The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Veiwer's Guide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coronascore: 6.5/10. Think about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coronascore: 9/10…It even has a bat!

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

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

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

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

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

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

The Invisible Man: A Review

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

My Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rest of the cast are fine, if underwhelming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2020

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

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

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

Or on iTunes

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

Thanks for listening!

©2020

Birds of Prey: A Review

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

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: NEVER SEE THIS MOVIE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How did things go so wrong?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2020

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: A Review

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

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Cinephiles sholuld see this in the theatre and marvel at director Sciamma’s confidence and cinematographer Mathon’s deft touch. Regular folks should at least see it on Netflix or cable if not in the theatre…and should stick with the movie even when the pace is slow…as the ending is worth it.

Language: French with English Sub-titles.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire, written and directed by Celine Sciamma, is the story of Marianne, a portrait painter in late 18th century France, who is hired to paint the enigmatic aristocrat, Heloise. The film stars Noemie Merlant as Marianne and Adele Haenel as Heloise.

February is typically a pretty barren time of year to go to the movies as the big blockbusters haven’t started their early Spring blossoming and the prestige pictures of Autumn are a long way away. That said, this time of year is usually pretty good to catch foreign films from last year that are just now getting released in the U.S. And so it was with me and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a French film and while it was adored by critics it failed to be France’s choice to represent the nation at the recent Academy Awards, with the choice being the rather middling cop drama Les Miserable instead. After seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire I have to say I am genuinely shocked at what a poor choice it was by France to over look it for the Oscars.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a strange film, at times beguiling, at other times boring, and sometimes both of those things at once. It is above all else a very French film, as its pacing is very deliberate, and may be too slow for American audiences weened on more frenetically driven films and narratives.

What is truly amazing about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that while the first hour and a half can be slow going, maybe too slow, the last twenty to thirty minutes of the movie are absolutely exquisite. I cannot remember a film in recent memory that so effectively elevated itself by crafting a perfectly sublime final few scenes.

Without giving anything away I simply say that everything is beautifully tied together in the last few scenes, and the ending scene is as subtle, well-acted, poignant, insightful and dramatically palpable as any you’ll come across.

What makes the final scene so good, and the rest of the film bearable, is the acting of Adele Haenel as Heloise. Haenel is a mesmerizing and intriguing screen presence. Her eyes radiate a vivid and vibrant inner life that her stoic face beautifully restrains. She is an actress who conveys an ocean of turmoil beneath a porcelain veneer of detached cool.

Sadly, what makes the film at times a difficult slog, is that Haenel and her co-lead, Noemie Merlant, do not have the least bit of romantic chemistry. As magnetic as Haenel is on screen, Merlant is just as anti-charismatic. The two of them never seem to fully coalesce as romantic equals, and the film does suffer for it.

Unlike Haenel, Merlant is a bit dead-eyed, and does not convey any sense of an inner life or much life at all and is a bit of a dramatic dullard. All of the dramatic imperative of the film is conjured by Haenel and her desperation and desolation, and thus Merlant is left being more an observer than an active participant.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the story of forbidden love between two women, and the narrative places a plethora of powerful obstacles between the two protagonists. In this way, it is somewhat reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain…it isn’t as good as Brokeback, but it is in the same ball park thematically. It is miles and miles ahead of say, Call me By Your Name, which was an abysmally awful piece of pandering garbage that posed at being drama, but never actually was.

The cinematography on Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Claire Mathon is spartan and austere but extremely well done to the point of being elegant. Mathon uses minimal camera movement, fantastic framing, and natural and low light to not only paint a pretty picture that could easily hang in the Tate Gallery, but also buttress and enhance the emotional narrative of the movie.

Director Sciamma makes some very bold choices throughout the movie, most of which work extremely well. Fore instance, Sciamma’s decision to use no music and only natural sound (for the most part), is extraordinarily effective.

Sciamma’s writing is top-notch as well, as she is never in a rush and with her ending, forces viewers to re-evaluate in hindsight everything they just saw…and leave the theatre pondering the depth and breadth of it all.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is undeniably a feminist film, in terms of its politics, but it never panders or takes the easy road. In one scene, which I won’t spoil, Sciamma directly addresses a very controversial topic and does so with remarkable artistic, dramatic and philosophical courage. I thought this scene (you’ll know it when you see it), and the ending, were absolute proof that Sciamma is an artistic powerhouse.

I think that cinephiles will enjoy Portrait of a Lady on Fire, especially if they adore French cinema. I think regular folks might find the pacing to be a bit too slow and thus may find the film impenetrable. I would say this though, I wholly encourage people to give this film a try, either in the theatre or on Netflix/cable, and stick with it to the end…as you may find yourself liking it more in retrospect than you did in the moment…I know I did.

For an in-depth discussion of Portrait of a Lady on Fire…with spoilers…check out episode 9 of Looking California and Feeling Minnesota.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 9 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire

This week Barry and break down the intriguing French film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is in limited release here in the U.S. Our discussion may be useful for the less cinematically adventurous to listen to before seeing the subtitled movie, or as a supplement to those who have already seen it.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA : EPISODE 9 - PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Or check us out on iTunes.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 9 - PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Thanks for listening and please share you comments, thoughts or feelings in the comments section below or email me at info@mpmacting.com

©2020

6th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey™ Awards: 2019 Edition

The Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® awards are a tribute to the absolute worst that film and entertainment has to offer for the year. Again, the qualifying rules are simple, I just had to have seen the film for it to be eligible. This means that at one point I had an interest in the film and put the effort in to see it, which may explain why I am so angry about it being awful. So any vitriol I may spew during this awards presentation shouldn't be taken personally by the people mentioned, it is really anger at myself for getting duped into watching.

The prizes are also pretty simple. The winners/losers receive nothing but my temporary scorn. If you are a winner/loser don't fret, because this years Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® loser/winner could always be next years Mickey™® winner!! Remember…you are only as good as your last film!!

Now…onto the awards!

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker - The geniuses at Disney decided it would be a good idea to strip the final film of the Skywalker saga of all dramatic consequences…well done shitbags! A mind numbingly incoherent movie that does away with death…and drama…and interest.

Knives Out - This is less a whodunit than a who-inherits-it. A film so full of white self loathing it should run for the Democratic nomination. It is nice to see director Rian Johnson ruining original films after he ruined his Star Wars movie.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix - One of the cheapest, least consequential and poorly made superhero movies in recent memory. Thankfully it is so flimsy you literally forget it as you watch it.

The Souvenir - This art house poseur is such a vacuous and pretentious piece of garbage it made me want to shoot heroin into my eyes. A truly awful film.

AND THE LOSER IS…Knives Out - If watching terrible over-acting, being completely bored to tears, and hating white people is your thing…then this steaming pile of shit is for you. This mess of a movie is so self-satisfied with its wokeness it is incessantly imbecilic to the point of absurdity. A glorious monument to everything that is currently wrong with Hollywood.

WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR - Julie Hagerty - Marriage Story : Julie Haggerty is a tour-de-force of awfulness in Marriage Story. Haggerty didn’t light up the screen but made me want to light myself on fire every time she appeared. Haggerty’s forced and strained performance felt like watching someone have a stroke while you are having a stroke.

WORST SCENE OF THE YEAR - Marriage Story - Being Alive : You would be hard pressed to find a worse scene in cinema in recent history than the one in Marriage Story where Adam Driver gets up and sings “Being Alive” by Stephen Sondheim at a karaoke bar. Driver is a shitty actor…and this is a shitty movie…but this scene…which is interminable…is the apex mountain of pretentious shittiness. I have never wished harder for a random act of violence in a movie than I did watching this scene.

MOST OVERRATED FILM OF THE YEAR - Marriage Story : Establishment critics adore Noah Baumbach for some mysterious reason (I have a theory to explain it called the Elvis Costello Theory!). Marriage Story was Baumbach at his most pretentious and phony…and he brought the sycophantic worst out of his adoring critics. The praise for this movie is utterly baffling as this is an actively awful movie. The performances are dreadful, the writing trite and the direction amateurish…but besides that it was really good.

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATIC MALPRACTICE - JJ Abrams : Rise of Skywalker - It takes a special kind of asshole to take a gigantic dump on a beloved forty year old movie franchise…;and JJ Abrams is that asshole. Abrams direction on Rise of Skywalker is jaw droppingly atrocious. The decision to remove death from the Star Wars universe basically undermined the entirety of the previous collection of films. His inability to even tell the most rudimentary of stories, or to put together a coherent film…earns JJ Abrams his Special Achievement in Cinematic Malpractice.

P.O.S. HALL OF FAME

Jeffrey Epstein - Epstein gets his much deserved plaque at the POS Hall of Fame this year for being an insatiable pederast, sexual predator, Israeli spy and for not even having the common decency to kill himself. Epstein is dead of course, but if you think he actually hung himself I have a no-longer-a-Virgin Island to sell you, round-trip Lolita Express transportation included.

Epstein’s fortune, which he used to get close to people in power whom he then compromised by luring them to his underage sex parties, is a complete mirage, no doubt created by Israeli intelligence in order to give him cover as he plied his despicable trade.

Speaking of despicable…Epstein’s client list is a who’s who of scumbags. Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, John Kerry, Tony Blair…and even everybody’s favorite douchebag, Alan Dershowitz. No doubt many, if not all, of Epstein’s clients will soon be joining him in the POS Hall of Fame…and with any luck they’ll also be joining him in hell soon too.

If you want to understand the demonic cult at the heart of the ruling elite and powerful in America and across the globe…look closely at the Epstein affair. This is who these people are…and their brazen murder of Epstein, and the media’s allergy to actually taking the story seriously, reveals their depravity and arrogance.

P.O.S. ALL-STARS

Bret Bed Bug Stephens - Stephens has always been a gigantic piece of shit…but he raised his game this year with his chickenshit claims that people pointing out his awfulness were anti-semitic, which was quickly followed by his attempt to get one of said critics who called him a “bed bug” fired. Then Mr. Bed Bug wrote a repugnant piece boasting of his and his fellows Jews’ superiority over other peoples. I look forward to picking Mr. Bed Bug’s teeth out of my knuckles one day.

Chris “Fredo” Cuomo - Chris Cuomo is easily the dumbest person to have ever appeared on television…which is an astounding achievement. Cuomo, who hosts an unwatchable program on CNN, makes the POS All Stars this year by threatening some guy at a party who called him “Fredo”. Cuomo claimed that calling Italians “Fredo” was just like calling black people the “n-word”. Ok Fredo…oops…is it better if I call you a fucking numbnuts dago greaseball guinea wop twat? Or better yet…how bout when i meet you I don’t say anything and just gouge your eyes out and skull fuck you, you useless piece of shit.

And thus concludes another Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® awards. If you are one of the people who “won” this year I ask you to please not to take it personally and also to try and do better next year….because remember…this years Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® award winner could be next year’s Mickey™® Award winner!!

©2020

6th Annual Mickey™® Awards: 2019 Edition

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

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

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

Before we get to what everyone is here for…a quick rundown of the rules and regulations of The Mickeys™®. The Mickeys™® are selected by me. I am judge, jury and executioner. The only films eligible are films I have actually seen, be it in the theatre, via screener, cable, Netflix or VOD. I do not see every film because as we all know, the overwhelming majority of films are God-awful, and I am a working man so I must be pretty selective. So that means that just getting me to actually watch your movie is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself…never mind being nominated or winning!

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

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

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

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

Best Cinematography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Adapted Screenplay

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

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

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

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

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

Best Original Screenplay

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Supporting Actress

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Supporting Actor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Foreign Film

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Actress

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

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

Best Actor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Ensemble

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

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

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

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

Best Director

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Picture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Most Important Film of the Year - Joker

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

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

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

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

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

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

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

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 37 seconds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

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

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 28 seconds

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

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

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

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

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

How did things go so wrong?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

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

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 37 seconds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast: Episode 5 - Parasite

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

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

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA

Thank you for listening and please spread the word.

©2020

The Two Popes: A Review

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

My Rating: 2.85 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2020

1917 Dazzles the Eye but Fails to Stir the Soul

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 32 seconds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota Podcast!

HELLO READERS!

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

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

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

Our first film discussed in Marriage Story.

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

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

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 27 seconds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A version fo this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

1917: A Review

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

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2020

Marriage Story: A Review

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

My Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2020

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker - A Review

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

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SPOILERS!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2019

A Hidden Life: A Review

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

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2019