skywalker and he isn’t just placidly looking on from the heavens, he is actively helping Rey by grabbing light sabers and raising x-wing fighters out of the ocean.

Han Solo died in The Force Awakens but his ghost/presence also makes an appearance in Rise of Skywalker to chat with Kylo Ren.

Carrie Fischer actually did die during the making of The Last Jedi, but she is resurrected by editors with some terrible scenes deservedly left on the cutting room floor a few years ago. Fischer was a terrible actress when alive…dead she fares considerably worse. In Rise of Skywalker Leia does die…but then she too returns as force ghost to wink and nod her approval.

Ben/Kylo is thrown into a crevasse and could have died but not surprisingly he doesn’t die either.

And finally, Rey dies too…but only for a few seconds. And then she wakes up and kisses Ben/Kylo Ren…and all is well…until Ben drops dead for some reason.

Here is the basic problem…when death does not exist, then neither does drama. Death, be it in the movies or in real life, raises the stakes of everything it goes near. If there is no death then there is no life. If there is no death there is no drama. By raising Palpatine, Luke, Han, Leia, Chewy and C3Po from the dead, Rise of Skywalker removes all stakes from the movie and thus everything is reduced to simple play acting. Nothing matters at all. Death does not exist and therefore the world the film exists in is fraudluent as the characters are never in peril and are always and every time safe. When Rey dies at the end it means nothing because death doesn’t exist…and same with Ben/Kylo.

Contrast this with Avengers Endgame…Iron Man fucking dies in that movie. Iron Man…the heart and soul of the franchise…drops dead. Yes…the deaths in Infinity War were reversed…but Endgame didn’t just say, “hey, just kidding”, they went about unraveling those deaths and atoning for them…and part of the penance for bringing those characters back was killing Iron Man and getting rid of Captain America. Iron Man and Captain America are payment for the narrative twist of reversing the deaths in Infinity War.

In Rise of Skywalker…they literally do not give a shit as they never earn Palpatine’s return..which opens the movie. Nor do they earn Chewie’s fake death, or C3PO’s, or Luke’s, or Leia’s or Han’s or Rey’s.

Anyway…the bottom line is that Rise of Skywalker makes such egregious errors in its storytelling that it is simply stunning. For the franchise to do this in this “last chapter” is a cinematic crime of epic proportions.

©2019

A Hidden Life: A Review

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

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT IF YOU LOVE MALICK. This is a deeply profound film but director Terrence Malick can be impenetrable to those with more conventional tastes…so act accordingly.

A Hidden Life, written and directed by Terrence Malick, is the true story of Franz Jaggerstater, a Catholic farmer in rural Austria during World War II who must choose between his faith and pledging allegiance to Hitler. The film stars August Diehl as Jagerstatter, with supporting turns from Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqivst, Matthias Shoenaerts, Bruno Ganz and Franz Rogowski.

2019 may be the greatest year for cinema of my entire adult life. After a bumpy start to the year, we’ve had masterpieces from major auteurs, like Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood, The Irishman, and Parasite, and we even had the down and dirty genius of the best comic book movie ever made, Joker, brought to us by Todd Phillips of all unlikely people. 2019 even had two stellar, art house science fiction films, Ad Astra and High Life, as well as a bevy of great foreign films, including Transit, Rojo and Bird of Passage. So with the year in cinema going so well I was thrilled to see that one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Terrence Malick, was throwing his hat into the crowded ring of 2019 before the end of the year.

Terrence Malick has long been one of my favorite film makers. His use of religious symbolism and philosophical themes, along with his unorthodox and impressionist visual and narrative style, have made Malick films must see cinema for me. Malick’s work over the last decade in particular, which included films such as Knight of Cups, Song to Song and his epic masterpiece The Tree of Life, has resonated deeply with me due to its intimate and spiritual nature. Maybe it is because I am one of the rarest of creatures in that I am Catholic and a cinephile, that Malick’s work seems to be so perfectly calibrated to my unique interests that it feels like he is making movies just for me.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I headed out to see A Hidden Life. The little I had heard of the film was that it was a return to a more linear narrative structure and was more akin to his magnum opus The Tree of Life than his recent allegedly autobiographical, experimental trilogy (To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, Song to Song). I consider The Tree of Life to be the greatest film of the last decade, and maybe of all-time, so my expectations for A Hidden Life were pretty high.

After seeing the film, I can report that A Hidden Life is not The Tree of Life, but it is a great film that is easily the most profound movie of the year. What makes the movie so profound is that it mediates upon the spiritual struggle inherent when living in an empire. Jagerstatter’s greatest choice was not between his soul and the Third Reich, but rather between choosing to decide or choosing not to decide and thus ignore reality. This is the same struggle Americans face…will we simply accept American empire and all the evils that accompany it, or will we put down our flags, our party affiliations, our identity politics, and instead fix our loyalty to truth above all else?

As for the particulars of the movie, after having seen it by myself I had a conversation with a “lady friend” who was interested in the movie. She asked me “how was it?” and my reply was, “it is very Malick”. Now as previously stated, “very Malick” is right in my wheelhouse…but for others, the more Malick a movie is, the harder it is for them to digest.

By “very Malick” what I mean is that the film is impressionistic in style and meditative in nature. A Hidden Life is definitely linear in structure as it follows a character from point A to point B, but it doesn’t go in a conventional straight line between those two points. The film has a near three hour run time and no doubt less adventurous movie goers will struggle with the film’s meandering pace and unorthodox approach, but if viewers can turn off their conditioning and simply let the film wash over them, it is a deeply moving experience.

Part of what makes Malick such a remarkable auteur is that no other film maker is able to capture the exquisite beauty, the fleeting profundity and suffocating existential angst of life itself. Malick’s masterpiece, The Tree of Life is the pinnacle of this experience, where life and death meet and spirit and soul collide and we are forced to confront and wrestle with our own mortality as we scream into the abyss hoping for an answer. In A Hidden Life as in all of his films, the weight of life and thought are conjured by Malick’s dancing camera and natural light. Jagerstatter is not so much the protagonist of the film as he is a projection of our dreams and a player in our spiritual nightmares.

The cast of A Hidden Life are a who’s who of European acting talent. August Diehl plays Franz Jagerstatter with a very German/Austrian control and stoicism. Diehl is a fine actor (he is spectacularly evil as an SS officer in Inglorious Basterds) but there were times when I felt that he may have been slightly miscast in the role of Jagerstatter, especially in a Malick movie. In Malick films actors must rely on their innate characteristics in order to survive and/or thrive. What that means is that a lot of scenes lack dialogue, or are improvised and are spliced together with perspective shifting cuts, and so the actor’s energy, their physical ease, and their face play big parts in telling the story. Diehl is gifted/cursed with a handsome but somewhat subdued face, which makes his performance at times less empathetic than I wanted it to be.

Franz Rogowski plays a small role as one of Franz’s military friends and I actually thought he would have been perfect in the lead role. Rogowski is like a German Joaquin Phoenix, they actually look quite similar, and he has a inherently empathetic face that is filled with emotion and meaning even when he isn’t speaking or emoting. Rogowski was fantastic in Transit this year, a film I highly recommend, and I think he would have been equally terrific as Franz Jagerstatter.

Other actors of note in the film are the late Bruno Ganz and the late Michael Nyqvist, both of whom have small roles but do spectacular work in them. Ganz and Nyqvist bring an emotional gravitas and fragility to their work in A Hidden Life that is a fitting epitaph for their brilliant careers.

Valerie Pachner plays Franziska Jagerstatter, Franz’s wife, and brings a vitality and earthy charisma to her work. Pachner is both strong and beautiful and her performance is both delicate and complex and gives A Hidden Life an emotional multi-dimensionality.

One of the things I most enjoy about Malick films is the cinematography. For A Hidden Life, Malick’s usual cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, who is one of the greatest cinematographers in the business and maybe of all-time, was absent, replaced by his longtime steadicam operator Jorg Widmer. Widmer is considered by many to be the best steadicam operator in the film industry, and he has worked with Malick in that capacity many times. I wasn’t aware that Lubezski wasn’t working on A Hidden Life going into it, but I immediately noticed that something was ever so slightly off about the cinematography. To be clear, the film is beautifully shot, and is gorgeous to behold, but as I watched it i just noticed things were a bit…different…than when Lubezki shoots a Malick film. Widmer’s cinematography was well-done but it lacked a bit of Lubizski’s precision and power.

The music in the film, by James Newton Howard, is haunting, extremely effective and deeply moving, as is the editing by Rehman Nizar Ali, Joe Gleason and Sebastian Jones.

The story of Franz Jagerstatter is the story of all of us living in the Eden of empire. We may enjoy our time in paradise but eventually, the corruption and spiritually corrosive nature of empire will seep into our Eden, and will soil it and spoil it. Then we will be faced with a choice…we can either decide to tell the Truth, or we can continue to lie, most notably, to ourselves. The road to Golgotha begins in Eden, with a stopover in Gethsemane, and we all eventually make that journey whether we want to or not. The difference between Franz Jagerstatter and the rest of us, is that he maintained his integrity and his humanity while he made that excruciating trip to judgement day. As the film ponders the “comfortable Christ”, a bourgeois creature created by the capitalists class that populates and animates American empire, that gives permission to the masses to live a soft and spiritually lazy existence, I couldn’t help but think to my own slovenly spirituality and its permissive banality. My flaccid Catholic education and the spiritually barren, co-opted by empire, Church that indoctrinated me with it, did not prepare me to live as profoundly and courageously as Franz Jagerstatter, never mind as Christ, so I have no doubt I would fail the same test he faced if put to it.

In conclusion, A Hidden Life, despite its few minor flaws, is must see for cinephiles, cinematically literate Catholics and Malick fans. For those with more conventional tastes, A Hidden Life is probably a bridge too far. I wish everyone would see this movie and could understand this movie as it speaks so insightfully to the time in which we live, but I am self-aware enough to understand that the cinematic language Malick speaks can be impenetrable to many, but glorious to those that can decipher it.

©2019

Knives Out: 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. This is an unoriginal, predictable and painfully dull two hour and ten minute episode of Murder, She Wrote laced with pernicious racism.

Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson, is a murder mystery about the death of murder mystery writer Harlan Thrombey, and the search for his killer among his scheming family. The film stars Anna de Armas as Marta, Harlan’s nurse, with supporting turns from Christopher Plummer, Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon and Chris Evans.

Sometimes the Gods of Cinema Smile Upon You…and Sometimes They Don’t

On Monday morning I had a block of free time and, as I often do when time permits, I headed to the movie theatre to partake in the cinematic sacriment. The film options on a Monday morning were pretty slim, and the only movies that worked for my schedule were Honey Boy and Knives Out. Honey Boy is Shia LaBeouf’s pseudo-auto-biography, and while I hold no animus toward Shia, I hold no love either. In addition, I just wasn’t in the right headspace to commit to a heavy movie about the tumultuous existence of the guy from Transformers. Knives Out is not a film I had any previous interest in seeing, but I did hear it was “fun”, and so in the search for some mindless entertainment I made the leap and went to see Knives Out.

My quest for mindless entertainment was only partially fulfilled, as with Knives Out I certainly got the mindless part but didn’t get any entertainment. I found Knives Out to be anything but fun. Now, to be fair, in general I am not a fan of the murder mystery genre, it just isn’t my thing. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a murder mystery movie on a technical level though and appreciate it for its craftsmanship and skill though. The problem with Knives Out is not its genre, but rather the fact that it is poorly constructed, abysmally executed, politically trite, culturally patronizing, profoundly racist and exceedingly dull and predictable. The best thing about Knives Out, and this will become more and more evident as you read this review, is that it forced me to take my knives out against it.

One of the biggest issues with Knives Out is that it thinks it is incredibly clever but in reality is incessantly imbecilic. The film is an thinly-veiled allegory for the immigration debate in America, and is little more than a piece of virulent propaganda whose politics are obstinately Manichaean and frankly, repulsive and disgusting. Tackling the immigration issue is certainly a worthy undertaking, and I would love to see a well-made film navigate the nuances and intricacies of that topic in its text or sub-text, but the politics of Knives Out are so ignorant, arrogant and infantile as to be odiously repugnant.

The most damning part of the film’s politics is that the movie drips with a visceral hatred of white people. The film’s denigration and belittling of white people is aggressively heavy-handed. The Thrombey family are presented as a collection of conniving and deplorable whites marinated in privilege, which makes sense since they are the villains, but make no mistake, the film isn’t just about hating the rich, white Thrombey family, it is about hating and belittling ALL white people regardless of class. Evidence of this is that Fran, the Thrombey’s poor white housekeeper, and white police officer Trooper Wagner, the two most prominent non-rich white people in the film, are portrayed as a money-hungry schemer and a pop culture obsessed nincompoop, respectively. The white people in this movie are all morally, ethically and intellectually revolting.

Whites in Knives Out lie, scheme, and are compulsively duplicitous, whereas Marta, the Latina immigrant with a heart of gold, is portrayed as literally being physically incapable of lying or doing anything bad. In addition, Detective Eliot, who is black and is essentially Trooper Wagner’s partner, is calm, cool and rational next to Wagner’s empty-headed buffoonery.

***I AM BREAKING MY NO SPOILER PLEDGE IN THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH!! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!***

SPOILER ALERT: The coup de grace in terms of the film’s propaganda is that in the final shot the white Thrombey’s are all gather in the driveway, and standing high above them on a balcony is Marta, the new Queen of the Thrombey estate. The white people look up at her with resentment, and also with hope, that she will be gracious and benevolent towards them now that she is in power even though they did not treat her with respect and grace when they ruled the roost. The final shot of the film is Marta looking down on the white people and drinking from a coffee cup that reads “my house, my rules”. Message sent and received.

****END OF SPOILER****

I don’t mind a film having a political perspective, in fact I prefer it, but what I do mind is a film that has such a pedestrian political outlook infused with such a blatant animus towards one group, whatever group that may be. The politics of Knives Out are so insidious, insipid and pernicious I couldn’t help but think of Leni Riefenstahl, the Third Reich’s documentarian, when I watched it, not for the quality of the film making, Riefenstahl was a genius, but for the racial viciousness that fueled it. The animus towards whites on display in this movie would be absolutely unacceptable if it were aimed at any other group, be it Jews, blacks, Latinos, Asians, gays, lesbians or the transgendered. That this movie is gaining so much traction in the culture, is adored by critics and is considered “fun”, is a very ominous sign for the what lies ahead for us all.

As for the cast of Knives Out, they are an appealing bunch who are very unappealing in the film. Daniel Craig is an actor I genuinely like and is the best James Bond of my life time, but his Benoit Blanc private detective character is painful to behold. Never has a Southern drawl been so brutally mistreated or a caricature so stretched beyond credulity.

Anna de Armas is easy on the eyes, and you could find worse things to do than look at her for two hours, but beyond that she doesn’t bring a whole lot to Marta. She is not assisted by the script in any way, which flattens her character into a one dimensional saint. In a way Marta’s sainthood diminishes her and is, ironically, racist in that it dehumanizes her. Marta is not so much a full fledged, multi-dimensional person as a glowing orb of noble intentions…maybe she’d be more interesting if they let her be an actual human being.

Chris Evans took time out of his busy booger eating schedule to bring his extra special brand of vanilla to the movie. It is astonishing, considering that he is so white he’s nearly transparent, that Evans is a black hole of anti-charisma from which no magnetism can escape. Evans out of his Captain America costume is like Donald Trump naked…painfully unappealing and hysterically underwhelming.

Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Colette all appear in the film and I assume got paid handsomely, and I am happy for them, they are quality actors who deserve respect and admiration. I hope they find more substantial projects with which to make their living in the future.

Rian Johnson is best known for directing the much maligned Star Wars : The Last Jedi in 2017, and Knives Out is an equally vapid, vacuous and politically correct enterprise. Johnson’s filmography is glaring proof of his allergy to nuance and character development. It would appear that Johnson is a Hollywood white knight who overcomes his lack of talent and skill by getting hired simply for being the most self-loathing white man at the pitch meeting. Johnson is among those self-loathing white people who pose at racial sensitivity because it costs them nothing, but who are actually racist because they promote themselves over whatever cause they pretend to care about.

I did not care about a single person in this movie, and thus didn’t care about the movie at all. There is no tension, no surprises, no twists, no turns, no drama and no insight or interest generated in this film. Knives Out is not a well made murder mystery, it is a two hour and ten minute long episode of Murder, She Wrote crossed with an MSNBC inspired woke telenovella. If you love murder mysteries maybe this movie will hold your attention, in which case I recommend you wait to see it for free on cable or Netflix. As for everyone else who is either minimally interested or actively disinterested in murder mysteries, my advice is to never waste your time on this piece of abhorrently dull nothingness.

With Knives Out the gods of cinema seemingly abandoned me in my Gethsemane…but then, in a twist much more interesting and substantial than anything that happens in Knives Out, the gods smiled upon me. You see, during my screening, for no apparent reason, the house lights came up about midway through the film. The movie never stopped, it just kept rolling with the lights on. Needless to say the view of the screen was obstructed and it was all very distracting. After a minute or so a patron near the exit left the theatre and informed staff of what was going on and after about five or ten minutes the lights went out.

I realized during this incident that this was my get out of cinema jail free card. By intervening and “ruining” my screening of Knives Out (which was already ruined by the movie being awful), the cinema gods had smiled upon me after all by giving me the excuse to get a refund for my ticket. And sure enough, once the credits rolled I made a beeline for the manager and calmly explained what had happened and he gave me a free pass to see another movie. I will never get the two hours and ten minutes of my life back that Knives Out took from me, but thanks to the cinema gods, I will now get to drink the art house nectar that is Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life for free! Thank you cinema gods!

©2019

Ford v Ferrari: A Review

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

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A conventional but very enjoyable and entertaining movie that will rev up your engine and get your heart racing.

Ford v Ferrari, written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth and directed by James Mangold, is the story of American car designer Carroll Shelby and British race car driver Ken Miles as, amidst corporate intrigue, they try to build a car to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans against the juggernaut Ferrari racing team. The film stars Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as Miles, with supporting turns from Jon Bernthal, Tracy Letts, Caitriona Balfe and Josh Lucas.

Ford v Ferrari is an old-fashioned, meat and potatoes movie that twenty years ago would have been a prime prestige picture and sure fire Oscar contender. Nowadays, with our diversity obsessed woke culture, a movie like Ford v Ferrari, which is about white men accomplishing great things, is generally anathema. The film’s conventional narrative foundation and its traditional movie making approach don’t make for a particularly original cinematic experience, but it does make for an exceedingly entertaining one.

Ford v Ferrari is crowd-pleasing, and at times exhilarating, even within the confines of its familiar structure and simple cinematic aesthetic. The driving sequences are not exactly ground-breaking cinematography, as they are little more than a high-end car commercial, but coupled with stellar sound editing and design, film editing and a quality soundtrack, they become highly effective, if not down right heart pounding.

The cast also elevate the material, as both Matt Damon and Christian Bale give quality star performances.

Matt Damon is one of the very best movie star actors working in Hollywood right now. Damon is not Joaquin Phoenix, but he has enough acting chops and artistic integrity that he isn’t Matthew McConaughey or Ben Affleck either. Damon is consistently watchable and is able to carry a film with a subtlety and skill that few movie stars possess, and that skill is front and center in Ford v Ferrari. Carroll Shelby is a Texan, and at first blush that identity sits uncomfortably on Damon, but within moments he envelops the character and, like all good movie stars, turns Shelby into an extension of Matt Damon.

Christian Bale is maybe the least movie star movie star we’ve ever seen, as he seems to vanish into characters without a trace. In Ford v Ferrari, Bale gives a piss and vinegar performance full of humor and humanity that elevate the proceedings considerably.

Tracy Letts, Jon Bernthal, Caitronia Balfe and Josh Lucas all have small supporting roles, and none of them stand out as being note worthy or, to their credit, awful. The supporting roles are not especially full figured and fleshed out, but the cast make the most of what they’re given.

Ford v Ferrari’s director, James Mangold, is a film maker who has had one of the more baffling careers. Mangold started his career with a film I adored, Heavy, and seemed to be poised to be the next big thing in cinema. He followed up Heavy with Copland, which was a Sylvester Stallone reclamation project filled with acting heavy hitters like Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel. Ultimately Copland was an ambitious failure, but a failure nonetheless. After Copland, Mangold strung together a collection of unremarkable mainstream movies, such as Girl, Interrupted, Kate and Leopold, Walk the Line, Knight and Day and Wolverine. Mangold’s only noteworthy film of his entire career was his most recent, 2017’s Logan, which was a very dark take on the Wolverine character from X-Men.

Mangold’s biggest problem as a director is that he has no distinct cinematic style in general, and no visual aesthetic in particular. Even Logan, a film I loved, suffered from a rather flat and mundane look, which was a shame. The same middlebrow visual style is on display in Ford v Ferrari. That is not to say that the film looks bad, it doesn’t, as it is professionally and proficiently photographed, it is to say that the film does not look mind blowingly spectacular, which it could have. While the movie and its cinematographer Phedon Papamichael produce some very nice shots, overall it lacks a visual flair that other directors with more pronounced styles would have brought to it. For instance, it would have been interesting to see David Fincher’s or Christopher Nolan’s Ford v Ferrari. That said, Ford v Ferrari is still Mangold’s best film, even visually, and the movie’s outstanding pacing and dramatic momentum are his doing and he deserves all the credit.

The politics of Ford v Ferrari are sort of intriguing, as at one point it seemed to be just a shameless homage to corporate capitalism and the corruption inherent in it. But upon reflection, the film’s subversive spirit is more apparent, as the film actually has a populist, anti-corporate and nationalist heart beating beneath its undeniably mainstream facade.

It is due to the film’s white male centered narrative and its veneer of capitalistic flag waving, that I think the film will be either over-looked or outright snubbed come Oscar season. The film does not wear its populism, nationalism and anti-corporatism on its sleeve, which will no doubt make that message more palatable for those averse to it, but it also leaves it open to misinterpretation, and in our current culture of outrage, I suspect the movie will garner much outrage if it does make an Oscar push. Much like last year’s Neil Armstrong bio-pic First Man by director Damien Chazelle that was overlooked by the Academy Awards, Ford v Ferrari is telling a story of white male achievement that woke Hollywood is not interested in seeing or rewarding right now. The Ford v Ferrari’’s financial success, and it does appear to be on its way to a robust box office haul, is just more evidence of the gigantic split in perception and beliefs between Hollywood/the media and regular people/inhabitants of flyover country.

Ford v Ferrari is the kind of movie Hollywood used to make on a regular basis but rarely does at all anymore. The paucity of these sort of “grown-up” dramas is maybe why Ford v Ferrari is such a delicious cinematic indulgence. I am not much of a “car guy”, but I found Ford v Ferrari to be such an intoxicating movie that I left the theatre desperate to roll up my sleeves and get under the hood of a used muscle car. The film is definitely not perfect, and has some structural and dramatic missteps, but overall I found it to be a very enjoyable cinematic experience well worth your time and effort to see in the theatre, especially for the enhanced sound. This is the type of movie that regular people (non-cinephiles), will absolutely love, and rightfully so. So grab your keys, starts your engines, race through traffic and make a pit stop at your local cineplex to see Ford v Ferrari…it won’t be a life changing experience, but it will a very satisfying one.

©2019

Woke Hollywood Gets Burned By Charlie's Angels Box Office Bomb

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 28 seconds

WOKE HOLLYWOOD GETS BURNED BY CHARLIE’S ANGELS BOX OFFICE BOMB

The new Charlie’s Angels movie is more proof that woke feminist films are box office poison.

Charlie’s Angels, a reboot of the old 70’s tv show and the early 2000’s movies that stars Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame, along with relative unknowns Naomi Scott and Ella Balinski, hit theaters last weekend with blockbuster ambitions and a defiant “girl power” message. Not surprisingly, the film opened with a resounding thud and fell decidedly flat as evidenced by its paltry $8.6 million box office.

Elizabeth Banks, who wrote and directed the movie, unabashedly declared it to be a feminist enterprise filled with “sneaky feminist ideas”. 

Banks says of Charlie’s Angels,

“One of the statements this movie makes is that you should probably believe women.”

The films star, Kristen Stewart, said of the movie, “It’s kind of like a ‘woke’ version.”

Charlie’s Angels’ failure is just the most recent evidence that woke feminist films are box office poison. The film’s financial floundering comes on the heels of the cataclysmic, franchise-destroying performance of another big budget piece of pro-feminist propaganda, Terminator: Dark Fate, which sank at the box office like an Austrian-accented cybernetic android into a vat of molten steel. Hasta la vista, woke baby.

There have been a plethora of like-minded girl power movies released in 2019 that have produced similarly dismal results at the box office.

One issue with many of these ill-fated woke films is that, like previous feminist flops Ghostbusters(2016) and Ocean’s 8, they are little more than remakes of male movies with females swapped in. These derivative films are the product of a craven corporatism entirely devoid of any originality or creative thought.

For example, the social justice geniuses in Hollywood decided this year it would be a good idea to remake two movies that no one wanted remade, Mel Gibson’s What Women Want (2000) and Steve Martin and Michael Caine’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1998), except this time with female leads. To the shock of no one with half a brain in their head, What Men Want with Taraji P. Henson, and The Hustle, with Rebel Wilson And Ann Hathaway, resoundingly flopped.

This year’s Book Smart, directed by Olivia Wilde, was little more than a rehash of the 2007 Jonah Hill and Micheal Cera smash-hit Superbad. Replacing Hill and Cera with two teenage girls as the protagonists in the formulaic film did not inspire audiences, as indicated by the film’s anemic domestic box office of $22 million.

Original movies with feminist themes fared no better than their re-engineered woke cinematic sisters. Late Night, a feminist comedy/drama starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, made a paltry $15 million domestically, while the painfully politically correct Charlize Theron vehicle, Long Shot, raked in a flaccid $30 million.

As evidenced by these failures, audiences of both sexes are obviously turned off by Hollywood’s ham-handed attempts at woke preaching and social justice pandering. The movie-going public is keenly aware that these woke films are not about entertainment or even artistic expressions, but rather virtue signaling and posing within the Hollywood bubble.

The female stars involved in these failing feminist projects, in front of and behind the camera, have a built in delusional defense though that immunizes them from their cinematic failures…they can always blame misogyny!

The woke in Hollywood are forever on the search for a scapegoat to relieve them of accountability, as it is never their fault that their movies fail. In the case of these female-led movies, the women involved never have to own their failures because they reflexively point their fingers in horror at the angry, knuckle-dragging men, who out of misogynist spite don’t shell out beaucoup bucks to go see their abysmally awful girl power movies.

Elizabeth Banks got an early start in the men-blaming game even before Charlie’s Angels came out when she told Australia’s Herald Sun,

“Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money. If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”

Of course, men will go see women in action movies, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel being two prime examples of highly successful female action movies, but fear not, Elizabeth Banks dropped some feminist knowledge to counter that uncomfortable fact when she said,  

“They (men) will go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre.”

So even when men go see a female led action film, they are only doing so because it is a “male genre”, got that?  What a convenient way to avoid responsibility…with Elizabeth Banks it is heads, she wins, and tails, men lose.

Banks preemptively blaming men for not being interested in seeing Charlie’s Angels is also odd because she has also openly stated that “women…are the audience for this film” and that she wanted to “make something that felt important to women and especially young girls”. And yet it isn’t just men staying away from Charlie’s Angels in droves, but everybody…including women!

What the feminists in woke Hollywood need to understand is that men and women will go see quality female-led movies, but they need to be good movies first and feminist movies a very distant second.

The problem with Charlie’s Angels, and the rest of these feminist films, is that their woke politics is their only priority, and entertainment value and artistic merit are at best just an after thought, if a thought at all.

My hope is that Hollywood will learn from the critical and financial failure of Charlie’s Angels and the rest of 2019’s feminist flops and in the future will refrain from making vacuous and vapid woke films and instead focus more on quality and originality and less on political correctness and pandering. Considering the continuous cavalcade of Hollywood’s atrociously dreadful girl power movies this year, I am not optimistic.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2019

The Irishman: A Review

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

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT.

The Irishman, written by Steve Zaillian (based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt) and directed by Martin Scorsese, is the alleged true story of Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, a truck driver out of Philadelphia who becomes a trusted member of the Italian mafia. The film stars Robert DeNiro as Sheeran, with supporting turns from Al Pacino and Joe Pesci.

Martin Scorsese is one of the true masters of American cinema, and so when he releases a new film cinephiles take notice. Scorsese’s newest project, The Irishman, is a Netflix film, which means it will have a very limited release in theatres in November before it settles in for the long haul on the streaming service at the end of the month.

Being the obnoxious purist that I am, I wanted to catch The Irishman in theatres so I decided to see the first show at 10:45 on Tuesday morning. I assumed the theatre would be just how I like it…sparsely populated. I mean who, besides a loser like me, goes to a movie on a Tuesday morning? Well…apparently there are a lot of losers in Los Angeles. I was stunned to see that my screening of The Irishman was jam-packed and nearly sold out, with only the first two rows of the theatre with empty seats. The film is supposedly only playing in two theatres here in Los Angeles, and luckily for me one of the two is my regular hang out. My screening was bursting with an interesting cross-section of people, from hipsters to the elderly to elderly hipsters.

What surprised me the most about such a large crowd was that the film runs three hours and thirty minutes, which makes it a prime candidate to watch in the comfort of your home where you can hit the pause button to take bathroom breaks and not miss any of the action. Such is the draw of Scorsese that audiences would put their bladders to the test and shell out money to see a film they could essentially see for free with unlimited bathroom breaks just a few weeks from now.

The Irishman is not so much a genre defining film as it is a genre closing film. Like Clint Eastwood’s eloquent tombstone on the grave of the western, Unforgiven, Scorsese gives us the mob movie that makes mob movies dramatically obsolete with The Irishman. Both Unforgiven and The Irishman burst the archetype and myth that animate them and replace it with the awkward, unwieldy and soul-crushing reality of the consequences of that myth.

Unlike its energetic and exuberant predecessor Goodfellas,The Irishman is a melancholy meditation, a profound existential prayer whispered into the abyss. Scorsese’s makeshift mob trilogy, which began with Goodfellas and continued with Casino, finds its weighty final chapter with the contemplative epic The Irishman, and reveals an introspective auteur coming to grips with mortality. The Irishman is a film obsessed with mortality, as death looms over every scene like an ominous storm cloud containing the relentlessly inevitable deluge of both physical and spiritual destruction and disintegration.

In Goodfellas and Casino, Scorsese sees the mob world as morally corrupt, but does so through a nostalgic lens…these guys may be bad but they are “good guys”, good-fellas. In The Irishman, as physical action turns to spiritual consequences, nostalgia is replaced with a plaintive reflection, so profound as to be akin to a sacramental confession.

The performances in The Irishman magnificently give life to Scorsese’s artistic contemplation, with Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci doing some of their very best work, and easily the best work of the last three decades of their careers.

DeNiro, with the assistance of a “de-aging” special effects technology, plays Frank Sheeran from his young adulthood into old age. DeNiro has not been this engaged, this sharp or this magnetic for a quarter of a century. DeNiro and Scorsese give Frank time and space, with which he is able to be still and contemplate his choices both in the moment and in hindsight. DeNiro sublimely fills these moments with a consequential aching, and his character with an acutely unconscious wound that gives Sheeran a complexity and profundity he is unable to grasp. DeNiro is now 76 and this performance may very well be his last hurrah as an actor, and it is a fitting monument to his colossal talent and extraordinary career.

Al Pacino has a supporting role and is absolutely fantastic. Caustically funny and desperately combustible, Pacino’s character (I won’t tell you his name so as not to spoil it) is a force of nature. Pacino imbues his character with a compulsion for control and a pulsating pride that make a toxic combination and undeniably dynamic viewing.

Joe Pesci is sublimely superb as the restrained and deliberate mob boss, Russ Buffalino. Pesci made his name playing frantically unhinged characters, but in The Irishman he shows off his mastery of craft. Pesci’s Buffalino is quiet and still, and yet because he fills his stillness and silence with an undeniable intentionality, he radiates an unnerving power. Pesci rightfully won the Best Supporting Actor for his work in Goodfellas, but his performance in The Irishman, while not as showy, is even better, as it is as layered and complex a piece of acting as you’ll find.

The de-aging technology used on DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci can be a little disorienting at first, and it takes some getting used to, but after the first few minutes you never even think of it. The one thing that is sort of odd about it is that the technology only de-ages their faces and not their bodies. So when a young and fresh faced DeNiro is beating the crap out of a guy on a sidewalk, he moves like a 76 year old man…like he is underwater…which is very strange to see.

The Irishman is epic is scope and scale, and it covers some 40 or 50 years of time. As previously stated, the film has a run time of three hours and thirty minutes, and I can tell you that the film is so engrossing and captivating, that not once during that three hours and thirty minutes did I mentally or physically check out. The same was true of the other people in my screening as bathroom breaks were minimal and phone checking was non-existent…which is extremely rare nowadays.

The long running time is a good sign because it means that this is Scorsese’s film, untouched by the filthy hands of studio execs or money people. Piece of Shit Hall of Famer Harvey Weinstein once famously demanded that Scorsese cut 45 minutes off of Gangs of New York and the film was immensely harmed by those cuts. The same is true of Silence, which Paramount demanded be cut for time, and also seriously suffered because of it. When studios meddle they always and every time fuck it up, this is why Netflix matters, because unlike other studios they don’t meddle and they don’t chase the short-end money of box office bravado, they let artists be artists.

Netflix is important too because without them The Irishman never gets made. The other studios passed on the film and its hefty price tag of $160 million, and so Netflix was the studio of last resort. Scorsese would no doubt prefer to have a long theatrical run with his film, but I bet he is quite pleased he made the trade-off of reduced theatrical run in exchange for Netflix letting him make the movie he wanted to make. Just more proof that the studios and theatres are fucked…they have no vision and no balls…and they will deservedly go down in flames.

The real question regarding The Irishman is not whether you should see it, you obviously should as it is one of the very best films of the year, but where you should see it. For cinephiles, I do recommend you make the effort to see it in the theatre, as it is beautifully shot by Rodrigo Prieto, Scorsese’s cinematographer on The Wolf of Wall Street and Silence, with a subdued color palette, exquisite framing and deliriously gorgeous but subtle cameras movement. The film is also expertly edited by Thelma Schoonmakert who seamlessly keeps the film’s dramatic pacing on target while also allowing it to breathe. But for regular folks who are not as concerned about those things as I am…I think they can avoid the theatrical gauntlet and wait until The Irishman hits Netflix at the end of November and watch the movie at their leisure with the pause button at the ready when nature calls.

The Irishman is a powerful film that is the very best work of the second half of Scorsese’s career. While it is difficult to predict what the always erratic Academy Awards will do, I think it is a safe bet to say that The Irishman will at least garner a plethora of nominations. I think it will be nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (both Pesci and Pacino), Best Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto), and Best Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker). In my opinion the film is certainly worthy of all of those awards…but there are other worthy films this year too, so we will see.

In conclusion, I have not revealed much about The Irishman’s plot or characters because I knew little about them when I saw the film and thought that enhanced my viewing experience. I have a lot of thoughts on the movie, its politics (oh boy do I have thoughts!!), its sub-text and its symbolism, but I will hold off on sharing those thoughts for now because they are potential spoilers. Once I have seen the film again and it is running on Netflix, I’ll write more in depth about it.

The bottom line regarding The Irishman is this…it is a phenomenal film well worth the time commitment to see. If you have the time and the bladder control, see it in a theatre, if not wait until you can watch it at home come November 27. Regardless of when or where you see it, see it, and enjoy one of the greatest film makers of all time as he wrestles with his legacy and his mortality.

©2019

Martin Scorsese - Top Five Films

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 57 seconds

Despite an abysmal winter, spring and most of the summer, 2019 is actually shaping up to be a good year for cinema. The first ray of sunshine came in the form of Quentin Tarantino’s wish fulfillment ode to Los Angeles, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Then the cultural hurricane known as Joker came along and sent the woke brigade and the impotent cuckolds in the establishment media into a full blown panic before most ever even saw it. When the Joker finally made landfall it was an insightful and electrifying artistic nuclear explosion at the center of the comic book genre that has dominated the box office and the culture wars.

Now that Halloween has come and gone, cinematic master Martin Scorsese has a new film, The Irishman, hitting theatres, and shortly thereafter hitting Netflix, that is generating massive Oscar buzz. This will be followed by another enigmatic auteur, Terrence Malick, who has a new film, A Hidden Life, coming out this December.

With Tarantino, Joaquin Phoenix, Martin Scorsese and Terrence Malick in the mix, it is a good time time be a cinephile…and since Scorsese’s new film came out last Friday and I haven’t seen it yet, it is also a good time for me to rank his top five films.

Scorsese is the most important film maker of his generation and maybe the most important American film maker of all time. Unlike Spielberg and his popcorn movies, Scorsese hasn’t padded his wallet with his work but instead advanced the art of cinema. Nearly every single film and filmmaker of note over the last 40 years has used Scorsese’s artistic palette to paint their own works. His use of dynamic camera movement, popular music and unorthodox storytelling structures and styles have become requisite and foundational film making skills. Scorsese didn’t invent cinema, but he did invent a new style of it that did not exist prior to his rise to prominence in the 1970’s, and that is why he is the most unique of auteurs.

Scorsese’s filmography can be split in two, with 1997’s Kundun being the end of the first half of his film making career, and 1999’s Bringing Out the Dead being the beginning of the latter part of his career. The first half of his career is staggeringly impressive, as he jumped genres with ease. Films as diverse as the gritty Taxi Driver, the musical New York, New York, the controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, the remake of Cape Fear, the enigmatic sequel to The Hustler, The Color of Money, and his biography of the Dalai Lama, Kundun, showcase Scorsese’s cinematic versatility.

The second half of his career has shown Scorsese to have lost a few miles per hour off his fastball and to have been brow beaten by the studios into making more mainstream fare. 1999’s Bringing Out the Dead was awful, most notably because Scorsese fell under the then popular spell of acting charlatan Nicholas Cage. Gangs of New York had similarly bad casting decisions, such as Cameron Diaz, no doubt encouraged by meddling money people…like Harvey Weinstein, who also took a gigantic shit on Scorsese’s vision of the film by demanding he cut 45 minutes off the running time. Other notable films from this period are The Aviator, Shutter Island and Hugo, all of which are less Scorsese films than they are studio films made by Scorsese.

Scorsese’s lone Academy Award win for Best Director came during this period with the film The Departed. The Departed is an ok movie, but it definitely feels more like a knock-off of a Scorsese film than an actual Scorsese film. It also feels like it could have been directed by anybody, which is more an indictment of the movie than and endorsement of the movie making.

The first half of Scorsese’s career is highlighted by his frequent collaborations with Robert DeNiro, and the second half by his frequent collaborations with Leonardo DiCaprio. If you’re looking for any greater piece of evidence that Scorsese is no longer at his peak, look no further than that fact. DiCaprio is a fine actor, but he is no Robert DeNiro, as DeNiro in his heyday was as good an actor as we have ever seen.

That said, Scorsese has made some great films in the second half of his career…as my list will attest…and who knows, maybe The Irishman will be worthy of inclusion. I am definitely looking forward to seeing it.

Now without further delay…onto the the list of Martin Scorsese’s “five” best films!

5C - Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - Wolf of Wall Street sneaks onto the list because it is uproariously funny while also being socially and politically insightful. In the face of the grotesque corruption so evident on Wall Street and in Washington, it was nice to see Scorsese focus his talents on the decadence and depravity that are the soul of American capitalism. It also helps that this is the only time the DiCaprio collaboration works, as Leo does the best work of his career as Jordan Belfort.

5B - Casino (1995) - Casino is an often often overlooked gem in Scorsese’s filmography. The film may have suffered from “Scorsese fatigue” as it appeared to tread on the same “mob” ground his recent masterpiece Goodfellas (1991). Casino is an indulgent masterwork in its own right, as Scorsese tells the story of how the west was won, and lost, by the Italian mafia, who were replaced by the corporate mafia. The film showcases some stellar performances from DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone.

5A - Silence (2016) - Silence is the very best film of the second half of his career…so far. Scorsese has always carried a Catholic cross bearing a tortured Christ on it throughout most of his films, and Silence is a tantalizing glimpse at the muse that has haunted Scorsese his entire artistic life. Silence is an ambitious film, and it doesn’t quite live up to its ambitions, but it still is great. One thing that I felt hampered the film was that it also was the victim of cuts for time, which is frustrating as Silence is a rare film in that it runs 160 minutes but deserved, and needed, to run at least another 45 minutes. Secondly, Scorsese once again falls for artistic fool’s gold by casting this generations Nicholas Cage, the mystifyinly popular Adam Driver.

4. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)- Speaking of Scorsese’s Catholicism…The Last Temptation of Christ hit theatres while I was attending Catholic high school, and you would’ve thought that Satan himself had put the movie out. Students were read a statement by the diocese imploring us not to see the movie because it was blasphemous and viewing it would guarantee a one-way trip to eternal damnation. Obviously, I responded to this warning by rushing out and seeing the film as quickly as I could…and I am glad I did (and I’m still Catholic!). The Catholic Church’s fear over this film was so absurd as to be laughable, and this is only heightened by the fact that the film is the most spiritually vibrant and resonant depiction of Christ ever captured on film.

3. The Age of Innocence (1993) - The Age of Innocence is the most un-Scorsese of Scorsese films, as it tackles romantic intrigue among the austere world of Edith Wharton’s 1870’s New York. In many ways The Age of Innocence is a massive cinematic flex by Scorsese as he shows off his directorial versatility and exquisite film making skill. While the casting of Winona Ryder and Michelle Pfeiffer were hurdles to overcome, Scorsese does so and in magnificent fashion as The Age of Innocence is an exercise in dramatic and cinematic precision.

2. The King of Comedy (1982)- The King of Comedy is a piece of cinematic gold that accurately and insightfully diagnoses America’s star-fueled, delusional culture. The film is highlighted by Robert DeNiro, who gives an unnervingly committed and forceful performance as Rupert Pupkin, the celebrity obsessed comic wannabe who tries to get his big break by any means necessary.

The King of Comedy crackles because Scorsese creates a palpable sense of claustrophobic desperation that permeates every scene in the movie. The film is genuinely funny but uncomfortably unsettling and undeniably brilliant.

1C - Raging Bull (1980) - The top three films here could be in any order as all of them are undeniable masterpieces and the height of cinematic achievement. Raging Bull, the black and white look at former Middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta, is a tour-de-force from not only the film’s star Robert DeNiro, who won a Best Actor Oscar, but from Martin Scorsese, who brings all of his cinematic skills to bear on the most cinematic of sports, boxing.

Scorsese uses LaMotta’s story to explore the meaning of masculinity, its incessant fragility and its inherent volatility. While Scorsese does masterful work bringing LaMotta’s battles inside the ring to exquisite life, his most brilliant film making achievement is in illuminating LaMotta’s most imposing fight, the one raging inside of himself.

1B - Taxi Driver - Taxi Driver once again shows both Scorsese and DeNiro at the very top of their game. The film perfectly captures the madness of New York City in the 1970’s, and the spiraling madness of a delusional loner who is the modern day everyman.

Scorsese’s camera rides along a taxi cab as it ventures through the gritty streets and bares witness to the sick and venal society that produces pimps, whores and politicians, and we get to know Travis Bickle, who is the rain that will wash these filthy streets clean.

A simply astonishing film in every respect. Not just one of Scorsese’s greatest films, but one of the greatest films of all-time.

1A - Goodfellas - Goodfellas is a not only a monumental cinematic achievement, it is also a fantastically entertaining and eminently rewatchable masterpiece. Over the last thirty years, whenever I have stumbled across Goodfellas playing on cable, I will always and everytime stop and watch whatever scene is on, and 9 times out of 10, will end up watching the rest of the movie.

A terrific cast that boasts superb performances from Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco, turns this film about New York gangsters, into a familiar and familial tale that everyone can relate to in one way or another. The New York of Goodfellas, is the New York of my youth, and those populating that world are my Irish family…all of them. In my family there’s a Paulie, a Henry, a Jimmy and everyone knows a Tommy. These guys are my uncles and their friends and cousins, and their wives are my aunts. Watching Goodfellas is like watching a home movie for me.

The film teems with iconic scenes and sequences, from entering the Copa to the “Layla” dead bodies sequence to “hoof” to “go get your shine box” to “what do you want fucko?” to “funny how? I mean, funny like a clown? I amuse you?” I can’t get enough of Goodfellas, as I’ve probably seen the movie at least 100 times, and I’ve discovered something new every time I’ve seen it.

Scorsese has made many masterpieces, but Goodfellas is his most entertaining masterpiece, and is a testament and monument to his greatness.

More proof of Scorsese’s genius is that I had many, many films that I love sit just on the outside of my top “five”…such as Mean Streets, The Color of Money, Cape Fear and Kundun, and they stand up to most other makers very best work.

And thus concludes my Scorsese top “five”…which is really a top nine, because Scorsese, the consummate rule breaking director, deserves a list that breaks the rules. So go forth and watch as much Scorsese as you can, and let’s hope that The Irishmen lives up to the hype!

©2019

Jojo Rabbit: A Review

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

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This film is funny at times and definitely worth seeing, but only at matinee prices, or until you can see it for free on Netflix.

JoJo Rabbit, written and directed by Taika Waititi, is based upon the Christine Leunens novel Caging Skies and tells the story of Jojo, a ten year old Hitler youth in Nazi Germany whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler. The film stars Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo, with supporting turns from Taika Waititi, Scarlett Johansson, Thomasin McKenzie, Sam Rockwell and Stephen Merchant.

Jojo Rabbit is an ambitious cinematic undertaking that describes itself as an “anti-hate satire”. As someone who hates the vacuous woke rhetoric of “anti-hate” and believes that hate is not only normal but a vital part of the human condition, that tag line is a turn-off. But then I discovered that the film was a dark Nazi comedy, and since I have long whined about the fact that World War II movies, be they drama or documentary, always and every time make Hitler out to be the bad guy*, the film then became more intriguing to me. After being lured in by the prospect of Nazi-induced laughs, I pulled the trigger and went to see Jojo Rabbit. Thankfully, the film lives up to its premise and remedies the past anti-Hitler cinematic injustices and gives audiences the wacky and zany Hitler we’ve always wanted. (*This is a joke!)

In all seriousness, making a Nazi comedy, especially in these hyper-sensitive, hot-take abundant times, is an act of artistic derring-do. Jojo Rabbit for the most part succeeds in pulling off this most difficult of feats. If I am judging the movie on pass/fail, it passes. That said, it is a good film, not a great one.

The credit and the blame for the film’s better than average and less than terrific outcome, is writer/director/supporting actor Taika Waititi. The first and only other time I’ve seen a Waititi film was when I watched Thor: Ragnorak while bleary-eyed on a cross country flight. I hadn’t ventured out to the theatre to see Ragnorak out of sheer Marvel fatigue, and so, due to boredom, checked it out on my flight. To say I was blown away is an understatement. I was totally mesmerized as I watched this Marvel masterpiece that was funny, smart and insightful, play out on the tiny screen mere inches from my face on the cramped plane. Waititi brings the same level of inventiveness and ingenuity to Jojo Rabbit that animatedThor: Ragnorak.

Waititi not only wrote and directed the film but co-stars as Jojo’s imaginary friend Adolf Hitler. The film is at its best when Waititi, a charismatic performer, is on-screen. Waititi’s masterful Hitler bits crackle and had the audience at my screening, myself included, laughing out loud. The problem though is that they are too few and far between. After the first fifteen minutes or so, Waititi’s Hitler vanishes from the film for long stretches, and those stretches scuttle all of the film’s giddy and insane momentum.

In my opinion I think the film should have been more of a Harvey-esque story, with Hitler being a constant companion to Jojo rather than the star of brief interludes. I think this approach would have not only made the film more consistently funny and bizarre, but also more dramatically potent and poignant. Again, I understand that the film must’ve been limited by the source material, but source material needs to be adapted to the screen, and my suggestion should have been part of that adaptation.

As for the cast, it is as wildly uneven as the film. Roman Griffin Davis is very good as the Jojo, the committed Nazi boy with the active imagination. Davis plays everything straight and it is his commitment to truth that makes his Hitler sidekick so funny.

Sam Rockwell does his usual stellar work as Captain Klenzendorf, a down on his luck German soldier. Rockwell elevates what could have been a Sgt. Schultz level caricature into a brilliantly comedic yet painfully human portrayal. Rockwell fills each moment and movement with a dynamic intentionality that is simply brilliant.

Stephen Merchant has a small role as a member of the Gestapo and he is both funny and exceedingly unnerving. Merchant’s usual banal goofiness takes on a menacing tone as he is imbued with the dark power of Nazism.

Thomasin Mckenzie is an actress I really like, her Mickey Award®© (Breakout Performance of the Year) winning work in Leave No Trace was fantastic, but here she does the best she can with a rather pedestrian role. McKenzie’s Elsa is the dramatic counter-weight to the film’s comedy, but the character is so one-dimensional as to be cliched, and thus the film never sustains the dramatic heft it desires. The narrative shift to Elsa is ill-conceived and feels like an albotross around the film’s neck.

Scarlett Johansson does not fare so well either, as she is handed a paper thin character and does little to put any meat on the bones. Johansson’s Rosie is like a #Resistance manic pixie dream girl for the World War II set. I found her performance to be grating, aggravatingly shallow and irritatingly frivolous.

Rebel Wilson has a small role as a Nazi Fraulein that goes over like a lead(Pb) zeppelin. I have often wondered aloud “what in the world is the appeal of Rebel Wilson?” I don’t get it…I don’t get it at all..NOT…AT…ALL. Wilson is not funny…not even a little bit. Her bits in Jojo Rabbit are painfully unfunny and fall thunderously flat. Rebel Wilson is one of the great mysteries of our time and I am hoping she goes away before I have to exert any mental energy trying to figure out her appeal.

The bottom line is this regarding Jojo Rabbit…it is most definitely a flawed film, but it does pull off an amazing feat by being a crowd-pleasing Nazi comedy. Waititi’s Hitler humor and Rockwell and Merchant’s Nazi comedy are uproariously satisfying. While the film can be at times cinematically uneven and dramatically trite, at other times it is tantalizingly original and combustibly hysterical.

Jojo Rabbit is the type of film, both politically simplistic and emotionally manipulative, that may catch fire and garner Oscar buzz. I do not think it is an Oscar level film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an enjoyable cinematic experience. I thoroughly enjoyed Jojo Rabbit despite its faults, and I think people should see it, they just shouldn’t pay $14 to see it. My recommendation is to either pay matinee prices or wait until it hits Netflix before seeing Jojo Rabbit. It isn’t a perfect film, or even a great one, but it is an interesting one, and in these artistically cowardly times, that ain’t nothing.

©2019

The Lighthouse: A Review

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

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Not worth seeing in the theatre…you can wait til it hits Netflix or cable to check it out.

The Lighthouse, written and directed by Robert Eggers, is the story of two lighthouse keepers, Thomas Wake and Ephraim Howard, who struggle with the isolation and solitude of their job. The film stars Willem Dafoe as Thomas Wake and Robert Pattinson as Ephraim.

Director Robert Eggers burst upon the scene in 2015 with his ingenious horror film, The Witch, which was set on a remote farm in 1630’s New England. The Witch was a piece of devilishly terrific film making that used craft and artistry to breath life into an ancient tale. The Witch was not perfect, but it was well-crafted and highlighted the great potential of Eggers as auteur.

The Lighthouse has been much anticipated, by me and other cinephiles, because of the great promise shown in The Witch and because of the intriguing casting of Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, two committed actors. I was very excited to see The Lighthouse, so much so that I went on opening day to see it as soon as I could.

Sadly, my excitement for The Lighthouse diminished with every passing flash of its monotonous warning beam of light. The Lighthouse tries to be so many things and yet ends up being nothing at all. The film is a very ambitious project, but the bottom line is that it simply fails as a cinematic endeavor.

The biggest issue with The Lighthouse is that it is neither entertaining nor artistically enlightening. The film certainly boasts all the atmospherics that would enable it to be a quality film…great setting, terrific acting and solid black and white cinematography…but the narrative is so thin, rushed and indulgently incoherent that when it is all over the film simply wisps away like dust blown off an old photograph, never to be thought of again.

I’ve heard The Lighthouse described as a horror comedy, which strikes me as painfully inaccurate and woefully inadequate. People describing the film as a comedy are only doing so because they are so befuddled by it they think it must be a joke. The Lighthouse is not a comedy as there is nothing funny about it, and if it is meant to be a comedy it is even worse than I think it is.

I would describe the film as a mythological horror thriller, which in theory should be right up my alley, but even with that awkwardly specific yet expansive moniker the film fails to deliver the goods. It certainly touches upon some things, particularly the mythology aspect, that could be very interesting, but it doesn’t do so in any sort of interesting way and ultimately falls decidedly flat.

Eggers’ direction on The Witch was stellar, but with The Lighthouse he flounders trying to set narrative focus. The film meanders and never gains any dramatic or horror momentum and then hits an unearned hyper-drive that leaves coherence lost out at sea. The unwieldy ambition of the film ends up sinking the movie and leaving it a rotting hull on the ocean floor, which you’d think would be an indication of a fascinating story to tell, but here we are stuck with a pretty mundane sea shanty that gets sunk by its own inadequate telling.

Dafoe and Pattinson actually do some pretty solid work on The Lighthouse, but the narrative is so diluted their efforts are all for naught. Pattinson, in particular, has really grown into a quality actor, as evidenced by his work in this year’s High Life, and he gives his all as the junior lighthouse keeper. It will be interesting to see what he is able to do with the much trod ground of Batman when Matt Reeves takes the helm for the next installment of that cash cow franchise.

Dafoe is always a committed actor, and he does his most Dafoe-eqsue work in The Lighthouse as the ornery, pseudo-Ahab, Thomas Wake. In last year’s At Eternity’s Gate, Dafoe literally gobbled up dirt as Vincent van Gogh, and in the Lighthouse he once again indulges in the same mineral rich diet, devouring soil like he does the scenery.

Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke shoots a nice black and white in a claustrophobic aspect ratio, and the film does look gorgeous, but his framing fails to accentuate the narrative or psychological sub-text, and the visuals end up feeling muddled and muted. In this way Blaschke’s beautiful black and white is equally as empty as the story and film it is wrapped around.

In conclusion, I really wanted to love The Lighthouse…but I didn’t. For all it has going for it the film simply doesn’t work. If you are really interested in seeing it, my recommendation is to save your money and wait for it to hit a streaming service or cable. If you really want to have a hauntingly good movie-watching Halloween, skip The Lighthouse altogether and watch the super-creepy and effective, The Witch.

©2019

Game of Thrones Predicted the Zealotry of Extinction Rebellion Eco-Fanatics

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 38 seconds

 The similarities between the eco-moralists of Extinction Rebellion and the Sparrows cult from Game of Thrones are uncanny.

I have a long held a theory that film and television can be tools of prophecy used to glimpse the future. Here are a few examples that support my unconventional thesis.

In the 1990’s, numerous films, such as Armageddon, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Godzilla and The Siege, showcased the New York City skyline being decimated by one calamity or another. In addition, on March 4, 2001, the X-Files spin-off series, The Lone Gunman, aired an episode where hijacked airliners were being flown into the World Trade Center. Then six months later 9-11 happened and the devastation to the New York City skyline by hijacked planes was all too real. 

Another example was in 2016, when the films Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman reigned supreme at the box office. These films highlighted internecine warfare between superheroes, even pitting the colors red (Iron Man/Superman) versus blue (Captain America/Batman). These movies were released in the spring of 2016 and predicted the contentiousness of the coming November election and the raging of a vicious culture war in its aftermath.

The Handmaid’s Tale was in production when Trump won the 2016 election, and when it first aired in the Spring of 2017 gave voice to liberal women’s fears of patriarchal misogyny under a Trump administration. The show was also a precursor and predictor of the #MeToo movement in the fall of 2017.

Game of Thrones in particular is a bellwether when it comes to entertainment as prophecy. The show’s first episode, “Winter is Coming”, aired in 2011 and that phrase quickly became the series tag line. Billboards warning, “Winter is Coming”, portending an invasion by undead White Walkers and their zombie minions, soon loomed ominously over cities and towns across America. In the ensuing years a metaphorical winter did indeed descend upon the U.S., as the cold wind of political correctness swept across the land while an army of mindless ‘woke’ scolds waged war on free expression and diversity of thought.

Game of Thrones ended this past May, but with every passing day its creator George R.R. Martin looks more and more like Nostradamus. For example, when I saw the recent Extinction Rebellion climate crisis protests, I immediately thought of Game of Thrones.

Why would eco-activists who snarled New York City traffic by supergluing themselves to a boat in Times Square, took a hammer to a government building in London, grounded a flight from Dublin to London, and plotted to use drones to shut down Heathrow, remind me of Game of Thrones? Well, because these fanatics are eerily reminiscent of a group of religious zealots from Game of Thrones called the Sparrows.

If you’ll remember, the Sparrows and their leader, the High Sparrow, came to prominence in King’s Landing after the death of Tywin Lannister. The cult attracted great numbers of followers to their devout way of life, including some royals like Ser Lancel Lannister, who was former incestuous lover to his cousin, Cersie Lannister.

The similarities between the Sparrows and Extinction Rebellion are numerous. For instance, both groups were born out of noble intentions, as the Sparrows set out to alleviate the suffering of the down trodden, and Extinction Rebellion were concerned about the environment.

Both groups are also religious in nature. The Sparrows ardently worship the Faith of the Seven and brutally torture sinners and violently coerce them to confess, such as Cersei who was forced to do a public naked walk of shame to atone for her sins.

The eco-moralists of Extinction Rebellion are a religious cult too, as their members blindly worship at the altar of “scientism”, claim to have a monopoly on truth, demand purity and punish heretics. Extinction Rebellion has also gotten celebrities such as Radiohead’s lead mope Thom Yorke, among many others, to do their own walk of shame and sign a confession admitting to their past climate crisis sins.

Extinction Rebellion even has its own Joan of Arc character in Greta Thurnberg. Thurnberg, a heart felt 16 year-old who suffers from mental and emotional issues, has been held up as an eco-saint and had her passion, youth and innocence exploited as both weapon and shield by cynically manipulative activists.

It should be noted that there are some differences between the Sparrows and Extinction Rebellion. For instance, the Sparrows are religious ascetics who live a life of monk-like devotion and simplicity in order to save their souls, whereas Extinction Rebellion are not ascetics themselves, but instead insist that everyone else live ascetic lives by giving up their worldly goods such as cars or traveling by plane.

{The Sparrows also work to feed the poor, while in contrast Extinction Rebellion demand that people grow their own food, which would starve the poor since they have no land upon which to grow sustenance. }

Another difference is that the leader of the Sparrows, the High Sparrow, gave up a vast fortune in order to become a member of the religious order, while the co-leader of Extinction Rebellion, Dr. Gail Bradbrook, is a professional malcontent who makes her living through various protest movements with Extinction Rebellion just being the most recent.

While the Sparrows and Extinction Rebellion do have differences, the bottom line about both groups is that their true purpose is to usurp power in order to implement their radical agenda.

On Game of Thrones the High Sparrow played a masterful game of political chess setting the Lannisters and Tyrells against one another in order to wrest control of the Iron Throne for himself. The High Sparrow exploited the political ambitions of the Tyrells and the weakness of Cersei Lannister’s impressionable young son, King Tommen, in an attempt to gain power and turn his religious beliefs into royal decree.

Extinction Rebellion’s strategy is equally Machiavellian. Their abrasive tactics of creating traffic jams and airport delays are only going to irritate and aggravate working people, thus creating enemies instead of allies. But Extinction Rebellion doesn’t care about gaining popular support. The movement believes in Gene Sharp’s theory of non-violent action that claims that protest movements only need the support of 3.5% of the population to trigger mass changes. So Extinction Rebellion is using peer pressure and social fear among the elite in the establishment media and the entertainment industry in order to acquire endorsements and donations they believe will assist the movement in reaching cultural critical mass while bypassing populist sentiments.

Extinction Rebellion are just as devious and duplicitous as the High Sparrow, as evidenced by founding member Stuart Basden revealing the movement’s real agenda is not combating climate change but destroying “white supremacy”, “patriarchy”, “Euro-centrism” and “hetero-sexism/heteronormativity”. In other words, Extinction Rebellion is nothing more than a Trojan horse to normalize and codify into law ‘woke’ hatred of straight, white males in the name of environmentalism.

What is even more alarming about Extinction Rebellion is that investment banks like HSBC, JP Morgan Chase and Citi all share their radical environmental agenda because they see the “climate crisis” as an “opportunity”. These banks also saw an “opportunity” in mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations during the housing bubble. That turned out to be a catastrophe for working class people and so will the Wall Street backed Extinction Rebellion agenda, which will be just another replay of the tried and true formula of stealing from the poor to feed the rich.

I am a committed environmentalist and am not skeptical of climate change science, but I am deeply skeptical of Extinction Rebellion, their intentions and their tactics…and you should be too.

On Game of Thrones Cersei eliminated the plague of the Sparrows in the most explosively spectacular of ways, but paid a steep price by losing her son, King Tommen. Hopefully Extinction Rebellion will go much more quietly into their good night. But if they don’t, and these eco-moralist clowns do impose their delusional environmental agenda, it will be Joker, with its depiction of an angry populist uprising that becomes cinematic prophecy.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.com.

©2019

Parasite: A Review

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

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A fantastically original film, gloriously directed and acted, that is both dramatically potent and politically insighftul.

Language: Korean with English subtitles

Parasite, directed and co-written by Bong Joon-Ho, is the story of the Kim family, who live at the bottom rung of Korean society and try to connive their way out of poverty. The film stars Song Kang-ho as father Ki-taek, Jang Hye-jin as mother Chung-sook, Choi Woo-shik as son Ki-woo and Park So-dam as daugher Ki-jong.

Parasite is an exquisitely crafted film that, although it is in Korean with English subtitles, speaks as eloquently and insighftully about the perils of American capitalism and the growing resentment and rage born out of astronomical wealth disparity, as any film in recent memory. In this way Parasite is reminiscent of last year’s Shoplifters and this year’s big movie Joker. All three of these movies tap into the pulsating dissatisfaction of the working poor who are being left further and further behind, and growing angrier and angrier about it, with every passing day.

Whenever certain themes recur in films that capture either the critical or commercial imagination (or both), my antenna stand on end because as my studies have shown, cinema can be prophecy, and these films are red flags as to what is percolating just beneath the surface in the collective sub-conscious. One look around America, and the world, gives credance to the theory that these films, all of which give voice to the emotional pull of populist uprisings, are trying to warn us of what lies ahead.

Parasite is a brilliant examination of the frustration and fury that accompanies being at the bottom of the social rung in a corrupt and rigged capitalist system. The only way to get ahead and get out of the prison of debt, and it is a prison, is to lie, scheme and cheat. If that means throwing other poor people under the bus, then so be it.

Director Bong Joon-ho has tapped into these ideas of class struggle before, most notably in his film Snowpiercer (which starred Chris Evans aka Captain America), which was a remarkably innovative and original film. Bong’s class consciousness in both Parasite and Snowpiercer is fueled by anger and fear… namely, fear for what will result when the anger from below is righteously unleashed upon those at the top when the house of cards crumbles. Bong, either consciously or unconsciously, understands that the current world order sits atop a super volcano that is growing more and more unstable and combustible, and his film’s reflect the emotional and political fragility of our time.

In Parasite, the poor are vermin, roaches, who are either being pissed on or drowned, as poverty is a deluge that imposes upon them indignity after indignity until it suffocates them. The poor are forced to stay in their place and warned not to “cross the line” into familiarity with the rich. The prison of poverty has walls, both real and imagined, that are impenetrable…even when you repeatedly bang your head against them…like Arthur Fleck does in Joker (wink).

The rich family in Parasite, the Parks, are the picture of decadence, detached from the ability to see the poor as even human. The Parks are repulsed by the poor, who they see as more akin to animals than people, as evidenced by their disgust at the literal smell of poverty. The Park’s revulsion at the poor does not stop them from fetishizing poverty, much like Americans fetishize Native Americans but make sure they stay on the reservation (wink)…just one more way for the rich to exploit the poor for their personal gain.

Parasite’s politics and psychology are as insightful as its drama is enrapturing. The film never shies from the difficult or the desperate, nor does it wallow in it. Instead Bong Joon-ho has made a socially relevant, dramatically explosive film that is deliriously entertaining in every single way.

Bong’s direction of Paradise is fantastic, as the film’s dramatic and physical geometry is spectacular. His use of straight lines, differing levels (symbolic of class status) and long journeys upward and downward (very similar to Joker, where Arthur Fleck makes those trudging journeys up the long flight of stairs, and the victorious dance down it) is proof of a master craftsman and artist at work.

Bong’s ability to meld together comedy, suspense, elements of thriller, as well as social commentary is extraordinary. I never knew what was coming next in Paradise and was always surprised, sometimes shocked and never disappointed.

The cast of Paradise are outstanding. Song Kang-ho in particular gives a dynamic performance that is consistently rich and layered. And both Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam do stellar work that is both magnetic and subtle. Park in particular has a charm and presence about her that is intriguing and compelling.

Parasite is one of the very best film’s of the year and most certainly will garner an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Picture, if not a win, and may even sneak in a Best Picture nod. The film is expertly made, wonderfully acted, politically prescient and dramatically potent, for these reasons, Parasite is required viewing for cinephiles and regular folk alike. My recommendation is to go as quickly as you can to the art house and see Parasite…it is that good. And after that, head to the cineplex to see Joker…again, and then when you get home watch Shoplifters (I see it is now available on the streaming service HULU)…because they are that good too. If you want to know what is coming for America and the world, and why, go watch those three movies. But make sure you go see Parasite as quickly as you can…it is truly a fantastic film and well worth you time and money.

©2019