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On this episode of everybody's favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I get all dressed up and go to the Oscars. Tune in to listen to our Oscar predictions, Oscar dream scenarios and Oscar nightmares, as well as lamentations for the sorry state of the movie industry.
Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 34 - Oscar Predictions
Thanks for listening!
©2021
Estimated Reading Time: 3 hours 47 minutes 22 seconds
The Academy Awards are once again upon us and the biggest question about them is…does anyone give a rat’s ass?
As the show’s dwindling ratings prove, interest in the once mighty Oscars has been in steep decline in recent years. It would seem the perfect storm of a plethora of streaming service tv shows and reduced attention spans, as well as a paucity of genuine movie stars and a plenitude of identity politics has wounded, maybe fatally, the once iconic awards.
As a denizen of Hollywood, I’ve never experienced an awards season that has generated so little interest. It appears that even though, due to streaming services, movies are more available to more people than ever before, they seem to have never mattered less.
Part of the reason for that is that, for a vareity of reasons - not the least of which was Covid, 2020 was just a cinematically lackluster year. A handful of good movies came out this year, but no truly great ones, and certainly no films that ignited the public’s passions.
With that said, the reality is that it is my sworn and solemn obligation to share with you my Oscar picks. Please remember that these picks are NOT TO BE USED FOR GAMBLING PURPOSES!!
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Who will win: Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari) - Not a fan of this movie or this performance, but it checks a diversity box Academy members want to celebrate. I personally think Amanda Seyfried (Mank), Olivia Colman (The Father) and Maria Bakalove (Borat) are considerably more deserving. There’s an outside chance Bakalove pulls the upset…but don’t bet on it.
Who should win: Seyfried or Colman.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Who will win: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) - This is a slam dunk, and deservedly so. While I liked Paul Raci (Sound of Metal) and LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah), Kaluuya crushes his role as Fred Hampton.
Who should win: Kaluuya
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Who will win: Promising Young Woman - Emerald Fennel : This is one of the few interesting categories. I think Fennel wins because the Academy is desperate to to appease the woke wolves at its door, and Fennel is a woman so she qualifies. There’s a pretty good chance that they give the award to Aaron Sorkin for his atrocious The Trial of the Chicago 7. That movie is dreadful and the script a joke, but it taps into the whole self-righteousness of the moment. That said…I think Fennel gets the nod.
Who should win: Sound of Metal - Darius Marder
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Who will win: Nomadland - Chloe Zhao: I think Zhao and Nomadland are the big winners come Oscar night…but if Florian Zeller wins this award (which I think he should) for his adaptation of The Father, it could be a monkey wrench into the Nomadland dominance.
Who should win: The Father - Florian Zeller
ANIMATED FEATURE
Who will win: Soul. This is a no-brainer. I liked Soul and it is certainly an antidote to our tumultuous times. Also…the Pixar machine is unstoppable.
Who should win: Soul I guess.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Who will win: Mank - I think Mank finally gets on the board here. if it loses this category it may very well get shut out of all awards. The big competition will come from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Who should won: Mank.
COSTUME DESIGN
Who will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - I think Ma Rainey and its popular costume crew win here for a variety of non-merit based reasons. If Mank wins, which it could, that is a big deal and could portend a mini-Mank run in some behind the camera categories.
Who should win: Mank.
MAKEUP AND HAIR
Who will win: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Same as above.
Who should win: Mank.
EDITING
Who will win: Sound of Metal - There’s a chance that Trial of the Chicago 7 could win (God help us), but I think Sound of Metal pulls it off. If Nomadland win then look out, that is a sign it will win a huge amount of hardware on Oscar night.
Who should win: Sound of Metal
SOUND
Who should win: Sound of Metal - Outside chance that Mank or Soul win, but that seems very unlikely. if Mank wins it is another sign of a big night for that movie…but that seems unlikely.
Who should win: Sound of Metal
VISUAL EFFECTS
Who will win: Tenet - This seems like it’s going to happen.
Who should win: I’ll be honest…I don’t know.
SCORE
Who will win: Soul - Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross: This seems like a slam dunk too. An outside chance Terence Blanchard wins for his bombastic score to the equally awful Da 5 Bloods.
Who should win: Soul.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Who will win: My Octopus Teacher - I’m not sure why but people love this movie and I think the votes for potential winners Collective, Crip Camp and Time get split and the octopus wins.
Who should win: No idea.
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Who will win: Another Round - I think this beats out Qou Vadis, Aida by a nose.
Who should win: Another Round.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Who will win: Nomadland - This is a bellwether award…if everything goes to plan then Nomadland should win and clean up at the Oscars. If Mank wins…its gonna be an interesting night because that signals Mank has a ground swell of support and Nomadland is floundering.
Who should win: Mank. Nomadland is extremely well shot by Joshua James Richards, no doubt about it, but my tastes run slightly more towards Erik Messerschmidt and Mank.
BEST ACTOR
Who will win: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) - This is set in stone. With Boseman’s tragic death and the narrative around the award, it would be an absolute shocker of the highest order if anyone else won. The only other potential winner is Anthony Hopkins for The Father…but that ain’t happening.
Who should win: Anthony Hopkins. Boseman is very good in Ma Rainey…but Hopkins is on another level in The Father.
BEST ACTRESS
Who will win: Viola Davis - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom : This is one of the very few interesting categories. Frances McDormand is the front runner but I think that the fact that she won recently (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and a win here would put her in Meryl Streep territory with 3 Oscar wins, the Academy will look to feed the diversity beast by awarding Davis for her sub-par performance in that dreadful movie.
Who should win: Carey Mulligan - Promising Young Woman : I thought Mulligan was better than everybody else.
BEST DIRECTOR
Who will win: Chloe Zhao - Nomadland : This too is a slam dunk. No way Fincher or Vinterberg pull of an upset. Just impossible.
Who should win: Fincher, Vinterberg or Zhao. Three different directors making very different films all did solid work.
BEST PICTURE
Who will win: Nomadland - This is happening. There is no stopping the Nomadland juggernaut. If Mank or (GOD HELP US ALL) The Trial of the Chicago 7 win, that is a sure sign of the apocalypse.
Who should win: Mank or Sound of Metal. They won’t win but I think they should. Nomadland is a good movie, but I thought these two were a little better.
Here’s the rest of the categories of which I have no opinion just a guess…
ORIGINAL SONG- One Night in Miami
LIVE ACTION SHORT - Two Distant Strangers
DOCUMENTARY SHORT - Concerto is Conversation
©2021
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A fascinating film featuring a terrific performance from Mads Mikkelson.
Language: Danish with English sub-titles.
Another Round, written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, tells the story of Martin, a teacher suffering a mid-life crisis. The film, which is nominated for Best International Feature Film at this year’s Academy Awards and is currently streaming on Hulu, stars Mads Mikkelsen as Martin, with supporting turns from Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe.
Director Thomas Vinterberg is a fascinating filmmaker. Vinterberg was, along with Lars von Trier, one of the founders of the Dogme 95 movement from the 1990’s which featured a bare bones cinematic aesthetic that emphasized story, acting and theme over elaborate special effects and technology.
His 1998 film The Celebration, which was the talk of the arthouse at the time, was the first of the Dogme 95 films and is not just a fantastic representation of that philosophy but also just a terrific film. If you have never seen The Celebration, I highly recommend you do.
Dogme 95 no longer exists, but the spirit of it lives on in Another Round, and the film is a wondrous example of that yearning for cinematic purity in action.
Another Round is an amazing film in that it is a dark comedy but also a profound drama. This merging of humor and profundity may be the result of the tumult and tragedy which surrounded the film’s production.
The idea for the film came from a play Vinterberg was writing which was partially inspired by stories his daughter Ida told him about drinking in Danish youth culture.
Ida was set to have a supporting role as one of Martin’s daughters in the film, but tragically, four days into filming, Ida was killed in a car crash. She was 19.
In this context it is no surprise that the existentialism of Another Round hangs over the film (which is dedicated to Ida) like a heavy, dark storm cloud, and gives it the gravitas that makes it such an interesting drama. And yet, Vinterberg is still able to masterfully turn the movie into a yearning for life rather than a commentary on death.
Vinterberg’s ability, both as writer and director, to create compelling characters and dynamic drama is extraordinary, and he is assisted in this endeavor on Another Round by the magnificent Mads Mikkelsen.
Mikkelsen as Martin adds to the weight of the project, as he opens the film looking like a man carrying the heavy cross of a lifeless existence, a burden under which he is suffocating. Martin’s fear of an empty life trapped within the prison of middle-class respectability make him a tortured soul, and a compelling character.
Mikkelsen is as unique an actor as Vinterberg a director. Mikkelsen is blessed as an actor, as he is impossibly handsome, yet not a pretty boy, and his face conveys a depth and complexity that draws in viewers and tells a story all its own. Mikkelsen brings a magnetism and power to the screen and combines it with a high level of craftsmanship, which results in a truly dynamic and captivating performance as Martin.
If you’re interested (and you should be), another Vinterberg/Mikkelsen film of note is 2012’s The Hunt. The Hunt, like Another Round, is a remarkable film and it highlights what is best about both Vinterberg and Mikkelsen as artists.
Another Round is also elevated by terrific supporting work from Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe. This trio, as well as Maria Bonnevie as Martin’s wife, bring a grounded complexity to roles that in lesser hands could have been caricature.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m intentionally being elusive about the plot of Another Round because I think it’s definitely worth seeing and it’s best seen with as little information about the story as possible.
In conclusion, Another Round is very deserving of both the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and of your attention. I highly recommend you see it. But be forewarned, it is an arthouse, foreign film (Denmark), so its pacing and plot may feel a little unconventional to viewers used to more mainstream fare, but also note that it isn’t so unorthodox as to be incomprehensible or off-putting. The bottom line is…if you like great cinema and great acting, you should see this movie.
©2021
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. The deviant, under-aged sexuality in Cuties doesn’t make the middling movie an art house gem. It’s incredible some critics are blind to its toxic depravity just to score political points.
Cuties premiered on Netflix this week amid much controversy and fanfare. As a film critic, I am willing to give the artistic benefit of the doubt to most any movie, so as I sat down to watch Cuties I was conscious of the controversy surrounding the film, which started three weeks ago after Netflix’s marketing material made the movie look like it was sexually exploiting 11 year-old girls. But I was also open minded enough to think the film might not match the marketing.
Cuties starts off with an intriguing premise that is bursting with dramatic potential as it tells the story of Amy, an 11 year old immigrant from Senegal, as she navigates the clash between her old world, Islamic family, and the modernity and libertinism of her new French friends.
Unfortunately, Cuties pretty quickly devolves from its powerful premise and becomes licentious and lurid rather than dramatically lucid. Director Maimouna Doucoure makes the egregious error of trying to make a social commentary about how modernity hypersexualizes young girls by actually hypersexualizing young girls. It is like making a social comment on animal cruelty by actually torturing animals on film.
I am a cinephile, not a pedophile, so I found Doucoure’s repeated and extended shots of 11 year-old girl’s scantily clad, gyrating pelvis, buttocks and groins to be gratuitous, shocking and frankly, repulsive.
It is amazing that there are people out there, like highly respected film critic Richard Brody of The New Yorker, in a lather vehemently defending the film. Brody’s review is not so subtly titled, “Cuties, the Extraordinary Netflix Debut That Became the Target of a Right-Wing Campaign” praises the film but ultimately indicts the critic.
Brody boasts, “I doubt that the scandal-mongers (who include some well-known figures of the far right) have actually seen “Cuties,” but some elements of the film that weren’t presented in the advertising would surely prove irritating to them: it’s the story of a girl’s outrage at, and defiance of, a patriarchal order.”
I’ve seen Cuties and I’m not a right-winger, and yet I’m able to see the insidiousness of exploiting little girl’s sexually under the guise of being against the “patriarchy”…why isn’t David Brody? Brody and his ilk are so eager for a culture war fight they are completely blind to the striking malevolence of Cuties.
For Brody, Cuties is just another opportunity to signal his alleged liberal virtue as evidenced by his statement, “The subject of “Cuties” isn’t twerking; it’s children, especially poor and nonwhite children, who are deprived of the resources—the education, the emotional support, the open family discussion—to put sexualized media and pop culture into perspective.”
It would seem Brody is over estimating the power of education, as he is a Princeton grad and yet he is incapable of putting the deviant sexuality of Cuties into proper perspective. Brody’s review comes to a close by stating, ““Cuties” dramatizes what people of color and immigrants endure as a result of isolation and ghettoization, of not being represented culturally and politically… it’s enough to give a right-winger a conniption.”
To Brody and other Cuties defenders, and there are plenty of them as the film has a 90% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, Cuties is just another gateway drug to the cultural narcotic of racism, sexism, xenophobia and all the rest, and is just another cudgel against “right wingers”.
The beauty of it is that Brody is chastising “right-wingers” for politicizing Cuties by politicizing his review of Cuties, just like the film comments on the hypersexualization of kids by hypersexualizing kids. This is Matrix level, multi-dimensional chess of the highest order.
On a purely artistic and cinematic level, Cuties is a decidedly middling affair. Director/writer Doucoure makes some rudimentary structural and character development errors that undermine the film to a great degree.
In addition, despite its one good shot, which is its final one, the film has no distinct visual flair and only seems capable of mimicking the style of those creepy American Apparel ads that were shot by…not surprisingly…famous photographer and alleged sexual predator Terry Richardson.
There is one scene where 11 year-old Amy is basically possessed by some evil, uncontrollable twerking demon, where in close-up she is sprinkled with water and gyrates in skimpy underwear, that was particularly reminiscent Richardson’s lascivious style.
What struck me as I watched Cuties was that there was a much more interesting, complicated and artistically worthy subject hiding in plain sight and that would be a story where one of the truly awful little girls in Cuties, who dresses like a whore and twerks and watches porn, actually leaves her religion of libertinism and becomes enamored and engrossed in an old world religion like Islam, Catholicism or Orthodox Christianity, or Orthodox Judaism.
Brody and his companions in the elite establishment would despise that version of the movie because it would show the depravity of the chaotic libertine world they cheer while showing a viable, and although not perfect but much more ordered, alternative.
In conclusion, being a film critic is sometimes a good job and sometimes a bad one. On the good days you get paid to watch a Terrence Malick film…on the bad days you are forced to endure Cuties. I highly recommend you do yourself a favor and skip Cuties and spare your mind and soul from being subjected to the toxic depravity of little girls being drowned in the most repugnant of cinematic sexual stews.
A version of this article was originally published at RT.
©2020
Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 14 seconds
The Pentagon and China are waging a propaganda war against their own people, and the greedy globalists of corporate Hollywood are happy to help
Hollywood won’t choose between the totalitarian Sauron of China and the authoritarian Darth Vader of the U.S. military, but instead will support both evils, and the people of the world and the art of cinema will suffer greatly because of it.
There is currently a propaganda war being waged by China and the U.S. military where both want to control Hollywood, and therefore the minds of their citizenry, for their own nefarious means.
Not surprisingly, like whores at a battlefield brothel, the morally ambiguous harlots of Hollywood are trying to profit by servicing both combatants.
PEN America, a group championing free expression, recently released an exhaustive report detailing how China has taken control over Hollywood.
The report states, “The Chinese government, under Xi Jinping especially, has heavily emphasized its desire to ensure that Hollywood filmmakers—to use their preferred phrase—“tell China’s story well.”
China strictly controls films released in their market, which is soon to become the largest box office in the world, and Hollywood wants in on that lucrative action, so they appease their Chinese overlords by obeying censorial demands, like whitewashing a Tibetan character from Marvel’s Dr. Strange, and strenuously self-censoring, like cancelling a planned sequel to World War Z.
The whitewashing of a Tibetan character from Dr. Strange is particularly interesting as that became the outrage of the moment back in 2016 when the movie was released. Many activists and journalists howled at the inherent racism of casting a white woman (Tilda Swinton) in a role that was an Asian man in the source material. Interestingly enough, Disney (who owns Marvel) stayed entirely silent throughout the controversy. The PEN America report shows that the reason for the whitewashing was that China wouldn’t allow a Tibetan portrayed on screen, so Disney dutifully complied in an attempt to get the film in the Chinese market. Disney also kept its mouth shut as to why it engaged in whitewashing in order to cover up its appeasement to Chinese demands.
Disney genuflecting to China should come as no surprise. In 1998, Disney’s then CEO, Michael Eisner, met with Premier Zhu Rongji to talk about Disney’s desired expansion into China and the 1997 Martin Scorsese biography of the Dalai Lama it produced, Kundun, which infuriated the Chinese government.
The loathsome Eisner said of Kundun, “The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it,” Eisner then groveled further, “Here I want to apologize, and in the future we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening.”
In the two decades since then, Chinese power has only grown and Hollywood has only become more and more weak kneed and reflexively compliant.
This Orwellian sentiment of controlled storytelling to fit a government-approved narrative is not limited to the communists of China though. The U.S. military has long had a very fruitful arrangement with Hollywood where they exchange free military equipment, expertise, personnel and locations in exchange for ultimate control over scripts.
Capt. Russell Coons, Director of Navy Office of Information West, sounded like Xi Jinping when he described Pentagon expectations while cooperating with a movie, “We’re not going to support a program that…presents us in a compromising way.”
PEN America notes this Pentagon propaganda program, “…the United States government has benefitted from, encouraged, and at times even directed Hollywood filmmaking as an exercise in soft power.”
But then disingenuously dismisses it, “But this governmental influence does not bring to bear a heavy-handed system of institutionalized censorship, as Beijing’s does.”
That is an absurd contention as the Pentagon picks movies based on a studio’s willingness to conform to its rigidly pro-military narrative standard, which is, in function if not form, just like China picking which Hollywood movies it allows to run in its country based on their adherence to a pro-China criteria.
Regardless, the reality is if Hollywood can financially benefit by acquiescing to the Pentagon and/or China’s demands, it certainly will.
In response to China’s Hollywood propaganda, Sen. Ted Cruz proposed the egregiously titled Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity and Protecting Talkies Act, or SCRIPT Act.
Cruz’s bill aims to kneecap Hollywood studios by withholding access to U.S. government support – the Pentagon propaganda program, if they alter their movies to appease Chinese censors.
Of course, SCRIPT will never go anywhere as the Motion Picture Association of America will aggressively lobby to get the whole thing scuttled to keep both Chinese and Pentagon money flowing to La La Land.
On the bright side, the SCRIPT Act has at least frightened the propagandists in the Pentagon and Hollywood enough that they are now openly touting their shadowy alliance.
For example, The Military Times recently ran a jaw dropping op-ed by Jim Lechner shamelessly espousing Hollywood’s Pentagon propaganda.
Lechner admits, “…limits on the cooperation with skilled storytellers at the American movie companies would significantly degrade the ability of the U.S. government to tell its own story…”
Lechner then boasts, “…over the decades, Hollywood has provided one of the most powerfully positive images of our military. No Pentagon-based press relations operation could come close to what Hollywood has achieved through its films.”
Over the last three decades, the Pentagon-Hollywood alliance has drastically altered American’s perception of the military and successfully neutered filmmakers as artists and truth-tellers.
For example, in the 70’s and 80’s Francis Ford-Coppola, Stanley Kubrick and Oliver Stone, made great anti-war films like Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, that explored the dark side of American militarism and empire.
That type of artistic and intellectually challenging anti-war movie went on the endangered species list in 1986 when the Pentagon collaborated on the making of the blockbuster Top Gun, and has since become extinct, which is why we haven’t had any great movies detailing the heinous fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Oliver Stone spoke about how he had wanted for decades to make a movie about the My Lai Massacre but was unable to get a studio on board for funding. Stone did not explicitly state this, but the implication was clear, the Pentagon’s propaganda program not only assists pro-military movies, but intimidates studios into avoiding films that are anti-war or highlight military misdeeds.
Ironically, Top Gun has become not only a symbol of the Pentagon’s propaganda prowess, but of China’s as well. In the poster for the sequel due out this year, Tom Cruise’s Maverick is still wearing his signature leather jacket, but in order to appease Chinese censors, gone from its back are the prominent Japanese and Taiwanese flags from the original.
The modern golden era of Hollywood films exploring the darker side of China peaked in 1997 with Kundun, Seven Years in Tibet and Red Corner. China’s swift and severe reaction to those films and the studios and production companies that made them, was extremely effective as it has resulted in studios strangling any truthful artistic exploration of Chinese themes and stories in order to avoid alienating the Chinese Communist Party and potentially missing out on the ever expanding Chinese box office.
As a cinephile and a truth-seeker, I want to see films made by true artists that chronicle the dramatically potent moral and ethical atrocities of both America and China. The plethora of post 9-11 American evils (surveillance, torture, Iraq, Afghanistan) and the brutal Chinese atrocities against the Uighers, Tibetans and members of the Falun Gong, are fertile cinematic ground. But sadly…thanks to Hollywood’s insidious, incessant and insatiable greed, none of those important stories will ever be told on the big screen.
The reality is that the propaganda war is already over and the authoritarian and totalitarian corporatists, globalists and militarists of Hollywood, Washington and Beijing, have handily won…and we the people, and the art of cinema, have lost.
A version of this article was originally published at RT.
©2020
Estimated Reading Time: 69 seconds
A vocal minority of totalitarian busybodies is taking on the lustful populist majority in trying to censor the racy fan favorite. While it’s a terrible movie, pulling it would be a very bad day for film.
The controversial erotic romance 365 Days has been among the most watched movies on Netflix since it premiered last month, and may very well end up being the most popular film of the year on the streaming service.
Some passionate fans have been so enamored with the steamy Polish movie, which chronicles the decidedly unorthodox relationship between studly Italian mob boss Massimo, and Laura, the gorgeous Polish woman he kidnaps, that they are clamoring for a sequel.
Despite its lascivious appeal to millions of mostly female viewers, there is a vociferous minority demanding Netflix pull the movie from its service because it allegedly glorifies kidnapping and rape.
This brigade of uptight scolds has even launched a petition at Change.org calling for the film’s removal from Netflix, and as of this writing, it has garnered an anemic 6,300 signatures.
My advice to these 6,300 fragile woke puritans is that 365 Days is not the hill to die on…and they will die on it because the hordes of hellaciously horny lady philistines that need some escapist release will not take losing their harmless cinematic guilty pleasure lying down.
Thankfully, Netflix has thus far resisted the mob’s demand to pull the film…but the damage may already be done. Under politically correct pressure the media messaging around 365 Days has quickly turned from a knowing wink to a judgmental scowl.
For instance, on June 17th The Daily Mail ran a story highlighting fans desperation for a sequel to the sex filled movie. On June 19th columnist Amanda Platell wrote an article stating she was seduced by the film, which she described as a “guilty pleasure” for women stuck in coronavirus lockdown, and that she saw “no harm in it”.
But by July 2nd the worm had turned after the vocal minority made their displeasure known, and so The Daily Mail began running headlines like “Is this the most degrading, sexist show Netflix has ever aired?”
This type of flip in media messaging used to take years to achieve but it now takes mere days for the establishment press to quickly move to alter the public narrative to appease the woke mob.
One can’t help but wonder if all of this negative media noise about 365 Days will succeed in scuttling the planned production of the sequel or will make Netflix choose to either dump the original or not run the sequel, thus leaving the movie’s ravenously libidinous fanatics high and dry.
I support Netflix’s decision to ignore the calls to pull 365 Days not because I think it is a good movie…it sure as hell isn’t – it is so bad it makes 50 Shades of Grey look like Citizen Kane…but because audiences should have the right to watch, or not watch, whatever the hell they want no matter how terrible it is.
As for the charges that 365 Days, which I found more neurotic than erotic, promotes kidnapping or rape…that is just ludicrous. The movie is so absurd as to be ridiculous, as it more resembles a raunchy live action cartoon than reality.
Consider the intricately incoherent details of the plot. The wealthy and impossibly handsome Massimo kidnaps the impossibly beautiful Laura because she perfectly matches the vision of an angelic woman that appeared to him right after he momentarily died during a mob hit. Massimo then gives Laura 365 days to fall in love with him while in his custody.
That plot isn’t a handbook for wannabe sexual predators, it is escapist soft-core porn for concupiscent middle-aged women who want to curl up on the couch with a bottle of wine and a “neck massager” and indulge in some secret “guilty pleasuring”.
Even Oprah Winfrey’s magazine O says of the film, that it is among many erotic movies that are "guilty pleasures"—though why feel bad about what you like?” Exactly.
I would go a step further and ask not only why feel bad about what you like, but also, why demand others not be allowed to like the things that you don’t like?
This is the main problem with the manic religious fervor of wokeness as it promotes the tyranny of the fragile and the thin-skinned over the popular opinion of…in this case…the horny majority.
If the ever-expanding politically correct bonfire of the vanities does engulf 365 Days, it would not exactly be a major crime against the art of cinema, but it would be a very bad sign for our culture.
This exceedingly cheesy movie has become an unlikely canary in the entertainment coalmine. If Netflix does cave to the small but vocal woke mob regarding 365 Days (or its planned sequel) as decisively as the news media has, then it portends a very dark, yet ironically vanilla, future for choice in film.
The healthiest outcome for all of us is for the horny majority to reign supreme in the Battle of 365 Days. For in movies as in sexual attraction, there is no accounting for taste, or in this case - lack thereof…but it is imperative that we as a culture suppress our totalitarian impulses and grant each other the freedom to indulge our bad taste.
A version of this article was originally published at RT.
©2020
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Holy shit this is a bad movie. It deserves zero stars on the merits, but I gave it one star because it has a pretty naked lady in it…and it goes against every fiber of my being to give a pretty naked lady zero stars…so on principle alone I refuse to do it.
Language: English, Italian (subtitled) and Polish (subtitled)
365 Days, directed by Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes, is the steamy saga of the unorthodox relationship between mob boss Massimo and Laura, the Polish woman who captures his attention. The film stars Michele Morrone as Massimo and Anna-Maria Sieklucka as Laura.
Watching movies for a living can be a strange experience. Sometimes you are tasked with watching a movie that you would never in a million years consider watching on your own accord. Thus was the case with 365 Days…a Polish erotic romance movie that has been among the most popular on Netflix since it was added to the service in June.
I knew next to nothing about 365 Days before I watched it except that it was “controversial” because of its explicit sex scenes which may or may not be endorsing rape. As someone who can appreciate sexually explicit material in a film, I fall closer to pervert than prude when it comes to this sort of thing, I was intrigued to see what the kerfluffle was all about.
Then I saw the movie.
Jesus Titty Fucking Christ.
This thing is a cinematic abomination. Just absurdly, abysmally atrocious.
Imagine a Twilight Zone episode where you are stuck in an incoherent Italian fashion advertisement that is placed deep inside a Penthouse magazine which has been thrown into a hot dumpster filled with week old egg salad, all accompanied by a pop music holocaust of a soundtrack…and you can scratch the surface of what it is like to endure 365 Days.
The plot of this film is so ludicrous that I actually had to restart the movie to make sure I wasn’t missing something. Sadly, I wasn’t…but the filmmakers definitely were. I won’t even try and explain what the plot is as I think I would actually do irreparable harm to my self by attempting to do so.
Character development was not exactly a top priority for the filmmakers either as the only thing I learned about the characters throughout the movie is that Massimo aggressively enjoys receiving oral sex…I mean he REALLY, REALLY enjoys it…and that Laura is prettier as a brunette than a blonde.
The film is basically an exercise in watching two impossibly beautiful people in various stages of undress engage in sexual simulation. There are worse things to capture on film I suppose. But the sex scenes are so ridiculous as to be laughable. The big sex scene takes place, predictably enough, on a giant yacht, and it is so off the charts on the unintentional comedy scale that it easily outdoes Tommy Wiseau’s unintentional comedy classic The Room.
Between the soft core Skinemax level porn scenes, the movie sprinkles in some other porn…like capitalism porn. There are so many derivative shopping montages where Laura tries on sexy outfits in front of mirrors at luxury shops that I literally lost count…and I was not going to go back and re-watch to keep a tally.
Of course, after trying on clothes, there are the montages of her security guards following her from shop to shop, burly arms filled with bags of high end merchandise. Oh…there is also this really clever montage of two gay guys giving Laura a make-over! So many montages!!
Matching the repeated shopping montages are the numerous scenes of Massimo angrily grabbing Laura and demanding satisfaction and Laura, in turn, being sexy and defiant toward him. These two types of scenes, shopping and faux fighting, are repetitiously repeated repetitively in a redundant fashion…over and over and over again.
The movie also has other scenes…like the erotic scene in a night club, the erotic scene in a different nightclub, the erotic scene at a formal ball and the erotic scene on a private jet…among many other erotic scenes in erotic locations. In case you were wondering, yes there is a lot of eroticism in the movie as it is very erotic and filled with erotic things that are highly eroticized in an erotic fashion. So erotic!
The film is not buoyed by great performances either. While both Morrone and Sieklucka are easy on the eyes, English is not their strong suit…and neither is acting. They aren’t helped by the Gouda level of cheese that is the dialogue either. Yikes! Beaucoup stinky.
It isn’t just the dialogue that smells, as the script is so dramatically, cinematically, emotionally and sexually baffling it actually made my head ache.
The film also boasts the worst soundtrack in recent cinematic history. The soundtrack is filled to the brim with one pop music disaster after another and is so cloying and saccharine it actually gave me multiple cavities.
As for the the bottom line of the film…its titillation factor…well…I guess that is an individual thing. For me the movie seemed to be an escapist fantasy geared toward horny middle-aged women (which are definitely my favorite category of horny woman!). Since I am not a horny middle-aged woman, the sex appeal of it all escaped me entirely. Of course, your mileage may vary.
On the bright side, Anna-Maria Sieklucka really is gorgeous. I also assume from the success of the movie that women and gay men are big fans of Michele Morrone…so at least there is that.
In conclusion, watching two hours of 365 Days felt longer than spending 365 actual days in a cardboard box in a remote storage facility. Unless you are being held hostage and are literally forced to watch this movie, I recommend you skip it. Even if you are in a hostage situation, you may very well be better off decapitating yourself, lighting your detached head on firer and then throwing it into the ocean rather than watching this steaming pile of stylized excrement. Except, of course, if you’re a super horny middle-aged woman…then you should definitely check it out and unabashedly embrace your guilty pleasure.
©2020
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!****
My Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Not worth paying to see, but the striking and unnerving scenes of the Holomodor are worthy of your time to watch when it comes out on Netflix or cable.
Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland and written by Andrea Chalupa, is the true story of British journalist Gareth Jones as he discovers and then reveals the horrors of Stalin’s genocidal famine in Ukraine in 1933. The film stars James Norton as Jones, with supporting turns from Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard.
Agnieszka Holland is an interesting cinematic figure. In 1990 she wrote and directed Europa, Europa, a staggeringly brilliant film about the remarkable life of Solomon Perel during World War II for which Holland garnered a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ever since Europa, Europa though, Holland has churned out absolutely nothing of note.
The tepid mediocrity of Ms. Holland’s filmography from 1991 to present day may explain why I had never even heard of Mr. Jones until I was assigned to watch it and write about it.
That said, as a big fan of Europa, Europa, Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard, as well as being a Russophile and an admirer of good journalism, I thought Mr. Jones might just hit my sweet spot and be a new cinematic feast amidst the current coronavirus movie famine.
Sadly…while there were certainly some powerful sequences, overall the lackluster direction and script left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
The biggest problem with Mr. Jones is that it is wildly uneven, with a devastatingly poor narrative structure.
The first half of the film plays out like a PBS melodrama…and not a very good one. Holland attempts to give a stylized view of the suffocating conformity of the British establishment, and then the debased debauchery of Walter Duranty’s Moscow, but is never quite able to adequately pull it off.
Another major structural issue is Holland’s choice to weave George Orwell’s writing of Animal Farm into the story. Shockingly, Orwell actually opens the movie and is used as a landmark throughout the narrative. The snippets of Orwell are at best frivolous and do nothing more than distract from the main dramatic thrust of the story.
The second half of the film is much, much better than the first. Midway through the film shifts to the devastation in Ukraine, and this is where Holland finds her footing. The scenes of starvation and desperation are exceedingly well-done and uncomfortable to watch. There is one sequence that is so brutal it left me unnerved for days. Holland’s use of the bleak and foreboding Ukrainian winter exquisitely conveys the existential depth and expanse of the ocean of suffering that was the Holomodor.
The problem though is that Holland failed to adequately build a dramatic foundation upon which to lay the tragedy of the Holomodor. I think the film actually would’ve been better served if it started with the trip to Ukraine, as that approach would have emphasized the brutal nature of the topic at hand from the get go. It also would have given context to Jones’ struggle and maybe even better fleshed out his character, which is remarkably paper-thin in the film.
Make no mistake though that Gareth Jones’ story is compelling and definitely worthy of a major movie, just that Ms. Holland is unable to tell the story with enough dramatic vigor or cinematic verve to do it justice. I couldn’t help but think that Gareth Jones life was worthy of an HBO or Netflix mini-series, as there is awful lot of meaningful story to tell.
In terms of the acting, the cast all do solid, if unspectacular, work.
James Norton brings an every man sort of energy to his Gareth Jones, which makes sense, but he definitely suffers from a charisma deficit, makes is a hindrance to his carrying the entirety of the movie. Norton never commands the screen or demands the audience’s attention, which at times undermines the film’s dramatic power.
The luminous Vanessa Kirby plays Ada Brooks, a sort of love interest to Jones. Kirby is an alluring and at times intoxicating screen presence, but is vastly misused and under utilized in Mr. Jones. Kirby is blessed with a striking screen magnetism but never gets to put meat on the bones of her character, which is a terrible waste of her prodigious talents.
Peter Sarsgaard is always an intriguing and emotionally complicated actor, and his morally compromised and diseased Walter Duranty is no exception. Sarsgaard has minimal screen time but makes the most of it as he limps and slithers through the scenery like the devil with whom Duranty made his deal.
Mr. Jones premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival back in 2019, and debuted for British audiences in February of 2020 and was scheduled to be released in the U.S. in April of 2020…but coronavirus rudely intervened.
The film was then released for purchase (but not for rent!) on streaming services in mid-June…and since I was hired to write about it, I reached into my expense account cookie jar and bought the movie for $14.99. Maybe it is my coronavirus budget talking but even though $14.99 is basically the price of a movie ticket here in the City of Angels, I found that price to be excessive.
My recommendation regarding Mr. Jones is not to purchase it…the cost is too high and it simply isn’t worth it. But I do think it might be worth watching for free on Netflix or cable when it comes out. The scenes of the Holomodor alone are worth the investment of time.
The bottom line is this…Mr. Jones is a great story (and Gareth Jones was a great man) but not a great film.
©2020
IN CELEBRATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF V-E DAY, HERE’S THE DEFINITIVE LIST OF BEST WORLD WAR II FILMS OF ALL TIME.
Some of the greatest films ever made have been about World War II, so narrowing it down to a top five wasn’t exactly storming the beaches at Normandy, but it also wasn’t easy.
75 years ago the Allies officially defeated the Axis menace in Europe. To honor those who sacrificed and made that momentous victory possible, I have decided to do something ridiculously less heroic…rank the top five World War II films of all time.
Without further ado…here is the list.
5. Europa, Europa (1990) – Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, the story follows the travails of a German Jewish boy who in trying to escape the Holocaust goes from being a hunted Jew to a Soviet orphan to a German war hero to a Nazi Youth. Perel runs from Germany to Poland to the Soviet Union then back to Germany, but no matter where he goes the war relentlessly follows.
A magnetic lead performance from Marco Hofschneider and skilled direction by Agnieszka Holland make Europa, Europa a must see for World War II cinephiles.
4. Downfall (2004) – Set in Hitler’s bunker during the final days of the Third Reich, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film focuses on the Fuhrer’s struggle to maintain his delusions of grandeur as the cold hand of reality closes around his neck.
The glorious Bruno Ganz gives a transcendent performance as Hitler descending into the grasp of a mesmerizing madness.
Downfall masterfully reveals Hitler’s bunker to be the maze of his mind, and a prison to those who fully bought into his cult of personality.
3. Dunkirk (2017) – In Christopher Nolan’s perspective jumping cinematic odyssey, we are taught the hard but important lessons that survival is not heroic, but rather instinctual, and that it is in defeat, and not victory, where character is revealed.
Dunkirk is a visual feast of a film, exquisitely shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and magnificently directed Nolan, that boasts a stellar cast and terrifically effective sound design, sound editing and soundtrack.
Dunkirk succeeded not only as a pulsating World War II masterpiece, but upon its release in 2017, also as a deft metaphor for Brexit.
2. Das Boot (1981) – A taut and at times terrifying, psychological thriller set on a German U-boat, U-96, as it wages war in the Atlantic.
Like a sea serpent , Wolfgang Peterson’s film dramatically wraps itself around you and then slowly constricts, leaving you gasping for air.
Das Boot is as viscerally imposing a war film as has ever been made as Peterson’s directing mastery makes U-96 feel like a claustrophobic, underwater tomb.
1.The Thin Red Line (1998) – After a 20-year hiatus, iconic director Terence Malick returned to cinema with this staggeringly profound and insightful meditation on war.
Unlike Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, which came out that same year and was a highly popular, flag-waving hagiography to the Greatest Generation that focused on the physical toll of war, Malick’s masterpiece concerns itself not with physical carnage, but the emotional, psychological and spiritual cost of war.
The Thin Red Line isn’t so much about fighting a war as it is about how living with war ravages your soul. This is exemplified by the most heroic act in the movie being when a soldier risks his life to administer morphine to a wounded comrade just so he could die more quickly.
The Thin Red Line is unconventional in its storytelling approach, and refuses to conform to the strictures of Hollywood myth making, preferring instead to force audiences to confront their own complicity in the evil insidiousness of war.
In the movie, Private Edward Train eloquently gives voice to the film’s philosophical perspective with the following monologue on the inherent evil of war.
“This great evil, where's it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doing this? Who's killing us, robbing us of life and light, mocking us with the sight of what we might've known? Does our ruin benefit the earth, does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?”
The Thin Red Line is the best World War II film ever made because it is the most poignantly human World War II movie ever made.
As you may have noticed, my list leans more toward modern cinema, the reason being that the art and technology of filmmaking have advanced enormously over the last 75 years.
I also favor more serious fare over populist entertainment, so terrific movies like The Dirty Dozen or Inglorious Basterds, fail to make the cut.
Classics like Casablanca and From Here to Eternity were left on the cutting room floor because they are more set in WWII than about WWII.
Movies like Schindler’s List weren’t considered because I somewhat irrationally consider them to be “Holocaust films” rather than “WWII films” – which may be a distinction without a difference – but it is a distinction I make.
The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Bridge Too Far, The Enemy at the Gates, Stalingrad (1993), Patton, and The Great Escape, all just missed the cut and had to settle for honorable mention even though I love them.
In regards to my definitive list I will quote Nick Nolte’s bombastic Lt. Col. Tall from The Thin Red Line, “It's never necessary to tell me that you think I'm right. We'll just... assume it.”
A version of this article was originally published at RT.
©2020
***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
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
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
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
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!1 THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Not worth seeing on the big screen but if you stumble across on Netflix you can give it a shot.
Language: French with English subtitles
Les Miserables, written and directed by Ladj Ly, tells the story of a police officer’s tumultuous first day on the job with an elite street crimes unit in a Paris slum. The film stars Damien Bonnard along with Alexis Mantenti, Issa Percia, Djibril Zonga, Al-Hassan Ly and Steve Tientcheu.
After seeing the trailer for Les Miserables (2019), which is not to be confused with the 2012 Hugh Jackman movie musical of the same name based on the famous Victor Hugo novel, I was indifferent about seeing it. The trailer was a bit visually flat and did not capture my interest or imagination, but since the film is nominated for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards, I decided to roll the dice and check it out.
Les Miserables is not a bad movie, but it also isn’t a great one either. The film is named Les Miserables because it is set in the section of Paris where Victor Hugo wrote his famous book, and also because the movie highlights the same powder keg of revolutionary ingredients that are primed to combust now just as they were in Hugo’s time.
The film opens with the streets of Paris filled with celebration over a World Cup victory for France, but that unity quickly dissolves and battle lines are drawn between cop and criminal, blacks and whites, Muslims and non-Muslims, immigrants and natives.
Les Miserables is a rather conventional narrative that chronicles a day in the life of a bad neighborhood riddled with crime and injustice of all types. Police are thuggish bullies, warring factions of ethnic and religious gangs carve out small fiefdoms through brute force and intimidation, and children and young adults just try to survive in the suffocatingly tumultuous urban jungle they call home.
Director Ladj Ly’s script does a decent job of highlighting the factionalism that runs rampant in the slum. The Muslim Brotherhood looms large as an imposing and moderating force in the slums, and as a counterbalance to dueling ethnic drug gangs and the authoritarian police.
The slum is even divided by age as the children and teens of the housing projects resent the grown men who make deals with the police and each other in order to rule their kingdoms and line their pockets. This corruption of both cop and criminal turns the children of the slum into potential radicals eager to burn the whole rotten place to the ground.
Where Ly’s script stumbles though is in piecing together a coherent narrative that can drive the story from beginning to end. While the movie is filled with multiple interesting characters, such as “the Mayor”, a terrific Steve Tientcheu, or Salah, the formidably captivating Almamy Kanoute, they aren’t utilized well enough or often enough for the tale to be thoroughly compelling.
Ly’s direction and storytelling are both ambitious and admirable, but ultimately the film’s political and social sub-text feels a wee bit heavy handed and too on the nose to be artistically satisfying. The lack of subtlety regarding the film’s social commentary reduces the power and impact of it, and makes it all seem very trite. The film may very well be politically prescient, but that doesn’t make it dramatically potent.
This sort of obviousness regarding social and political commentary all feels very “French”, and the French-ness of the story and setting, such as the way Paris cops operate, their rules of engagement and all of that, reduces a great deal of tension, especially for American audiences. As I watched some pivotal scenes I couldn’t help but see it through my jaundiced American eyes and wonder why the hell these cops were behaving the way they were. To put it mildly, American cops would behave very differently when threatened. This disconnect, right or wrong, definitely had a negative effect on the dramatic impact of the film and the believability of the story.
As for the cast, Bonnard does really solid work as Pento, the main protagonist. As previously mentioned Steve Tientcheu and Almamy Kanoute are terrific, as is Issa Percia in a very difficult role.
In conclusion, as a calling card for director Ly, Les Miserables is a solid first feature film and it makes me intrigued to see what he does next, but in terms of being worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best International Film….not at all.
As for my recommendation regarding this movie…I think that cinephiles might find it to be a bit too conventional and politically obvious and regular cineplexers will find it frustratingly obtuse and a bit dull. The best bet is to wait for it to come out on Netflix or Amazon and then check it out there for free…because it simply does not rise to the level of being worth seeing in the theatre.
©2020
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. If you adore director Pedro Almodovar’s work, then you’ll love this movie. For everyone else, wait to watch it for free on Netflix or cable.
Language: Spanish with English subtitles.
Pain and Glory, written and directed by two-time Academy Award winner Pedro Almodovar, is an autobiographical drama that tells the story of a director looking back upon his life’s journey. The film stars Antonio Banderas, who has been nominated for Best Actor at the this year’s Academy Awards, with supporting turns from Penelope Cruz, Asier Etxeandia and Leonardo Sbaraglia.
Pedro Almodovar is a master filmmaker who has made such classics as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Volver. This past September Almodovar turned 70, and much like others entering the final stretch of their existence here on earth, he is now contemplating his life and trying to make sense of the patchwork of memories that inform his identity. Pain and Glory is Almodovar’s attempt to understand himself and the long and winding journey that brought him to his current destination.
I am pretty neutral when it comes to Almodovar’s films. I respect and admire his artistry and his artistic insights, but I have never deeply connected with his subject matter or his characters. That said, I have always found Almodovar to be an interesting filmmaker almost solely because he seems to be an interesting person. Whether blatantly or covertly, Almodovar’s films feel both joyously and painfully autobiographical, and Pain and Glory is no exception.
Pain and Glory is, like many of Almodovar’s works, filled with the usual fond remembrances of a golden, sun-drenched youth, where Almodovar’s admiration of women and attraction toward men is born. In Almodovar’s cinematic adulthood, as strikingly evidenced in Pain and Glory, there is a recurring theme of a complicated, near self-pitying relationship with other men, himself and his work.
I wouldn’t say I enjoyed Pain and Glory, but it is certainly interesting, if a bit self indulgent. Almodovar’s autobiographical movie suffers because it is, like his memory, unfocused and fuzzy. This is accentuated by numerous journeys down differing narrative paths that never quite come to any logical or dramatically satisfying conclusions. Much like real life, Pain and Glory’s themes are clear and precise but its narrative structure and dramatic specificity are not, thus making it somewhat less emotionally coherent than it needed to be to be a completely successful cinematic endeavor.
Like most of Almodovar’s movies Pain and Glory is visually lush and vibrant, with a crisp cinematic style that is very appealing for its dynamic simplicity. Almodovar and his cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine, use a striking palette and color to great affect, most notably red and white. As always, Almodovar, a Spaniard, is able to convey love, be it familial or romantic, by using the all encompassing visual warmth of the Spanish sun. Almodovar sublimely paints the objects of his affection in his memories to great affect with that appealing solar warmth.
In terms of the acting, Antonio Banderas does solid work as Salvador. Like Almodovar, Banderas is on the downside of his career and life and he brings that reality to bear on the character. Banderas wears the weathering of Salvador’s existential strain on his formerly pristine face and it gives him a gravitas he has not always possessed. It is a compelling performance and Banderas imbues Salvador with a complexity and intentionality throughout the film that is the driving force of the narrative. Where Banderas stumbles just a bit is in embodying the physical suffering that is Salvador’s constant companion. Banderas is just a little too spry and fluid to be believable as someone suffering from the multitude of ailments of which we are told Salvador suffers.
Penelope Cruz, as she often does, embodies the Anima for Almodovar. Cruz portrays Salvador’s mother, Jacinta, and gives an earthy and grounded performance. Jacinta is the Mediterranean mama incarnate, a hard-working, no nonsense family leader whose calloused yet gentle hands scratch even as they soothe.
Asier Etxeandia and Leonardo Sbaraglia have pivotal roles as Salvador’s estranged artistic and romantic partners respectively. Both do terrific work, particularly Etxendia, who never falls into stereotype when portraying both an actor and a junkie.
In conclusion, Pain and Glory is a very Almodovar film, and if you love Almodovar you will love Pain and Glory. If you are indifferent to Almodovar, I think, like me, you’ll find the film interesting but somewhat lacking as it never quite completely captivates or has the courage of its cinematic convictions or artistic ambitions. My recommendation is to skip Pain and Glory in the theatres but definitely check it out when it hits Netflix or cable in the future. It is worth seeing, just not worth paying to see.
©2020
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A fantastically original film, gloriously directed and acted, that is both dramatically potent and politically insighftul.
Language: Korean with English subtitles
Parasite, directed and co-written by Bong Joon-Ho, is the story of the Kim family, who live at the bottom rung of Korean society and try to connive their way out of poverty. The film stars Song Kang-ho as father Ki-taek, Jang Hye-jin as mother Chung-sook, Choi Woo-shik as son Ki-woo and Park So-dam as daugher Ki-jong.
Parasite is an exquisitely crafted film that, although it is in Korean with English subtitles, speaks as eloquently and insighftully about the perils of American capitalism and the growing resentment and rage born out of astronomical wealth disparity, as any film in recent memory. In this way Parasite is reminiscent of last year’s Shoplifters and this year’s big movie Joker. All three of these movies tap into the pulsating dissatisfaction of the working poor who are being left further and further behind, and growing angrier and angrier about it, with every passing day.
Whenever certain themes recur in films that capture either the critical or commercial imagination (or both), my antenna stand on end because as my studies have shown, cinema can be prophecy, and these films are red flags as to what is percolating just beneath the surface in the collective sub-conscious. One look around America, and the world, gives credance to the theory that these films, all of which give voice to the emotional pull of populist uprisings, are trying to warn us of what lies ahead.
Parasite is a brilliant examination of the frustration and fury that accompanies being at the bottom of the social rung in a corrupt and rigged capitalist system. The only way to get ahead and get out of the prison of debt, and it is a prison, is to lie, scheme and cheat. If that means throwing other poor people under the bus, then so be it.
Director Bong Joon-ho has tapped into these ideas of class struggle before, most notably in his film Snowpiercer (which starred Chris Evans aka Captain America), which was a remarkably innovative and original film. Bong’s class consciousness in both Parasite and Snowpiercer is fueled by anger and fear… namely, fear for what will result when the anger from below is righteously unleashed upon those at the top when the house of cards crumbles. Bong, either consciously or unconsciously, understands that the current world order sits atop a super volcano that is growing more and more unstable and combustible, and his film’s reflect the emotional and political fragility of our time.
In Parasite, the poor are vermin, roaches, who are either being pissed on or drowned, as poverty is a deluge that imposes upon them indignity after indignity until it suffocates them. The poor are forced to stay in their place and warned not to “cross the line” into familiarity with the rich. The prison of poverty has walls, both real and imagined, that are impenetrable…even when you repeatedly bang your head against them…like Arthur Fleck does in Joker (wink).
The rich family in Parasite, the Parks, are the picture of decadence, detached from the ability to see the poor as even human. The Parks are repulsed by the poor, who they see as more akin to animals than people, as evidenced by their disgust at the literal smell of poverty. The Park’s revulsion at the poor does not stop them from fetishizing poverty, much like Americans fetishize Native Americans but make sure they stay on the reservation (wink)…just one more way for the rich to exploit the poor for their personal gain.
Parasite’s politics and psychology are as insightful as its drama is enrapturing. The film never shies from the difficult or the desperate, nor does it wallow in it. Instead Bong Joon-ho has made a socially relevant, dramatically explosive film that is deliriously entertaining in every single way.
Bong’s direction of Paradise is fantastic, as the film’s dramatic and physical geometry is spectacular. His use of straight lines, differing levels (symbolic of class status) and long journeys upward and downward (very similar to Joker, where Arthur Fleck makes those trudging journeys up the long flight of stairs, and the victorious dance down it) is proof of a master craftsman and artist at work.
Bong’s ability to meld together comedy, suspense, elements of thriller, as well as social commentary is extraordinary. I never knew what was coming next in Paradise and was always surprised, sometimes shocked and never disappointed.
The cast of Paradise are outstanding. Song Kang-ho in particular gives a dynamic performance that is consistently rich and layered. And both Choi Woo-shik and Park So-dam do stellar work that is both magnetic and subtle. Park in particular has a charm and presence about her that is intriguing and compelling.
Parasite is one of the very best film’s of the year and most certainly will garner an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Picture, if not a win, and may even sneak in a Best Picture nod. The film is expertly made, wonderfully acted, politically prescient and dramatically potent, for these reasons, Parasite is required viewing for cinephiles and regular folk alike. My recommendation is to go as quickly as you can to the art house and see Parasite…it is that good. And after that, head to the cineplex to see Joker…again, and then when you get home watch Shoplifters (I see it is now available on the streaming service HULU)…because they are that good too. If you want to know what is coming for America and the world, and why, go watch those three movies. But make sure you go see Parasite as quickly as you can…it is truly a fantastic film and well worth you time and money.
©2019
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. An exquisitely well-made and deliriously insightful film that, although set in Argentina in the 1970’s, tells an uncomfortable truth about our current time.
Language: Spanish with subtitles in English
Rojo, written and directed by Benjamin Naishtat, is the story of Claudio, a small-town lawyer navigating the moral and ethical maze of 1975 Argentina. The film stars Dario Grandinetti as Claudio, with supporting turns from Andrea Frigerio, Alfredo Castro and Diego Cremonesi.
I knew absolutely nothing about Rojo when I made the trek to the local art house to see it the same week I saw Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. After suffering through the abysmal cinema of the first half of 2019, it was an absolute joy to stumble upon this hidden foreign gem the same week Tarantino’s surefire Oscar nominee hit big screens.
Rojo is an exquisite piece of cinema and art that boasts as impressive and compelling an opening scene as any film in recent memory. The movie sinks its teeth in early, but then wraps itself around you so slowly, and seductively, you won’t notice until it is too late and you are deep in its grip. Once captive to its unflinching exploration humanity, its subtly haunting sub-text, and off-beat charm, you are gifted a brilliant mix of psuedo-Lynchian oddities, and a plethora of unnerving personal, psychological and political insights.
What makes Rojo so exquisite is that it is most definitely THE film for our time. Set in the 1970’s in Argentina, the film tells the story of how fascism thrives in the moral and ethical vacuum in our hearts and souls. Even the most minute moral or ethical corruption can give authoritarianism a foothold in our hearts, from which it, like the film itself, wraps itself around us and squeezes not only the life, but humanity, out of us all. Rojo reveals that all of us are complicit, either explicitly or implicitly, with the brutality of authoritarianism, and are so easily seduced through selfishness or laziness to aid and abet in horrors we think we are incapable of committing.
Rojo beautifully uses symbolism to tell a much deeper story, such as the castration of a bull to show how primal masculinity must be isolated and neutered in order to eliminate true threats to any fascist movement, or a recurring theme of flies to show how authoritarianism treats an incessant but weak resistance…by tiring it out so that it is too exhausted to be a threat. Under authoritarianism, exhaustion is a major issue as we the people are reduced to nothing more than flies, buzzing from one instigation to another, and ultimately are left with nothing but a carcass or a pile of shit to feed upon.
Besides being a compelling and insightful story, the film is fascinating to look at. Cinematographer Pedro Sotero shoots the film so that it looks like grainy film stock from the 1970’s, which enhances the feel of authenticity. Sotero shows himself to be a master craftsman as he uses some delicious 70’s era zooms, camera movement and optical tricks (like my old friend the split diopter!) that create both a familiarity and an overall sense of uneasiness that permeates every shot in the film. .
The cast is spectacular, with lead actor Dario Grandinetti gives a nuanced, intricate, subtle, magnetic and thoroughly captivating performance. Grandinetti’s Claudio is at once arrogant and petulant but also insecure and fragile. Grandinetti’s ability to make Cluadio so painfully ordinary, yet unaware of his ordinariness, is a testament to the complexity of the character and the enormity of the actor’s talent. Grandinetti is a special actor and he is at his very best as Claudio.
As for the rest of the cast, Andrea Frigerio does solid work as Claudio’s wife, Susana, as does Diego Cremonisi who plays a mysterious stranger. The most interesting, bizarre and entertaining character though is Detective Sinclair, played by Alfredo Castro. Sinclair is like a cop from a David Lynch movie, and his unstoppable persistence and insistence is comically unsettling, as he is a wonderful representative of the rabid relentlessness of fascism.
With Rojo, writer/director Benjamin Naishtat proves himself to be a cinematic force with which to be reckoned. One of Naishtat’s greatest skills is his ability to create such a believable sense of place (he is greatly aided by his cinematographer, and his set and costume designers) as well as his thorough understanding of human nature and psychology. Naishtat uses cinema to tell greater and important truths not just about his characters and Argentina in the 1970’s, but about us and America today, and that is a rare and precious skill.
In conclusion, I was absolutely captivated by this somewhat off-beat, but entirely insightful foreign film that, even though it is set in Argentina in the 1970’s, spoke more clearly about America and the American people than most Hollywood movies could ever imagine.
I thoroughly encourage any and all cinephiles to make the effort to go see this film if they can find it. I also encourage non-cinephiles who have a bit of an adventurous mind, to seek out and give this movie a chance either on cable, Netflix or any other streaming service where you can find it. The reason I am imploring people to give this movie a chance is not only because I want more movies like it to be made, but also because this movie is a warning to all of us that we need to be ever vigilant to the growing menace of authoritarianism and fascism…not just in the world, but in the one place where it can do the most damage…in our own hearts.
©2019
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A wonderfully made, visually stunning and dramatically and psychologically satisfying Chinese action film in the vein of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.
Shadow, directed by iconic Chinese film maker Zhang Yimou, is the story of Jingzhou who is trained from a young age to be a double/shadow for military leader Ziyu. The film stars Deng Chao in a dual role as Jingzhou and Commander Ziyu, with supporting turns from Sun Li and Zheng Kai.
Shadow is best described as a Wuxia film, which is a genre of Chinese fantasy/fiction that revolves around “martial heroes” in a world of magical realism. Notable examples of Wuxia films are Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero and House of Flying Daggers by the same director as Shadow, Zhang Yimou.
Yimou, who is one of the great directors of his generation, has a flair for unique fight choreography and paints his films with a striking palette and dramatic visuals. In Shadow, Yimou and cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding use a muted grey, black and white as the dominant color scheme but the film’s visuals crackle with a stunning intensity. The film is beautifully shot, highlighted by Xiaoding’s gorgeous framing (just look at the poster above) and use of a crisp and clear contrast between the blacks and the whites, the shadow and the light. Yimou and Xiaoding’s masterful use of contrast creates a visual clarity and coherence that is a joy to behold.
Shadow is a psychologically and dramatically rich story that deeply mines the Jungian concepts of the shadow. The most obvious example of this is that Chao plays both Jing and Ziyi, who are essentially the same entity with two different elements of its psyche projected into the outer world, each vying for control. Jing “the shadow”, must be identical to Ziyi, and in a delicious bit of Jungian symbolism, must have the identical “wound” as Ziyi. Ziyi in turn must integrate his “shadow” in order to make himself whole again, or face the consequences of being overcome by his psychological shadow.
The shadow is a complex and dramatically potent psychological premise used to great effect by other film makers from the East, most notably Japanese master Akira Kurosawa in the terrific film Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior). Like Shadow, Kagemusha also effectively used a single actor (the great Tatsuya Nakadai) to play both the role of the man of power and his shadow. Yimou dives even deeper into Jungian shadow psychology than Kurosawa though by emphasizing the anima (the feminine) and the imperative to also integrate that feminine power in order to become whole.
The ying and yang and wholeness are dominant themes throughout the movie (again look at the poster above) and Yimou emphasizes that battle/balance between the opposites not only visually with the black versus white color scheme, but dramatically with opposing masculine roles and opposing feminine roles. Just as Ziyi has Jing as his literal shadow (and vice versa), Ziyi’s wife, Xiao Ai has a symbolic opposite/shadow in Princess Qingping. That sort of balance in the narrative makes the film dramatically and subconciously very satisfying even while it maintains a pronounced assault and challenge upon our storytelling expectations.
Wholeness is also represented in numerous ways in the film, most notably by the umbrella. A circle is the symbol for wholeness and in Shadow, Jing integrates his masculine and feminine sides by using a circle, an umbrella, as a weapon not only of defense but of offense. Jing’s learning the use of the umbrella is an integration dance between the masculine and the feminine. The use of the umbrella is not only psychologically resonant but is visually striking as well.
The cast all do solid work with Deng Chao in his dual role and Sun Li as Ziyi’s wife being the most notable. Chao is really remarkable as both men and it is easy to forget the same actor is playing both roles. Sun Li’s work is incredibly layered and she brings a palpable humanity and fragility to the role that profoundly accentuates the drama.
The fight sequences are all so unique, original and compelling that they are a wonder to behold. Since The Matrix and Crouching Tiger became such big hits twenty years ago, slow motion martial arts moves have become passe, but Yimou fantastically turns everything on its head in Shadow and creates vibrant and vivid fights that are gloriously choreographed and cinematically mesmerizing. Yimou also wisely uses water and rain to further visually enhance the fight sequences.
While Shadow can be a bit confusing at first, especially if you go in unaware of the plot, once it hits its stride it is truly fantastic. I loved the film because it is such a dramatically, psychologically and cinematically rich example of the magical realism of Wuxia in action. If you are a fan of Wuxia or Yimou, rush out and see this movie in the theatres immediately. If you are less a Wuxia enthusiast, but enjoyed Crouching Tiger, Shadow may be a little tougher to penetrate because it isn’t as easily digestible or romantically sweeping as Ang Lee’s epic, but it is equally beautiful to look at. But with all that said, even if you are on the fence about going to see Shadow, why not give it a shot….the shadow you save might just be your own.
©2019
****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A noble failure of a film, but a failure nonetheless. The cinematography of the film is, for the most part, exquisite, and cinephiles into that sort of thing should go see the movie in theatres, but ultimately for most everybody else the film is a misfire.
Peterloo, written and directed by British auteur Mike Leigh, tells the story of the events that culminated in the Peterloo massacre of 1819 in Manchester, England. The film’s ensemble cast includes Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake and Pearce Quigley among many others.
Mike Leigh is well-known as being a master of realist, character-driven, intimate dramas such as Vera Drake, Secrets and Lies, and Naked, whose use of prolonged rehearsal periods, which emphasize improvisation in order to develop character and narrative, is his signature directing style that often leads to stellar work from his actors. Peterloo is a bit of a different beast from his previous work though, as it is a historical drama that must accurately capture the grand sweep of history while accounting for the impact of that history upon regular folks.
While Peterloo is a politically profound story for our times, the film suffers from a lack of both narrative coherence and character cohesion, and ultimately is never as good as it needs to be. Leigh’s direction on Peterloo lacks vigor and specificity and thus the film’s deliberate pace leads to aimless wandering and pronounced lags for numerous periods of time. The biggest problem of all though may be the fact that the film’s climax is poorly crafted and dramatically underwhelming and instead of being a crescendo it feels more like stumble across the finish line.
On the bright side, the film’s cinematographer, Dick Pope (A Mickey Award winner for his work on Leigh’s Mr. Turner), does stellar work for the majority of the film. His interior shots are so exquisitely lit and framed they are as beautiful and texturally rich as any Vermeer or Rembrandt, and could hang in any museum in the world. Added to this are Pope’s expansive shots of nature that pop with a crisp and delicious color, most notably a lush green, that are spectacular to behold. Pope’s framing and use of color, shadow and light throughout the first three acts of the film is sublime, but in the climactic battle scenes, Pope’s and Leigh’s work falls flat and is shockingly second rate.
The staging and blocking of the actors and camera in the big climactic “riot” scene reveals both Dick Pope and Mike Leigh to be out of their element. These action sequences are clumsy, cluttered and so poorly executed that they sink any chances the film had to be worthwhile. It is asking a lot for a director and his cinematographer to be so versatile as to pull off such varying shots as intimate interiors and dynamic battle sequences, but this is what the story required and Leigh and Pope failed to fully deliver.
The cast of the film are all fine, but the film’s failure to generate any dramatic momentum leads to the cast’s work being lost in the shuffle. Rory Kinnear, who plays the rebel dandy Henry Hunt, gives his usual top-notch performance. Kinnear’s Hunt is both magnetic and narcissistic, and his complexities make the moral and political Manichaeism of the film more nuanced and compelling.
Maxine Peak also gives a solid performance as Nellie, the cynical and skeptical wife and mother whose working class family gets caught up in the protest. Peak’s weathered face tells a story all its own about the injustice and unfairness of life in England in the 1800’s.
What frustrated me the most about Peterloo’s cinematic and dramatic failure was that it is such a vital story for our time. Peterloo focuses on the systemic exploitation of working people by ruling aristocrats, who view “regular” people as nothing but serfs to be exploited for profit or as cannon fodder in war for empire and resources.
The same underlying structural problems of government, economic and social injustice highlighted in Peterloo are the same problems that torment us now. The modern-day ruling elite, just like the English elite in Peterloo’s time, still squeeze regular people for everything they’ve got and yet are perpetually immune from any consequences from their actions. And when the modern day proletariat push back or organize against the injustice of our system, the Aristocrats crush them now just as effectively as they did in Manchester in 1819.
The totalitarian, corporate police state in America is more subtle in its brutality than the one on display at the climax of Peterloo…but not by much…just ask the Yellow Vests in France who have lost eyes and fingers to the rubber bullets of the police. The same structural weapons used back in the 1800’s, debt, fear and intimidation are used today to keep the populace either paralyzed, placid or pliant. The brute force of government, in the form of the police, are used by the elite like a moat, to impose law and order upon the oppressed and to keep them at a distance. The law is the ruling class’s cudgel not to maintain order but rather to maintain “The order”…you know “The order”…the one where they are on top and the rest of us scrap and claw to eat their crumbs at the bottom. Any true challenges to “The order” result first in character assassination, followed by physical violence, prison or both if necessary. For an example of the Establishment’s playbook regarding threats see Assange, Julian.
The lesson of Peterloo is this, the system is rigged and the ruling class despise us, so we must decide to either live as their slaves by maintaining the status quo or arm ourselves and fight for our freedom. Sadly, the dramatically anemic Peterloo is not compelling enough to attract or maintain America audiences who desperately need to learn the vital lessons the movie teaches. At the end of the day, the cold, hard reality is that we are all Soma-addicted sheep being led to the slaughter and we have grown accustomed to authoritarian boots in our face.
In conclusion, Peterloo is a noble effort but a decided failure. Mike Leigh seems to have bitten off more than he can chew by trying to tackle this complex historical narrative. If you are a cinephile who has a distinct love for great cinematography, then I recommend you see Peterloo in the theatre, but everyone else should skip it because, sadly, it simply is not captivating enough to spend your hard earned money and sparse free time upon.
©2019
***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***
My Rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. But be forewarned, even though it is in English, it is a very “French” film and is definitely at home in the arthouse. If you have conventional tastes in movies, this one is not for you, but if you are a cinephile defintely check it out in the theatre.
High Life, written and directed by French auteur Claire Denis, tells the story of Monte, a young man who is caring for a baby on a mysterious voyage into deep space. The film stars Robert Pattinson as Monte with supporting turns from Julliette Binoche, Andre Benjamin and Mia Goth.
Claire Denis, the writer/director of High Life, is the critical darling of French cinema and the American arthouse. Denis has a distinctive film making style that appeals greatly to film critics but that the general public often finds impenetrable. A good example of this is that her last film, Let the Sunshine In (2018), which starred Juliette Binoche and could sort of be described as a French/arthouse romantic comedy, has an 86 % critical score and a 29% audience score at the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.
Part of the problem with Denis work, at least for American audiences, is that if you market a film as a romantic comedy, Americans will expect a rather simple Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan cute fest and not the verbose philosophizing, existential thesis that is Let the Sunshine In. Expectations play a big part in audience perceptions and thus in the ultimate success or failure of a film.
High Life may face the same marketing struggle as Denis’ other films, at least in terms of the general public. High Life is being sold as a sort of action-thriller, science fiction, space movie…in the vein of Ridley Scott’s Alien. High Life is a lot of things, but action-thriller is not one of them, and if audiences are aware of that and understand how to digest the film, they may come away with a greater appreciation for it…because there is a great deal to appreciate.
High Life is not Alien meets 2001, but rather is a beguiling, at times bewildering, dark, moody, existential and philosophical meditation on the meaning of life and what it means to be a human. The film is Claire Denis at her very best, using her signature style to create a deliberately paced, deliriously claustrophobic, non-linear dream/nightmare that is intentionally disorienting.
The film opens with Pattinson’s character Monte caring for baby all by himself on a space craft. The film then unwinds and reveals the who, what, when, where, why and how this strange combination of Monte, a baby, and deep space, came to be.
Being a parent is hard. Being a single parent is a Herculean task. Being a single parent in deep space is a circle of hell that Dante could never have dreamed up. Monte’s struggle to care for this baby is palpable, and as the child’s cries pierce through Monte’s space suit to his core, they also cut viewers to the bone. This scenario of the deep space single parent and the vulnerability of an infant, intensifies the suffocating sense of claustrophobia and heightens the ominous sense of foreboding that permeates the entire film.
Pattinson’s work as Monte is extraordinary. Monte is a psuedo-monk, struggling to control his human desires in order to, ironically enough, stay connected to his humanity. Pattinson gives Monte a very specific internal intentionality that illuminates his every action and drives him through every scene. Pattinson is an actor I never would have given a second thought to after those dreadful Twilight movies, but his fine work in the not so good The Lost City of Z (2017) made me take notice. Here in High Life he commands the screen without ever demanding attention, in fact, it is Pattinson’s use of introversion bordering on camera shyness that make him so intriguing and compelling in this role.
The rest of the cast do solid work as well. Juilette Binoche as the witchy Dr. Dibs chews the scenery like a starving women hurtling through the universe looking for her final meal. Mia Goth also does notable work as Boyse, a destructive and self-destructive anima figure, the polar opposite of Monte.
Claire Denis knows what she is doing when it comes to making movies, and High Life is a testament to that. The film is technically first-rate, as the cinematography, particularly the framing and lighting, as well as the editing, are superb but never overwhelm the tone and theme of the movie.
High Life is deliberately paced, and may be too slow for more conventional tastes, but I found the film to be captivating to the point of hypnotic. Denis’ ability to disorient the viewer’s perception of space and time was a master stroke that simulates for the audience the psychological, emotional and philosophical vertigo that Monte must struggle with and through as he goes along his hero/anti-hero’s journey.
High Life asks a lot of questions but gives no clear answers, which is maybe why I liked it. There were no easy escapes from the void of space or the existential issues raised. Ideas as varied as human value, spirituality, morality, physical purity, incest, humanity, witchcraft v. science, and even cats v. dogs, all come up in the movie and propel the philosophical narrative forward, backward, up, down and all around.
At the end of the day, High Life, like most space movies, is really an homage to, and imitation of, Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. High Life is no 2001, but to Claire Denis’ credit it is a very distant, but worthy enough, cinematic step-cousin, as it wrestles with the same question of human evolution and being born into, and cast out of, the Garden of Eden with nothing but our humanity to guide and protect us.
Space is cold and forbidding, and the struggle to maintain life amidst that black void is colossal, but not nearly as gargantuan (or heroic) as the struggle to maintain humanity. Monte’s evolution…which may result in being reborn the Starchild from 2001 or left to an eternity in the empty void of nothingness, lies on the other side of a black hole. He isn’t sure he is ready to make the trip…are you?
If you have the courage, and the open mind, I recommend you set aside your expectations and conventions and make that journey with Monte. Yes, there are some bumps along the way, the most noteworthy being a rather odd scene with Juliette Binoche (you’ll know it when you see it - it was the catalyst for two sixty-something women in my screening to make a hasty exit) that serves a certain and minor purpose but which goes on for a distractingly and interminably long time. But if you can simply get into the rhythm of the film, and not try and figure it out as it washes over you but rather experience it and all of the good and bad that comes along with it, I think you may find it as satisfying a cinematic experience as I did.
Again, this movie is not for everyone…even though it is in English, it is a very, very French film, and it reeks of the art house, so if you simply cannot or will not overcome your cinematic conditioning for clear narratives and resolutions, then you should skip this one. But if you are feeling adventurous and in the mood to contemplate the meaning of life and humanity amidst the unrelenting sea of darkness that is space, then gear up, strap in and take the plunge. You may find you enjoy the high life.
©2019
Acting Coach & Teacher Westside Los Angeles
FILM
Dune: Part Two directed by Denis Villeneuve
The Zone of Interest directed by Jonathan Glazer
Poor Things directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
The Holdovers directed by Alexander Payne
Anatomy of a Fall directed by Justine Trier
Ferrari directed by Michael Mann
The Boy and the Heron directed by Hiyao Miyazaki
Godzilla Minus One directed by Takashi Yamazaki
TV
Succession (HBO)
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders (TV)
Barbie (pod)
Killers of the Flower Moon (pod)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (pod)
Wes Anderson Roald Dahl Short Film Collection (pod)
Wes Anderson Roald Dahl Short Film Collection
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (pod)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (pod)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (pod)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Mandalorian Season Three (TV)
TV Round Up - White Lotus/Black Bird/Slow Horses/Succession/The Mandalorian
History of the World Part II (tv)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (pod)
The Banshees of Inisherin (pod)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (spoilers)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (spoiler free)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (pod)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio(pod)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
All Quiet on the Western Front (pod)
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Moment of Contact - Documentary
House of the Dragon - Current Fantasy TV Champion of the World
The Greatest Beer Run Ever (pod)
The Rings of Power Season One: Final Analysis
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season One - Final Analysis
TV Round Up: House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, She-Hulk and Andor
Thor: Love and Thunder and the State of the MCU(pod)
Obi-Wan Kenobi(TV)(first 3 eps)(final 3 eps)
Jurassic World: Dominion(review)/(Pod)
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Lost Daughter(pod)
Pam and Tommy(TV)
Peacemaker (Ep.1-3)/Peacemaker(finale)(TV)
Nightmare Alley(pod)
Everything’s Gonna Be All White(TV)
Ozark(TV)
Finch(pod)
Hawkeye(TV)
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass
Succession(TV)
Dopesick(TV)
Ted Lasso Season Two(TV-pod)
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis
Y: The Last Man(TV)
Harry and Meghan: Escaping the Palace(TV)
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union(TV)
The Prince(TV)
What If?(TV)
CODA(pod)
WandaVision/Winter Soldier/Loki(TV-pod)
No Sudden Move(pod)
We the People(TV)
Bo Burnham: Inside(pod)
Tenet(pod)
Exterminate All the Brutes (TV)
Coded Bias (TV)
Coming 2 America(pod)
Ted Lasso(TV-pod)
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy
Recipe for Seduction(pod)
The Queen’s Gambit(TV-pod)
The Crown(TV)
Hope Frozen: A Quest to Live Twice
Spitting Image(TV)
Cursed(TV)
Monty Python’s The Life of Brian
Lance(TV)
The Last Samurai(pod)
The Social Network(pod)
Inception(pod)
John McTiernan Films(pod)
There Will Be Blood(pod)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy(pod)
Hell or High Water(pod)
Zodiac(pod)
Ex Machina(pod)
Contagion(pod)
Space Force(TV)
The Last Dance(TV)
Fleabag(TV)
The Amazing Jonathan Documentary
Once Upon a Time…in. Hollywood
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
War for the Planet of the Apes
Jason Bourne, Projecting the Shadow and the Technological Hunter : A Review and Commentary
Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice
A Very Pleasant Awakening : Thoughts on a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Derek & Orange is the New Black
W.A.P.O.G. Collection: Lee Daniel's The Butler
W.A.P.O.G. Collection: August: Osage County
LIVE MUSIC REVIEWS
La La Land : An Analysis - Political Subtext
Jason Bourne, Projecting the Shadow and the Technological Hunter : A Review and Commentary
The Big Short : A Review, a Diagnosis and a Warning
Sicario: A Review and Reports From Down the Rabbit Hole of the Drug War
Citizenfour : A Review and Random Thoughts
Knight of Cups : A Review and Dispatches From the Great Malick Civil War
The Birth of a Nation : A Review and Commentary
ACTING TECHNIQUE AND THEORY
Marlon Brando, The Big Bang and the Birth of Modern Acting
Stillness: Lessons from Redford, DeNiro and Penn
Al Pacino : Top 5 performances
Requiem for a Heavyweight: James Gandolfini
On Grief and Acting: Revelations from Hamlet in the April of my Discontent
Ethan Saylor and a Lack of Empathy Part One
St. Patrick's Day : The Five Best Irish Films
AWARDS NONSENSE
1st Annual Mickey Awards (2014)
2nd Annual Mickey Awards (2015)
3rd Annual Mickey Awards (2016)
4th Annual Mickey Awards (2017)
5th Annual Mickey Awards (2018)
6th Annual Mickey Awards (2019)
7th Annual Mickey Awards (2020)
8th Annual Mickey Awards (2021)
9th Annual Mickey Awards (2022)
10th Annual Mickey Awards (2023)
1st Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2014)
2nd Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards(2015)
3rd Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2016)
4th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2017)
5th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2018)
6th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2019)
7th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2020)
8th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2021)
9th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2022)
10th Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2023)
Must-See Documentaries
Can’t Get You Out of My Head directed by Adam Curtis
HyperNormalisation directed by Adam Curtis
Century of the Self directed by Adam Curtis
The Power of Nightmares directed by Adam Curtis
LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA PODCAST
Season 1 - 2020
Ep. 2 - Marriage Story
Ep. 8 - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Ep. 9 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Ep. 11 - Coronavirus and Contagion
Ep. 14 - Hell or High Water
Ep. 15 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Season 2 - 2021
Ep. 35 - Promising Young Woman
Ep. 40 - Tenet and Nolan Films
Ep. 41 - Top 5 Alien/UFO Films
Ep. 42 - No Sudden Move and Top 5 Heist Movies
Ep. 43 - WandaVision/Falcon and Winter Soldier/Loki
Ep. 44 - Bo Burnham: Inside & The State of the Comedy Union
Ep. 45 - Black Widow
Ep. 47 - Movie Streaming Recommendations
Ep. 50 - Eternals
Ep. 52 - Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Season 3 - 2022
Ep. 57 - Spider-Man: No Way Home
Ep. 67 - Ozark Season 4 Part 2
Ep. 68 - Dr. Strange in the Mutiverse of Madness
Ep. 71 - Jurassic World: Dominion
Ep. 72 - Thor: Love and Thunder and the State of the MCU
Ep. 79 - The Greatest Beer Run Ever
Ep. 82 - All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Ep. 88 Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Ep. 89 - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Season 4 - 2023
Ep. 94 - The Banshees of Inisherin
Ep. 95 - Oscars Wrap Up and Black Panther : Wakanda Forever
Ep. 98 - Ghosted
Ep. 99 - Air (pod)
Ep. 100 Part One - Streaming Movie Recommendations
Ep. 100 Part Two - Streaming Movie Recommendations
Ep. 101 - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Ep. 103 - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Ep. 104 - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Ep. 106 Ted lasso Season Three
Ep. 107 - No One Will Save You
Ep. 108 - Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Short Films
Ep. 109 - Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Ep. 115 - Killers of the Flower Moon
Ep. 122 - Deadpool and Wolverine
DISPATCHES FROM THE SHITSHOW - 2024 ELECTION
The Trump Legal Charade and Other Uncomfortable Truths
Biden, Trump and the 2024 Election
Vices and a Stunning Lack of Virtues
Cheney, RFK Jr., Gambling and More
PROPAGANDA WATCH
November 2023 Propaganda Report - More 60 Minutes
Propaganda Watch: Ireland Edition
This Week in Propaganda: 60 Minutes Edition
CULTURAL CRITICISM
Truth, Justice and the Curious Case of Chris Kyle
Russiagate: Puzzlements and Lost Causes
The Tragedy of Charlottesville and the Age of Identity
John Oliver - Shameless Establishment Shill
Election 2016 : Random Dispatches From the Shitshow
Election 2016 Post-Mortem : Crossing the Rubicon and Chickens Coming Home to Roost
Election 2016 Aftermath : A Practical Handbook to Survive and Thrive in the Era of Trump
BLOG POSTS
2024
Hollywood’s Self-Inflicted Box Office Problem
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
10th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards
Revisiting Killers of the Flower Moon
2023
This Week in Propaganda: 60 Minutes Edition
Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Short Film Collection
Ahsoka (TV)
Encounters (TV) - UFO Documentary
Winning Time (TV)
Jury Duty (TV)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Barry (TV)
Succession (TV)
Adventures in Idiocy - Dylan Mulvaney, Max and Monty Python
The Mandalorian - Season Three (TV)
TV Round Up (White Lotus/Black Bird/Slow Horses/Succession/The Mandalorian)
The Last of Us (TV)
Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part II
9th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
2022
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - Review and Commentary
House of the Dragon Season One - Final Analysis
The Rings of Power Season One: Final Analysis
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Season One - Final Analysis
The Greatest Beer Run Ever - Review and Commentary
TV Round Up: House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, She-Hulk and Andor
The Rings of Power: Amazon’s Weaponization of Tolkien and Tokens
The Last Movie Stars documentary
House of the Dragon - Episode One
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Episode One
Obi-Wan Kenobi: The Final Verdict
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Come and See (1985) and the War in Ukraine
Everything’s Gonna Be All White
The Book of Boba Fett and the Future of Star Wars
2021
Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis
The Russians are Coming…to Space!
Harry and Meghan Lifetime Movie
The Woke Wet Dream of ‘What If…?’
Numbnuts Chris Evans Goes Full Captain America
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union
They Are Us and the Tragedy Trap
Tarantino’s Pact with the Weinstein Devil
Pentagon UFO Report Viewer’s Guide
In the Heights Box Office Bomb
Riz Ahmed and Muslim Under-Representation
Anne Boleyn and Color Conscious Casting
The Father and the MSM’s Dementia Simulation Machine
A Decaying Culture Diminishes the Value of Life
Harry, Meghan and the Royal Reality TV Show
China’s Rules for Performers are a perfect Fit for Hollywood
Keira, Knightley, Sex Scenes and the Male Gaze
Biden Inauguration Performances
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy
2020
Top Ten Virtue Signalers of 2020
Midnight Sky is the End of George Clooney’s World
Chadwick Boseman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
The Woke War on Parents and Family
Mank is a Tale of Old Hollywood - and of our Corrupted Modern Age
The Media Lie…Even About Peppa Pig
Hillbilly Elegy and the Culture War Clash
The Crown is a Mirror of American Politics
Biden Has Defeated Trump - Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss
Trump’s Minority Support Sends the Woke Over the Edge
Chris Pratt in Cancel Culture Crosshairs
Disney’s New Content Warning and the Woke Slippery Slope
Jessica Chastain, The 355 and the CIA-Hollywood Alliance
Critical Race Theory in Kindergarten
UNpregnant - Review and Commentary
Cuties - Review and Commentary
Academy Awards Diversity and Inclusion Rules
Sexual taboos on tv are crumbling just as new taboos around speech are being erected
Spitting Image, BoJo’s Penis and Fear of a Black Puppet
The Crown just cast an Australian to play Princess Diana!
The Pentagon and China’s Propaganda Wars
Cursed, Netflix’s Girl Power Infused Re-Telling of the King Arthur Legend
The Woke Philistines taking Over Hollywood Hate White Men More Than They Love Cinema
A Not-So-Expert Opinion on our Future With the Coronavirus
Horny Women of the World Unite! Don’t Let Woke Puritans Cancel the Steamy Netflix Movie 365 Days!
Mr. Jones is a Timely Reminder of the Cowardice of Our Current Press
Just When You Thought Celebrities Couldn’t Get Any Worse, the ‘I Take Responsibility’ Video Comes Out
Racism is Now Gone With the Wind
Comedians Must never Apologize if Comedy is to Survive in the Age of Cancel Culture
Space Force Crashes on the Comedy Launch Pad, but Still Manages to Accomplish its Propaganda Mission
‘Hoaxed’ Exposes the Mainstream Media’s Bias…and Its Own
Mike Tyson’s Comeback is a Perfect Example of America’s Delusional Culture
Be Like Mike? Unlike Michael Jordan, The Last Dance is Anything but Great
Covid-19 is Deadly, but it Will never Kill the Relentless Stupidity of Wokeness
UFC 249 is Cancelled. Can We Now Direct Our Bloodlust at the Elites Who Deserve It?
What to Watch: TV Suggestions to Pass the Time
Coronavirus: Thoughts and Musings
Lost Opportunities and Dastardly Deeds in the Age of Coronavirus
Coronavirus Will Eventually Get Better But America Never Will
Hollywood and the Economic Time Bomb of Coronavirus
The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Viewer’s Guide
Good Riddance to Harvey Weinstein, A Repugnant Pig Who Brutalized Both Women and Cinema
Trump, Parasite and the 2020 Election
La Resistance est Mort! The Cesars, L’affaire Polanski and the #MeToo Virus
Birds of Prey Hates Men, but Wants Their Money - No Wonder It’s Bombing at the Box Office
Do You Believe in Miracles? Parasite Wins Best Picture
The Super Bowl Halftime Shitstravaganza
You’re Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming
It’s a Miracle…Hollywood Finds Religion!
Hollywood’s Arrogant and Ignorant Pandering to Chinese Audiences
Formula Still Works: Jojo Rabbit and the Holocaust
The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations
1917 Dazzles the Eye but Fails to Stir the Soul
Feminist Fleabag and Woke Critics
2019
Knives Out Sharpens the Blade of Anti-White Racism
Woke Hollywood Gets Burned By Charlie’s Angels Box Office Bomb
Martin Scorsese Top Five Films
Game of Thrones Predicted the Zealotry of Extinction Rebellion Eco-Fanatics
Patron Saint of Incels? Woke Outrage Over Joker is a Bad Joke
Anecdotal Observations on Elizabeth Warren
Thoughts and Musings: Featuring Fredo, Bed Bug, Lady Kicker and More
Celebriphilia Epidemic Sweeps US: We Look Now to the Stars for Guidance
Angry Americans, Shark Attacks and Synchronicity II
Quentin Tarantino Films Ranked Worst to First
Propaganda and the Delusion of Wokeness
Women’s Soccer, pay Equality and Pandering
Movie Subscription Services and Box Office Booms and Busts
Meathead Beats the Dead Horse of Collusion
The Emotionalist Buffoonery of Charles Blow
Brief Thoughts Before the End of Game of Thrones
Undead Army of the Woke Will Make Sure Game of Thrones is the Last Show of Its Kind
Game of Thrones: The Battle of Winterfell and the Fog of War
United Sheep of America: Assange, Fascism and Liberal Hypocrisy
Russiagate: Puzzlements and Lost Causes
Jussie Smollett’s Hate Crime Hoax Exposes America’s Shocking Skepticism Shortage
Toxic Femininity: ‘Badass’ US Women Demand Right to Torture and Kill for Empire…Just Like Men
Beating the Dead Horse of Grammy Award’s Racism
2018
Bush, Bertolucci and a Requiem for Truth
2018 Mid-Terms: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Serena Williams and Her Basket of Deplorables
Burt Reynolds and the End of the Movie Star
The Existential Catholic Crisis
The Awful File: Oscars, Millennials, Brie Larson and More
Thar He Blows: Charles Blow Has a Question...I have an Answer
Shots Fired - James Gunn Part Two
Disturbing Dispatches From "Real America"
American Animals, Anthony Bourdain and Late Stage American Empire
Song of Experience in A Quiet Place
The Farcical Fury Over the White House Correspondence Dinner
Morgan Freeman and the #MeToo Whispers
Next Stop - Speculation Station: Syria and Scott Pruitt Edition
I Told You So: Conor Lamb Edition
A Wrinkle in Time, Film Criticism and White Liberal Paternalism
Thoughts on the Academy Awards
#MeToo: It's Not Broke, but You Can See the Cracks
Queen Oprah: Pope of the Cult of Personality
A Week of Holes: A$$holes, Sh*tholes and Rabbit Holes
Some Brief Thoughts on the Golden Globes
2017
Perversion and the Religion of Self
He Who Laughs Last - Edward S. Herman Edition
The Death of Edward S. Herman and the Death Knell for Liberalism in America
Sex Scandals and the Phases of a Panic
While We Were Sleeping...The Dogs of War Awoke
JFK and the Media: The House Always Wins
JFK and the Conspiracy Conundrum
The Media Hates Conspiracy Theories…Except When They Don't
Eternal Darkness of the Artist's Mind
Mayweather, McGregor and the Heart of Darkness
Deconstructing Criticism of Oliver Stone's "The Putin Interviews"
The Whitewashing Controversy Part Two: A Response
Caesar Americanus : Trump, Shakespeare and the American Illiterati
Greg Gianforte, Punching Nazis and the Absence of Moral Authority
JOE McCARTHY WAS RIGHT!! Shocking Revelations From a Manchurian Op-Ed Writer
Curious George and the Banana Republic
Through the Looking Glass : Truth and Lies in Week One of 2017
Theatre of the Absurd : Road to Damascus Edition
Meryl Streep, Character and Moral Authority
TWIB : This Week in Bullshit (Feb 17- 24)
President Trump : A Viewer's Guide
Raping Truth : Brando, Butter and Last Tango in Paris
#OscarsSoWhite: Don't Believe the Hype?
The Way of the Gun: Meditations on America and Guns
OP-EDS
2022
Everything’s Gonna Be All White
The Book of Boba Fett and the Future of Star Wars
2021
Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis
The Russians are Coming…to Space!
Harry and Meghan - Lifetime Movie
The Woke Wet Dream of ‘What If…?’
In the Same Breath Docdumentary
Numbnuts Chris Evans Goes Full Captain America
Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union
They Are Us and the Tragedy Trap
Tarantino’s Pact with the Weinstein Devil
Pentagon UFO Report Viewer’s Guide
In the Heights Box Office Bomb
In the Heights and the Woke Albatross
Riz Ahmed and Muslim Under-Representation
Anne Boleyn and Color Conscious Casting
The Father and the MSM’s Dementia Simulation Machine
A Decaying Culture Diminishes the Culture of Life
Harry, Meghan and the Royal Reality TV Show
China’s Rules for Performers are a Perfect Fit for Hollywood
Keira Knightley, Sex Scenes and the Male Gaze
Biden Inauguration Performances
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption and Conspiracy
2020
Top Ten Virtue Signalers of 2020
Midnight Sky is the End of George Clooney’s World
Chadwick Boseman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
The Woke War on Parents and Family
Mank is a Tale of Old Hollywood - and of our Corrupted Modern Age
The Media Lie…Even About Peppa Pig
Hillbilly Elegy and the Culture War Clash
The Crown is a Mirror of American Politics
Biden Defeats Trump - Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss
Trump’s Minority Support Sends Woke Poseurs Over the Edge
What Killed Michael Brown? Review
Chris Pratt in Cancel Culture Crosshairs
Disney’s New Content Warning and the Woke Slippery Slope
Jessica Chastain, The 355 and the CIA-Hollywood Alliance
Critical Race Theory in Kindergarten
UNpregnant - Review and Commentary
Cuties - Review and Commentary
Academy Awards Diversity and Inclusion Rules
Sexual taboos on tv crumble just as taboos around speech are erected
Spitting Image, BoJo’s Penis and Fear of a Black Puppet
The Crown just cast an Australian to play Princess Diana!
The Pentagon and China’s Propaganda Wars
Cursed, Netflix’s Girl Power Infused Re-Telling of the King Arthur Legend
The Woke Philistines taking Over Hollywood Hate White Men More Than They Love Cinema
Horny Women of the World Unite! Don’t Let Woke Puritans Cancel the Steamy Netflix Movie 365 Days!
Mr. Jones is a Timely Reminder of the Cowardice of Our Current Press
Just When You Thought Celebrities Couldn’t Get Any Worse, the ‘I Take Responsibility’ Video Comes Out
Racism is Now Gone With the Wind
Comedians Must never Apologize if Comedy is to Survive in the Age of Cancel Culture
Space Force Crashes on the Comedy Launch Pad, but Still Manages to Accomplish its Propaganda Mission
‘Hoaxed’ Exposes the Mainstream Media’s Bias…and Its Own
Mike Tyson’s Comeback is a Perfect Example of America’s Delusional Culture
Be Like Mike? Unlike Michael Jordan, The Last Dance is Anything but Great
Covid-19 is Deadly, but it Will Never Kill the Relentless Stupidity of Wokeness
UFC 249 is Cancelled. Can We Now Direct Our Bloodlust at the Elites Who Deserve It?
Coronavirus Will Eventually Get Better But America Never Will
Hollywood and the Economic Time Bomb of Coronavirus
The Official Coronavirus Quarantine Viewer’s Guide
Good Riddance to Harvey Weinstein, A Repugnant Pig Who Brutalized Both Women and Cinema
Trump, Parasite and the 2020 Election
La Resistance est Mort! The Cesars, L’affaire Polanski and the #MeToo Virus
Birds of Prey Hates Men, but Wants Their Money - No Wonder It’s Bombing at the Box Office
Do You Believe in Miracles? Parasite Wins Best Picture
You’re Welcome World! Academy Awards Courageously Save Earth From Global Warming
It’s a Miracle…Hollywood Finds Religion!
Hollywood’s Arrogant and Ignorant Pandering to Chinese Audiences
Formula Still Works: Jojo Rabbit and the Holocaust
The Tedious Woke Outrage Over Oscar Nominations
1917 Dazzles the Eye but Fails to Stir the Soul
Feminist Fleabag and Woke Critics
2019
Knives Out Sharpens the Blade of Anti-White Racism
Woke Hollywood Gets Burned By Charlie’s Angels Box Office Bomb
Game of Thrones Predicted the Zealotry of Extinction Rebellion Eco-Fanatics
Patron Saint of Incels? Woke Outrage Over Joker is a Bad Joke
Celebriphilia Epidemic Sweeps US: We Look Now to the Stars for Guidance
Meathead Beats the Dead Horse of Collusion
Undead Army of the Woke Will Make Sure Game of Thrones is the Last Show of Its Kind
Jussie Smollett’s Hate Crime Hoax Exposes America’s Shocking Skepticism Shortage
Toxic Femininity: ‘Badass’ US Women Demand Right to Torture and Kill for Empire…Just Like Men
2018
A Curious Case of Mystery Attacks, Microwave Weapons and Media Manipulation
In a Fit of Anti-Trump Pique, Liberals Shamelessly Embrace 'Deep State' Criminals
Guardians of the Galaxy Defeated by the Most Fearsome Super-Villain of All...Political Correctness
Captain America v Trump in Battle of the Useful Idiots
Hollywood's Self=Serving and Misguided Immigration Protests
Trump is Deadpool and We're All Doomed
Kanye Tweets He Loves Trump, Civilization on Brink
Hollywood's Malicious Propaganda Dehumanizes All Russians
The Pentagon and Hollywood's Successful and Deadly Propaganda Alliance
Profiles in PC Courage: Brave Millennials Attack 'Friends'
Echoes of Totalitarianism in #MeToo and Russia-Gate
2017
#MeToo Wildfire Rages Out of Control
Has Fear of Putin Seized Hollywood?
Stephen Colbert Heads For Russia Looking For Laughs; He'd Find Better Material at Home
What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Trump, That's What!
Trump - Griffin Scandal Underscores American Celebrity-Obsessed Culture
Suffering Children as Propaganda and the Jimmy Kimmel Story
Colbert Attacks Trump, Was it Homophobic? Hysterical? Or Both?
Oscars and Grammy Racism : Perception or Reality?
La La Land is Hollywood's Version of "Make America great Again"
Buzz Lightyear Claims Hollywood is Nazi Germany, Captain America to the Rescue?
John Oliver - Shameless Establishment Shill
Snoop Dogg Barks Up The Wrong Tree
Express Yourself? Madonna Don't Preach!!
Goodbye Ringling Brothers, Hello Cirque du Trump and Media Clownshow
JOHN OLIVER
The John Oliver Twist 1 : Court Jester as Propaganda Tool
The John Oliver Twist 2 : The Drumpf Affair and Little Bill Maher's Power Fetish
The John Oliver Twist 3 : Waxing Brazilian and Waning Credibility
The John Oliver Twist 4 : Out Trumping Trump on the Great Wall of Trump
John Oliver Twist 5 : Things Said and Unsaid
GENERAL
Irishness, Cultural Memory and the Curse of St. Patrick's Day
BOOKS
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Dreamland by Sam Quinones
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic by Barry Meier
American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts by Chris McGreal
Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the 60’s by Tom O’Neill
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Diary of a Superfluous Man by Ivan Turgenev
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin
The Duel by Anton Chekhov
Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov
The Bishop by Anton Chekhov
The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov
The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Projecting the Shadow : The Cyborg Hero in American Film by Janice Hocker Rushing and Thomas S. Frentz
Re-Membering Frankenstein : Healing the Monster in Every Man by G.H. Ellis
Man and His Symbols edited by C.G. Jung
Modern Man in Search of a Soul by C.G. Jung
Under Saturn's Shadow : The Wounding and Healing of Men by James Hollis
Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
Kill the Messenger by Nick Schou
Dark Alliance : The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb
Whiteout : The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
Boundaries of the Soul by June Singer
Jungian Psychology Unplugged: My Life as an Elephant by Daryl Sharp
Merton's Palace of Nowhere by James Finley
SHE: Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson
HE: Understanding Masculine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson
The Problem of the Puer Aeternus by Marie-Louis Von Franz
Ego and Archetype by Edward Edinger
Scapegoat Complex: Toward a Mythology of Shadow and Guilt by Sylvia Brinton Perera
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
MUSIC
Centennial Collection by Robert Johnson
The Anthology, 1947-1972 by Muddy Waters
L.A. Woman by the Doors
Hendrix in the West by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Born Under a Bad Sign by Albert King
Burglar by Freddie King
Indianola Mississippi Seeds by B.B. King
Rhythm & Blues by Buddy Guy
The Complete Recordings by Mississippi John Hurt
Trouble in Mind by Big Bill Broonzy
His Best : The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection by Howlin' Wolf
Traveler by Chris Stapleton
The Nashville Sound by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
A Sailor’s Guide to Earth by Sturgill Simpson
A/B by Kaleo
Blue Train by John Coltrane
Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker by Charlie Parker
Body and Soul by Coleman Hawkins
Go! by Dexter Gordon
Beauty is a Rare Thing : The Complete Atlantic Recordings by Ornette Coleman
Incesticide by Nirvana
Purple by Stone Temple Pilots
Mingus Ah Um by Charlie Mingus
Rearviewmirror by Pearl Jam
Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden
Dirt by Alice in Chains
Brown and Roach by Clifford Brown and Max Roach
Moanin' by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Somethin' Else by Cannonball Adderley
Superfly (Deluxe Edition) by Curtis Mayfield
Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
Sea Change by Beck
Signs by Tedeschi Trucks Band
Walking the Line: The Legendary Sun Recordings by Johnny Cash
Misterioso by Thelonious Monk
Tenor Madness by Sonny Rollins
The Sky is Crying by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
Me and Mr. Johnson by Eric Clapton
The Story of Sonny Boy Slim by Gary Clark Jr.
Bootleg Series Vol. 8 : Tell Tale Signs by Bob Dylan
Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk by Jeff Buckley
Harvest by Neil Young
Email: mpmacting@yahoo.com
