Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 112 - Rebel Moon Part One

On this episode, Barry and I enter the Star Wars adjacent Snyder-verse of the new Netflix science-fiction movie Rebel Moon directed by Zack Snyder...and want to escape that hellhole as quickly as possible. Topics discussed include the plague of unoriginal thinking, how truly dreadful everything about this movie is, and cinematic guilty pleasures. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 112 - Rebel Moon Part One

Thanks for listening.

©2024

Armageddon Time: A Review - Portrait of the Artist as a Stupid and Boring Child

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT.  A sanctimonious, self-pitying and tedious tale of childhood turmoil in 1980’s New York. Move along, absolutely nothing worthwhile to see here.

There has been a spate of semi-autobiographical films this year where filmmakers navel-gaze and examine not only their childhood and how they ended up behind the camera, but also the “magic of cinema”.

There’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Bardo, Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, to a lesser degree Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, and finally James Gray’s Armageddon Time.

Of these four I’ve only seen Bardo (I’ve yet to publish my review) and now Armageddon Time, but I can report that thus far this genre of film is proving itself to be a calamitous cavalcade of cinematic crap.

Armageddon Time, which was released in October to dismal box office returns, is not only directed but also written by James Gray. While I respect James Gray as a visual artist, his movies have always been more miss than hit for me. I find his films, which include Little Odessa, The Yard, We Own the Night, Two Lovers, The Immigrant, and Lost City of Z, to be beautiful and tantalizing but mostly noble failures that never quite coalesce. The notable exception being 2019’s Ad Astra, which I thought was a truly stunning and insightful piece of work. Unfortunately, Armageddon Time is anything but stunning and insightful. I would in fact, put Armageddon Time at the very bottom of the list when judging Gray’s filmography.  

The autobiographical movie tells the story of Paul Graff (a stand in for Gray) and his tumultuous Autumn of 1980 when he attends sixth grade in a public school in Queens, New York. Paul’s family is working-class Jewish with plumber father Irving (Jeremy Strong), PTA mother Esther (Anne Hathaway), and annoying older brother, Ted, who attends a tawny private school. Paul also has his maternal grandparents, most notably his immigrant grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins), with whom he is particularly close.

Paul befriends a black student in his class, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), when they are both punished by their obnoxious teacher Mr. Turkeltaub. Johnny is being raised in poverty by his dementia-addled grandmother, and is doing sixth-grade for the second time. Mr. Turkeltaub has a particular dislike for Johnny and is harsher on him than on Paul.

The story goes from there as Paul and Johnny get into all sorts of trouble at school, and Paul navigates the consequences back home.

Armageddon Time, which is currently available on Video-on-Demand (I paid $5.99), is an interminably slow, sluggish, self-indulgent and self-pitying exercise in virtue signaling that rings hollow, phony and false on nearly every level.

The acting, with the notable exception of the magnificent Anthony Hopkins, is abysmal. Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong give cringe-worthy, Borscht Belt level performances as Paul’s parents.

The child actors, Banks Repeta as Paul and Jaylin Webb as Johnny, are tough to take, and certainly make the hour and fifty-five-minute runtime feel at least twice that long. Repeta’s Paul is completely unlikable and being in his presence for the length of the film is a struggle. To be fair to Repeta and Webb, their characters are so poorly written that asking them to fill them out seems unfair. Webb in particular is given short-shrift, as Johnny is reduced to the sort of one-dimensional, sad-sack, black martyr/messiah stereotype that is both dreadfully dull and diabolically dehumanizing.

Hopkins is the only actor who gives a grounded performance and generates a character that seems like a real person. His Aaron is like a supernova shining brilliantly as it enters its final stage of life. Hopkins ability to elevate material, and to give poorly written characters a deep and compelling inner-life, is remarkable.

One of the biggest problems with Armageddon Time is that its politics, which are decidedly neo-liberal and Manichean, are relentlessly heavy-handed, trite and vacuous, not to mention omnipresent.

For example, there’s a whole secondary story line involving…God help us… the Trump family, with the loathsome Fred Trump (the Donald’s father) front and center, that is so ridiculously ham-fisted that every time it rears its ugly head it feels like the Evel Knievel over Snake Canyon of shark jumps.

The film’s racial politics are equally bromidic, as they’re so paternalistic and condescending as to be offensive. Ultimately the film and its racial politics ends up being little more than a testament to the fact that an artist’s white guilt is an insidious, narcissistic cancer that generates egregiously insipid and vapid art.

The movie is so patronizing and supercilious it’s like a multi-million-dollar colonial style home in a tawny, minority-free neighborhood that has a “Black Lives Matter” sign in its impeccably-landscaped-by-underpaid-Mexican-illegal-immigrants front lawn.

Gray is Jewish, which is why it’s so confusing that he makes viewers feel like a bored parish priest listening to his confession about other people’s impure racial thoughts.

James Gray went to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, one of the most prestigious and elitist film schools in the world, made his first feature at age 25, and has had a stellar career working with great actors despite rarely having a hit, it seems that he got everything he ever wanted…so the question becomes…why all the masturbatorial bitching?

The reality is that the artist is never as interesting as his art, or as interesting as he thinks he is…which is why Armageddon Time feels more like a misguided tantrum from a spoiled child grown old than a piece of introspective cinematic art from an artist trying to understand himself.

The bottom line is that Armageddon Time is so sanctimonious and self-pitying, not to mention boring, banal and bland, that it will make you yearn for an actual Armageddon to put you out of your misery. Save your time and your money and skip this tedious tale.

©2023

Amazon Studio's Playbook to Ruin Cinema

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 42 seconds

Amazon Studio’s new “playbook” makes it official, diversity, not talent, skill or merit, is the only thing that matters anymore in the entertainment industry

The stunning document is shameless in its disdain for artistry and individuality, and its aggressive worship of all things woke.

The entertainment industry and the art of cinema took a gargantuan step on their relentless death march into the hellscape of the woke Mordor recently when Jeff Bezos, the Sauron of Amazon Studios, released his new “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) playbook”.

Following in the footsteps of the Academy Awards, which implemented new diversity and inclusion mandates into awards eligibility criteria, and Disney, which has turned the happiest place on earth into the People’s Republic of Wokestan, Amazon Studios, the new home of James Bond and Rocky, has, like a suicide note, put in writing its demand that film and TV ignore talent, skill and merit when hiring in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion.

It’s now clear that the corporate human resources junta has successfully transformed Hollywood into nothing more than the propaganda arm for the woke Savonarolas who burn art and entertainment on the bonfire of inanities that is DEI.

Among many things Amazon’s “playbook” demands are creative roles on productions being 50% women and underrepresented racial/ethnic groups by 2024, and documentation and reporting of these diversity quotas is required both pre and post production. Unfortunately, the exact skin tone and percentage of “racial/ethnic” blood needed to qualify as belonging to an underrepresented group, and the papers you’ll need to show to the DEI gestapo to prove it, are not made clear.

The insidious “playbook” also declares its commitment to “authentic portrayals” and its intention to cast “actors in a role whose identity aligns with the identity of the character they will be playing (by gender, gender identity, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability) and in particular when the character is a member of an underrepresented group/identity.”

In other words, Amazon appears to be outlawing the art of acting as only disabled actors can play disabled characters and only LGBTQ actors can play LGBTQ roles. This is what happens when human resources deplorables take over the creative process.

One wonders how exactly Amazon will check if an actor up for a lesbian, gay or bisexual role is the real deal or not? Will actors be forced to “prove’ their lesbian, gay or bisexual bona fides by performing a sex act with an appropriately aligned producer? Maybe the casting couch can get a public relations facelift if it’s used to help Hollywood achieve the woke nirvana of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Of course, from an artistic perspective, the absurdity of Amazon’s totalitarian woke decrees is only topped by its power to suffocate and stultify creativity.

Consider this, some of the greatest performances we’ve seen in recent years would be wiped out by Amazon’s DEI manifesto, and it wouldn’t be surprising if eventually they’re retroactively cancelled for not being aligned with the new mandates.

For example, Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest actors we’ve ever had, but despite not being disabled he won an Oscar for playing Christy Brown in My Left Foot, and won two Oscars for playing Americans in There Will Be Blood and Lincoln, despite being British and Irish.

In addition, Sean Penn isn’t gay but won an Oscar for playing Harvey Milk, Eddie Redmayne is able bodied but won for playing Stephen Hawking, Colin Firth won for playing King George VI but didn’t have a royal stutter and Jamie Foxx won for playing Ray Charles despite not being blind.

Even last year’s crop of movies would be affected by Amazon’s woke encyclical. Anthony Hopkins doesn’t have dementia but won the Best Actor Oscar playing a man suffering from that malady, Daniel Kaluuya won Best Supporting Actor Oscar is British but won for playing an African-American, and in Amazon Studio’s own Sound of Metal, Riz Ahmed was Oscar nominated for playing a deaf character but has perfect hearing.

Two of Amazon’s big hits from last year, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Coming 2 America violate this new woke law too as Brit Sacha Baron Cohen played a Kazahkstani, and New Yorker Eddie Murphy is played an African King. The horror!

Amazon’s decree is so specific it even states “But if the character has a distinct ethnic background, make sure that the actor’s ethnic background doesn’t conflict with this portrayal”, using as an example of a bad approach “are you casting a person of Puerto Rican heritage to play a character who is Colombian?” Under this edict Benicio del Toro’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing a Mexican in Traffic wouldn’t happen because he is Puerto Rican.

Amazon’s “playbook” blatantly declares its repulsion at talent, skill and merit as a casting-criteria when it states that casting directors need to avoid “Relying on your “gut” or seeking “the best person for the job” as that’s an “inherently biased processes that may skew your decision making.”

If this relentless focus on hiring actors, creatives and even crew based on their gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity and nationality all sounds legally dubious if not outright discriminatory, Amazon agrees, as they throw in this playbook disclaimer to cover their backsides, “While this Playbook provides a general overview, it is not intended to provide legal advice, so it’s crucial to discuss these issues with your attorney.”

As a cinephile and lover of quality art and entertainment in movies and tv, I’m looking forward to the day when the despicable woke totalitarian philistines currently running and ruining Hollywood learn the hard way, at the box office and in the courtroom, that “get woke, go broke” is a universal law that supersedes their self-righteous, anti-merit, DEI declarations of blatant discrimination. They deserve nothing less.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

The Oscar Train Wreck

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 20 seconds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Joke courtesy of Leo - Da Irish Poet!

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

The Father and the Media's Dementia Simulation Machine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A version of this article was originally published at RT. 

©2021

The Father: A Review

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

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Father is currently in theatres and on VOD.

©2021

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

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

Oliver Stone : Top Five Films

Today, September 15, 2015 is director Oliver Stone's 69th birthday. The ever opinionated, and often controversial Stone has been both lauded and loathed, celebrated and denigrated during his thirty plus year career as a writer and director. After nearly two decades of artistic and box-office mis-steps, it is easy to forget that at one point in time, from 1986 to 1995, Oliver Stone was arguably the most powerful force creatively, politically and financially in both Hollywood and the culture. It is also easy to forget that Oliver Stone is one of the most important filmmakers in the history of American cinema.

To celebrate Oliver Stone's birthday, let's take a look at his meteoric, tumultuous and often-times brilliant career. Here are what I consider his top five films of all time.

OLIVER STONE'S TOP 5 FILMS

5. THE DOORS (1991) 

Oliver Stone, like many of his fellow baby boomers,  excavated some of his most glorious inspirational treasures by going back to his formative years in the turbulent 1960's. In 1991 Stone went back to his, and my, favorite rock band, The Doors, and their iconic lead singer Jim Morrison.

Years ago I watched the dvd extras for The Doors which had a series of interviews with Stone and the actors talking about the process of making the film. It was pretty standard dvd-extra fare, until the very end of an interview with Stone. In it he talks about what Jim Morrison meant to him, both as a young man and as an artist, and Stone speaks eloquently about what Morrison represented, what he symbolized, and then he says, rather poignantly, with his voice breaking, "I miss him". It was a strangely moving, oddly touching and intimate glimpse into Stone, who is often portrayed in the media as a hyper-masculine, misogynistic boor. What that interview reveals is that The Doors was not just a bio-pic of Morrison, but also a deeply personal film for Oliver Stone and his artistic soul. That is what makes it both very good to some people (Me and John Densmore) and very bad to others (Ray Manzarek and Robby Kreiger). 

The Doors is a remarkably hypnotic film with Val Kilmer's magnetic performance as its center. The concert scenes are among the most vibrant and realistic ever captured on film. While the film is less a bio-pic of the band and Morrison than it is an exercise in cultural myth making and personal/psychological exploration, it still has a seductive and fascinating dark energy to it…not unlike its main character and its director.

4. NIXON (1995)

In 1995 Oliver Stone once again went back to the 1960's well and made a sprawling and peculiarly sentimental bio-pic about disgraced former president Richard Nixon. Shakespearean in its scope and execution, Nixon is a testament to Stone's skill as both writer and director. As a writer Stone is able to coherently and dramatically weave countless historical events amid intimate personal motivations all the while spanning multiple decades. As director, Stone coaxes a uniquely powerful and fantastically courageous performance from Anthony Hopkins in the lead, and Joan Allen as Pat Nixon. The supporting cast is terrific across the board, with James Woods and Paul Sorvino doing especially great work.

Nixon is a staggeringly ambitious film that only Oliver Stone would have made, could have made, or should have made. Nixon may be the last great film Oliver Stone ever makes, but even if it is, it is a worthy testament to his artistry and skill.

3. PLATOON (1986)/ BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989)

When Platoon came out in 1986, I went and saw it and like most everyone else, I was blown away by it. The four time Oscar winning film, including Best Picture and Best Director, was an original and unique perspective on the daily grind of the regular soldier toiling away in the morass of the Vietnam war.  Ten years later I caught the film again when it was on tv somewhere and was terribly underwhelmed by it, the film simply did not hold up to the test of time at all. The main problem was that visually, the film looked flat and washed out. I came away thinking the film was, like another Stone film from that period, Wall Street, a superb script, but unlike his early 90's films , JFK, The Doors, Nixon and Natural Born Killers, a rather cinematically sluggish film. I was more than happy to share my self declared brilliance with anyone who would be foolish enough to listen to my insufferable ravings on the visual failings of Platoon versus Father Time. Now of course, I am unable to rave too loudly as my throat is stuffed with crow. Why the change of heart you ask? Well, I recently saw a restored version of the film, and boy oh boy, it looks really magnificent. Stone's longtime cinematographer, the brilliant Robert Richardson, creates a subtly vibrant and layered look to the film that shows an incredibly deft and masterful hand on his part.

The film also boasts powerful performances from a wide array of actors, including Charlie Sheen, of all people, in the lead. Stone is such a great director that he makes Charlie Sheen seem like he could be the next big thing in acting. Sheen would have been wise to keep his wagon hitched to the Oliver Stone band wagon rather than venturer off into the land of Young Guns, ahhh…what could have been. Willem Dafoe and Tom Beringer also give standout performances as the ying and yang of the American psyche in regards to the Vietnam conflict and the conflict over Vietnam.

The one thing that does hurt Platoon in retrospect is that it is compared to other films of the same Vietnam War genre. In 1987, one year after Platoon came out, Stanley Kubrick's vastly superior Full Metal Jacket hit theaters. Oliver Stone joins a long list of other great directors, in fact, every other director, who has failed in comparison to the singular genius of Stanley Kubrick. Platoon is, without a doubt, a truly great film, probably the third greatest Vietnam War film ever made, behind Full Metal Jacket and  Francis Ford Coppola's iconic masterpiece Apocalypse Now.

In keeping with the Vietnam War genre, Stone's second foray into that most personal of wars (he was a Veteran of the war and Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient), was 1989's Born on the Fourth of July. The film is the story of Ron Kovics, a Long Island born and raised, flag waving patriotic son of America, who enthusiastically enlists in the Marine Corps to go fight in Vietnam.  

Born on the Fourth of July won Stone his second Best Director Oscar, and for good reason. The film is a remarkable piece of work for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it is easily the best performance of Tom Cruise's long career. As good as Cruise is in the film, and he is in nearly every scene, it is an indication of Oliver Stone's power as an artist that you never feel like you are watching a Tom Cruise picture, but rather an Oliver Stone picture.

Like many of Stone's films, Born on the Fourth of July covers a staggeringly vast amount of history, and it is also able to personalize that historical struggle by poignantly showing the gut wrenchingly emotional struggle of its main character Kovics. 

The film is really a love story, with the love being between a man and his country. The man, Kovics, discovers that his lifelong love, America, has betrayed him by not living up to it's values, the war in Vietnam. This is wonderfully portrayed in a secondary narrative of unrequited love between Cruise's Kovics and his high school sweetheart played by the luminous Kyra Sedgwick. The film is at once heartbreaking and invigorating, and only Oliver Stone, with his deeply intimate relationship with Vietnam and America could have made the it. 

2. NATURAL BORN KILLERS

Yes, I know, Natural Born Killers at number two? Many people, maybe even most people, would more consider Natural Born Killers AS a number two rather than AT number two. I realize I am in the minority, but I don't mind. I think Stone's frantic, ultra-violent assault on the media and the culture is a genuine and daring masterpiece prescient in it's foresight.

The film precedes and perfectly captures the vile cable news era and the odious reality tv era. Remarkably the film came out a mere month after O.J. Simpson's wife was murdered and well before the sickening media and cultural circus of his trial. (As an aside, I hope you join me in praying that they find  the real killers!!).

Critics thought the film was a bombastic and vacant orgy of  sex and violence. Of course, what makes the film so genius is that it is a satire of American culture, which is a bombastic and vacant orgy of sex and violence. If you don't believe me, turn on any cable news channel at any time of the day, a reality show or a prime time network sitcom. In fact, one of the most inspired parts of the film is when it wonderfully eviscerates the vapid and insipid sitcom which had become the staple of the American tv diet at the time.  

What Stone did with Natural Born Killers was show how hyper, frenzied and frenetic our culture had become and how toxic that was to our collective and personal psyche. Of course, since 1994 our culture has only become more frenetic and frenzied. Our thirst for violence and our hunger for the salacious has increased infinitely since Stone showed us our true and more base impulses gyrating up on silver screens in cineplexes across America in the fall of 1994.

Once again the brilliant Robert Richardson does masterful work with the camera and gives the film a muscularly vivid visual style. There are also some great performances from some surprising places, most notably Rodney Dangerfield, (who you may remember previously "got no respect")  who deserved not only respect for his performance, but a Best Supporting Actor trophy for his work as a disgustingly repugnant sitcom dad, sadly he didn't get nominated. Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore and Robert Downey Jr. all give inspired and memorable performances as well.

You may hate Natural Born Killers, and you wouldn't be alone, but the reality is that Stone accurately depicted the rot at the heart of the American culture, and that rot has only grown more aggressive and malignant as the decades have passed.

1. JFK (1991)

JFK is Oliver Stone's masterpiece. It is also the film that garnered him the most criticism and made him a marked man of both the Washington and media establishment. With JFK, Stone did the near impossible, he made a uniquely original, intensely captivating, coherent, heart pounding suspenseful drama of President Kennedy's assassination, all the while challenging the establishment narrative in the form of the Warren Commission and it's lapdogs in the media with his own self described "counter-myth". He also forced the movie going public to actually sit down and watch the Zapruder film, over, and over, and over again, making sure there was no doubt there now dead President's head snapped "back and to the left". 

Stone wasn't saying that JFK was the absolute truth about what happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, what he was saying was that his film, an acknowledged piece of fiction, is as close to the truth as the Warren Commission, a supposed work of investigative non-fiction.

The best way to know that Oliver Stone was on to something with JFK, was in seeing the reaction of the establishment to it's release. The Washington and New York chattering classes went absolutely apeshit. Stone was attacked across the board, from those on the left, the right and the center. "Serious" people from "serious" news organizations told us that Stone was a mere "conspiracy theorist", so anyone who wanted to be taken seriously on any other subject, had to show their bona fides by knocking Stone as an unserious person and attacking the the film. This sort of thing has become old hat for the establishment. It is also a sure fire sign that the person they are attacking is cutting them close to the bone. If Stone were such an unserious kook, then ignoring him would have sufficed, but he wasn't and isn't, so the knives had to come out.  

As a result of the success of JFK and of Stone's tireless public work on the subject, Congress was persuaded to release some of the files relating to the JFK assassination. At the time it seemed like things might be changing, that all of the files might be released. That was over twenty years ago and still nothing has changed. The JFK assassination was over fifty years ago, yet we have barely gotten a glimpse of the vast seas of paperwork that remains classified on the subject.

As far as the film goes, Stone's script was, once again, Shakespearean in it's epic scope. His brilliant use of newsreel footage mixed with dramatic footage created an intense immediacy that brought the viewer ever closer to the edge of their seat. JFK was also cinematographer Robert Richardson's masterpiece as well. His use of multiple film stock was as vital a reason for JFK's dramatic edge as anything else, as was his impeccable camera work and framing. Editor Pietro Scalia also was a key figure in bringing this dramatic beast under control. Both Richardson and Scalia won Oscars for their work.

The acting was stellar across the board. Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald was particularly brilliant. Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work as one of the alleged conspirators Clay Shaw. 

In many ways, all of Oliver Stone's other films, including his Oscar winning pictures, pale in comparison to JFK. JFK was a cinematic, artistic and cultural bellwether. It is one of the greatest cinematic achievements of all-time, and it is a towering monument to the legacy of Oliver Stone.

(For more on the JFK assassination, the media and Oliver Stone, check out this article from my archive. JFK AND THE BIG LIE  )

FINAL THOUGHTS

In many ways, Oliver Stone reminds me of Francis Ford Coppola. Both men won Oscars for screenplays, Coppola for Patton, Stone for Midnight Express, before they had tremendous runs of artistic and financial success as Oscar winning directors. Then both men, for reasons that I can't quite explain, fell off a cliff creatively and never recovered. Coppola of course, had his incredible run in the seventies with both Godfather films, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, while Stone had his from '86 to '95 with the films listed above (among others).

I think it is a great loss for filmmaking that Oliver Stone has lost his cultural relevance. Cinema, and the culture, were much more interesting when he was at the top of his game and relevant. His willingness to stand for what he believes and to challenge the culture that bred him, are traits sorely lacking in todays Hollywood. My birthday wish for Oliver Stone, is that his next film, Snowden, lives up to his stellar previous work, and is as worthy a film as the subject at its center.

I tip my cap to you Oliver for your brilliance!! Happy Birthday!!

ADDENDUM:

I received a few emails regarding this post. One from a reader named "Captain Big Guy" and another from a reader named "Johnny Steamroller".

Capt. Big Guy wrote " In each of the 4 movies leading up to the 5th (#1), you described your thoughts on the lead actor - which I really enjoyed - BUT WHY NO MENTION OF COSTNER IN JFK?" In keeping with that thought Johnny Steamroller wrote, " Dude, you got me sooooooo interested in what you were going to say about Costner in JFK, your #1 movie!! Seriously, I kept reading. You do mention Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones by name but zero mention of the lead actor in "Oliver Stone's masterpiece"?? Arggggghhhhhh!!!"

Both the good Captain and the esteemed Mr. Steamroller make an excellent point. In my haste to post this piece I overlooked Kevin Costner's performance in JFK . It was an egregious oversight. Maybe not as egregious as Waterworld, but egregious none the less. 

So without further adieu…my thoughts on Costner in  JFK .

Let's be clear, Costner isn't Marlon Brando. With that said, he didn't need to be Marlon Brando in JFK. What makes Costner effective in JFK is the fact that he was maybe the biggest movie star  in the world at the time of the films release. In addition his persona was that of an all-American, squeaky clean guy. His image and persona were a key part of why he works in JFK and why he was cast. Casting Costner accomplished two things for Oliver Stone in his most ambitious film. 1. In terms of the business, it got the movie made. I am sure the studio was much more at ease making this rather challenging film with the biggest movie star in the world, at the height of his fame and popularity, on top of the marquee. 2. In terms of creatively, casting Costner made Stone's challenging the establishment, and the public, much more effective with the persona of the all-American good guy making the case to the public for Stone. It was a very wise move on Stone's part to use Costner and all of the good will he had accrued with the public through his earlier work.

Remember, just two years before JFK, Costner had starred in Field of Dreams, which is as mythically and archetypal an American film as has ever been made.  And the year before JFK was released, Costner had won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Dances With Wolves. In many ways, not the least of which was symbolically, by the time JFK came out Costner had become the modern day Jimmy Stewart.

Costner's acting in the film is pretty paint-by-numbers, leading man stuff. As in all of Costner's work, he doesn't have too much range or depth. But because of the intangible traits and very particular image Costner the movie star (as opposed to Costner the actor) brought to the film, I believe he ends up being very much a net positive for the film, and a very wise and shrewd casting choice by Oliver Stone.

So thanks to Captain Big Guy and Johnny Steamroller for the emails!! Hope my answer was satisfactory.

 ©2015