- Benjamin Purcell Morris
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Follow me on Twitter: Michael McCaffrey @MPMActingCo
On this apocalyptically combustible episode, Barry and I go nuclear in our discussion of Christopher Nolan's new movie Oppenheimer. Topics discussed include a heated debate over the movie, musings on Nolan's career and a ranking of his filmography from top to bottom.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 105 - Oppenheimer
Thanks for listening!
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. The rarest of the rare in our current culture, an exquisitely crafted movie made for grown-ups. A masterful work that deserves to be seen on the big screen.
Oppenheimer, the new film written and directed by Christopher Nolan which recounts the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who first made the atomic bomb, is a stunning accomplishment for a variety of reasons.
The first of which is that it is made with a level of technical and cinematic proficiency rarely seen in our current age of mundane, mind-numbing, moviemaking sub-mediocrity.
Secondly, Oppenheimer is remarkable because it’s a mature movie made for adults that features zero fights and car chases that has generated a tremendous amount of interest, and if reports are to be believed, box office.
My screening here in flyover country (I’m currently living on a farm in an undisclosed part of Middle America) at noon on a Saturday was packed with a striking cross section of regular folks, the overwhelming majority of which I can confidently assume do not consider themselves cinephiles or even count themselves among regular movie goers.
As I watched the three-hour film that consists almost entirely of dramatic scenes of people talking unfold before me, I couldn’t help but wonder if these ‘regular’ people around me liked this film as much as I did.
Oppenheimer tells the sprawling story of its protagonist’s struggle with the moral and ethical burdens of his world-altering calling, but compresses it into an intimate drama that, much like how Oppenheimer builds the first atomic bomb, explodes inward first, which then triggers the greater outward conflagration.
Watching Oppenheimer, one cannot help but marvel at a filmmaker bristling with confidence and competence, the former of which is all too common (and unearned) and the latter of which all too rare nowadays. This is an ambitious movie to the point of being audacious, and I cannot think of another living filmmaker who has the unique artistic style and populist storytelling skillset of Christopher Nolan who could even approach pulling it off.
To be clear, I am not some Nolan fanboy. I respect him greatly but have had some mixed feelings about his previous work. For instance, I thought both The Dark Knight and Dunkirk were masterpieces (I think Dunkirk is his greatest film and one of the very best films of the 21st Century), but I thought Interstellar and Tenet were garbage. On the whole I find him to be a sort of new generation Spielberg without the shmaltz and obsession with children. He is the rare auteur nowadays who makes big budget – big box office, popular movies.
Nolan empties his bag of moviemaking tricks on this one as he uses time jumps, different film stocks and aspect ratios, and wonderfully deft editing to create a mainstream movie that often feels like an impressionistic fever dream.
The key to the success of this massive undertaking is Cillian Murphy who plays Oppenheimer – the American Prometheus who gives the ultimate fire to humanity. Like Dr. Frankenstein, he meddles with powers beyond his moral comprehension that ultimately hunt and haunt him for the rest of his life. If Murphy fails even a little bit in the role this movie crumbles under the weight of its own ambition, but he never stumbles, not even a little.
Murphy is able to convey the vivid, rich inner life of his character with a single, hollow-eyed close-up, and Nolan takes full advantage of his talents. Over the course of the film Murphy’s Oppenheimer goes from being a ravenously ambitious student to a callously arrogant expert to a hollowed-out martyr desperate to be punished for his egregious moral sins and all of it feels grounded and genuine and gloriously compelling.
Another very effective performance comes from Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, an administrative admirer of Oppenheimer and bureaucratic bully. It was an absolute joy to see Downey back to serious acting after his long and fruitful run as Iron Man. Downey has not lost his chops as his Strauss is a cauldron of conflicting and conniving energy that is captivating to watch.
The other stand out performance comes from Gary Oldman, who has just one scene, but he is phenomenal in it. It’s a testament to Oldman’s prodigious talent that he can be so thoroughly unforgettable in a mere matter of moments in a movie.
The rest of the cast, for the most part, acquit themselves well enough. Matt Damon as a demanding American General Leslie Groves, is fine, as are the cavalcade of actors like Casey Affleck, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek and Josh Hartnett who pepper the cast.
Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt are the two main actresses and they do the best they can with roles that feel underwritten and a bit uneven. Pugh is always terrific and brings her dark magnificent energy to bear here. Blunt at first feels out of sorts in her role as Oppenheimer’s wife, but she finds her stride in the last third of the film and nails one critical scene when it matters most.
The only performances I thought were notably underwhelming were Benny Safdie as Edward Teller and Rami Malek as David Hill. Both seem out of place and rather awkward in their roles.
On the bright side, it seems definite that Cillian Murphy will be nominated for Best Actor and will probably be the odds-on favorite to win. Downey Jr. will also likely be nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
The film is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who himself could be staring at a second Oscar nomination (his first was for Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk). Hoytema’s framing, close-ups in particular, are exquisite, as is his use of color and contrast.
The soundtrack by Ludwig Goransson is also very effective and well-done. It skillfully but subtly enhances the drama of the film without over-imposing itself and feeling manipulative.
As good as the cinematography and music were, the editing by Jennifer Lame really stands out. The film jumps back and forth in time and yet never loses coherence thanks to Lame’s deft and skillful work.
It is always difficult to discern any sort of political or cultural meaning from Nolan’s films, but they seem much more apparent than usual in Oppenheimer, at least to me. Of course, one must be self-aware enough to know that they may be projecting their own ideological perspective onto a film rather than discovering the director’s intent.
For example, after Nolan’s superhero masterpiece The Dark Knight came out in 2008 there was lots of talk among members of the George W. Bush torture and death-cult that the film was about Bush as Batman being scapegoated for what he has to do to defeat the Joker/Bin Laden, the ultimate terrorist agent of chaos. I never found that argument compelling and always thought it had more to do with the guilty conscience and vacuous ideology of its adherents rather than with Nolan’s intended sub-text.
The same may be true of my reading on Oppenheimer, which seems to me to be a movie that speaks to much of our current era’s issues. For instance, Oppenheimer is persecuted for speaking out against establishment orthodoxy and for holding views deemed to be dangerous. That seems to be very relevant to our current times where wrong-think is a cultural crime as has been well documented here and elsewhere.
Oppenheimer is also a stark reminder of the destructive power and nature of human beings, and how serious that subject is but how we often take it much too lightly.
For example, we have both liberals and conservatives in this country hell bent on escalating the proxy war in Ukraine up to and including to the point of direct conflict with Russia, a nuclear armed state, in order to desperately cling to our self-delusional empire. Oppenheimer eventually came to understand the power he unleashed by building an atomic bomb, but somehow our modern culture has forgotten the earth destroying ability it possesses and feels so comfortable toying with.
And finally, one can’t help but think of Artificial Intelligence while watching Oppenheimer. AI is a great achievement for scientists but like the team at Los Alamos that unleashed the destructive power of the gods onto humans, the unintended and long-term consequences of AI seem to be a moral and ethical minefield for which its creators never seriously prepared or even remotely considered. The impending, and most likely inevitable, dire consequences of artificial intelligence feel all the more chilling when considered in the context of the moral dilemma and outcome of Oppenheimer.
Whether the film is actually about those things or I am just projecting my own fears and ideologies on to it, is ultimately irrelevant, as the film stands on its cinematic artistry alone regardless of its deeper or wider meaning.
The thing that stood out to me the most regarding Oppenheimer was just the fact that it exists and that regular people are interested in seeing it.
For decades the art of cinema has been in steep decline and in recent years the business of movies has followed suit. For the entirety of this century Hollywood has been training audiences to watch nothing but dumbed down bullshit and to instinctively yearn for mindless entertainment. Oppenheimer is counter to that. To be clear, this film isn’t highbrow or arthouse, but it is definitely elevated, adult, populist moviemaking, storytelling and entertainment.
I doubt this will turn the tide of franchise excrement coming from Hollywood, but it is a sliver of hope. In the sea of shit that has been movies over the last four years, original, mature stories from auteurs have been few and far between and even the ones that did come out were among the lesser of the director’s filmography. But with Oppenheimer we have Christopher Nolan, one of the more successful directors in recent Hollywood history, putting out an original, adult-targeted film, and one of his very best films, when all hope seemed lost in the industry for this sort of thing.
Audiences are desperately hungry for quality films that are made for grown-ups…and with Oppenheimer Christopher Nolan has delivered. I, for one, am grateful.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to listen to Barry and I as we jump off a cliff on a motorcycle while discussing all things M:I 7 - Dead Reckoning, the newest installment of Tom Cruise's long-running Mission: Impossible action franchise. Topics discussed include the franchise's unique history, the odd stunt-obsessed turn in Cruise's later career, and Barry's attraction to various women like Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell and Vaness Kirby...as well as a special prediction segment where we guess the box office for Barbie and Oppenheimer's first weekend. This podcast will, like its hosts, self-destruct every five seconds or so.
Thanks for listening!
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Popcorn Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. Compared to all the other vapid junk recently available at the cineplex, this is the best of the vapid junk. If you love Mission Impossible movies you will love this one. If you loathe those movies or Tom Cruise, you’ll definitely hate this one.
I can say without reservation that Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh film in the Tom Cruise starring Mission: Impossible franchise, is most definitely a movie…but whether it’s a good one or not is a much more complicated question.
Mission: Impossible is one of the more confounding film franchises in cinema history. Astoundingly, it has been around for nearly thirty years (Cruise was 33 on the first one and is 61 now!), and for the majority of those years it has been considered pretty forgettable, second tier entertainment at best.
Oddly, the films have become more popular as the series has gone along. The films always made money…but they never made that much money. The first three films generated a respectable but not earth-shattering $457M, $546M and $398M respectively at the box office…but with budgets of $80M, $125 and $150m. Movies four, five and six made a much more impressive $694M, $682M and $791M respectively with budgets of $145M, $150m and $175m.
In addition, fans and critics were lukewarm at best on the first three films, with Rotten Tomato scores of 66 critical/71 audience, 56 critical/42 audience and 71 critical/69 audience respectively for films one, two and three. Interestingly enough, starting with the fourth film, both critics and audience’s love for the films has grown exponentially, with the RT scores being 93 critical/76 audience, 94 critical/87 audience and 97 critical/88 audience for films four, five and six respectively.
That Mission: Impossible survived its first three middling movies to become a respectable franchise is pretty astonishing. It would not have been surprising if, after any of the first three films, the studio (and Cruise) just decided to close up the Mission: Impossible shop.
But what happened instead is that the films stopped being films and transformed into the Tom Cruise Stunt Experience. Starting with the fourth movie, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the franchise’s focus became less about the stories it told and more about the insane stunts Tom Cruise performed in each movie. For example, in Ghost Protocol, Cruise climbed the tallest skyscraper in the world – the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The marketing around the film was all about Cruise’s insane stunt work, and not about the film itself.
That approach has only grown more vociferous since, with the focus of the Mission: Impossible films being Cruise’s increasingly daring stunt work as opposed to…I don’t know…his acting or the story. There was the famous scene in Rogue Nation (film #5) where Cruise hung off of an Airbus as it took off and flew, and then the HALO parachute jump into Paris in M:I 6.
The marketing approach of highlighting Cruise’s death-defying stunts has worked incredibly well, even when those stunts don’t look particularly good on-screen – like the HALO jump. But the point of the stunts isn’t for them to look good but to distract people from the actual movie by making them mutter in amazement, “wow, Tom Cruise just did that crazy thing!”
The newest film, Dead Reckoning Part One, written and directed by longtime Tom Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, is no exception. The marketing around the movie is all about Cruise’s motorcycle/parachute jump off a cliff. The stunt is no doubt impressive even if it doesn’t exactly visually translate very well once Cruise and his motorcycle leave terra firma.
The rest of the movie is…fine…I guess. I mean it’s good for a Mission: Impossible movie, considering the franchise that has always been a parody of itself. Yes, it’s utterly ridiculous and absolutely absurd, but I did find myself mostly engaged for the rather bloated two-hour and forty-five-minute runtime, but I also found myself pondering a more existential question in the wake of watching Dead Reckoning, namely is this movie now considered good because everything else is so bad?
In my case, the last two movies I saw before this were The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Those two movies were, like most of the movies I’ve seen over the last few years, dreadfully bad, and Dead Reckoning is much better than them, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good.
My theory is this…it seems to me that cinema in particular, and our culture in general, has been decaying for the last decade, and in precipitous decline for the past four years, so much so that what was once second-tier, forgettable garbage like Mission: Impossible, is now considered elite franchise filmmaking.
This is a round-about way of saying that objectively, Dead Reckoning isn’t a good movie, but in the context of the shit filling the cineplex these days, it is entertaining and enjoyable.
What makes it entertaining and enjoyable? Well, first off, it makes the rather rudimentary and obvious decision, which Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ignored, to fill itself to the brim with a cavalcade of sumptuous eye-candy.
The eye-candy comes in the gorgeous form of Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby and Rebecca Ferguson. These three women are not only attractive, they’re very talented. Contrast that to Indiana Jones which featured only one woman prominently, and that was the ungainly Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a sub-par and rather unattractive actress.
Hayley Atwell is the best thing about Dead Reckoning and it isn’t even close. Atwell is charismatic, compelling and fun as Grace, the pickpocket/con artist who gives Cruise’s Ethan Hunt a run for his money. Atwell is so appealing she’s actually able to make it seem like she and the dead-eyed Cruise have chemistry…which brings to mind the Rolling Stones lyric from Start Me Up – “you made a dead man come!”
Vanessa Kirby is back as Alana - the White Widow, a sexy arms dealer and she is, as always, undeniably magnetic. Kirby smolders with a palpable dynamism that jumps off the screen. Kirby needs to be a bigger movie star than she already is.
Rebecca Ferguson is the rogue MI 6 agent Ilsa Faust who may or may not have stolen Ethan Hunt’s heart. Ferguson is actually quite good in this enigmatic role, which is no easy task opposite the often lifeless Cruise.
As for the eye-candy for women…well…sorry ladies…all you get is Tom Cruise. Cruise is in absolutely incredible shape but his boyish good looks are long gone and left in their place is a sort of strangely puffy, post-plastic surgery face that always looks just a bit off.
Cruise doesn’t so much act in these movies, as play-act, and it can be pretty cringe-worthy. Cruise is undeniably one of the biggest movie stars of the last forty years, but he is not a particularly good actor, and he lacks a physical presence and dynamism that you’d expect to see from someone of his standing.
Cruise’s attempts at being sincere always feel manufactured and his attempts at being tough feel hollow. But on the bright side we at least get to see Cruise run in this movie…a lot. Cruise’s Mission Impossible running is legendary to the point of being hysterical. It never fails to make me laugh when Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, busts out his hyper-focused sprint. That all of these movies feature numerous scenes of Cruise sprinting, and they all hold those shots of him running for roughly twenty to thirty seconds too long, is one of the more puzzling things about them. Are Cruise and the filmmakers in on the joke or do they think this is really awesome? Who knows?
For a franchise that has been around now for seven movies and nearly thirty years, it should come as no surprise that it is cannibalizing itself. For example, in Dead Reckoning Ethan Hunt is once again facing a villain intent on destroying the world. And once again this villain, a sentient AI named the Entity (no I’m not joking), is so omnipotent that it predicts what all of the Mission Impossible guys and gals will do before they do it…which leads to dialogue about ‘should we do this? – But the Entity KNOWS we’ll do it!!’ This is all very reminiscent of The Syndicate and The Apostles and every other villain in recent MI history.
Dead Reckoning is also seemingly stealing/paying tribute to other films including earlier Mission Impossible ones. For instance, there is yet another sandstorm featured prominently in a sequence in this movie, which also occurred in Ghost Protocol. There’s also a climactic train sequence, which is similar to the one from the very first M:I movie.
Other movies are borrowed from as well, like The Hunt for Red October and Jurassic Park 2. It is never clear if these are a result of homage or creative bankruptcy.
Ultimately, all Mission: Impossible films feel like ego-events with Tom Cruise playing messiah. Dead Reckoning is no exception. That said, it is much better and more entertaining than the vast majority of junk I’ve had to sit through in recent years, including Indiana Jones, The Flash and even everyone’s favorite piece of rancid pop culture shit Top Gun: Maverick.
If you liked any or all of those movies (God, help us!), you’ll think Dead Reckoning is Citizen Kane mixed with The Godfather. If, like me, you loathed those movies, you’ll find Dead Reckoning, filled with pretty woman and beautiful locations, to be a passable piece of franchise entertainment in a culture deeply enmeshed in a seemingly endless entertainment drought.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
On this episode Barry and I go on an archeological dig to try and discover why Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was such a flop...and we find a treasure trove of answers. Topics discussed include Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the fool's gold of Fleabag, the cornucopia of abysmal supporting performances in this disappointing movie, and the storytelling power of science vs religion.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 103 - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Thanks for listening!
©2023
On this episode, Barry and I sprint as fast as we can away from the DC superhero movie The Flash. This rip-roaring, profanity-laced episode contains boisterous discussions about the disaster area that is DC Films, Ezra Miller's multitude of failures, and the awfulness of George Clooney.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 102 - The Flash
Thanks for listening!
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. If you’re desperate to be an Indiana Jones completist, wait until this underwhelming movie hits Disney + to watch it.
The Indiana Jones franchise gloriously burst onto the scene with 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, a deliriously entertaining throwback to early Hollywood action-adventure serial cliffhangers that was perfectly directed by Steven Spielberg and created/produced by George Lucas, which became a massive blockbuster and captured the culture’s imagination.
Raiders made Harrison Ford, who was already an enormous star for his turn as the charming rogue Han Solo in the Star Wars movies, a megastar for his portrayal of the swashbuckling, Nazi-punching archeologist Indiana Jones.
Now, forty years and four films later, Harrison Ford is back once again in the iconic title role in the new film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which is the fifth, and maybe, probably, hopefully, the last film in the franchise.
The Dial of Destiny is the first Indiana Jones film to not be directed by Steven Spielberg. This time James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari, Logan) is at the helm and joining Ford in the cast are Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Boyd Holbrook, Mads Mikkelsen and Toby Jones.
The film tells the story of the incomparable Indiana Jones as he struggles to make his way in the modern world of 1969 as a retiring professor of archeology. His retirement plans get scattered to the wind when his goddaughter Helena shows up talking about an ancient relic called the dial of destiny…and so the adventure begins.
The Indiana Jones film series has, with one notable exception, been a case of diminishing returns as the franchise went along. Raiders was impeccable entertainment, but its sequel, 1984’s The Temple of Doom, was a major drop off from its predecessor. Thankfully 1989’s The Last Crusade, which featured a supporting turn by Sean Connery, got things back on track as it was nearly an equal to Raiders. Then fans had to wait 19 years for the next Indiana Jones movie, and that was 2008’s The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull…it was not worth the wait.
I had never seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but to prepare for Dial of Destiny I watched it and came away thinking that while the first act was fine, the second act was pretty bad and the third act was unconscionably awful.
As bad as The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was, and it really was bad as it was riddled with the most basic filmmaking and storytelling errors, believe it or not, it is still better than The Dial of Destiny.
I saw The Dial of Destiny a day ago and I cannot, for the life of me, remember a single frame from the film. While my cognitive decline may be partially responsible for that lack of recall, it isn’t totally to blame as the movie itself shoulders the majority of it.
The biggest problem with The Dial of Destiny, and it is riddled with a cavalcade of problems, is that it’s shockingly, unforgivably dull. The dial of dullness was turned up to 11 on this movie.
Why Ford, who is now 80 years-old, would dust off Indy’s signature fedora and bullwhip for this insipid script and lackluster movie, is beyond me. It’s not like he needs the money.
Indiana Jones has always had a partner in these movies, be it romantic or familial. In Raiders there was Karen Allen’s spectacular spitfire Marion. In Temple of Doom it was the awful Kate Capshaw as singer/actress Willie. In Last Crusade, of course, it was Sean Connery as Indy’s dad Henry. In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull it was Shia LeBeouf as Indy’s son, Mutt. And now in Dial of Destiny it is Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Helena Shaw, Indy’s Goddaughter.
As terrible as Kate Capshaw and Shia LeBeouf are in their Indy supporting roles, Waller-Bridge is, astonishingly, even worse.
Waller-Bridge is best known for her award-winning performance in the tv series Fleabag, which she also wrote. I absolutely loved Fleabag and Waller-Bridge in it. I thought she was utterly phenomenal as the self-destructive, self-sabotaging lead in the series.
But in Dial of Destiny, Waller-Bridge, who has not done much if any acting work since Fleabag, is exposed for simply not being ready for prime time. Her quirkiness was extremely appealing on the small screen in Fleabag, but on the big screen she is revealed as being a charisma-free, small, rather poor actress.
Waller-Bridge is remarkably wooden, if not leaden, in the film. As a comedic presence she is underwhelming, annoying and decidedly unfunny. As a physical actress she is uncomfortable, ungainly, ungraceful and unathletic, four things that individually are difficult to deal with in an action movie, but in unison are impossible to overcome.
Casting Waller-Bridge, who is, frankly, physically unattractive, and who runs like a baby giraffe with rickets and a club foot, as a co-lead in an action-adventure film next to a crumbling 80-year-old man, is so egregious as to be criminal.
At least with 80-year-old Harrison Ford they de-age him for the first part of the film so we don’t have to watch his decrepit body creak and ache for the full, and excruciatingly long, two hours and thirty-four-minute run time. Unfortunately for Waller-Bridge, and us, no technology exists that can alter her awkward, grating presence and unappealing appearance in this movie.
As for Ford, the truth is he has never been a particularly good actor. He’s certainly a very charming screen presence, but he’s always been pretty limited in what he’s able to do acting-wise. If you watch him in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull he’s actually egregiously bad, but in Dial of Destiny he has some brief moments.
For example, when Indy dutifully recites some exposition about why Mutt (his son from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) isn’t in this movie, it is actually quite moving…and is the most emotionally packed sequence in any Indiana Jones film and maybe in Ford’s career.
Unfortunately, that is the only moment in the entire film that has any life to it. The rest of it is generic action after generic action all riddled with derivative dialogue around a pointless plot.
Speaking of generic, the bad guys in this movie, Nazi scientist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and Klaber (Boyd Holbrooke), are such cardboard cutouts I’m surprised they didn’t blow away in the wind. I like both Mikkelsen and Holbrooke but these bad guys have no depth or direction to them. Klaber in particular is totally incomprehensible and incoherent.
Another absurd character is Mason, a black, female CIA agent, poorly played by Shaunette Renee Wilson. Mason is a sassy CIA agent with a heart of gold and a strong moral compass. How realistic. That Wilson is unable to bring any life or depth to the character only adds to that undeniable sinking feeling whenever she’s on-screen.
In a recent article Wilson described how she got her character’s dramatic exit from the story changed because she thought it had offensive language in it and was unduly harsh. The ending that ultimately ended up on-screen is so banal as to be ridiculous so…congrats to Ms. Wilson?
It is also amusing that Ms. Wilson was offended by some language spoken to her character in her original final scene, which no doubt was racially tinged considering the scenes are set in 1969 and her opponent is the Nazi henchmen Klaber, but she felt completely comfortable using the term “cracker” on-screen. Apparently, what is good for the goose is most definitely not also good for the gander.
That James Mangold agreed to Ms. Wilson’s changing of the script speaks to not only his spineless and sackless nature but also his complete lack of understanding about drama. Kluber would’ve been a more compelling, interesting and comprehensible character if we could’ve seen his visceral hatred of Mason in the actual movie. But it was “offensive” so we have to deter to a no-name, third rate actress’s feelings instead. Good grief.
Speaking of Mangold, who I thought did fantastic work on both Logan and Ford v Ferrari, he brings nothing to the table on Dial of Destiny. The film isn’t even a cheap knock-off of Spielberg, which Spielberg himself already did on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it’s just an overly long exercise in bad decisions.
For example, why does Mangold shoot an underwater scene which is impossible to see and dramatically nonsensical? Why does he shoot so much at night, which results in bland visuals with no sharp contrast? These decisions, along with the decision to cast Waller-Bridge and Shaunette Renee Wilson, are inexplicable, and they are an albatross around the movie’s neck. And don’t even get me started on the character Teddy (Ethann Isidore), who is like Short Round (from Temple of Doom) but worse, believe it or not. Yikes.
Another enormous problem with Dial of Destiny is that its story undermines what made both Raiders and Last Crusade so archetypally compelling, namely, it eschews the magic and mysticism of religion in favor of “science”.
The plot of Dial of Destiny revolves around the Antikythera, a time travel device built by Greek mathematician Archimedes. There is nothing mystical about this device, it is supposed to be based on actual science.
Indiana Jones is himself a scientist, which is why his grappling with the magical religious powers of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, in Raiders and Last Crusade respectively, is so captivating and compelling.
When Indy is faced with dubious science, as in Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, it works at cross-purposes with the character’s archetype and mythology. In other words, it disengages the audience on an unconscious level, thus neutering the story and its dramatic power.
The Lance of Longinus or Holy Lance, which was used to pierce Christ’s side at the crucifixion, is a relic that is momentarily presented on-screen in the movie but then narratively disposed of in favor of Archimedes’ dial of destiny.
It seems to me that the Holy Lance was a better option to use as a narrative device in this film. It could have been presented as a way for the aging Indy to find both redemption and forgiveness for whatever sins he may be burdened with…like the ones regarding his son and ex-wife. And it could also have been a weapon of great power used by the usual suspects, the Nazis, to take over the world.
But instead, we get the rather flaccid dial of destiny, which Indy doesn’t even use to reverse the errors he’s made in his personal life, but only a really lame final act involving Archimedes himself that feels like a bad attraction at a second-rate amusement park. Sigh.
If I had the dial of destiny in my possession I would travel back in time and erase all of the Indiana Jones movies except for Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. I would also make sure the diabolical producer from Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, was never born, thus saving both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises from her malignantly evil grasp. I have no doubt that I would be received as a great hero to all people with good taste.
Oh, to dream.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
****THIS REVIEW IS MOSTLY SPOILER FREE BUT DOES CONTAIN A CLEARLY MARKED SECTION WITH SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A mess of a movie that is a major letdown. If you really want to see it wait a few months until it’s streaming on Max.
In the weeks and months leading up to the release of the DC film The Flash there was a relentless stream of industry people vociferously declaring it to be a superhero movie masterpiece.
James Gunn, filmmaker and new co-CEO of DC Films, said prior to release that The Flash was “one of the best superhero movies (he’s) ever seen.”
Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav said that The Flash was flat out “the greatest superhero movie” ever.
It wasn’t just Warner Brother lackeys either, as none other than the Lord and Saviour of Scientology and Hollywood, Tom Cruise, allegedly called the film’s director Andy Muschietti after an early screening and raved about how much he loved it.
Even horror writer Stephen King got in on the action declaring of The Flash on Twitter, “This one is special. It’s heartfelt, funny, and eye-popping. I loved it.”
I went to see The Flash on its opening Friday and I can report that James Gunn, David Zaslav, Tom Cruise and Stephen King are all either shameless liars or mental defectives with severe cinematic taste dysmorphia.
The reality is that The Flash is, much to my deep, deep chagrin, at its very best, a sub-mediocrity, and at its worst, terrible.
Let me start off by saying that I really like the Flash as a comic-book character, and I think he’s very deserving of a major motion picture. Let me also say that I actually liked Ezra Miller in the supporting role of Flash in the previous Snyder-verse films…and on top of that I actually liked the Snyder-verse films (the director’s cuts anyway) considerably more than most…and on top of that in general I lean much more toward DC than I do Marvel.
That is a long-winded way of saying that I was predisposed to liking The Flash. And then I saw The Flash.
The movie is just a mess. Superhero fatigue is a real thing, and the abysmal failure of The Flash, both creatively and at the box office, is proof that the genre is running on fumes at the moment.
A big part of the problem with The Flash is that the story is convoluted and incoherent. There’s lots of talk about multiverses and time travel and such but the very core of the story, the murder of Barry Allen/The Flash’s mom, is a muddled and jumbled event that carries no weight because it makes zero sense.
Another major issue is that the CGI is egregiously abominable. The opening to the film features an action sequence where Flash has to save a bunch of babies falling from a collapsing building. The scene is reminiscent of the horrors of 9/11 but this time with babies in peril, which why I raised an eyebrow when Flash checks his watch during the action and it reads “9:10”. How odd.
The CGI in this sequence and throughout the film is just atrocious to the point of being ridiculous. Director Andy Muschietti has stated that the poor CGI was intentional as it gives the viewers the perspective of Flash…ummm…yeah, ok…and I intentionally failed trigonometry in high school so I could share the perspective of stupid people. Come on, that Muschietti claim is utter horseshit. The CGI is cheap and laughably bad and no manufactured, half-assed hindsight story is going to change that. The awful CGI matters because it undercuts the entirety of the cinematic enterprise from the get go.
On top of all that, Ezra Miller, who as I stated I liked in a comedic supporting role as Flash in the earlier Snyder-verse films, is simply not able to carry a feature film. Miller is a distinct type of actor, and he becomes more and more grating the more time you spend with him on-screen. That is only heightened in The Flash when you spend a great deal of time with him AND there are two of him…which is as annoying as it sounds.
To be clear, I actually don’t care about Ezra Miller’s much publicized legal issues – which have kept him from doing any publicity for the film, nor do I care about HIS preferred pronouns. I just find it mildly amusing and somewhat ironic that Ezra Miller is obviously batshit crazy and now stars in a movie featuring a bevy of Batmen.
What made The Flash so frustrating was that it so easily could have and should have been not only so much better, but actually great. And the path to greatness, or at least making it better, is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain in their head.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP AHEAD IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS!!!
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Much Like Spider-Man: No Way Home, which featured three Spider-men and a cavalcade of villains from previous film versions of Spider-Man, The Flash could’ve exploited the deep reservoir of DC films and tv shows to deliver fan service, laughs and drama. Instead, the film badly stumbles in its attempt to be clever and pay tribute to the superhero projects that preceded it.
The marketing of The Flash made it clear that both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton would be playing Batman in the film. Keaton’s return was, much to my chagrin since I like movies to keep their secrets, much hyped and given away in the trailers.
The prospect of two Batmen is pretty intriguing, but The Flash does nothing with it. It also does nothing with the cavalcade of other DC superheroes it very briefly visually references….like Christopher Reeves’ Superman, Helen Slater’s Supergirl, George Reeve’s Superman and Adam West’s Batman.
That The Flash is unable to adequately exploit DC’s back catalogue effectively for drama or comedy is cinematic malpractice criminal scale.
What the film should have done is Forest Gump (yes, I’m using Forest Gump as a verb!) the Flash’s red ass into quick scenes from the actual George Reeves Superman and Adam West Batman tv shows and get a laugh when Flash realizes he’s in the wrong universe.
Do the same and put Flash into Christopher Reeves’ Superman films (maybe even in a scene with Richard Pryor!). The same is true for the Nicholas Cage Superman movie that never got made – yes, Cage’s Superman is briefly seen in The Flash, but it could have been used in a more substantial way. Hell, why not use all the Supermen…like Henry Cavill, Brandon Routh (from Superman Returns), Tom Welling (from Smallville) and Dean Cain (from Lois and Clark) even if briefly and even if only for comic effect?
Same with Batman…why not exploit all the weird villains from earlier films, like DeVito’s Penguin, Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze and Jim Carrey’s Riddler? Maybe even get a cheer by putting Flash in the Val Kilmer Batman universe. You could even steal from Top Gun: Maverick and have an emotional scene with a sick Val Kilmer as an aged and beaten Batman on his deathbed meeting Flash yet unable to speak to him.
And you could also do a brief crossover with the Flash tv show on the CW and have Miller’s Flash bump into CW Flash’s Grant Gustin in some weird speed force intersection. I’ve never seen the CW show but why not use and exploit all the IP in your power? Fans love that stuff and it would give this project a sense of scope and scale, and God knows Warner Brothers loves nothing more than self-congratulatory commercials for itself (see the LeBron James Space Jam movie…actually don’t, it’s awful).
As for the two Batmen most prominently featured in the movie, Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, instead of having two Ezra Miller Barry Allen/Flash characters meet up, have Affleck and Keaton’s Batman characters jump into the other’s universe and meet up. It would be much more entertaining and much more dramatically and comedically satisfying to have Affleck and Keaton squaring off saying “I’m Batman” at each other and recounting how their parents died for the millionth time than to have Ezra Miller bantering back and forth with Ezra Miller for two hours.
Hell, imagine a fight between Affleck’s Batman and Keaton’s Batman, and then later they come together to fight against Zod or whomever. People would love that and come out to the theatre to see it.
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END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS
See, the possibilities for plumbing the depths of the DC catalogue for comedy and drama are endless, and yet what The Flash comes up with is the least creative, least interesting, least intriguing of all the possibilities.
The bottom line is that The Flash is the most disappointing movie in recent memory because it really should have and could have been at the very least entertaining…and maybe even great. But it’s neither of those things. What it is, ultimately, is a rather cheap, completely empty exercise in squeezing the very last vestiges of life from the superhero genre.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Popcorn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. As visually stunning and original a film as you’ll see, but it is burdened by poor sound quality and some storytelling mis-steps. Not as good as the original but overall worth seeing.
The new film web-slinging atop the box office is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the highly-anticipated sequel to the 2018 Best Animated Film Academy Award-winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The movie picks up where the original left off telling the story of neophyte Spider-Man Miles Morales as he navigates the pitfalls of life as an adolescent superhero.
The first film, Into the Spider-Verse, which I rewatched prior to venturing out to the theatre to see Across the Spider-Verse, was as entertaining as it gets in both animation and the superhero genre. It was cool, touching and funny. In other words, the sequel Across the Spider-Verse is burdened with very big shoes to fill and, unfortunately, it isn’t quite up to that Herculean task.
Let’s start with the good news.
First off, the animation on Across the Spider-Verse is simply spectacular. The filmmakers create an aesthetically glorious work of art by seamlessly blending together a wide variety of distinct animation styles to create a moving visual masterpiece that pays tribute to the great comic book artists that built Spider-Man throughout the years.
In particular, Spider-Punk, a black brit punk rocking Spider-Man deftly voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, is a standout. The character is designed like a modern art collage and its contrast to the other Spider-People makes for transcendent visuals.
Then there’s the throwbacks to a bevy of old comic book Spider-Men, some shots of live-action movie Spider-Men and even a Lego world Spider-Man. Even the more standard Spider-People, like Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (voiced by Oscar Isaac), look totally badass. All-in-all the film with its vibrant color scheme and distinct style, looks unique, original and absolutely gorgeous.
In terms of the plot, I have to say it’s a bit of a mixed bag for a variety of reasons. All Spider-Man stories, and Across the Spider-Verse is no exception, thrive when grappling with not only adolescent angst but existential profundity. In this film we see both Miles Morales and Gwen Stacey struggle with both things and those are the more resonant storylines.
But the increased focus on Gwen Stacey/Spider-Woman (voiced by the wondrous Hailee Steinfeld) felt too long, ineffective and ultimately distracting because viewers have never been given a fully-fleshed out origin story with Gwen with which to build rapport with the character, which would’ve made her storyline more compelling.
The film also expands into a vast multiverse plot which gets into a wide array of topics including a clever foray into the importance of canon, and all of that is a nice bit of self-reverential fan service from the filmmakers, but it also gets a bit convoluted and burdensome.
That said, I felt the brief foray into the world of Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India was really well-done (and looked great) but was much too short-lived.
Now for the bad news.
The sound mixing on Across the Spider-Verse is absolutely atrocious. Just utterly abysmal. The dialogue of characters is much too low in the mix and the pounding music much too high, particularly in the opening sequence. A great deal of dialogue gets lost in this muddied mess of a mix and it is irritating, aggravating and frustrating.
At first, I thought the sound problems were a result of my sub-par theatre and their lackluster audio equipment but no, the poor sound mixing on Across the Spider-Verse is a real and much complained about thing, so much so that Sony is sending out new versions of the film with improved sound quality. Too little too late as far as I’m concerned. I mean, how in the hell does a studio put out a major motion picture with such third-rate sound, especially one that is animated and built entirely in a computer? It would be one thing to have sound issues if you’re recording natural sound out in the world but these movie makers haven’t seen sun light in like five years so that’s not the case here. Simply unacceptable and totally inexcusable.
Another issue with the film is that, at two hours and twenty-minutes, it’s definitely at least forty minutes too long. Unlike the original, the story here feels decidedly bloated.
Making matters worse is that the film ends unexpectedly with a sort of cliffhanger that isn’t a cliffhanger but more like a poorly timed and entirely unearned abrupt ending that feels very money-grabby. The ending is so abrupt it’s jarring as the dramatic and emotional beats are left mid-arc and feel unfulfilled and unsatisfied. Having to tune in to a third Spider-Verse movie five years from now in order to fulfill the emotional and narrative beats left dangling at the end of this movie does not quench viewer’s dramatic thirst.
One more problem is that the villain, the Spot – a D-list Marvel bad guy, is not the least bit interesting or captivating. Also, due to the structure of the plot, the Spot isn’t really the main villain he’s just a very thin sideshow. I won’t get into it too much in order to avoid spoilers but will only say the lack of a substantial villain and more clearly defined and understandable narrative obstacles for Miles to overcome drains some of the power and drama from the film.
Overall, it felt like screenwriters Phil Lord and Christopher Miller - who also wrote Into the Spider-Verse, and co-directors Joaquim Dos Santos and Kemp Powers (new to the Spider-verse), stumbled in trying to expand the Miles Morales story that was so eloquently told in the first film.
To be clear, Across the Spider-Verse isn’t a bad film, it’s entertaining and enjoyable and features spectacular animation. But it’s nowhere near as good as the original film as it’s marred by some major audio issues (which allegedly are being remedied) as well as storytelling missteps and bloat that reduce its quality and effectiveness.
Across the Spider-Verse could have and should have been great, as it features the most visually stunning and mind-blowing animation you’ll ever come across, but unfortunately it never quite lives up to its predecessor or its unquestionable visual brilliance.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
On the conclusion of our 100th episode celebration, Barry and I finish up our streaming service film/tv recommendations. Topics discussed include the wonders of the Criterion Channel, the god-awful shit that is Peacock, and how HBO Max was better before it became Max. Oh...and a flock of geese gets slaughtered on air for no apparent reason.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 100 Part Two
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©2023
On this very special episode, Barry and I host a massive party at LCFM headquarters to celebrate our 100th episode. In part one of this historic podcasting event, we not only name drop our bevy of celebrity friends, but also give our selections for good movies and shows to watch currently available on each streaming service. Stay tuned for part two of this blockbuster celebratory event in the coming days.
Thanks for listening!
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1.25 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This rotten remake has no redeeming value or reason to exist.
Back in the old, dilapidated, smoke and championship banner filled Boston Garden, the dynastic Boston Celtics of Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens and Larry Bird had the greatest of home court advantages because the famed parquet floor on which they played had numerous dead spots. These dead spots would greatly reduce or eliminate the bounce of the ball thus making dribbling a much less automatic action. The Celtics took great advantage of this court abnormality by funneling unsuspecting opponents to dribble into the dead spots and thus either turn the ball over or slow their attack.
The Celtics made the unwise decision to move out of the charming, rat-infested old Boston Garden in 1995 and left their dead spot parquet advantage, and their mystical, magical, luck of the Irish mojo, behind. Their new home, the corporate, cold mausoleum known as TD Garden, has no such advantageous anomalies, and in turn has only produced just one Celtic championship banner in its near thirty-year existence…a stark contrast to the 16 championship banners the team won during their 48 years playing at the old Garden.
Which brings us to the new White Men Can’t Jump movie which premiered on Friday on the streaming service Hulu. The film, a remake of the 1992 Ron Shelton basketball comedy, reminded me of the old Boston Garden not because it is worthy of championship banners, but because it is so riddled with dead spots it has no bounce to it at all.
The film, which follows the trials and tribulations of two basketball has-beens, Kamal and Jeremy, desperate for one last touch of hoops glory, is written by Kenya Barris, directed by something called Calmatic, and stars Sinqua Walls and rapper Jack Harlow. The end result of this third-rate group of moviemaking wannabes is a vacant, vapid and hollow shadow of the 1992 version which starred Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Rosie Perez.
To be clear I am not one of those people who is repulsed by this new film because I adored the original. The truth is I hated the original White Men Can’t Jump. The main reason for that was that Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes were embarrassingly bad at basketball. They couldn’t even remotely fake being able to play…and as someone who did play and who was a huge fan of the sport, I found that a hurdle much too great to overcome.
The good news is that this new version features marginally better, but still not great, basketball, but that doesn’t overcome the astounding lack of chemistry and the charisma deficiency of the two lead actors, Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow.
Snipes and Harrelson lacked basketball ability, but what they didn’t lack was chemistry and charisma. Walls and Harlow on the other hand can somewhat simulate playing the game but have all the spark of two bodies lying next to each other in refrigerated drawers at the morgue.
Harlow, who if you don’t know is a famous rapper – and yes, I still find the notion of white rappers to be just as cringey as you do, need not worry about quitting his day job and heading to Hollywood to be the next white Will Smith, as God knows the black one is already white enough.
Walls at least played basketball in college at the University of San Francisco – where Bill Russell won two NCAA championships before leading the Celtics to 11 NBA titles…but unfortunately for Walls and for us, he is no Bill Russell on the basketball court or Wesley Snipes in front of the camera. He is a rather dull, one-dimensional actor devoid of any compelling inner life and his basketball ability is not what I would describe as aesthetically pleasing.
To be fair to Walls and Harlow, the script they have to work with is a scattershot piece of garbage. Walls’ character Kamal has a dark past and an odd relationship with his father, but none of these things are adequately fleshed out and are thus rendered annoying and unsatisfying to the viewer.
Harlow’s character Jeremy struggles with serious drug addiction but that battle never takes shape or is given any narrative energy and ends up just being ignored instead of dramatically exploited.
The two men’s personal lives, which feature the love interests Imani (Kamal’s wife - played by Teyana Taylor) and Tatiana (Jeremy’s girlfriend played by Laura Harrier), also fall decidedly flat.
Kamal and Imani’s marriage has all the familiarity of two people passing each other in a bus station. Jeremy and Tatiana’s relationship could be dramatically promising due to it being inter-racial and Jeremy’s drug addiction, but none of those topics are ever explored.
The director of this dud is Calmatic, a commercial director whose only other major film credit is the 2023 remake of the 1990 movie House Party. If you were unaware that the new House Party was released this past January then that makes two of us. Calmatic has no idea how to tell a story or how to elicit coherent and compelling performances from his cast and thus has no business directing films.
The bottom line is that the new White Men Can’t Jump is an instantly forgettable, meaningless, lifeless, purposeless exercise in nothingness. I’d say the film is a brick or an airball but the reality is that this movie soiled itself in the locker room and never even made it out to the court to take a shot.
If you really want to laugh while watching some basketball drama featuring bad acting, skip White Men Can’t Jump and tune in to the NBA playoffs starring the King of the Receding Hairline LeBron James as he shamelessly flops all over the court.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
On this episode, Barry and I don our Air Jordans and go one-on-one to discuss Air, the corporate tale of Nike's rise to basketball dominance directed by Ben Affleck and starring Matt Damon now streaming on Amazon. Topics discussed include Affleck's directing ability, Damon's viability as a movie star, and the lost art of masterful movies made for grown-ups.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 99 - Air
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©2023
On this episode, Barry and I display zero chemistry as we go globetrotting on a spy adventure searching for answers about the new Apple TV+ movie Ghosted, starring Ana de Armas and Chris Evans. Topics discussed include really bad movies, really bad movie stars, really bad streaming services and really bad decisions by streaming services.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 98 - Ghosted
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©2023
IF YOU LIKE DIATRIBES ABOUT THE DEHUMANIZATION OF THE INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED, BLACK LIVES MATTER, POLICE BRUTALITY AND ABORTION IN REVIEWS OF MINDLESS FILM COMEDIES…THEN THIS ARTICLE IS DEFINITELY FOR YOU!
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A mind-numbingly pedestrian affair that is devoid of genuine laughs and feels uncomfortably exploitative.
Champions, starring Woody Harrelson, is a sports comedy that tells the story of a disgraced minor league basketball coach who does his court ordered community service as the coach of a team of intellectually disabled basketball players.
The film, directed by Bobby Farrelly of the famed Farrelly brothers (There’s Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin) in his first solo outing, hit theatres mid-March and is now available on the Peacock streaming service.
Champions, which is a remake of the 2018 Spanish film of the same name, is a bit of a befuddling movie. It is ostensibly meant to be a redemption story for Harrelson’s character, coach Marcus Marokovich, but he never actually redeems himself because he never reveals himself to be so much of a deplorable as to need redeeming.
Sure, Marokovich initially embarrasses himself during a minor league basketball game and it becomes a humiliating moment heightened in our endlessly nasty media culture, but he never seems like a bad guy, just like a guy having a bad day. So Marokovich doesn’t have far to travel on his journey to redemption and thus the story doesn’t go anywhere or mean very much.
To be fair, there is a sort of love story mixed into the mess involving the always charming Kaitlin Olsen as Alex, a sister of one of the intellectually disabled basketball players on Marokovich’s team, but that is more a redemption story for Alex, not for Marokovich.
Part of the problem from the get-go is that Woody Harrelson is simply a very nice guy and has nice guy energy on-screen for the full two-hours. I also assume that this is why Harrelson, due to his niceness, didn’t bring more abrasive energy to his character’s initial interaction with the intellectually disabled basketball players. Yes, there’s a brief moment prior to meeting them where he almost uses the “R-word” (retard) but even then he catches himself because Marokovich/Harrelson is a nice, sensitive person. That’s a great way to be in life but not so great when trying to generate a worthwhile character arc, drama or even laughs.
Speaking of which, the intellectually disabled players in the movie are notably played by actors with intellectual disabilities. My feelings on this are decidedly mixed.
First off, it’s great that intellectually disabled actors are getting work, as I assume that isn’t the easiest thing to do due to the nature of typecasting. Secondly, these actors all do their job well without exception, most notably Kevin Iannucci as Johnny, Joshua Felder as Darius, and Madison Tevlin as Cosentino.
That said, regardless of whatever good intentions may have been present, there is a part of me that feels this movie is exploiting these intellectually disabled actors. My reason for feeling this way is that none of the characters they portray are anything but props, used to generate some cheap laughs or even cheaper sentimentality. The audience is never expected to relate to the intellectually disabled characters, only in how the “normal” characters navigate those who are intellectually disabled.
For example, we never spend a single second alone with any of the intellectually disabled characters. We never get a glimpse of their inner lives, their hopes, their dreams or their fears and they are only identifiable by their unique disabilities and how they “hilariously” manifest.
The intellectually disabled players are all broad stereotypes. There’s the one guy who talks endlessly about all the sex he has…which is supposed to be funny because he’s intellectually disabled. Then there’s the bossy diva girl who is bossy and a diva and it’s supposed to be funny because she’s intellectually disabled. Then there’s the guy who only shoots with his back to the basket which is supposed to be funny because he’s intellectually disabled…and on and on and on.
The Farrelly’s have done this type of thing with intellectually disabled people throughout their filmmaking careers, and to be clear I have no doubt that it is at least in part motivated by good intentions, but that doesn‘t mean that it can’t be uncomfortably exploitative.
The reason it all feels so exploitative is because we are solely meant to either pity these characters or laugh at them. They aren’t real people because they aren’t designed to be real people, they’re only designed to be pets to their intellectually-abled creators.
There’s also an incredibly uncomfortable shadow looming over this self-congratulatory exercise regarding the intellectually disabled that becomes painfully obvious if you look for it. Namely that the denizens of Hollywood who would cheer this movie’s diversity and inclusion also overwhelmingly believe that its cast not only could have, but should have, been aborted prior to birth.
This is not to argue in favor or against abortion, just to point out that 67% of pregnancies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome are aborted. In Europe the number is even higher at 90%. Abortion as a treatment for Down’s Syndrome pregnancies is so rampant that the medical establishment doesn’t just expect it, they almost demand it.
The argument for why Down’s Syndrome babies should be aborted is made painfully clear whenever debated, namely that it is an alleged act of mercy to eliminate a Down’s Syndrome pregnancy because life with Down’s Syndrome is so difficult. It is no doubt true that life with Down’s Syndrome is more difficult, for not only the sufferer but for those that care for them, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a worthwhile life filled with meaning and purpose for all involved.
That Champions fails to see the intellectually disabled as anything other than props or pets to “normal” people fuels the notion that the lives of the intellectually disabled are somehow beneath us and not worthy of serious consideration.
In 2013, I wrote an article about Ethan Saylor, a young man with Down’s Syndrome who was killed by Maryland police in January of 2013. Ethan’s crime was that, being a big fan of the police and military, he went to see the movie Zero Dark Thirty. He liked the movie so much he didn’t want to leave the theatre when it ended and didn’t understand he needed to buy another ticket for a second screening. The police were called and they tackled him to the ground and kneeled on his back and neck until he died.
Ethan Saylor’s killers were never charged with any crime. They were never paraded across the front pages of America’s newspapers or television screens and chastised for their depraved inhumanity. Instead, they simply went on living their lives, just like the rest of the country, as if Ethan Saylor had never existed.
When George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by Minnesota police in much the same way Ethan Saylor was murdered by Maryland police in 2013, amidst all the ensuing media coverage of the “mostly-peaceful” riots and protests, I kept hearing the refrain that “all lives can’t matter until black lives matter!”
I believe that all lives can’t matter until black lives matter, and I also believe that black lives can’t matter until Ethan Saylor’s life matters and until all intellectually disabled people’s lives matter in utero and out. The fact that the media, your government and, frankly, most of you – who either have a blue lives matter or black lives matter signs in your window, have never said a word of protest, or given a single flying fuck about Ethan Saylor and people like him, says everything about this country and the demonic depravity at the absolute heart of it.
Ethan Saylor’s life mattered. Intellectually disabled people’s lives matter…BEFORE and after their birth. Until we as a nation and a culture come to not only understand but embrace this unnecessarily radical notion, we will fail to be anything more than a demented, decadent, depraved and diabolical Fourth Reich.
As for Champions, despite the misguided good intentions of everyone involved, deep in its DNA it retains an insidious superiority complex regarding intellectually disabled people. That this pity-inducing superiority complex is so ingrained in our country and culture means that most people won’t even notice it. What they will notice though is that this instantly forgettable movie, regardless of its notions about the intellectually disabled, isn’t funny, interesting or remotely entertaining.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A golden opportunity for comedy is wasted in this poorly directed, dull movie. Not even remotely amusing.
Cocaine Bear is definitely a great title for a movie, but unfortunately is not a great movie.
The horror comedy, which originally hit theatres on February 24th and is now streaming on Peacock, is loosely based on a true story about a black bear that goes berserk after ingesting 34 kilograms of cocaine that was thrown from a drug runner’s plane into the Tennessee wilds in 1985.
Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks, should have been terrific as all the elements are there for a cavalcade of comedy. The absurdity of a bear high on cocaine in the heartland of America at the height of the Reagan-led War on Drugs in the always bizarre 1980’s is a comedy goldmine. And yet, the film is a flaccid affair that never embraces the 80’s comedy, the bear comedy, the drug comedy, or any other form of comedy for that matter.
Instead of focusing on a man vs nature duel of wits (or mid-wits as the case may be) between a coked-up black bear and some desperate drug dealers or even some over-zealous cops, the movie instead uses a large, unconnected and entirely uninteresting cast to try and tell an unnecessarily sprawling and rather boring tale.
Yes, there are drug dealers, and some park rangers, but there’s also some Icelandic hikers, some kids skipping school, a concerned single mom, some EMTs, a cop and his dog, and another cop taking care of the first cop’s dog, and these characters don’t have any meaningful interaction.
None of these characters are remotely interesting and none of the performances are remotely funny. Some of the performances, like useless nepo baby O’Shea Jackson Jr./Li’l Ice Cube as drug dealer Daveed, are actively awful. Others, like Keri Russell’s single mom Sari, are just boring. Some are heartbreaking…like Ray Liotta as a drug dealer. Liotta is heartbreaking for no other reason than this is his last movie (he died last year) and goddamn it's not fair for Liotta to go out like this.
The biggest issue with Cocaine Bear though is the directing. Elizabeth Banks simply is not even an average director. Banks inability to bring coherence to this story, or to exploit the cavalcade of potential visual gags a bear high on cocaine in the 1980s presents, is a crime against comedy and cinema, and displays a lack of talent, skill and imagination that is astonishing.
Banks is a charming actress but her filmmaking abilities are none existent. Like fellow actress-turned-director Olivia Wilde, Banks has been held up by Hollywood, ever desperate for fashionable female filmmaking talent, as some sort of serious and skilled craftswoman behind the camera.
But Banks’ directing filmography, which consists of a shitty Pitch Perfect sequel and an even shittier remake of Charlie’s Angels, reveals a woman who, like Olivia Wilde, was elevated in Hollywood through a “leg up” diversity program but has absolutely no business helming a major motion picture.
That Banks waits until the end credits of Cocaine Bear to utilize the 1983 song “White Lines (Don’t Do It)” is cinematic malpractice, as is the fact that she never uses Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” at all.
Banks will get more chances to direct because she’s a woman and Hollywood is stupid, but make no mistake, she has no idea what she’s doing.
Cocaine Bear doesn’t just fail as a comedy, it fails as a horror picture too. The horror aspect of the movie is mostly just gore, and yes there is some of that but none of it is particularly clever or shocking or even interesting. It all feels perfunctory and rather cheap and not in a “this is a fun B Movie” way. It also doesn’t help that the CGI bear used throughout is so abysmal as to be embarrassing.
The most telling thing about how flaccid, unfunny and non-entertaining I found Cocaine Bear is the fact that it only runs 95 minutes but I found myself checking how much time was left in the movie from the 12-minute mark on.
If you were thinking about checking out Cocaine Bear just for shits and giggles in the hopes of finding a crisp comedy to tickle your funny bone…think again. Cocaine Bear is a grin and bear it movie without the grin and with a shitty CGI bear, that will put your sense of humor deep into hibernation. You’d have a considerably better time freebasing cocaine with a bearskin rug than watching this lifeless piece of dreck.
So, to answer the eternal question…does a bear shit in the woods? The answer is “yes”…and the steaming pile it leaves behind is less odious than Cocaine Bear.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***
My Rating: ½ out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Don’t even contemplate watching this stupid movie.
Ghosted, which premiered on Apple TV+ this past Friday, is an action rom-com starring Marilyn Monroe and Captain America…oops…I mean Ana de Armas and Chris Evans.
I feel conflicted in labeling the film an action romantic comedy because the action is decidedly derivative and dull, the romance flaccid and the comedy non-existent, but the film identifies itself as an action rom-com so I’m respecting its pronouns, so to speak.
The film does have a plot, although I’m not going to insult your intelligence by trying too hard to recount it as it’s so idiotic as to be insulting. The basics of it are that after a meet cute that isn’t cute, world-traveling woman-of-action Sadie (Ana de Armas) and needy, home body Cole (Chris Evans) have a whirlwind 24-hour romance, which is followed by a globe-hopping, fish-out-of-water, spy/action-adventure. It’s basically a Hallmark Movie with disturbing amounts of killing and some very bad action set pieces.
The film has a run time of 116 minutes that feel like 116 hours because the writing is an abomination, the acting atrocious and the action choreography and execution ridiculous. But besides that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln…oh…it was so bad that Mr. Lincoln would’ve shot himself in the head if John Wilkes Booth didn’t do him the favor first.
A major issue with Ghosted is that the core of the film is the relationship between Ana de Armas and Chris Evans, and they have absolutely zero chemistry. Although to be fair, this script is such crap that you could’ve put Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in this sack of shit and still would’ve stunk to high heaven.
De Armas at least has a light in her eyes and is obviously working hard to make the best of a bad situation, but Evans has such dead eyes and does such lifeless line readings the movie feels like a Weekend at Bernie’s reboot with de Armas dragging Evans’ corpse all over the world.
Evans, who made a name for himself playing Captain America in the Marvel movies, is such a buff buffoon one wonders how he got his famed physique while eating so many of his own boogers.
Hollywood has been trying forever to make Evans a movie star but the only thing that worked was the Captain America stuff because Captain America is just as bland as Evans.
Evans’s last two films are the instantaneously forgettable streaming duds Ghosted and The Gray Man, which might be the worst double-feature in the recent history of cinema. One can only hope that in short order some new meat-headed moron would take Evans’ place in Hollywood rolodex of dumb-ass hunks but you never know.
I actually felt bad for Ana de Armas watching this movie. Unlike Evans, she’s not a terrible actress…she’s not a good one either…but she deserves better than this.
It felt like the makers of this movie saw de Armas in the last James Bond movie, where she had a small but scintillating role as a sexy and silly CIA agent, and thought they’d try and replicate that energy. The problem though is that character was pretty paper thin and barely got us through ten minutes of screen time in Bond, so trying to put her on-screen for two hours in Ghosted is beyond a stretch.
Some movie stars and famous Marvel men, like Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie, show up in Ghosted in order to inject some life and laughs into the festivities, but not surprisingly that all falls as flat as Chris Evans’ sculpted abs.
The director of Ghosted is Dexter Fletcher, whose previous work includes the Elton John bio-pic Rocketman, which made me think that this movie should’ve starred Elton John and Debbie Harry for some random reason. At least then it would’ve been funny even if unintentionally so.
The writers of the film are Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote the Deadpool movies, and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who wrote a bunch of Marvel stuff. Reese and Wernick’s distinctive style is easy to spot in the movie, but with Evans and de Armas spouting it and not Ryan Reynolds, it all feels forced and fails.
Apple TV+ is desperate to be a player in the streaming world, which is sort of amusing since it’s a gigantic tech company but still can’t even develop a barely usable streaming site. Despite some occasional hits like Ted Lasso and Severance, Apple has done little to distinguish itself in the crowded streaming world.
Apple seems to not understand that we aren’t in Old Hollywood or even Hollywood of the 1970s, as their approach seems to be to get stars and put them in shitty movies and people will tune in regardless of quality. As an aside, Netlfix has the same approach except they don’t even use movie stars, they just throw any piece of shit up on their service because they need content.
If Apple wants to become a Hollywood player, and to be honest I don’t really understand why they would want to be, they’re going to have to use their tech bazillions to bully buy somebody else…like Netflix or Disney or God help us HBO Max/Discovery. Because the truth is churning out third-rate garbage like Ghosted with second-rate stars like Ana de Armas and Chris Evans, isn’t gonna move the needle for a fourth-rate streaming site like Apple TV+.
The bottom line is that Ghosted is garbage and wholly deserves to not only be ghosted, but blocked before first contact. Do yourself a favor and don’t even give this pile of shit a single second of your attention.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A rare treat of a well-made movie for grown-ups. Not life changing but undeniably entertaining.
Air, the new movie about Nike’s push to sign Michael Jordan to an endorsement deal in 1984, is, to quote Kris Kristofferson, “partly truth, partly fiction, a walking contradiction”.
The film, which is directed by Ben Affleck and stars Affleck as well as his old buddy Matt Damon, is the rarest of rare things in our current culture in that it’s a movie featuring movie stars, made for grown-ups in which everyone involved is exceedingly competent at what they do.
Ben Affleck’s direction, the cast’s performances, first-time screenwriter Alex Convery’s script and Robert Richardson’s cinematography are all, at a bare minimum, competent and often much more than that. For this reason alone, the film is undeniably entertaining.
It’s a testament to Damon and Affleck’s star power, and the professionalism and skill of everyone involved, that even though viewers know how the story ends, Air is still a compelling and captivating story that at times is remarkably exhilarating and even moving.
Matt Damon is terrific as Sonny Vaccaro, the guy leading the charge to get Michael Jordan to sign up with the then basement-dwelling, third ranked basketball sneaker company, Nike.
Damon has always been a top-notch movie star actor, and he brings all his skill to the fore as the lovable loser Vaccaro. Damon is a pleasant and oddly charming screen presence who effortlessly carries this story from start to finish.
Viola Davis, who plays Michael Jordan’s mom Deloris, is outstanding in her supporting role. With minimal screen time Davis imbues Deloris with a silent authority that dominates the drama. Every time she is on-screen, she is subtly the center of the universe. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario where Davis doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar for this performance.
Ben Affleck is very good too as Phil Knight, the very strange founder of Nike. Affleck is fantastic at being unintentionally funny and if Phil Knight is anything it is unintentionally funny.
Affleck’s direction is solid as well. His decision to not make Michael Jordan a major character in the film, and to not show Jordan’s face, were pretty brilliant as the movie could have easily spun out of control and turned into a rather cheap, made-for-tv type of project with a Jordan imitator joining the festivities.
All that said, there are some things about Air that leave a decidedly bad taste in my mouth.
The first of which is that this movie is undeniably a piece of corporate propaganda and hagiography. This isn’t just a film about American capitalism and corporatocracy, it is a celebration of American capitalism and corporatocracy.
The movie bends the truth to some extraordinary degrees in order to pretend it isn’t celebrating the rather deplorable parts of American capitalism and corporatism symbolized by Nike, and to act like it’s actually a tale about the working man fighting against corporate power.
Jordan is made out to be a pioneer who broke the mold regarding shoe contracts by demanding profit sharing and his mother Deloris makes the case that “young black boys will pay a lot for this sneaker and that money should go to my son!” She also says that workers like Vaccaro, and black athletes endorsing sneakers, are exploited by companies like Nike, and Converse and Adidas and they deserve more of the profits.
This is all well and good and is a nice bit of drama for the film, but the fact that Nike pays slave wages to third world workers in order to make their sneakers goes unsaid and unacknowledged. Also unsaid and unacknowledged is the fact that Nike sell their status symbol shoes at exorbitant prices that are so high that in the 80’s and 90’s they often caused crime and violence by young black men against other young black men in order to get them.
In addition, it is also a bit unnerving that Sonny Vaccaro, who is widely considered by many in the know to be one of the sleaziest people from the amateur basketball scene back in the 70’s and 80’s, is made out to be the good-hearted, kind, lovable hero of the movie.
Vaccaro was a shark who was deeply involved in all sorts of shady shit back in the day, and to see him in the film and in the film’s prologue, portrayed as the champion of the good, the noble and the right is a bit much.
There’s an interesting monologue in the film about the Bruce Springsteen song “Born in the USA”, which was enormously popular in 1984. The song, which was co-opted by Reagan as a flag-waving theme song, is actually a lament about the brutal decline of America, but because its morose lyrics are accompanied by the energized music of an uber-patriotic anthem, the song’s meaning gets lost and its artistic power usurped.
It could be that Affleck uses the “Born in the USA” monologue to let astute viewers know that he is trying to hide his critique of the insidious nature of American capitalism and corporatocracy in plain sight in this hagiography. I’d like to think so…but Air feels too weak in its criticisms and too vociferous in its praise of Nike (and all that it represents) to pass that test, and thus feels like just the anthem part of “Born in the USA” without the existential lament at its core.
The reality is that Air is really a movie about marketing that is itself a piece of marketing. The film, with its fantastic soundtrack of 80’s music, looks and feels like a two-hour commercial for Nike. In this way it is almost an extension of The Last Dance, the ten-hour Michael Jordan docu-series that was so gloriously received by everyone but me back in 2020. That docu-series was shameless legend cultivation and brand buttressing of Michael Jordan and was produced by…you guessed it…Michael Jordan. But our culture is so enamored and addicted to narcissistic self-promotion and propaganda, that no one cared they were being fed a piece of self-serving bullshit.
Speaking of shameless marketing and self-promotion, it is strange that Damon and Affleck are out pounding the pavement selling this movie and pretending this is their first reunion film since their smash hit Good Will Hunting back in 1997, for which they won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
Damon and Affleck’s last actual on-screen and writing credit reunion was Ridley Scott’s underrated 2021 film The Last Duel. The Last Duel was overlooked by audiences and snickered at by critics, but I thought it was very good, so to see Damon and Affleck pretend like it doesn’t exist is somewhat bizarre…but makes sense in terms of marketing as the Damon-Affleck reunion card is being played again. As they say, everything old is new again…apparently even on-screen reunions that already happened two-years ago.
Also a bit odd is the fact that this movie is the first from Damon and Affleck’s production company Artists Equity, which is all about paying workers above and below the line fairly and with equity in the film.
That the narrative of Air somewhat reflects the business model of Artists Equity is clever, as is Affleck talking up how he looked out for first time screenwriter Convery and promised him he’d get full credit despite some rewrites.
But that “looking out for the working man” narrative feels like window dressing when the movie it is placed in is an embarrassing ass-kissing of sweatshop masters Nike made by the deplorable demons at Amazon. I mean…yikes…you’d be hard pressed to find two companies as destructive to working people and our culture as Nike and Amazon. This insidious approach is somewhat reminiscent of the Best Picture winner Nomadland, which told a tale of the working poor on the fringes of society yet disgustingly managed to portray Amazon - which is well-known for its abuse of workers and labor practices, as a friend to the working man and wonderful worker’s paradise.
And yet, despite the rather repulsive pro-corporation politics and economics on display in the movie, Air is an irresistibly entertaining and unrelentingly enjoyable movie, which is a testament to Affleck and Damon’s talent and star power.
In conclusion, Air is in rarified air in that it’s a movie for grown-ups that features movie stars confidently filling up the big screen. I highly recommend it and can guarantee that while it won’t change your life, it will definitely leave you satisfied.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo
©2023
On this episode, Barry and I don our women warrior garb and do battle over The Woman King, the sword and sandal action movie starring Viola Davis now streaming on Netflix. Topics discussed include the blueprint of successful female-led action movies, the burden and benefits of claiming to be "based on a true story", and the curse of over-hyping sub-mediocrity.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 97 - The Woman King
Thanks for listening!
©2023
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Mindless, middlebrow movie devoid of meaningful drama, decent action or historical accuracy.
Sometimes a movie comes along and critics and audiences fawn all over it and then I watch it and wonder what the hell is wrong with these people?
The Woman King, an action movie about the Agojie, a real-life group of female soldiers in 1820’s Dahomey, Africa, is one of those movies.
The film, which stars Viola Davis and is directed Gina Prince-Blythewood, premiered back in September and it was greeted with an impressive 94% critical score and 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It is now streaming on Netflix and I finally watched it and am utterly baffled by the love it’s received.
The Woman King got some more attention when the Oscar nominations came out because the usual suspects were bitching and moaning that the movie’s star, Viola Davis, was “snubbed”, and that the film’s director Gina Prince-Blythewood was too, both on account of their being black, and in Prince-Blythewood’s case also because she’s a female director. Sigh.
The arguments for The Woman King’s star and director being snubbed by the Oscars are so ridiculous as to be absurd.
For example, many pundits claimed the movie was awards-worthy because it was a “blockbuster” and that should have elevated its Oscar profile. Let’s be as clear as we can about this, The Woman King was not a “blockbuster” by any stretch of the imagination. The film made $94 million on a $50 million budget…which in the Hollywood accounting world means it probably didn’t even break even once you factor in marketing costs.
And let’s be even more real about The Woman King…it isn’t even remotely a good movie. It’s a painfully ordinary, rather silly sword and sandals, middlebrow movie that is burdened with a laughable script, piss poor direction and even worse fight choreography.
This movie is a painfully pedestrian action film, but simply because it’s about, stars and is directed by black women, it has magically been elevated into the “prestige” category. For example, one critic actually admitted in his positive review, “Every single beat of the plot is creaky and familiar, and if it had been a story about white people, it would have been a snore.” Yikes.
Gina Prince-Blythewood, whose last film was the clown show The Old Guard, simply is not a good director. On The Woman King her visuals are relentlessly flat and stale, and the performances from her cast obscenely forced and phony.
The film is really just an action movie so its action sequences should be its calling card, but just like with The Old Guard, the action sequences here are haphazard. Every battle is muddled and murky, poorly shot, poorly choreographed and poorly edited. The amateurish action cheese on-screen in this film makes a home video of a sandbox slap fight between toddlers look like Saving Private Ryan.
It also doesn’t help that these female super soldiers that can allegedly kick everybody’s ass look as weak as a geriatric sewing circle. If good old boy Buford Pusser from Walking Tall (the 1970’s original not the newer one starring The Rock) squared off all by himself against these crazy broads he’d beat them silly with his baseball bat in five minutes flat.
Viola Davis is supposed to be the baddest of badasses as Agojie General Nanisca but she looks like what she is…a nice, middle-aged lady with no muscle tone and probably some bone density loss.
Thuso Mbedu plays new girl Nawi who joins the Agojie, and she is a profoundly shoddy actress and an even worse action hero, as she looks like she’s allergic to exercise and has the upper body strength and muscle tone of a quadriplegic on a hunger strike.
Supporting actress Lashana Lynch plays warrior Izogie and looks like Don Cheadle in drag…which in this context could be construed as a compliment.
None of the acting in this movie rings anything but hollow. There’s lots of posing and preening and pretending on screen, but not any real acting. It’s like watching a girl’s junior high school drama club play act at being macho men.
The only performance that had any life to it was a rather hysterical portrayal of Dahomey King Ghezo by John Boyega. Boyega is so free and funny as the King he steals the whole damn movie.
The reason that other critics won’t tell you these hard truths about The Woman King is the same reason the movie was made in the first place…namely that it’s a black girl power story which makes it a glorious triumph among the weak-kneed woke buffoons in the establishment critical class regardless of its merit…or lack thereof. In other words, it’s a wonderful vehicle for critics to use to signal their virtue.
What makes the movie’s modern-day racial and political posturing so amusing is that The Woman King violently contorts and distorts actual history to such a degree its astonishing the movie didn’t collapse in on itself from its own gargantuan hypocrisy.
The film portrays the Agojie as female super soldiers, vastly superior to any men in combat and morally superior to them in the rest of life by being virulently and violently opposed to slavery. The reality is something very, very, very different. You see, in real life the Agojie and the Dahomey were unrepentant, shameless slave traders. Their economy depended on them kidnapping and capturing other Africans and selling them to Europeans and Americans who would then bring them to the new world.
As uncomfortable as this is to acknowledge, the truth is that black Africans were always vital partners to Europeans and Americans in the slave trade. In fact, it could be argued that without tribes like the Dahomey, which sold Africans to white slave traders, the infamous and calamitous slave trade to America would have been so difficult to make profitable as to be rendered essentially defunct.
Of course, that history is inconvenient to the modern Manichean victimhood narrative around slavery where white men are bad and black people saintly. It should be noted that actress Lupita Nyong’o, a native daughter of Kenya, nobly turned down a role in this film due to the “complicated” history regarding the Dahomey and slavery. Wise woman.
In this context, one can’t help but ponder…would there be more or less generational shame around slavery for black Americans if the actual truth about African complicity in the heinous crime of trans-Atlantic slavery were brought to the fore?
At least in that scenario blacks are not just hapless victims without agency who are too weak or disorganized or technologically inferior to overcome white devils and the monumental machinery of slavery. No, in this historically accurate scenario Africans are crucial cogs in the machinery of slavery itself and therefore are no longer stripped of agency but saddled with some, but obviously not anywhere close to all, responsibility. Would that be a better scenario to cleanse the perceived shame of their ancestors having been enslaved from African-American’s collective consciousness? Maybe, maybe not. My argument would be that the truth about slavery and African’s complicated complicity in it would be a better narrative to embrace in order to heal that grievous wound for the sole reason that it is the truth…and as we know the truth shall set you free.
To be clear, it doesn’t much matter what I think, but to be fair as an Irishman and a Catholic I know a wee bit about generational shame and the cultural and collective insecurities that fester over historical crimes. Take that for what it’s worth.
As if the slave history stuff in The Woman King weren’t enough, the notion of the Agojie as super soldiers is equally, if not more, ridiculous. Not surprisingly, in 1892 when, in one of the few times these female super soldiers fought an actual army, the French slaughtered them in an afternoon using only bayonets, killing 417 Agojie while only losing 6 of their own.
The question then becomes, with the ugly history of Dahomey slave trading and Agojie military incompetence, why not just make up a fictional story about an imaginary tribe in Africa with great female warriors? I suppose that’s already been done with Marvel’s Black Panther movies…but The Woman King wants to be a real inspiration to black women and delusional feminist fools everywhere, so they manufactured a false story and just labelled it history in order to give it weight, meaning and purpose and garner prestige.
What is most egregious about this approach though is that the movie goes out of its way to whitewash the historical crimes of the Dahomey and place them instead in the hands of reliable movie villains…white men. In the film, Viola Davis’ Nanisca even says, “the white man has brought immorality here!” Ummm…if history is any guide the Dahomey seemed quite advanced when it came to immorality well before the white man ever showed up.
Of course, changing history to make a better story is not exactly breaking new ground in Hollywood, so the crimes of The Woman King in that regard can be shrugged off in the name of empty-headed entertainment…but what can’t be so easily forgiven is the numerous crimes against artistry and drama that the film commits.
The bottom line is that The Woman King is an instantaneously forgettable film that is deserving of neither critical acclaim nor award recognition. That gullible audiences are so dopey as to enjoy this third-rate, cheesy girl power garbage only speaks to the calamitous lowering of taste and standards across the entirety of our culture. I do admit that I wish the Agojie were real though, just so they could mount an offensive and wipe out the philistines who enjoy this sort of mindless junk.
Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCO
©2023
Acting Coach & Teacher Westside Los Angeles
FILM
Dune: Part Two directed by Denis Villeneuve
The Zone of Interest directed by Jonathan Glazer
American Fiction directed by Cord Jefferson
Poor Things directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
The Holdovers directed by Alexander Payne
Anatomy of a Fall directed by Justine Trier
Ferrari directed by Michael Mann
The Boy and the Heron directed by Hiyao Miyazaki
Godzilla Minus One directed by Takashi Yamazaki
The Killer directed by David Fincher
The Roald Dahl Short Film Collection directed by Wes Anderson
No One Will Save You directed by Brian Duffield
Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
TV
Succession (HBO)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders (TV)
Barbie (pod)
Killers of the Flower Moon (pod)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (pod)
Wes Anderson Roald Dahl Short Film Collection (pod)
Wes Anderson Roald Dahl Short Film Collection
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (pod)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (pod)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (pod)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Mandalorian Season Three (TV)
TV Round Up - White Lotus/Black Bird/Slow Horses/Succession/The Mandalorian
History of the World Part II (tv)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (pod)
The Banshees of Inisherin (pod)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (spoilers)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (spoiler free)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (pod)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio(pod)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
All Quiet on the Western Front (pod)
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Moment of Contact - Documentary
House of the Dragon - Current Fantasy TV Champion of the World
The Greatest Beer Run Ever (pod)
The Rings of Power Season One: Final Analysis
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season One - Final Analysis
TV Round Up: House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, She-Hulk and Andor
Thor: Love and Thunder and the State of the MCU(pod)
Obi-Wan Kenobi(TV)(first 3 eps)(final 3 eps)
Jurassic World: Dominion(review)/(Pod)
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Lost Daughter(pod)
Pam and Tommy(TV)
Peacemaker (Ep.1-3)/Peacemaker(finale)(TV)
Nightmare Alley(pod)
Everything’s Gonna Be All White(TV)
Ozark(TV)
Finch(pod)
Hawkeye(TV)
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass
Succession(TV)
Dopesick(TV)
Ted Lasso Season Two(TV-pod)
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis
Y: The Last Man(TV)
Harry and Meghan: Escaping the Palace(TV)
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union(TV)
The Prince(TV)
What If?(TV)
CODA(pod)
WandaVision/Winter Soldier/Loki(TV-pod)
No Sudden Move(pod)
We the People(TV)
Bo Burnham: Inside(pod)
Tenet(pod)
Exterminate All the Brutes (TV)
Coded Bias (TV)
Coming 2 America(pod)
Ted Lasso(TV-pod)
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy
Recipe for Seduction(pod)
The Queen’s Gambit(TV-pod)
The Crown(TV)
Hope Frozen: A Quest to Live Twice
Spitting Image(TV)
Cursed(TV)
Monty Python’s The Life of Brian
Lance(TV)
The Last Samurai(pod)
The Social Network(pod)
Inception(pod)
John McTiernan Films(pod)
There Will Be Blood(pod)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy(pod)
Hell or High Water(pod)
Zodiac(pod)
Ex Machina(pod)
Contagion(pod)
Space Force(TV)
The Last Dance(TV)
Fleabag(TV)
The Amazing Jonathan Documentary
Once Upon a Time…in. Hollywood
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
War for the Planet of the Apes
Jason Bourne, Projecting the Shadow and the Technological Hunter : A Review and Commentary
Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice
A Very Pleasant Awakening : Thoughts on a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Derek & Orange is the New Black
W.A.P.O.G. Collection: Lee Daniel's The Butler
W.A.P.O.G. Collection: August: Osage County
LIVE MUSIC REVIEWS
La La Land : An Analysis - Political Subtext
Jason Bourne, Projecting the Shadow and the Technological Hunter : A Review and Commentary
The Big Short : A Review, a Diagnosis and a Warning
Sicario: A Review and Reports From Down the Rabbit Hole of the Drug War
Citizenfour : A Review and Random Thoughts
Knight of Cups : A Review and Dispatches From the Great Malick Civil War
The Birth of a Nation : A Review and Commentary
ACTING TECHNIQUE AND THEORY
Marlon Brando, The Big Bang and the Birth of Modern Acting
Stillness: Lessons from Redford, DeNiro and Penn
Al Pacino : Top 5 performances
Requiem for a Heavyweight: James Gandolfini
On Grief and Acting: Revelations from Hamlet in the April of my Discontent
Ethan Saylor and a Lack of Empathy Part One
St. Patrick's Day : The Five Best Irish Films
AWARDS NONSENSE
1st Annual Mickey Awards (2014)
2nd Annual Mickey Awards (2015)
3rd Annual Mickey Awards (2016)
4th Annual Mickey Awards (2017)
5th Annual Mickey Awards (2018)
6th Annual Mickey Awards (2019)
7th Annual Mickey Awards (2020)
8th Annual Mickey Awards (2021)
9th Annual Mickey Awards (2022)
10th Annual Mickey Awards (2023)
1st Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2014)
2nd Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards(2015)
3rd Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2016)
4th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2017)
5th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2018)
6th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2019)
7th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2020)
8th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2021)
9th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2022)
10th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2023)
Must-See Documentaries
Can’t Get You Out of My Head directed by Adam Curtis
HyperNormalisation directed by Adam Curtis
Century of the Self directed by Adam Curtis
The Power of Nightmares directed by Adam Curtis
LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA PODCAST
Season 1 - 2020
Ep. 2 - Marriage Story
Ep. 8 - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Ep. 9 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Ep. 11 - Coronavirus and Contagion
Ep. 14 - Hell or High Water
Ep. 15 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Season 2 - 2021
Ep. 35 - Promising Young Woman
Ep. 40 - Tenet and Nolan Films
Ep. 41 - Top 5 Alien/UFO Films
Ep. 42 - No Sudden Move and Top 5 Heist Movies
Ep. 43 - WandaVision/Falcon and Winter Soldier/Loki
Ep. 44 - Bo Burnham: Inside & The State of the Comedy Union
Ep. 45 - Black Widow
Ep. 47 - Movie Streaming Recommendations
Ep. 50 - Eternals
Ep. 52 - Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Season 3 - 2022
Ep. 57 - Spider-Man: No Way Home
Ep. 67 - Ozark Season 4 Part 2
Ep. 68 - Dr. Strange in the Mutiverse of Madness
Ep. 71 - Jurassic World: Dominion
Ep. 72 - Thor: Love and Thunder and the State of the MCU
Ep. 79 - The Greatest Beer Run Ever
Ep. 82 - All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Ep. 88 Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Ep. 89 - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Season 4 - 2023
Ep. 94 - The Banshees of Inisherin
Ep. 95 - Oscars Wrap Up and Black Panther : Wakanda Forever
Ep. 98 - Ghosted
Ep. 99 - Air (pod)
Ep. 100 Part One - Streaming Movie Recommendations
Ep. 100 Part Two - Streaming Movie Recommendations
Ep. 101 - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Ep. 103 - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Ep. 104 - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Ep. 106 Ted lasso Season Three
Ep. 107 - No One Will Save You
Ep. 108 - Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Short Films
Ep. 109 - Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Ep. 115 - Killers of the Flower Moon
CULTURAL CRITICISM
Truth, Justice and the Curious Case of Chris Kyle
Russiagate: Puzzlements and Lost Causes
The Tragedy of Charlottesville and the Age of Identity
John Oliver - Shameless Establishment Shill
Election 2016 : Random Dispatches From the Shitshow
Election 2016 Post-Mortem : Crossing the Rubicon and Chickens Coming Home to Roost
Election 2016 Aftermath : A Practical Handbook to Survive and Thrive in the Era of Trump
PROPAGANDA WATCH
November 2023 Propaganda Report - More 60 Minutes
Propaganda Watch: Ireland Edition
This Week in Propaganda: 60 Minutes Edition
BLOG POSTS
2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
10th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards
Revisiting Killers of the Flower Moon
2023
This Week in Propaganda: 60 Minutes Edition
Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Short Film Collection
Ahsoka (TV)
Encounters (TV) - UFO Documentary
Winning Time (TV)
Jury Duty (TV)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Barry (TV)
Succession (TV)
Adventures in Idiocy - Dylan Mulvaney, Max and Monty Python
The Mandalorian - Season Three (TV)
TV Round Up (White Lotus/Black Bird/Slow Horses/Succession/The Mandalorian)
The Last of Us (TV)
Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part II
9th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
2022
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - Review and Commentary
House of the Dragon Season One - Final Analysis
The Rings of Power Season One: Final Analysis
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season One - Final Analysis
The Greatest Beer Run Ever - Review and Commentary
TV Round Up: House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, She-Hulk and Andor
The Rings of Power: Amazon’s Weaponization of Tolkien and Tokens
The Last Movie Stars documentary
House of the Dragon - Episode One
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Episode One
Obi-Wan Kenobi: The Final Verdict
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Come and See (1985) and the War in Ukraine
Everything’s Gonna Be All White
The Book of Boba Fett and the Future of Star Wars
2021
Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis
The Russians are Coming…to Space!
Harry and Meghan Lifetime Movie
The Woke Wet Dream of ‘What If…?’
Numbnuts Chris Evans Goes Full Captain America
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union
They Are Us and the Tragedy Trap
Tarantino’s Pact with the Weinstein Devil
Pentagon UFO Report Viewer’s Guide
In the Heights Box Office Bomb
Riz Ahmed and Muslim Under-Representation
Anne Boleyn and Color Conscious Casting
The Father and the MSM’s Dementia Simulation Machine
A Decaying Culture Diminishes the Value of Life
Harry, Meghan and the Royal Reality TV Show
China’s Rules for Performers are a perfect Fit for Hollywood
Keira, Knightley, Sex Scenes and the Male Gaze
Biden Inauguration Performances
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy
2020
Top Ten Virtue Signalers of 2020
Midnight Sky is the End of George Clooney’s World
Chadwick Boseman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
The Woke War on Parents and Family
Mank is a Tale of Old Hollywood - and of our Corrupted Modern Age
The Media Lie…Even About Peppa Pig
Hillbilly Elegy and the Culture War Clash
The Crown is a Mirror of American Politics
Biden Has Defeated Trump - Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss
Trump’s Minority Support Sends the Woke Over the Edge
Chris Pratt in Cancel Culture Crosshairs
Disney’s New Content Warning and the Woke Slippery Slope
Jessica Chastain, The 355 and the CIA-Hollywood Alliance
Critical Race Theory in Kindergarten
UNpregnant - Review and Commentary
Cuties - Review and Commentary
Academy Awards Diversity and Inclusion Rules
Sexual taboos on tv are crumbling just as new taboos around speech are being erected
Spitting Image, BoJo’s Penis and Fear of a Black Puppet
The Crown just cast an Australian to play Princess Diana!
The Pentagon and China’s Propaganda Wars
Cursed, Netflix’s Girl Power Infused Re-Telling of the King Arthur Legend
The Woke Philistines taking Over Hollywood Hate White Men More Than They Love Cinema
A Not-So-Expert Opinion on our Future With the Coronavirus
Horny Women of the World Unite! Don’t Let Woke Puritans Cancel the Steamy Netflix Movie 365 Days!
Mr. Jones is a Timely Reminder of the Cowardice of Our Current Press
Just When You Thought Celebrities Couldn’t Get Any Worse, the ‘I Take Responsibility’ Video Comes Out
Racism is Now Gone With the Wind
Comedians Must never Apologize if Comedy is to Survive in the Age of Cancel Culture
Space Force Crashes on the Comedy Launch Pad, but Still Manages to Accomplish its Propaganda Mission
‘Hoaxed’ Exposes the Mainstream Media’s Bias…and Its Own
Mike Tyson’s Comeback is a Perfect Example of America’s Delusional Culture
Be Like Mike? Unlike Michael Jordan, The Last Dance is Anything but Great
Covid-19 is Deadly, but it Will never Kill the Relentless Stupidity of Wokeness
UFC 249 is Cancelled. Can We Now Direct Our Bloodlust at the Elites Who Deserve It?
What to Watch: TV Suggestions to Pass the Time
Coronavirus: Thoughts and Musings
Lost Opportunities and Dastardly Deeds in the Age of Coronavirus
Coronavirus Will Eventually Get Better But America Never Will
Hollywood and the Economic Time Bomb of Coronavirus
The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Viewer’s Guide
Good Riddance to Harvey Weinstein, A Repugnant Pig Who Brutalized Both Women and Cinema
Trump, Parasite and the 2020 Election
La Resistance est Mort! The Cesars, L’affaire Polanski and the #MeToo Virus
Birds of Prey Hates Men, but Wants Their Money - No Wonder It’s Bombing at the Box Office
Do You Believe in Miracles? Parasite Wins Best Picture
The Super Bowl Halftime Shitstravaganza
You’re Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming
It’s a Miracle…Hollywood Finds Religion!
Hollywood’s Arrogant and Ignorant Pandering to Chinese Audiences
Formula Still Works: Jojo Rabbit and the Holocaust
The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations
1917 Dazzles the Eye but Fails to Stir the Soul
Feminist Fleabag and Woke Critics
2019
Knives Out Sharpens the Blade of Anti-White Racism
Woke Hollywood Gets Burned By Charlie’s Angels Box Office Bomb
Martin Scorsese Top Five Films
Game of Thrones Predicted the Zealotry of Extinction Rebellion Eco-Fanatics
Patron Saint of Incels? Woke Outrage Over Joker is a Bad Joke
Anecdotal Observations on Elizabeth Warren
Thoughts and Musings: Featuring Fredo, Bed Bug, Lady Kicker and More
Celebriphilia Epidemic Sweeps US: We Look Now to the Stars for Guidance
Angry Americans, Shark Attacks and Synchronicity II
Quentin Tarantino Films Ranked Worst to First
Propaganda and the Delusion of Wokeness
Women’s Soccer, pay Equality and Pandering
Movie Subscription Services and Box Office Booms and Busts
Meathead Beats the Dead Horse of Collusion
The Emotionalist Buffoonery of Charles Blow
Brief Thoughts Before the End of Game of Thrones
Undead Army of the Woke Will Make Sure Game of Thrones is the Last Show of Its Kind
Game of Thrones: The Battle of Winterfell and the Fog of War
United Sheep of America: Assange, Fascism and Liberal Hypocrisy
Russiagate: Puzzlements and Lost Causes
Jussie Smollett’s Hate Crime Hoax Exposes America’s Shocking Skepticism Shortage
Toxic Femininity: ‘Badass’ US Women Demand Right to Torture and Kill for Empire…Just Like Men
Beating the Dead Horse of Grammy Award’s Racism
2018
Bush, Bertolucci and a Requiem for Truth
2018 Mid-Terms: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Serena Williams and Her Basket of Deplorables
Burt Reynolds and the End of the Movie Star
The Existential Catholic Crisis
The Awful File: Oscars, Millennials, Brie Larson and More
Thar He Blows: Charles Blow Has a Question...I have an Answer
Shots Fired - James Gunn Part Two
Disturbing Dispatches From "Real America"
American Animals, Anthony Bourdain and Late Stage American Empire
Song of Experience in A Quiet Place
The Farcical Fury Over the White House Correspondence Dinner
Morgan Freeman and the #MeToo Whispers
Next Stop - Speculation Station: Syria and Scott Pruitt Edition
I Told You So: Conor Lamb Edition
A Wrinkle in Time, Film Criticism and White Liberal Paternalism
Thoughts on the Academy Awards
#MeToo: It's Not Broke, but You Can See the Cracks
Queen Oprah: Pope of the Cult of Personality
A Week of Holes: A$$holes, Sh*tholes and Rabbit Holes
Some Brief Thoughts on the Golden Globes
2017
Perversion and the Religion of Self
He Who Laughs Last - Edward S. Herman Edition
The Death of Edward S. Herman and the Death Knell for Liberalism in America
Sex Scandals and the Phases of a Panic
While We Were Sleeping...The Dogs of War Awoke
JFK and the Media: The House Always Wins
JFK and the Conspiracy Conundrum
The Media Hates Conspiracy Theories…Except When They Don't
Eternal Darkness of the Artist's Mind
Mayweather, McGregor and the Heart of Darkness
Deconstructing Criticism of Oliver Stone's "The Putin Interviews"
The Whitewashing Controversy Part Two: A Response
Caesar Americanus : Trump, Shakespeare and the American Illiterati
Greg Gianforte, Punching Nazis and the Absence of Moral Authority
JOE McCARTHY WAS RIGHT!! Shocking Revelations From a Manchurian Op-Ed Writer
Curious George and the Banana Republic
Through the Looking Glass : Truth and Lies in Week One of 2017
Theatre of the Absurd : Road to Damascus Edition
Meryl Streep, Character and Moral Authority
TWIB : This Week in Bullshit (Feb 17- 24)
President Trump : A Viewer's Guide
Raping Truth : Brando, Butter and Last Tango in Paris
#OscarsSoWhite: Don't Believe the Hype?
The Way of the Gun: Meditations on America and Guns
OP-EDS
2022
Everything’s Gonna Be All White
The Book of Boba Fett and the Future of Star Wars
2021
Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis
The Russians are Coming…to Space!
Harry and Meghan - Lifetime Movie
The Woke Wet Dream of ‘What If…?’
In the Same Breath Docdumentary
Numbnuts Chris Evans Goes Full Captain America
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union
They Are Us and the Tragedy Trap
Tarantino’s Pact with the Weinstein Devil
Pentagon UFO Report Viewer’s Guide
In the Heights Box Office Bomb
In the Heights and the Woke Albatross
Riz Ahmed and Muslim Under-Representation
Anne Boleyn and Color Conscious Casting
The Father and the MSM’s Dementia Simulation Machine
A Decaying Culture Diminishes the Culture of Life
Harry, Meghan and the Royal Reality TV Show
China’s Rules for Performers are a Perfect Fit for Hollywood
Keira Knightley, Sex Scenes and the Male Gaze
Biden Inauguration Performances
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy
2020
Top Ten Virtue Signalers of 2020
Midnight Sky is the End of George Clooney’s World
Chadwick Boseman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
The Woke War on Parents and Family
Mank is a Tale of Old Hollywood - and of our Corrupted Modern Age
The Media Lie…Even About Peppa Pig
Hillbilly Elegy and the Culture War Clash
The Crown is a Mirror of American Politics
Biden Defeats Trump - Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss
Trump’s Minority Support Sends Woke Poseurs Over the Edge
What Killed Michael Brown? Review
Chris Pratt in Cancel Culture Crosshairs
Disney’s New Content Warning and the Woke Slippery Slope
Jessica Chastain, The 355 and the CIA-Hollywood Alliance
Critical Race Theory in Kindergarten
UNpregnant - Review and Commentary
Cuties - Review and Commentary
Academy Awards Diversity and Inclusion Rules
Sexual taboos on tv crumble just as taboos around speech are erected
Spitting Image, BoJo’s Penis and Fear of a Black Puppet
The Crown just cast an Australian to play Princess Diana!
The Pentagon and China’s Propaganda Wars
Cursed, Netflix’s Girl Power Infused Re-Telling of the King Arthur Legend
The Woke Philistines taking Over Hollywood Hate White Men More Than They Love Cinema
Horny Women of the World Unite! Don’t Let Woke Puritans Cancel the Steamy Netflix Movie 365 Days!
Mr. Jones is a Timely Reminder of the Cowardice of Our Current Press
Just When You Thought Celebrities Couldn’t Get Any Worse, the ‘I Take Responsibility’ Video Comes Out
Racism is Now Gone With the Wind
Comedians Must never Apologize if Comedy is to Survive in the Age of Cancel Culture
Space Force Crashes on the Comedy Launch Pad, but Still Manages to Accomplish its Propaganda Mission
‘Hoaxed’ Exposes the Mainstream Media’s Bias…and Its Own
Mike Tyson’s Comeback is a Perfect Example of America’s Delusional Culture
Be Like Mike? Unlike Michael Jordan, The Last Dance is Anything but Great
Covid-19 is Deadly, but it Will Never Kill the Relentless Stupidity of Wokeness
UFC 249 is Cancelled. Can We Now Direct Our Bloodlust at the Elites Who Deserve It?
Coronavirus Will Eventually Get Better But America Never Will
Hollywood and the Economic Time Bomb of Coronavirus
The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Viewer’s Guide
Good Riddance to Harvey Weinstein, A Repugnant Pig Who Brutalized Both Women and Cinema
Trump, Parasite and the 2020 Election
La Resistance est Mort! The Cesars, L’affaire Polanski and the #MeToo Virus
Birds of Prey Hates Men, but Wants Their Money - No Wonder It’s Bombing at the Box Office
Do You Believe in Miracles? Parasite Wins Best Picture
You’re Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming
It’s a Miracle…Hollywood Finds Religion!
Hollywood’s Arrogant and Ignorant Pandering to Chinese Audiences
Formula Still Works: Jojo Rabbit and the Holocaust
The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations
1917 Dazzles the Eye but Fails to Stir the Soul
Feminist Fleabag and Woke Critics
2019
Knives Out Sharpens the Blade of Anti-White Racism
Woke Hollywood Gets Burned By Charlie’s Angels Box Office Bomb
Game of Thrones Predicted the Zealotry of Extinction Rebellion Eco-Fanatics
Patron Saint of Incels? Woke Outrage Over Joker is a Bad Joke
Celebriphilia Epidemic Sweeps US: We Look Now to the Stars for Guidance
Meathead Beats the Dead Horse of Collusion
Undead Army of the Woke Will Make Sure Game of Thrones is the Last Show of Its Kind
Jussie Smollett’s Hate Crime Hoax Exposes America’s Shocking Skepticism Shortage
Toxic Femininity: ‘Badass’ US Women Demand Right to Torture and Kill for Empire…Just Like Men
2018
A Curious Case of Mystery Attacks, Microwave Weapons and Media Manipulation
In a Fit of Anti-Trump Pique, Liberals Shamelessly Embrace 'Deep State' Criminals
Guardians of the Galaxy Defeated by the Most Fearsome Super-Villain of All...Political Correctness
Captain America v Trump in Battle of the Useful Idiots
Hollywood's Self=Serving and Misguided Immigration Protests
Trump is Deadpool and We're All Doomed
Kanye Tweets He Loves Trump, Civilization on Brink
Hollywood's Malicious Propaganda Dehumanizes All Russians
The Pentagon and Hollywood's Successful and Deadly Propaganda Alliance
Profiles in PC Courage: Brave Millennials Attack 'Friends'
Echoes of Totalitarianism in #MeToo and Russia-Gate
2017
#MeToo Wildfire Rages Out of Control
Has Fear of Putin Seized Hollywood?
Stephen Colbert Heads For Russia Looking For Laughs; He'd Find Better Material at Home
What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Trump, That's What!
Trump - Griffin Scandal Underscores American Celebrity-Obsessed Culture
Suffering Children as Propaganda and the Jimmy Kimmel Story
Colbert Attacks Trump, Was it Homophobic? Hysterical? Or Both?
Oscars and Grammy Racism : Perception or Reality?
La La Land is Hollywood's Version of "Make America great Again"
Buzz Lightyear Claims Hollywood is Nazi Germany, Captain America to the Rescue?
John Oliver - Shameless Establishment Shill
Snoop Dogg Barks Up The Wrong Tree
Express Yourself? Madonna Don't Preach!!
Goodbye Ringling Brothers, Hello Cirque du Trump and Media Clownshow
JOHN OLIVER
The John Oliver Twist 1 : Court Jester as Propaganda Tool
The John Oliver Twist 2 : The Drumpf Affair and Little Bill Maher's Power Fetish
The John Oliver Twist 3 : Waxing Brazilian and Waning Credibility
The John Oliver Twist 4 : Out Trumping Trump on the Great Wall of Trump
John Oliver Twist 5 : Things Said and Unsaid
GENERAL
Irishness, Cultural Memory and the Curse of St. Patrick's Day
BOOKS
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Dreamland by Sam Quinones
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic by Barry Meier
American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts by Chris McGreal
Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the 60’s by Tom O’Neill
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
The Duel by Anton Chekhov
Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov
The Bishop by Anton Chekhov
The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov
The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Projecting the Shadow : The Cyborg Hero in American Film by Janice Hocker Rushing and Thomas S. Frentz
Re-Membering Frankenstein : Healing the Monster in Every Man by G.H. Ellis
Man and His Symbols edited by C.G. Jung
Modern Man in Search of a Soul by C.G. Jung
Under Saturn's Shadow : The Wounding and Healing of Men by James Hollis
Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
Kill the Messenger by Nick Schou
Dark Alliance : The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb
Whiteout : The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
Boundaries of the Soul by June Singer
Jungian Psychology Unplugged: My Life as an Elephant by Daryl Sharp
Merton's Palace of Nowhere by James Finley
SHE: Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson
HE: Understanding Masculine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson
The Problem of the Puer Aeternus by Marie-Louis Von Franz
Ego and Archetype by Edward Edinger
Scapegoat Complex: Toward a Mythology of Shadow and Guilt by Sylvia Brinton Perera
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
MUSIC
Centennial Collection by Robert Johnson
The Anthology, 1947-1972 by Muddy Waters
L.A. Woman by the Doors
Hendrix in the West by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Born Under a Bad Sign by Albert King
Burglar by Freddie King
Indianola Mississippi Seeds by B.B. King
Rhythm & Blues by Buddy Guy
The Complete Recordings by Mississippi John Hurt
Trouble in Mind by Big Bill Broonzy
His Best : The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection by Howlin' Wolf
Traveler by Chris Stapleton
The Nashville Sound by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
A Sailor’s Guide to Earth by Sturgill Simpson
A/B by Kaleo
Blue Train by John Coltrane
Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker by Charlie Parker
Body and Soul by Coleman Hawkins
Go! by Dexter Gordon
Beauty is a Rare Thing : The Complete Atlantic Recordings by Ornette Coleman
Incesticide by Nirvana
Purple by Stone Temple Pilots
Mingus Ah Um by Charlie Mingus
Rearviewmirror by Pearl Jam
Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden
Dirt by Alice in Chains
Brown and Roach by Clifford Brown and Max Roach
Moanin' by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Somethin' Else by Cannonball Adderley
Superfly (Deluxe Edition) by Curtis Mayfield
Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
Sea Change by Beck
Signs by Tedeschi Trucks Band
Walking the Line: The Legendary Sun Recordings by Johnny Cash
Misterioso by Thelonious Monk
Tenor Madness by Sonny Rollins
The Sky is Crying by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
Me and Mr. Johnson by Eric Clapton
The Story of Sonny Boy Slim by Gary Clark Jr.
Bootleg Series Vol. 8 : Tell Tale Signs by Bob Dylan
Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk by Jeff Buckley
Harvest by Neil Young
Email: mpmacting@yahoo.com
