'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

92nd Academy Awards: The 2020 Oscars Prediction Post

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

The Oscars are once again upon us.

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

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

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

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

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST FOREIGN FILM

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

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

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

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

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

WHO SHOULD WIN - Parasite.

WHO WILL WIN - Parasite.

BEST DIRECTOR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST ACTRESS

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

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

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

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

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

WHO SHOULD WIN - Shrug…no idea.

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

BEST ACTOR

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHO WILL WIN - Phoenix. Discussion over.

BEST PICTURE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE BEST OF THE REST

My best guesses…

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

Makeup and Hairstyling - Bombshell

Animated Short - Hair Love

Live Action Short - Brotherhood

Documentary Short - Learning to Skateboard

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

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

Costume Design - Once Upon a Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

POTENTIAL NARRATIVES

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

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

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

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

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

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 6 - Jojo Rabbit

In the new episode of Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, Barry and I have an in-depth and fun discussion about the Academy Award nominated movie Jojo Rabbit.

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

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA

Thank you for listening!

The Super Bowl Halftime Shitstravaganza

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 52 seconds

Last night Patrick Mahomes led the Kansas City Chiefs on a furious fourth quarter comeback to beat the San Francisco 49ers in an electrifying Super Bowl. Much to my surprise, after scanning the headlines regarding the game, it wasn’t Mahomes’ heroics that were garnering the most praise, but rather it was halftime performer Jennifer Lopez who was declared the real “winner” of the Super Bowl for her astonishing halftime performance.

The reality is that these contrived articles celebrating J-Lo’s astoundingly genius halftime performance were essentially written before her performance ever happened as part of the press tidal wave created by the PR machine that handles all publicity around these type of events and this level of celebrity. One need look no farther than the comments section below these gushing articles to find the unvarnished truth…J-Lo’s halftime show was not universally praised…in fact it was pretty harshly panned by an overwhelming majority of people. This opinion was in line with my own and with that of every single person I spoke with about the performance.

My thoughts on the Super Bowl halftime show with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira are thus…it was a perfect representation of the depraved inanity of modern America. The show was a mix of tawdry titillation and woke posturing combined with a complete and total lack of any and all integrity. It wasn’t so much cheap entertainment as an insipid imitation of cheap entertainment.

The two extremely thirsty, scantily clad, middle-aged stars, J-Lo and Shakira, did nothing but pose and preen like cheap tarts at a red light street for the entirety of the show because they had no other options. Since their catalogue of songs are not well-known or remembered, and their singing voices are not of high quality (or are technologically enhanced in the studio), the only way they could muster any attention was by pole dancing and gyrating like they are substitute “dancers” working the graveyard shift at a third rate strip club.

Shakira is certainly a beautiful women, and J-Lo, no slouch in the looks department either, looked like an absolute cow next to her, but the attractiveness of the participants did not distract from the vacuity of the contrived performance. No one on the stage actually sang or played an instrument, just lip-synced to a soundtrack…even the dipshit rappers were faking it. Poor Shakira was even reduced to miming the playing of a guitar at one point (even though she can actually play!). There were also a bevy of background dancers who held instruments but didn’t have the foggiest notion of how to play them only how to badly pretend to play them. It was all cringe-worthy for its blatant charlatanry and stylized mendacity.

The requisite genuflecting to woke ideology, this time in the form of a “Born in the U.S.A.” snippet to celebrate immigration, was just as much a piece of duplicitous and disingenuous corporate bullshittery as the lip-syncing and faux instrument playing. The NFL, the same league that has black balled Colin Kaepernick, and does the equivalent of J-Lo’s lip-sync when it comes to concussions and player safety, and says it doesn’t want to be political and yet acts as a flagrant propagandist for American empire and militarism, does not care about people…be they immigrants or natives…they only care about money.

The media fawning over Jennifer Lopez has been going on a lot recently and is utterly baffling. Jennifer Lopez has never been particularly good at anything she has ever done…she certainly isn’t a great actress and has never been a great singer. J-Lo has recently become a sort of Cher type of character, someone who dresses and behaves overtly sexual in a way that feels entirely and uncomfortably inappropriate, especially considering her age. That is not to say that middle-aged women can’t be sexy, they most certainly can and many I know personally (very personally - *wink-wink*) most definitely are, but J-Lo’s expression of her sexuality is self-delusional and classless to the point of discomfort, most notably because it is devoid of even the least bit of dignity.

At this point the only thing that is truly notable about J-Lo at this point in her shameless career is her unadulterated and ever expanding narcissism. For this reason, she and that repulsively fraudulent poseur fiance of hers, A-Rod, are a match made in heaven or hell, depending on your perspective.

The bottom line is that the Super Bowl halftime show, like America, has devolved to become nothing more than an absurdist parody of itself. The entire performance was nothing but empty spectacle for empty spectacle’s sake. That shit show of halftime yesterday would have been right at home at Trump’s gaudy Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, or his gauche White House in Washington D.C. The media celebration of J-Lo over her allegedly “transcendent” harlot, trollop and strumpet-esque lip-syncing performance, is just as fawning, phony and deluded as Fox News’ delirious coverage of their God-emperor Trump.

J-Lo’s insipid halftime show, and the Super Bowl itself - along with its accompanying endless array of advertisements that idiots lap up like they are dung beetles at a feces festival, are a perfect encapsulation of the bread and circuses stage of decay American empire currently finds itself in. We have a Nero on the throne, eunuchs and whores in the Senate, traitors, liars and fools in the press, and a public that is ever more insatiable for mindless distractions while their corporate overlords exploit and fleece them for everything they’ve got.

But on the bright side…at least it was a good game.

©2020

You're Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 31 seconds

Hollywood has been averting doomsday scenarios in movies for decades - but now the Oscars are serious about it, brandishing a ‘sustainable’ plant-based menu for the cream of the virtue-signaling celebrity crowd.

Hollywood has an extended and rich history of depicting mankind in peril from various existential threats.

If you recall, it was Hollywood that showed us the nefarious nature of robots, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Skynet and their T-1000 killer robot minions (that speak with a strange Austrian accent for no apparent reason) in the Terminator franchise, and the dead-eyed evil of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.

Hollywood also raised the red flag concerning the threat from other worlds. Alien, Signs, War of the Worlds and Independence Day are among the many films that show what will happen when E.T. phones home and his dastardly reinforcements arrive to even the score.

Hollywood’s most accurate depiction of humanity’s inevitable destruction was shown to us in the various Planet of the Apes films. Watch the news long enough and you will surely stumble across some supposedly heart-warming story of an ape learning sign language….but don’t be fooled, that Helen Keller wannabe mini-Kong is a stepping-stone to mankind’s slavery under brutal ape overlords. I guarantee you that if enough of these monkey bastards learn to sign we will all end up wearing leashes and loin cloths and yelling at some descendant of Harambe to “take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

Which brings us to global warming…oops…I mean climate change, that scary storytelling device Hollywood adores. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm and Al Gore’s Oscar winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth have told the all too frighteningly real story of the climate crisis and how it will impact mankind.

Hollywood has taught us that climate change will inescapably lead to a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max type of world where we must wage endless resource wars that include some pretty spectacular car chase battles with Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy, in order to survive.

Thankfully though, the Academy Awards, showcase of Hollywood’s best and brightest, has solved the climate crisis and eradicated it forever as a threat to humanity.

What is the Academy Award’s plan to stop the climate crisis? Well the noble geniuses at the Oscars have declared that instead of serving meat-based foods at their annual luncheon for nominees and in the theatre lobby on the night of the awards, they will instead serve only plant-based foods!!

Take that climate change! Go straight to hell global warming!! Way to kick ass Oscar and you are very welcome Mother Earth!

To be fair, the Oscars weren’t the first to come up with this ingenious plan, as it is the same plan the Golden Globes put into effect at their most recent awards show in early in January. After seeing the tremendous impact the Golden Globes magical vegetarian menu had on the earth over the last month, it is nice to see the Oscars deciding to double down on the effort.

The impact of the vegan Oscar menu is impossible to over estimate. It seems extremely likely to me that by serving Tinseltown’s elite vegetables instead of chicken, not only will the Academy Awards halt global warming but also bring about world peace and maybe even end the scourge of physical ugliness so prevalent in non-famous regular people.

Just imagine how much better earth and all of its inhabitants will feel when self-satisfied movie stars fly to Los Angeles from across the globe in their private jets and then cruise in their first world limousines past the hordes of homeless that literally litter every nook and cranny of third world La La Land, and then go to an Oscars ceremony with its plant based menu which these stars won’t eat anyway because they’re fasting so they look thin for photographs in their glamorous outfits. A complex problem like climate change doesn’t stand a chance in the face of that kind of total sacrifice and complete commitment.

I personally think serving a mostly vegan menu at an awards show is so much better for the environment than say, living a simple and sustainable life, or refusing to do any business with carbon based energy companies, or better yet, divesting from one of the worst degraders of the environment, The Pentagon, and deciding to stop being the propaganda wing for American Empire.

How about this Hollywood… instead of self-congratulatory awards nonsense why don’t the Academy Awards have a full and healthy menu, but as an alternative to serving it to narcissistic actors who won’t eat it because they don’t want to look bloated in photos, take it into the streets of Los Angeles where 60,000 poor, tired and ill homeless people struggle to find access to clean water, food and sanitation as they scratch out an existence in tent cities beneath nearly every underpass and in every open space in the city. Maybe then the Oscar’s plant-based menu would make an actual difference in the real world instead of just in the delusional minds of self-centered eco-poseurs.

I’m just kidding…let them eat cake!! Just as long as it is an environmentally sustainable and 100% vegan cake!

Speaking of the Academy Awards, “and the Oscar for Best Faux Eco-Friendly Virtue Signaling goes to…”

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Les Miserables (2019): A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!1 THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Not worth seeing on the big screen but if you stumble across on Netflix you can give it a shot.

Language: French with English subtitles

Les Miserables, written and directed by Ladj Ly, tells the story of a police officer’s tumultuous first day on the job with an elite street crimes unit in a Paris slum. The film stars Damien Bonnard along with Alexis Mantenti, Issa Percia, Djibril Zonga, Al-Hassan Ly and Steve Tientcheu.

After seeing the trailer for Les Miserables (2019), which is not to be confused with the 2012 Hugh Jackman movie musical of the same name based on the famous Victor Hugo novel, I was indifferent about seeing it. The trailer was a bit visually flat and did not capture my interest or imagination, but since the film is nominated for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards, I decided to roll the dice and check it out.

Les Miserables is not a bad movie, but it also isn’t a great one either. The film is named Les Miserables because it is set in the section of Paris where Victor Hugo wrote his famous book, and also because the movie highlights the same powder keg of revolutionary ingredients that are primed to combust now just as they were in Hugo’s time.

The film opens with the streets of Paris filled with celebration over a World Cup victory for France, but that unity quickly dissolves and battle lines are drawn between cop and criminal, blacks and whites, Muslims and non-Muslims, immigrants and natives.

Les Miserables is a rather conventional narrative that chronicles a day in the life of a bad neighborhood riddled with crime and injustice of all types. Police are thuggish bullies, warring factions of ethnic and religious gangs carve out small fiefdoms through brute force and intimidation, and children and young adults just try to survive in the suffocatingly tumultuous urban jungle they call home.

Director Ladj Ly’s script does a decent job of highlighting the factionalism that runs rampant in the slum. The Muslim Brotherhood looms large as an imposing and moderating force in the slums, and as a counterbalance to dueling ethnic drug gangs and the authoritarian police.

The slum is even divided by age as the children and teens of the housing projects resent the grown men who make deals with the police and each other in order to rule their kingdoms and line their pockets. This corruption of both cop and criminal turns the children of the slum into potential radicals eager to burn the whole rotten place to the ground.

Where Ly’s script stumbles though is in piecing together a coherent narrative that can drive the story from beginning to end. While the movie is filled with multiple interesting characters, such as “the Mayor”, a terrific Steve Tientcheu, or Salah, the formidably captivating Almamy Kanoute, they aren’t utilized well enough or often enough for the tale to be thoroughly compelling.

Ly’s direction and storytelling are both ambitious and admirable, but ultimately the film’s political and social sub-text feels a wee bit heavy handed and too on the nose to be artistically satisfying. The lack of subtlety regarding the film’s social commentary reduces the power and impact of it, and makes it all seem very trite. The film may very well be politically prescient, but that doesn’t make it dramatically potent.

This sort of obviousness regarding social and political commentary all feels very “French”, and the French-ness of the story and setting, such as the way Paris cops operate, their rules of engagement and all of that, reduces a great deal of tension, especially for American audiences. As I watched some pivotal scenes I couldn’t help but see it through my jaundiced American eyes and wonder why the hell these cops were behaving the way they were. To put it mildly, American cops would behave very differently when threatened. This disconnect, right or wrong, definitely had a negative effect on the dramatic impact of the film and the believability of the story.

As for the cast, Bonnard does really solid work as Pento, the main protagonist. As previously mentioned Steve Tientcheu and Almamy Kanoute are terrific, as is Issa Percia in a very difficult role.

In conclusion, as a calling card for director Ly, Les Miserables is a solid first feature film and it makes me intrigued to see what he does next, but in terms of being worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best International Film….not at all.

As for my recommendation regarding this movie…I think that cinephiles might find it to be a bit too conventional and politically obvious and regular cineplexers will find it frustratingly obtuse and a bit dull. The best bet is to wait for it to come out on Netflix or Amazon and then check it out there for free…because it simply does not rise to the level of being worth seeing in the theatre.

©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

It's a Miracle...Hollywood Finds Religion!

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 38 seconds

Hollywood is Allowing Catholics Who Are Not Corrupt or Pedophiles to Appear on Screen Again

Hollywood is currently making some surprisingly good Catholic entertainment with a refreshingly traditionalist bent.

As a practicing Catholic and a devout cinephile, I am constantly frustrated that Hollywood rarely gets religion right. Films and tv shows that touch upon Catholic and religious themes are often reduced to being either saccharine adoration in the hands of believing “conservatives” or vacuous vilification in the hands of agnostic “liberals”.

Considering there are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, and 84% of all people believe in one religion or another, it would seem a wise choice for Hollywood to explore Catholic and religious themed stories with much more regularity, artistic integrity and sincerity.

Hollywood and the Catholic Church need not be adversaries, as they have a lot more in common than one might think. For instance, they both have gobs of money and their hierarchies are littered with perverts and pedophiles. I’M KIDDING! As I said, I’m a practicing Catholic…and as my Catholic gallows humor shows…I definitely need more practice because I’m not very good at it.

Truth be told, now is actually a great time to be a Catholic cinephile because that den of iniquity, Hollywood, has recently shaken off its allergy to organized religion and turned its storytelling eye toward Catholicism with a striking spiritual seriousness and cinematic verve.

Tinsel Town’s recent mini-Catholic renaissance began in late November when it dipped its toe into the holy water font with the Netflix film The Two Popes. The movie, which features two compelling performances from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce as Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis respectively, is visually uneven but surprisingly philosophically vibrant.

This was followed in short order by Terrence Malick’s artistically gorgeous and profound film, A Hidden Life, which hit art house theatres in late December and told the story of Franz Jagerstatter, a Catholic Austrian farmer turned saint for his conscientious objection to Hitler and the Nazi war machine.

Then in January, HBO premiered The New Pope, which is a continuation of the network’s highly stylized 2016 drama The Young Pope, a fictional account of Vatican intrigue starring Jude Law as an enigmatic Pontiff. The Young Pope and its new iteration The New Pope, are cinematically lush and quite theologically robust shows.

Considering that Hollywood is so reflexively liberal, especially in cultural matters, what makes these three projects so striking, beyond their simply being about religion, is that they shine an unabashedly positive light on traditional Catholic ideology.

For instance, I’m not conservative but even I was reticent to watch The Young Pope when it first aired in 2016 because I assumed it was going to be an intellectually lazy and predictably liberal spin on church matters. Much to my cinephile delight the show has consistently defied expectations, with Jude Law’s character Pope Pius XIII being a brazen crusader for old world traditionalism as an antidote to the menace of new world moral relativity and meaninglessness.

The Young Pope is certainly not reverential toward the Church, and this along with the show’s narrative audacity and occasional racy nature is maybe why some conservative Catholics find it blasphemous. But conservatives who dislike The Young Pope/The New Pope are missing the forest for the trees, as the show is a mature meditation on faith and is extremely respectful to Catholic teachings and belief in God.

The truth is that if conservative Catholics were cinematically literate and culturally sophisticated enough they would understand that The Young Pope/The New Pope is a beacon for potential religious traditionalists converts lost in the storm of pop cultural vacuity and idolatry.

The same is true of The Two Popes, which treats Catholicism, its adherents and God with the utmost seriousness. The debates in the film between Pope Benedict and Pope Francis perfectly encapsulate the present Catholic conundrum and the film goes to great lengths to respectfully highlight both men’s arguments as well as their personal failings.

 A Hidden Life furthers the traditional Catholic cause by showing the faith in action. Protagonist Franz Jagerstatter is the living embodiment of the commitment to Catholic faith and while his story certainly isn’t a happy one, for serious Catholics, it is ultimately a spiritually joyous one.

The entertainment industry acknowledging and exploring Catholicism is remarkable, bordering on the miraculous, as religion is usually either ignored, ridiculed or vilified in Hollywood productions.

This is why I find The Two Popes, A Hidden Life and The Young Pope/The New Pope to be such a breath of fresh air. Religion, particularly Catholicism with its hierarchical structure and global nature, is a veritable gold mine of dramatic potential, and it does my Catholic cinephile heart good to see it being so exquisitely utilized in artistically and spiritually satisfying ways.

Art and cinema are about asking difficult questions and potentially opening hearts and changing minds, and it seems we are currently in a cultural moment where the madness of the world has become so disorienting that even Hollywood is considering the unthinkable, that traditional religion might be of value in trying to make sense of it all.

I am sure, soon enough, Hollywood will revert back to its relentlessly diabolical ways and this glorious mini-Catholic artistic renaissance will be but a faded, distant memory…but for now…I am going to enjoy it in all its glory while it lasts.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Dolemite is My Name: A Review

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A lifeless and dead-eyed dramatic comedy that falls decidedly flat.

Dolemite is My Name, written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and directed by Craig Brewer, is the true story of Rudy Ray Moore, a struggling comedian who turns his career around when he creates a character called Dolemite. The film stars Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore, with supporting turns from Wesley Snipes, Mike Epps, Keegan Michael-Key an Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Eddie Murphy was, once upon a time, one of the biggest stars on the planet. He was a comedic superstar who in the 80’s saved Saturday Night Live at the tender young age of 19, and then filled Hollywood’s coffers with his successful run of blockbusters Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, 48 Hrs and Coming to America. Murphy was such a supernova he even put out some dreadful music in this same time period that was cringe-worthy but popular…I mean, who could forget “Party All the Time” and “Boogie in Your Butt”?

Murphy’s star has long since faded and with a few exceptions he has been reduced to making little more than lazy, money grab, junk movies for last thirty years. While Dolemite is My Name may not fit into that category in intention, it certainly does in execution.

Dolemite is My Name was released on Netflix in October with some heavily promoted Oscar buzz surrounding star Eddie Murphy. This was supposed to be Murphy’s return to prominence and prestige after decades in the pop culture wilderness. The hype surrounding the movie, and Murphy’s performance, has never really gained too much traction among people who have actually seen the film though…and after having seen it myself, I now know why. This movie is not very good and Eddie Murphy isn’t very good in it.

Dolemite is My Name is such an odd film because it basically asks the audience to root for a main character that is not only talentless but also morally and ethically dubious. For example, Moore’s ticket to fame is found by stealing homeless people’s comedy material and rebranding it as his own. It is difficult to grasp how Rudy Ray Moore , a man who was awful at everything he did…from his comedy to his blaxploitation films, is a cinematic hero, but Dolemite is My Name gives it a Quixotic swing. Moore would be a considerably more compelling character if he were a talent kept down by a system that refused to acknowledge his genius out of racism or some other nefarious reason, rather than a hack blessed only with the talent of audacity and shameless ambition.

Besides the foundational issues with the Dolemite narrative, the film also suffers from being stultifyingly mediocre, frustratingly dull and dramatically fraudulent. I mean there is nothing, absolutely nothing, noteworthy about this movie, good or bad. Murphy’s performance is painstakingly safe and familiar, the rest of the cast are predictable and underwhelming. The writing is milquetoast and the story arc and climax are devoid of any drama or comedy. But besides that it was really great.

The biggest problem with the movie though is Murphy. Murphy simply does not possess the 100 mph fastball he once threw with ease in his prime, and would now be lucky to hit 75 on the comedy radar gun. Murphy, like many comedians, has fallen into a rut and his shtick has been exposed and it wears perilously thin.

In Dolemite, Murphy never shows a spark of life, a moment of genuine connection or his old magnetic swagger and undeniable charisma. Murphy’s performance feels like rote comedy meant to awaken nostalgic memories of greater work lost deep in his past. Rudy Ray, thanks in part to the flaccid script, is reduced to being a one-dimensional, shallow and vapid character, and Murphy’s failure to fill him with any sort of genuine humanity or vivid intentionality makes for less than compelling viewing.

The cast all do similar work to Murphy in that they seem like they should be funny, but they just aren’t. For instance, Wesley Snipes gives an uneven and incoherent performance as a moderately successful black actor in Hollywood, D’Urville Martin. Martin was a real person, but you’d never be able to guess that from Snipes cinematic posing and mugging.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s character Lady Reed, is supposed to be this dynamic and crucial dramatic entity and yet she is so poorly and thinly written it all comes off as, at best, shallow posturing. Randolph is also forced to utter some of the more eye-rollingly awful lines in the movie that are all heavy-handedly about the joys and empowerment of “representation”.

The biggest question for average viewers regarding the film, and Murphy, is whether it is funny. And the truth be told there wasn’t a single time I laughed while watching Dolemite is My Name…not once, and that is a problem because I genuinely went into it really wanting to like it and to laugh.

The bottom line is that Dolemite is My Name is a sterile cinematic and comedic venture that just sort of plays out in front of you while never reaching out or connecting to you. The movie is streaming on Netflix, but in my assessment it is not even worth checking out there as it doesn’t rise to the level of being worth two hours of your time. If you want to see Eddie Murphy, you’d be better served watching his old stand up specials Delirious and Raw, at least then you’d get to see Eddie Murphy when he had a mischievous spark of life in his eyes and not the dead-eyed charlatan faking his way through Dolemite in My Name.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 4 -1917

Here is the latest Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast where Barry Andersson and I discuss the Oscar Best Picture front runner 1917.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA PODCAST : EPISODE 4 - 1917

Thanks for listening!

Hollywood's Arrogant and Ignorant Pandering to Chinese Audiences

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 42 seconds

Hollywood shamelessly panders to China to make money, but they are absolutely terrible at it.

Hollywood thinks that by telling Chinese stories they will woo the Chinese market they so crave…they couldn’t be more wrong, as the failure of The Farewell amply illustrates.

This past weekend The Farewell, a critically adored American film which tells the story of a Chinese-American woman who returns to China to visit her dying grandmother, opened in China.

Due to The Farewell being written and directed by a Chinese American woman, Lulu Wang, and starring Chinese-American, Golden Globe winning actress, Awkwafina, as well as the film’s dialogue being mostly spoken in Mandarin, Hollywood’s expectations were that the movie would be well received in China.

Those expectations proved to be very misguided. The Farewell has been largely ignored by Chinese audiences as evidenced by its embarrassingly dismal take at the Chinese box office of just $580,000.

The Farewell’s failure is reminiscent of the poor showing in China by another Asian themed Hollywood movie, Crazy Rich Asians, which was a break out smash hit in America in 2018, bringing in $174 million at the U.S. box office. American audiences cheered Crazy Rich Asians largely due to its Asian cast, which was deemed a great success for representation and diversity for Hollywood. In contrast, China, which has plenty of its own movies with all-Asian casts, had no such love for the film as proven by its tepid box office receipts.

Crossing the cultural divide and tapping into the Chinese market has long been the Holy Grail of Hollywood, as every studio executive in town is constantly trying to crack the Chinese code in order to fill their coffers. Of course, studio executives are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, so the only plan they’ve been able to come up with thus far is to pander. Not surprisingly, Hollywood’s ham-handed attempts to cater to Chinese audiences have consistently backfired.

Disney thought Asian representation would attract Chinese audiences when they cast Asian-American actress Kelly Marie Tran in a major role in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. The problem was that Ms. Tran (who is of Vietnamese descent) did not conform to classical Chinese standards of beauty and thus Chinese audiences never warmed to her.

Chinese audiences have voiced similar complaints regarding Akwafina, with some Chinese people on social media going so far as to call her “very ugly”, which may be one of the reasons why The Farewell is doing so poorly. And this is before we get to her Mandarin, which was widely considered laughable for a first-generation immigrant, even one who left China early, according to the plot (the actress herself did not speak Chinese fluently before the film).

Another example of this cultural divide is Simu Liu, a Canadian-Chinese actor who was recently cast in the lead of the upcoming Marvel movie Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Liu is considered handsome by Western standards but some Chinese people say he is “not handsome by Chinese standards”, which means Shang-chi might face an uphill battle at the Chinese box office when it comes out. 

Hollywood has had some success in China, for instance, of the top 15 highest grossing films in Chinese box office history, four are Hollywood productions. They are Avengers: Endgame, The Fate of the Furious, Furious 7 and Avengers: Infinity War. It seems Hollywood has not learned the lesson of their Chinese successes though because unlike Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell and even to a certain extent the poorly received latest Star Wars trilogy, the Hollywood films that have found success in China are gigantic franchises telling American stories filled to the brim with spectacle and movie stars…and none of those stars are Chinese.

In 2020 Disney is once again making a major attempt to court the Chinese market by releasing Mulan, a live action adaptation of the 1998 animated film of the same name. While Mulan is based on the Chinese folk story “The Ballad of Mulan” and will boast a very attractive cast of Asian actors, including star Liu Yifei, that is no guarantee of box office success. The 1998 animated Mulan financially flopped in China and one wonders if the live action version is just another culturally tone deaf attempt by Hollywood to try to tell and sell a Chinese story back to the Chinese.

Hollywood’s misguided belief that Chinese audiences want to see Hollywood make Chinese themed-movies with Chinese stars seems to be staggeringly obtuse. China has a thriving film industry all its own and Chinese audiences don’t clamor to see Chinese stories told from Hollywood’s perspective (even if they’re made by Chinese-American artists) anymore than Americans yearn to see American stories told by foreign artists. The bottom line is this…Chinese audiences want to see American movies from America, not Chinese movies from America.

At its best the art form of cinema is a universal language that speaks eloquently across cultural boundaries. For example, American audiences this year have embraced the South Korean film Parasite. Parasite didn’t try to tell an American story with American actors in an attempt to cash in with U.S. audiences, instead it tells a dramatically and artistically profound Korean story about family and class that connects to people of all cultures. Hollywood would be wise to emulate that approach when trying to woo Chinese audiences.

And if it does want to make what it thinks are “Asian” stories, it should be culturally humble enough to know that it’s making them primarily for the art house cinemas in Brooklyn, rather than the multiplexes in Beijing.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©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

Pain and Glory: A Review

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

My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. If you adore director Pedro Almodovar’s work, then you’ll love this movie. For everyone else, wait to watch it for free on Netflix or cable.

Language: Spanish with English subtitles.

Pain and Glory, written and directed by two-time Academy Award winner Pedro Almodovar, is an autobiographical drama that tells the story of a director looking back upon his life’s journey. The film stars Antonio Banderas, who has been nominated for Best Actor at the this year’s Academy Awards, with supporting turns from Penelope Cruz, Asier Etxeandia and Leonardo Sbaraglia.

Pedro Almodovar is a master filmmaker who has made such classics as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Volver. This past September Almodovar turned 70, and much like others entering the final stretch of their existence here on earth, he is now contemplating his life and trying to make sense of the patchwork of memories that inform his identity. Pain and Glory is Almodovar’s attempt to understand himself and the long and winding journey that brought him to his current destination.

I am pretty neutral when it comes to Almodovar’s films. I respect and admire his artistry and his artistic insights, but I have never deeply connected with his subject matter or his characters. That said, I have always found Almodovar to be an interesting filmmaker almost solely because he seems to be an interesting person. Whether blatantly or covertly, Almodovar’s films feel both joyously and painfully autobiographical, and Pain and Glory is no exception.

Pain and Glory is, like many of Almodovar’s works, filled with the usual fond remembrances of a golden, sun-drenched youth, where Almodovar’s admiration of women and attraction toward men is born. In Almodovar’s cinematic adulthood, as strikingly evidenced in Pain and Glory, there is a recurring theme of a complicated, near self-pitying relationship with other men, himself and his work.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed Pain and Glory, but it is certainly interesting, if a bit self indulgent. Almodovar’s autobiographical movie suffers because it is, like his memory, unfocused and fuzzy. This is accentuated by numerous journeys down differing narrative paths that never quite come to any logical or dramatically satisfying conclusions. Much like real life, Pain and Glory’s themes are clear and precise but its narrative structure and dramatic specificity are not, thus making it somewhat less emotionally coherent than it needed to be to be a completely successful cinematic endeavor.

Like most of Almodovar’s movies Pain and Glory is visually lush and vibrant, with a crisp cinematic style that is very appealing for its dynamic simplicity. Almodovar and his cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine, use a striking palette and color to great affect, most notably red and white. As always, Almodovar, a Spaniard, is able to convey love, be it familial or romantic, by using the all encompassing visual warmth of the Spanish sun. Almodovar sublimely paints the objects of his affection in his memories to great affect with that appealing solar warmth.

In terms of the acting, Antonio Banderas does solid work as Salvador. Like Almodovar, Banderas is on the downside of his career and life and he brings that reality to bear on the character. Banderas wears the weathering of Salvador’s existential strain on his formerly pristine face and it gives him a gravitas he has not always possessed. It is a compelling performance and Banderas imbues Salvador with a complexity and intentionality throughout the film that is the driving force of the narrative. Where Banderas stumbles just a bit is in embodying the physical suffering that is Salvador’s constant companion. Banderas is just a little too spry and fluid to be believable as someone suffering from the multitude of ailments of which we are told Salvador suffers.

Penelope Cruz, as she often does, embodies the Anima for Almodovar. Cruz portrays Salvador’s mother, Jacinta, and gives an earthy and grounded performance. Jacinta is the Mediterranean mama incarnate, a hard-working, no nonsense family leader whose calloused yet gentle hands scratch even as they soothe.

Asier Etxeandia and Leonardo Sbaraglia have pivotal roles as Salvador’s estranged artistic and romantic partners respectively. Both do terrific work, particularly Etxendia, who never falls into stereotype when portraying both an actor and a junkie.

In conclusion, Pain and Glory is a very Almodovar film, and if you love Almodovar you will love Pain and Glory. If you are indifferent to Almodovar, I think, like me, you’ll find the film interesting but somewhat lacking as it never quite completely captivates or has the courage of its cinematic convictions or artistic ambitions. My recommendation is to skip Pain and Glory in the theatres but definitely check it out when it hits Netflix or cable in the future. It is worth seeing, just not worth paying to see.

©2020

Formula Still Works: Jojo Rabbit is an Average Film That Would Never Get 6 Oscar Noms if it Wasn't About the Holocaust

NAZI COMEDY JOJO RABBIT SNAGS SIX ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS USING HOLLYWOOD’S TRIED AND TRUE FORMULA

Long after it’s become a cliché of its own, exploiting the Holocaust for easy nominations is still a thing – and Jojo Rabbit is prime evidence.

Jojo Rabbit, directed by Taika Waititi, is a comedy-drama about Jojo, a young German boy in the Hitler Youth whose imaginary friend is a whimsical Adolph Hitler. Jojo, the titular character, comes to question his Nazi beliefs when he discovers a secret his beloved mother is hiding.

Jojo Rabbit is a mild misfire of a movie that never quite threads the delicate needle of comedy and drama that its bold premise requires. It isn’t an awful movie, but it isn’t a great one either, as is reflected in its 80% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes and the fact that it has only brought in $32 million at the box office.

With the film’s subdued critical and financial results you would think it had no chance for Oscar nominations…you’d be wrong. Jojo Rabbit has reeled in six Oscar nominations including Best Picture. So how did the mediocre Jojo Rabbit become such Oscar bait? Easy…it used the super cynical Oscar formula.

The super cynical Oscar formula goes like this…if you want to guarantee an Oscar nomination then your movie must be about one of four broad topics…here they are in hierarchical order…

1. Holocaust/Nazis

2. Slavery/Civil Rights/Race

3. AIDS epidemic/LGBTQ themes

4. Hollywood

Since 2009 when the Best Picture category expanded from 5 nominees up to 10, only once has the Best Picture category been devoid of at least one film that hits upon these subjects. Some notable beneficiaries of the formula over the last decade are such mediocrities as BlacKkKlansman(2018), Call Me By Your Name(2017), Hidden Figures(2016), Selma(2014), Dallas Buyers Club(2013), The Help(2011), The Kids Are Alright(2010), as well as Best Picture winners Green Book(2018), Moonlight(2016) and The Artist(2011).

Even the best directors in the business have used the super cynical Oscar formula to advance their career. Steven Spielberg spent two decades making blockbusters that got him no Oscar love, but after a failed attempt to use the formula for Oscar gold on The Color Purple (1985), he finally took home the Best Director and Best Picture prize with Schindler’s List (1993).

Quentin Tarantino’s last four films, Inglourious Basterds(2009), Django Unchained(2012), The Hateful Eight(2015) and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood(2019), have all utilized the formula, and three of them got Best Picture nominations for their efforts. Tarantino has yet to win the coveted Best Director or Best Picture Oscar, but maybe he’ll be victorious this year with his homage to Hollywood.

The question is…why does the super cynical Oscar formula work?

Well, in terms of Holocaust/Nazi and Slavery/Race movies, the answer is simple. The Manichean nature of the narrative is easy to understand…there are good guys and there are very bad guys…it is all very black and white, pardon the pun.

Another reason these subjects are cinematically employed is because the Holocaust and slavery are monuments to human depravity and suffering, and as uncomfortable as it is to admit, those two subjects are chock full of dramatic potential. The same is true of the AIDS epidemic, which was its own kind of Holocaust. The bottom line is that whatever subject has death as a constant and foreboding presence in it is going to be loaded with drama…and hence has the potential to be a good film.

They give the most hackneyed story structures a historical weightiness, elevating them into what votes believe to be classy award-winning pictures.

But the suspicion is that it’s even simpler than that.

The two cities at the heart of the film industry, Los Angeles and New York, are the cities with the largest Jewish and gay populations in the U.S., which most likely translates into a solid number of Academy members being Jewish, gay, or both.

Holocaust, slavery and gay-themed films are profound for most every audience due to their highlighting of humanity and inhumanity, but they most definitely resonate in the Jewish and gay communities, as those groups know the sting of persecution all too well.

The appeal of Hollywood themed movies at the Oscars is not quite so existentially based…simply put, Hollywood is the global center of narcissism and that results in the film industry liking stories about itself.

As for Jojo Rabbit, writer/director Taika Waititi is a very talented guy as proven by his direction of the very best Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnorak.

Waititi isn’t just a promising writer/director, he is also a gifted comedic actor, and in Jojo Rabbit he takes on the biggest challenge of all, playing Adolph Hitler as a charmingly lovable sidekick to Jojo.

While I think it was more artistic ambition than Oscar ambition that led Waititi to make a Holocaust/Nazi comedy, there is a Holocaust/Nazi comedy roadmap that leads to Oscar success. In 1999 Roberto Benigni wrote, directed and coincidentally enough, starred in, Life is Beautiful, the Italian language Holocaust movie that took home Oscars for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film.

If Jojo Rabbit was a noble attempt to make a profound and insightful film, it failed. If it was a cynical ploy to snag Academy Award nominations, it succeeded six times over, proving once again that the Oscar formula may be super cynical, but it is also highly effective.

Let’s hope once Taika Waititi has walked the Dolby Theater red carpet once, he deploys his solidified A-lister cachet to make the kind of personal and soulful movies that brought him to worldwide attention in the first place.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast - Episode 3: Oscar Nominations Reaction

This week on Looking California and Feeling Minnesota, Barry and I dive deep into the Oscar nominations in the top categories.

EPISODE 3 - OSCAR NOMINATIONS

Thanks for listening!

The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 27 seconds

The Oscar Nominations came out on Monday morning and the usual woke suspects were outraged by the lack of minorities and women in key categories.

You can set your watch by the emotionalist bitching and moaning of the identity politics crowd come awards season and so I fully expected to be confronted by a cavalcade of absurd hot takes from the woke media bemoaning the racism and misogyny of the Academy Awards when I awoke this morning. I was not disappointed.

The first headline I saw declared “Oscars Nominations Lack Diversity”, and other articles decried black actress Lupita Nyongo’s lack of a nomination as “horrifying”, and deemed the absence of recognition for female directors, among them Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang, as well as minority actors Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina as being a result of “snubs”.

As is evidenced by this current Academy Award furor, outrage is the nectar of the gods for the woke contingent, and they fuel themselves and their self-righteousness on its intoxicating nature. Proof of this was found last year when every acting category at the Oscars was won by an actor of color, which should have made the woke happy…but instead the main storyline surrounding the event was that Green Book, a movie deemed “racist” because it depicted racism in America through the perspective of a white character, had won Best Picture.

I must admit that there is nothing so delightful as the vacuous and self-righteous over-reaction of the woke to entertainment award nominations and wins. Ever since the #OscarsSoWhite movement came to the forefront in 2016, you can always count on the identity politics adherents come awards season to make an emotional mountain out of the lack of diversity and inclusion molehill.

In regards to the current woke hysteria, here are some facts to remember. Contrary to the headline mentioned above, the 2020 Oscars did not shut out all diversity. Black actress Cynthia Erivo and Latino actor Antonio Banderas are nominated in the main acting categories, and Korean director Bong Joon Ho and his terrific film Parasite, is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

As for the female directors and minority actors left out of nominations…who exactly is deserving and who should they replace on the current list? This is why I find the woke media outrage over the Oscar nominations so disingenuous as they say all of these minority and female artists should be nominated but never mention what white/male artist isn’t deserving of their nomination. 

Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and Lorena Scafaria (Hustlers) are often named as female directors who should be nominated…but this seems more like a list of female directors who have made a movie this year, and not a list of female directors who have made a good movie this year. No one but a cinematic cretin and philistine would consider these films, except for Little Women, even remotely serious Oscar contenders. And while critics love Greta Gerwig, Little Women is an umpteenth remake of Louisa May Alcott’s iconic story…not exactly breaking new cinematic ground.

As for the acting categories, does anyone really want to hang their hat on Oscar racism on Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina not being nominated?

And if the Oscars are racist now for “snubbing” Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy with no nominations, were they racist when they actually gave a Best Actor award to Jamie Foxx in 2004 for Ray, or nominated Eddie Murphy in 2006 for Dreamgirls?

This is why I find the woke media outrage over the Oscar nominations so vapid as it is nothing but emotionalist idiocy that is allergic to context.  

For instance, you wouldn’t know it by listening to the woke media, but if you take a look at the Oscar acting categories since the year 2000, you will find that black artists have won awards at a higher percentage than their population in the U.S. and the Anglosphere (nations with English as a primary language – U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia). Since the turn of the century black artists have won the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor award 15% of the time and the Best Supporting Actress award 30% of the time, which is higher than both the percentage of the black population in the U.S., 13%, and in the Anglosphere, roughly 9%.

The perception that black artists are under represented in Oscar acting wins is false, at least since the year 2000, but that sort of fact does not ignite the fury that the woke so crave and is therefore ignored.

Another ignored fact is that while there is a paucity of Best Director nominations for female directors, the category is truly a cornucopia for ethnic diversity. In the last 7 years the best Director award has gone to Mexican artists 5 times, an Asian artist once and a white American once.

Look, the Academy Awards are little more than a self-serving orgy of narcissism that never fails to fail. Anyone who takes them seriously is asking to be irritated or aggravated in one way or another. For example, I am sure that I will throw something at my television when 1917 wins Best Picture this year. But with that said, the woke turning the Oscars into little more than the diversity and inclusion Olympics will do nothing but further reduce the quality and artistry of cinema, and that is a cultural crime of epic proportions.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast - Rise of Skywalker

The second episode of my new podcast Looking California and Feeling Minnesota with filmmaker and cinematographer Barry Andersson is now available.

In this episode we break down the fundamental failures of the final film in the current Star Wars saga - Rise of Skywalker. Be forewarned, there are some spoilers involved! Also, technically this is the first podcast we recorded, but due to technical issues it is the second one we are posting.

These podcasts are a work in progress and I appreciate you giving them a listen!

©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!