"Everything is as it should be."

                                                                                  - Benjamin Purcell Morris

 

 

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Follow me on Twitter: Michael McCaffrey @MPMActingCo

Deadpool and Wolverine: A Review - Shticking and Screaming

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

My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

My Rating: SKIP IT/SEE IT. If you like Ryan Reynolds’ shtick, you’ll like this movie. If you don’t, you definitely won’t.

Deadpool and Wolverine, the third film in the Deadpool franchise and the…God help us…34th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hit theatres on July 26th, and I just got a chance to see it.

The film, which stars Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, has made over $800 million dollars in just two weeks of release, and seems poised to cross the billion-dollar threshold. That is an impressive haul even considering the film’s $200 million budget.

One of the more intriguing things about Deadpool and Wolverine is that Deadpool is the first of the 20th Century Fox cinematic comic book characters to have his own movie since Disney purchased Fox back in 2019. The first two Deadpool movies, as well as all of the X-Men and X-Men adjacent movies like Wolverine and Logan, and the Fantastic Four movies, were all Fox properties. Now Disney owns those characters and has to figure out a way to use them to save their floundering Cinematic Universe, which has fallen off a cliff in terms of box office and cultural relevance in since the high point of Endgame in 2019.

Deadpool is an interesting character to debut the Fox and friends comic book heroes in Disney’s family friendly realm because he is a self-aware, cynical and sarcastic symbol of Generation X and believes in absolutely nothing but snark and raunch.

In Deadpool and Wolverine Ryan Reynold’s signature snark is certainly turned up to 11, but the raunch is reduced to a Disney-friendly 4, with Deadpool’s usual sexual antics, like getting pegged, being only spoken about but never shown. Walt Disney is no doubt looking up from hell quite pleased.

The Deadpool franchise has always relied entirely upon the comedic stylings of its star Ryan Reynolds, and thus far has done so to great success. But at the moment it’s not just Deadpool but the entirety of the MCU that is relying on the Reynold’s singular self-aware superhero snark…and while I am a fan of Reynolds as Deadpool, his shtick is definitely starting to wear thin…frankly bit too thin to sustain any dreams of carrying the MCU on his back.

The first Deadpool movie was an exhilarating breath of fresh air, and Reynolds was perfectly suited and situated to pull it off. Deadpool lampooned the superhero genre at the height of its success, while also being a top-notch superhero movie in its own right, no easy task.

The second Deadpool film was less successful mostly because the first film had been so successful, and so expectations were high. Deadpool 2 was still very funny, but it got caught up adoring itself a little bit too much to work as well as the original.

Deadpool and Wolverine, which is Deadpool 3, is the least successful film in the franchise, at least in terms of comedy, drama and action, but looks like it will be the most financially successful as it hurtles toward the billion-dollar mark heading into its third week of release. And so it goes here in Hollywood.

Deadpool and Wolverine is essentially an odd couple-comedy-road movie, with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine playing a short-tempered, violent Bing Crosby (not unlike Bing Crosby in real-life) to Ryan Reynold’s foul-mouthed, violent Bob Hope.

The movie definitely made me laugh out loud a couple times, and I noticed about midway through that I had a stupid smirk stuck on my face the entire time I watched. These accomplishments are not to be taken lightly as I am notorious difficult to please when it comes to comedy.

Yes, there is a plot in the film, sort of, but it’s not worth getting into at all because it is not only moronic but basically inconsequential, which is not a great thing in terms of storytelling…but it is what it is.

Yes, there’s a cornucopia of cameos, none of which really work beyond a momentary nod of recognition, but superhero fans will adore them.

Yes, there’s a villain, Cassandra Nova, who is almost instantly forgettable and is played with a rather remarkable lack of verve and panache by Emma Corin.

Yes, there are action sequences, some of which are fun and some of which are bland and derivative.

The cinematography is often painfully dull and devoid of the vibrant colors of the first two Deadpool movies. The film looks flat and uninspired. Not a shock that it is directed by Shawn Levy, whose signature style is flat and uninspired.

The best things about Deadpool and Wolverine though are, not surprisingly, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

I’ve never been a huge Hugh Jackman fan, and thought his being cast as Wolverine – one of the greatest comic book characters of all-time, back in 2000 was a let-down, especially when Russell Crowe was allegedly the first choice. But I readily admit after having watched all of the X-Men and Wolverine movies, the fantastic Logan in particular, that Jackman is a terrific Wolverine.

Logan was a great way to end his run as the iconic character, and Deadpool and Wolverine feels a little disappointing in that regard as it diminishes the impact and accomplishment of Logan, one of the best comic book films ever made, but in Hollywood in general, and Disney in particular, money talks and artistic bullshit walks…so here we are.

Deadpool has always worked because it is essentially a self-aware parody of not just superhero movies but the superhero movie industry. It spotlights and skewers all of that genre’s flaws, most notably its absurdities, inanities and insanities.

But the real reason the Deadpool movies work is because of Ryan Reynolds and his singular comedic style which is a magnetic mix of manic, foul-mouthed and insecure fandom in character form.

The reality is that if you like Ryan Reynolds you’ll love all of the Deadpool movies, Deadpool and Wolverine included. Reynold’s humor is only heightened when matched with Jackman’s brooding Wolverine, which is a shockingly powerful piece of acting considering the silliness that surrounds it.

If you like Ryan Reynold’s and his usual shtick, you’ll like Deadpool and Wolverine. I like Ryan Reynold’s shtick and that’s why I liked Deadpool and Wolverine. Is it a good movie? No, not really. Is it a well-made movie? No, not really. Is it a fun and ultimately instantly forgettable summer movie you can mindlessly chuckle at and never really consider ever again? Yes…yes it is.

©2024

House of the Dragon (HBO) - Season Two: A TV Review - The Game of Thrones Formula Still Works

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

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A top notch, if structurally flawed, production that features some fantastic performances and even more fantastic dragons.

Season two of HBO’s prestige fantasy epic House of the Dragon, the distant prequel to Game of Thrones, came to its conclusion this past Sunday night.

I have never read any of the Game of Thrones books, and that includes George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, which is the foundational text for House of the Dragon. Despite my ignorance of the source material, or maybe because of it, I have enjoyed both Game of Thrones – up until its bungled ending, and House of the Dragon.

Do I understand anything that is happening or who the characters are? No, I do not. And yet, thanks to exquisite acting, production design, costuming and special effects, I am able to overcome my ignorance and get lost in the quality work being presented.

The two most notable things about season two of House of the Dragon are lead actress Emma D’Arcy, who gives a superb performance as Queen Rhaenyra, and secondly the bevy of CGI dragons that hover over all of the festivities, both literally and figuratively.

D’Arcy masterfully imbues Rhaenyra with such a palpable and vibrant inner life that she jumps off the screen even when she is doing little or nothing on it. Rhaenyra is a maelstrom of emotions in season two, as she grieves, rages, sulks and sneers, but D’Arcy contains all of it in a tightly wound package that only reveals itself through her piercing, soulful eyes.

D'Arcy is undoubtedly the straw that stirs the dramatic drink of House of the Dragon, but the work from the rest of the cast is often equal to her brilliance.

Olivia Cooke, who plays Dowager Queen Alicent – Rhaenyra’s childhood friend turned step-mother and now rival, brings an enormous amount of dramatic depth and emotional weight to her role which in lesser hands would have been light and wispy. Alicent goes through an extended existential struggle session in season two and it is never fails to be compelling.

The same is true of Alicent’s illicit lover, Ser Criston Cole – played by Fabian Frankel, who rises through the ranks of the King’s Guard all the way to the King’s Hand in season two, but who seems to be losing the entirety of his soul and is painfully aware of it. Frankel is shockingly good as Ser Criston and watching the light in his eyes slowly but surely go out is both riveting and heartbreaking.

Matt Smith does exceptional work as King Consort Daemon (Rhaenyra’s husband/uncle) despite his storyline being among the weaker threads of the season. Lost in a sea of dreams, nightmares and visions, Smith’s Daemon is still able to radiate with a venomous fury despite his lack of action and limited interactions with actual human beings.

Other notable performances include a fantastic Matthew Needham as the conniving Master of Whisperers Lord Larys, as well as Tom Glynn-Carney and Ewan Mitchell as royal brothers Aegon and Aemond respectively, who bring vim, vigor and venom to their portrayals of persistently petulant young adult rulers.

But the biggest stars in House of the Dragon are the dragons. I couldn’t pick them out of a line-up, but they all have specific names and distinct personalities and you can’t take your eyes off them when they’re on-screen and you yearn for them to return when their off-screen.

There is one big battle involving dragons in season two and it is absolutely spectacular. Astonishingly well designed and exceedingly well executed, it was the best action sequence I’ve seen in any medium this year.

Even when dragons aren’t fighting, they are such a captivating and menacing presence that it is a perverted joy to behold. Just a shot of a dragon walking out of the dark and into the light is a breathtaking spectacle. Trust me that when a dragon is on-screen you won’t be checking your phone or doom-scrolling Twitter…oops, I mean X.

As for the downside for season two of House of the Dragon…there were a few issues.

First off, the season, which is only 8 episodes, felt like it was poorly structured and both rushed and too slow. Some characters make dramatically untenable leaps in a short period of time, while others drag on in rather dull circumstances.

For example, the entire storyline of Daemon stuck in the witchy realm of Harrenhall brings the series to a screeching halt every time they cut to it. Daemon is maybe the most captivating character in the show and yet this season’s storyline morphed him into a dour insomniac and often-times a morose dullard.

The storyline involving the “small folk” – or regular people, while an important device in the long run, is often times excruciating in practice. None of the “small folk” are the least bit interesting and the time spent with them is tedious and dramatically impotent.

As for the poor structuring of season two, it felt like the season should’ve ended with the final shot of episode seven, and episode eight should’ve been the first episode of season three. I also would’ve liked to see Aegon’s dragon-riding rampage which was only briefly referred to in the season finale. Why not show the cruel and vicious Aegon using his massive dragon to be cruel and vicious to innocent people? It would help set the stage for season three and also drive home the point that dragons are weapons of mass destruction which unleash hell on earth.

But despite a few bumps-in-the-road, I did enjoy season two of House of the Dragon because it uses top-notch British actors and actresses – usually pilfered from the stage, and puts them in exquisitely made costumes on gloriously photographed locations/sets – or as I call it, the Game of Thrones formula. Oh…and it also helps that it gives these British actors and actresses believable CGI dragons to ride around on.

House of the Dragon will never hit the heights that its famous predecessor did in terms of cultural cache, which also means it’ll never stumble into the lows either, but if you want to see some quality television – which has become scarce nowadays, it is one of the better, if not the best, show on tv at the moment – which to be fair isn’t saying much but still…I liked it.

©2024

Dispatches from the Shitshow: Vices and a Stunning Lack of Virtues

DISPATCHES FROM THE SHITSHOW: VOLUME III - VICES AND A STUNNING LACK OF VIRTUES

 Oh boy…silly season is in full swing now.

So, two weeks ago there’s an assassination attempt on Trump, and then a week later Biden is kicked to the curb (as a side note – am I the only one who noticed that when Biden gave his speech about dropping out of the election, he never said WHY he was dropping out…hmmmm). And we still have more than three long months until election day.

Trump getting shot in the ear and Biden getting tossed on his rear may be the biggest events of this election, or they may be forgotten amongst the hurricane of insanity yet to ensue. Considering the assassination attempt on Trump became old news in about 48 hours, and Biden’s presidential bid was, like Biden’s mind, turned into a distant faded memory in less than a day, one can expect a perfect storm of chaos lies ahead.

Vice President Kamala Harris now takes the reins as the presumptive Democratic nominee, which should make this an even sillier silly season.

Kamala is an extraordinarily vacuous, vapid and venal woman. She is the liberal version of Sarah Palin with a generous serving of George W. Bush thrown in. She is a climber, a hack, a charisma-less dullard and dumb-ass and is not even remotely ready for prime time. She is also as unlikable as unlikable can be, mostly because she is such a transparent phony.

All that said…make no mistake…she most definitely could win.

What I assume will happen is that the media will go all out to protect her and celebrate her. We are already seeing them sticking to the “she was never the border czar” propaganda point, which is painfully absurd. No doubt her poll numbers will climb and she’ll be carried by her good press.

But if things start to go bad, if the bloom comes off the rose and she bumbles and stumbles for the next month and into September, then the deep state will need to make some moves to ensure their girl Friday gets the big gig. Which means we could see more palace intrigue…up to and including Biden resigning (or being forced to resign) as President and Kamala getting to sit in the big seat.

This would do a multitude of things for her, especially if she’s struggling on the campaign trail. First it would make her seem presidential…because she’d actually be president.

Secondly, it would get her off the campaign trail – which has never been her strong suit. She could be “so busy” as President, and take the job so seriously that she couldn’t reduce herself to campaigning, and could leave that to liberal heavyweights like the Obamas, who are very good at it.

This gets us into another uncomfortable topic, which is how can we make Kamala seem presidential when she’s not remotely presidential, and in a short period of time? Well, you have Biden resign, then a major event happens, or have a major event happen and then Biden resigns. So, what I’m talking about is a massive terror attack – in the U.S. or at the Olympics or something like that, or a major military operation (in other words a war) against the villain du jour…be it Yemen, Iran, Russia or some other mustache twisting “evil-doer” from some axis of nefariousness conjured in the back rooms of Langley and/or Tel Aviv. So buckle up…things could get even bumpier.

Speaking of which, I found Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress to be utterly repulsive. Netanyahu, who of course banged the drum for war with Iran, is a repugnant pig and grotesque excuse for a human being. That the sycophants and sociopaths in Congress all bowed down to their genocidal master lays bare the fact that our nation is bought and paid for by their zionist paymasters. How many of these groveling cowards do the Israelis have blackmail information on? My guess is the vast majority – thank you Jeffrey Epstein!!

The most disgusting display was by Pennsylvania’s own meathead Senator John Fetterman. Fetterman had a stroke during his campaign in 2022, and that was on top of being a retard to begin with, so now he’s got nothing but month-old brisket between his ears.

Fetterman’s favorite game is to dress like a homeless guy and go to work at the Senate in shorts and a hoodie in order to represent his constituents – none of whom would disrespect the Senate by dressing so disgracefully. It’s part of Fetterman’s “I’m a working man” shtick, which, if you know his life story, is complete bullshit.

Fetterman showed the world who the boss of the USA is when he showed up to Netanyahu’s speech wearing…you guessed it…a suit…because you wear a suit when the boss is in the office. Fetterman is everything that is wrong with Congress…he’s a ridiculously unserious man and his slavish adoration of the war criminal Netanyahu, and apartheid Israel only speaks to his deep moral and ethical rot.

Speaking of rot…how about that JD Vance? Vance is the Republican nominee for Vice President. Vance is the least interesting person to ever have a remotely interesting life story. He looks like a douchebag and when he speaks, he sounds like a douchebag…which may be a strong indicator that he is, in fact, a douchebag.

Vance wrote a book about his life, “Hillbilly Elegy”, which was made into a movie which was directed by Ron Howard and starred Glenn Close and Amy Adams.

Hillbilly Elegy is one of the very worst films of the 21st Century, which maybe speaks to the future if we get JD as VP. On the bright side there’s a very funny false story going around about how he fucked a couch when he was a kid…which makes me laugh whenever it’s mentioned. So there’s that.

Hillbilly Elegy is available to stream on Netflix, but unfortunately there’s no couch fucking scene in it, if there were I’d recommend it. I have recommended the film in recent days but only so people can watch it to see how atrocious it really is. As bad a candidate as JD Vance is…he’s a better candidate than Ron Howard is a filmmaker.

The reason Trump picked Vance is obvious, Vance is such a small presence, a beta male to the extreme, with all the magnetism of a tumbleweed, that Trump seems bigger and more dynamic next to him.

Vance could also be a sacrificial lamb. Vance has no constituency and no one gives a shit about him one way or the other, so if Trump is failing and flailing he could simply cut Vance loose and replace him in order to inject some action into his campaign and garner his favorite fuels – chaos and attention.

And finally, this past week the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, testified in front of Congress regarding the assassination attempt on Trump.

Ms. Cheatle’s testimony was, to be kind, an absolute train wreck. Cheatle is one of those aggressively incompetent bureaucrats that has no idea what she is doing or even what she should be doing. A day or so after her disastrous testimony, she resigned as head of the Secret Service.

What interested me about the Cheatle hearing though was not how atrocious she was…but how unanimous the opposition to her was. Red flags go up all over the place for me when both sides of the political aisle are so in-sync on any topic, and the blistering attacks on Cheatle signified less a unity on the topic than an organized distraction from the real topic.

Ms. Cheatle is a convenient, and frankly well-deserving, scapegoat, but she got off essentially scot-free (yes, she lost her job but she’ll get another one – somewhere), and won’t have her feet held to the fire any more.

Cheatle’s incompetence was so staggering, and the opposition to her so unified, that one can’t help but read between the lines and see that this whole fiasco will be quickly forgotten, and any real investigation into the assassination attempt on Trump will be scuttled…all of which is standard operating procedure for the intelligence community. There’s lots of subterfuge, lots of conspiracy theories, lots of official paper pushing and hollering, and then poof…it’s all over and no one is any wiser, and we are all left further from the truth than when we began.

Regardless of all my rambling in the previous paragraphs, the bottom line for me is still this…I simply don’t see Trump being allowed to be president come January 2025. I still don’t know who will be president, I just don’t think it will be Trump. Take that information for what it’s worth…and I’ll see you next time on Dispatches from the Shitshow!!

©2024

The Boys - Season 4: TV Review - Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen

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

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. This is the worst of The Boys’ seasons thus far. It is a sprawling and unfocused disappointment.

When The Boys hit tv screens in 2019 via Amazon Prime it was a glorious jolt of savage energy into the superhero genre that gave a sharp and satirical middle-finger to Marvel, the cultural behemoth of cultural behemoths at the time.

With Marvel on the mountaintop in the wake of its astonishing MCU run which culminated in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame, the superhero genre was prime for a slap in the face and The Boys delivered it exquisitely, with a solid kick in the nuts to boot.

The Boys’ evisceration of the superhero genre and corporate cultural power as well as its clear-eyed, cynical take on corrupt American politics, made it must-see tv for its first three seasons (Here is my review from season three).

But a funny thing happened while The Boys became the go-to satirical superhero tv series over the last five years, namely the superhero genre declined in popularity and relevance, and that decline was steep and rapid. Since the dizzying heights of 2019 with Avengers: Endgame and Joker, superhero films have fallen off a cliff in terms of quality and cultural relevance.

The creative energy propelling The Boys has, in conjunction with the precipitous fall of its once-lofty satirical target, lost considerable steam (and with it, relevance) in its fourth season, and the show has started to resemble the politically-correct corporate IP it so expertly lambasted in its first three seasons.

Season four once again features ‘The Boys’, a group of misfits and miscreants like Butcher, Huey, Mother’s Milk, Starlight, Frenchie and Kimiko as they try to bring down the villain Homelander and the whole corporate superhero monster Vought (a wondrous stand-in for Disney and its awful ilk)…and save the world in the process.  

Butcher is trying to save his “son” while dealing with a terminal illness. Mother’s Milk is trying to save his family. Starlight and Huey are trying to save each other and the world. And Frenchie and Kimiko are trying to save their souls.

None of this is new and frankly, none of it is very interesting anymore. Season four is less vivid and vital than the previous three seasons, and the drama, and comedy, tends to fall flat, and the characters tend to grate.

For the most part the performances all feel tired and cliched as well. Karl Urban as Butcher has been great up until now, but his work in season four seems a bit banal and predictable. The same is true of Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty as Huey and Starlight respectively. The actors no longer seem to be embodying characters but just going through the motions.

The one exception to this is Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko. Fukuhara consistently brings a vibrancy and verve to her work as the mute superhero, and she fills her every moment on-screen with a vitality lacking in the rest of the cast.

There have been much complaints online about The Boys’ left-wing politics, but I don’t think that is the reason for season four’s failure. The reality is that The Boys has always been overtly leftist in its politics, been even in doing that it, maybe inadvertently, made fun of its own ideology.

While it’s true that the liberal politics are much more overt in season four than in previous seasons, that’s not a big deal, the real problem is that they’re so painfully vapid and trite. I mean, in season one the show savagely yet surreptitiously made the argument that 9/11 was an inside job and now in season four its reduced itself to scenes which feature torturing rich right-wing superheroes by donating their money to Black Lives Matter. That is so on-the-nose as to be embarrassing. Yikes.

The other issue is that the plot has gotten so convoluted and unwieldy as to be tiresome. The main objective of stopping Homelander and Vought has now gotten lost in a maze of odd personal tales that generate neither heat nor light.

For example, out of nowhere season four features a gay love story for the character Frenchie. That Frenchie wasn’t gay before is beside the point, but what is the point is that this storyline is superfluous at best, and egregiously tedious at worst….like when Disney added a gay character to The Eternals – they did it to check boxes, not drive drama.

Other storylines feel just as vacuous, vapid and venal. For instance, all of the stories surrounding Mother’s Milk, Starlight, Huey and even Butcher, feel redundant and devoid of the dramatic and comedic edge of earlier seasons.

I get it, things lose momentum the longer they go, but season four of the The Boys feels like a series trying to stretch things out by adding garbage filler rather than a genuine attempt to drive a story forward with energy, electricity, attitude and aplomb.

Season four ends by setting up season five, which will be the series’ finale. Unfortunately, season five is not set to arrive until 2026 and considering how much creative momentum and cultural relevance The Boys have lost between season three and four, one can only shudder to think how far season five will drop in quality and dramatic dynamism.

The bottom line is that The Boys was brilliant…until it wasn’t. And unfortunately, the bloom is off the rose and the series is now just playing out the string. Hopefully, and I really do hope this, it can right the ship and go out on top in season five with a furious finale. Considering the maddening missteps and malaise of season four, I’m not optimistic.

©2024

Dispatches from the Shitshow: The Assassination Chronicles

DISPATCHES FROM THE SHITSHOW – VOLUME TWO: ASSASSINATION CHRONICLES

So…that was weird.

A week ago, I wrote an article where I described what I thought was going to happen in this year’s election. The big point was that Trump wasn’t going to be allowed to be President…and that the intelligence community would try and assassinate him.

And then…two days later…they tried to assassinate him.

As everyone knows, “a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” Unfortunately for me I am a prophet without honor everywhere! I’m the Rodney Dangerfield of prophets….I don’t get no honor…NOWHERE! Also unfortunately I am a prophet without profit….but that’s a story for another day.

As insane as the Trump assassination attempt was, and it was insane, I think things only get crazier from here on out.

I don’t know what exactly happened on Saturday, but what I am absolutely certain of is that whatever the “official story” is, is not to be believed even in the slightest.

It is endlessly amusing to me that the conspiracy scolds seem to have lost whatever grip they had left on our society with this batshit event. Right-wingers, even the ones who are reflexively establishment sycophants, are convinced that a deeper plot was involved than just a disgruntled, lone nut and left-wingers are convinced Trump staged the whole thing for a photo-op and sympathy. For example, I had multiple people text me within minutes of the assassination attempt to tell me they thought it was staged.

My spot on the political spectrum is impossible to discern – people on the right hate me and people on the left hate me (shrug), but I’ll say this, I don’t think this was an event staged by Trump. I think there are forces trying to destroy Trump…and they will keep trying to do it – although to be honest I’m not exactly sure why they want to destroy him. I have hunches, but I am not sure….maybe they just want to give the appearance that they’re trying to destroy him….who knows?

That said, I am most definitely open to the possibility that the powers that be are trying to destroy Trump but if they fail to do so they will still use him for all sorts of ungodly schemes and such…but that is only if they can’t pin the tail on his donkey and put him in the morgue instead of the White House.

As for the rest of the election, it is hysterical to me that Trump got shot and yet Biden is the one who looks like he’s being measured for a body bag.

Biden is a dead man walking, and I’m not just talking about in the polls.

With Schumer and Pelosi having now leaked stories about how they each spoke with the President and urged him to step aside, it would seem that Biden should not be asking for whom the bell tolls…although in his demented state he will probably keep asking even after being told it most definitely tolls for him. (And the Washington Post is now reporting that Obama told allies and associates that Biden needs to seriously consider his “viability” as his path to reelection has “greatly diminished”.)

Schumer and Pelosi leaking those stories is a Brutus level of political brutality and is a more politically bloody event than Trump getting shot in the ear. That Biden came down with Covid mere hours later may give him the impetus and cover to close up shop and hand the keys off to the rest of the party. But who knows if crotchety narcissist Joe and the rest of the Biden clan will walk away.

If Biden does step aside, then the carnage really begins.

As I said in my last article, I don’t know who will be president but I’m confident that Trump won’t be allowed to be president again.

It could be any one of the lollipop-guild of intellectual midgets which include Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsome, Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro or someone else…hell…even the decaying, decrepit, demented dipshit Joe Biden might be Weekend at Bernie’s-ed into the big chair again if he doesn’t back out or drop dead.

Kamala Harris is, in the eyes of many democrats, the next in line but she is an extraordinarily unimpressive politician and person. Kamala Harris has been California’s Attorney General, a U.S. Senator and a Vice President, not despite being a black/Asian woman but because she’s a black/Asian woman. If Democrats simply declare her the nominee it will be an open declaration that identity politics is the be all and end all of their ideology and that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion their unquestioned dogma.

In recent months DEI has somewhat taken a back seat amongst the corporate set as it has become a decadent luxury they have decided they simply can’t afford, and the same may be true among the democratic party – which is, as always, hostage to its corporate donors.

I don’t know how it will play out, I just know that the “deep state” is going to do everything and anything to keep Trump out of the White House…up to and including more assassination attempts during and after the campaign and election.

There is also a very distinct possibility of terror attacks here in the U.S.(or at the Olympics), and false flag attacks overseas that will force America into a war with Russia, China, Iran, Yemen, North Korea or somebody else….whatever it takes to keep Trump out of office and the American war machine running on all cylinders.

We live in very dangerous times and that danger is only going to increase with every passing day. My advice is to believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear, and to keep your head on a swivel, because there is much more shit about to be thrown at our fan….so hold your nose and be ready to stop, drop and roll at a moment’s notice.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 121 - The Bikeriders

On this episode, Barry and I hop aboard our Harleys and discuss The Bikeriders, the biker gang movie starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy. Topics discussed include Barry's undying love for Austin Butler, the unsexing of Jodie Comer and the yearning for decent, mid-budget adult dramas. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 121 - The Bikeriders

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Dispatches from the Shitshow - Biden, Trump and Election 2024

DISPATCHES FROM THE SHITSHOW – VOLUME ONE

So, it’s that time again where everybody loses their minds over the possibility that some craven asshole they don’t want to win a sham election beats the craven asshole they do want to win a sham election.

I’ve often said that our democracy is a joke because it’s an oligarchy and aristocracy that gives us the illusion of choice as to who will be the face of our diabolical, decadent and decaying empire, but no choice in its behavior or how it is actually run.

Voting for president is simply choosing who you want to host the reality tv/game show that is American politics for the next four years. Choose wisely because you’ll have the winner on your tv screens and in the center of conversation for the next four years.

Will you choose the demented, despicable, deplorable, disgustingly corrupt Donald Trump? Or will it be the demented, despicable, deplorable, disgustingly corrupt Joe Biden? Biden is everything wrong with American politics, and Trump is everything wrong with America.

Whoever you choose you’ll get lots of corporate-friendly decision-making, heaps of Zionist-controlled foreign policy, and a consistent assault upon your rights and liberties. Yay!!

The rancid choice foisted upon us this year is indicative of how far along in the American Empire’s decline we’ve come. That out of 350 million people we are stuck with an election between these two guys…again…is so lazy that it’s just a clear sign of a late-stage empire in a near free-fall collapse.

I’ve spoken to very few people about this election mostly because there are very few people left who will actually speak to me anymore.

Having not beaten the bushes in an attempt to get the sense of voter sentiment, I am left to my own devices - God help us all, and my sense of things pieced together by my usual media watchdogging.

Here are a few of my thoughts…take them for what they’re worth.

BIDEN

There is something very amusing about the fact that the mendacious mainstream media has been in a furious tizzy about the revelation that Biden is mentally compromised, which became blindingly obvious during the recent debate.

CNN and even MSNBC have the knives out because they feel “betrayed” by the Biden White House and staff who lied about his cognitive abilities.

Look, I’m an idiot and even I knew Biden was dementia-addled all the way back in 2019 and wrote about it…quite a bit. In fact, at one point I wrote a comedic article in which I described Biden exactly as “dementia-addled”, and after much hemming and hawing and decision making pushed up the chain of command, I was informed by the head of editorial at the publication that the term “dementia-addled” could not be used because I was not a doctor and therefore could not diagnose Biden with dementia. My only argument back was that I was “not a doctor…yet!” and that eliminating the term “dementia-addled” would neuter the joke I was trying to make (which I don’t even remember now). I was politely told that the joke must be sacrificed on the altar of journalistic integrity. Shrug.

Anyway, the point being that it was very apparent to anyone with two eyes and half a brain in their head that Biden wasn’t right in his head four years ago.

And don’t get me started on this “Biden has a stutter” bullshit. Biden doesn’t have a stutter…he has never had a stutter. He’s been a politician and public figure the entirety of his adult life and he has never shown signs of a stutter. The stutter story was made up as a marketing tool to deflect from his mental decrepitude and generate sympathy.

Here's another thing. Since the debate debacle there have been endless op-eds and talking heads pontificating on Biden’s status and his future and they all start out say the same thing, “Biden is a good, decent man…”. Ok, let’s be clear…Biden isn’t a “good man and decent man”…he is an incorrigible, power-hungry scumbag. Always has been and always will be.

And he’s also a compulsive, pathological liar. He lies so much he doesn’t even know when he’s lying anymore. Our historically illiterate populace doesn’t remember, or chooses not to remember, that in 1988 he had to drop out of the presidential race because he was caught plagiarizing speeches and making up fantastical stories about himself and his accomplishments.

Of course, the biggest lie that Biden is now telling is to himself in deluding himself into thinking he can actually live, nevermind govern, for another four years.

Here’s another thing that a lot of talking heads and dipshits on social media keep spouting, that Biden is “the greatest president of my lifetime!” What the actual fuck? I mean, I suppose this could be true if you were born in the last three to maybe eight years, but good lord what sort of depraved, delusional nonsense is this?

To be fair to these people, I literally cannot choose the “best president of my lifetime” because they have all been uniquely awful. I’ve lived through Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump and Biden. That is a murderer’s row of douchebaggery, tomfoolery and incontinent incompetence that rivals any stretch of in-bred royalty in any country in the entirety of history.

Back to Biden…I have no idea if he voluntarily will step down or be forced from the ticket or the presidency or if he’ll still be breathing in November, but what I do know is that this guy is not all there. I have said this many, many times, and I’m not being facetious, but if Biden were your parent or grandparent or uncle, you’d be having very serious, in-depth discussions about finding a safe place for him to live because he obviously can’t take care of himself. You’d be conspiring on how to take his car keys away and figuring out what nursing home he can afford.

Does all this mean that Biden can’t win the election come November. No. He can still win this thing but only because people – and more importantly, people in power, hate Trump so much they’ll do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to stop him. But more on that later.

TRUMP

I’ve never liked Donald Trump. From the first when he came to prominence in the 1980s, I thought he was a clown and phony flim-flam man who was play-acting at being somebody. This is a common malady among the silver-spoon set…but it must be said he isn’t alone among nepo-baby presidents who have suffered from this disease…see George W. Bush.

I loathe Trump as much as I loathe Biden, and for many of the same reasons. He’s a charlatan, con-man, carnival barking bullshit artist and fabulist who doesn’t have a fucking clue. Like Biden he has an inflated ego that knows no bounds and like Biden he is a corrupt and narcissistic creature who genuinely loathes the hoi polloi.

I’ve written about this before but it’s worth mentioning again that the thing that I find so darkly funny about Trump and the MAGA crowd is that they claim he is an outsider who is going to kick the deep state’s ass.

Apparently, a lot of people, both republican and democrat, don’t remember this but Trump was already president. He didn’t kick the deep state’s ass, he kissed it. And when he didn’t kiss it, they kicked his.

Trump isn’t so much an outsider to the establishment as he is an establishment figure who is hated by the establishment to such a degree they want him on the outside.

Remember Trump’s first term when he promised to “drain the swamp” and then filled his administration with the swampiest of swamp creatures? I do. Satan’s spawn John fucking Bolton was his national security advisor for chrissakes…I mean that’s as swamp creaturey as you can get.

And Trump will do the same thing if he wins this November. Hell, look at the cavalcade of cunts and clowns he’s considering for his VP pick. Nikki Haley? Marco Rubio? Jesus titty fucking Christ! These are the absolute worst of the worst swamp creatures!

Trump has also promised this time around to release all the files on the JFK assassination and UFOs that are currently classified. He promised the same thing regarding the JFK files during his first term and guess what happened? On the day before he was going to release the files the head of the CIA paid him a visit in the Oval Office and low and behold Trump reversed course and refused to release the documents. He isn’t going to release anything this time around either.

He's also reluctant to release the Epstein files…hmmm…I wonder why?

The one thing going for Trump is that, unlike Biden – who is only three years his elder, Trump actually looks vigorous. Of course, the down side of that is that his vitality only accentuates what a batshit fucking lunatic and mental and emotional midget he is.

2024 ELECTION

So, what do I think will happen in the election? I don’t know for sure…but I have a sense, and it goes against all conventional wisdom, so maybe it’s completely off, but I’ll share it anyway.

I have long railed against emotionalism in politics and political debate so it is more than ironic that I am basing my thoughts on the election on a vague “sense” rather than some data I’ve stumbled upon. But here we are.

My sense is this…that despite the plethora of polls and the overall sentiment among the intelligentsia in the country…I think Donald Trump will not be the next President of the United States. I simply cannot picture that happening.

Now the obvious counter to that would be to argue that I must be a Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer and just hate him so much I am wishing he loses. This isn’t the case. Remember, in 2016 when everyone was saying Hillary would win, I said clearly that Trump would win and why he would win.

This time around I just sense that Trump will not be allowed to be president again because he is so hated by the political, media, and most importantly, intelligence community establishment.

The ground work has been done to demonize Trump to such a tremendous degree, with the endless wailing over “democracy being at risk” and this potentially being our “last election”, that the establishment will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to make sure Trump is kept out of the White House.

So, what does that mean specifically…well, it means that by hook or by crook he will not be sworn in come next January. Maybe Biden drops out and is replaced and the new candidate energizes the opposition to Trump and the polls reverse and Trump is defeated. Or maybe the same is true with Biden still heading the ticket and somehow he turns things around and wins. Or maybe something else…something less conventional, happens.

The intelligence community and their allies in the rest of government and media have tried to assassinate (in one form or another) Trump since his rise by various means and don’t kid yourself, they won’t stop now.

They tried to assassinate his character and therefore derail his political ambitions from the jump, but Trump is so shameless that no matter how exposed he gets he just shrugs it off and his fans love him all the more.

They’ve tried to assassinate his political ambitions through the legal system, but once again Trump’s shamelessness has made him immune from consequences and even more popular among his minions.

And it must be said that the weaponization of the legal system for political purposes is as anti-democratic as it gets, and that the democrats weeping and wailing over the possibility of Trump weaponizing the legal system against his opponents if he wins while they do exactly that is the height of hypocrisy.

Which leaves us with two other alternatives. The first is one that will be shrugged off but is the most likely…and that is that the election will simply be rigged to keep Trump out of power. I know, I know…this is ridiculous…except that it isn’t.

Elections are relatively easy to steal, and have been stolen throughout American history….be it JFK in 1960 or George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. These things happen…and the people who are good at making them happen are the people who hate Trump the most….the intelligence community.

The CIA has stolen elections across the globe time and time again, and fomented coups and assassinated people they found inconvenient to their goals. If you think they won’t do it here you’re as out of your mind as Biden and Trump.

Ever since Trump was elected in 2016 the intel community had their knives out. The Russiagate nonsense…which was absolute and utter manufactured bullshit, was a creation of the intel community and used to deeply wound Trump’s presidency.

Another example were the BLM riots…there’s a great deal of evidence that there were federal agents mixed in with the rioters who instigated the most violent and destructive behavior, like looting and burning.

The same is true of January 6th, where the FBI had agents/assets among the masses protesting at the Capitol, who then turned that protest into a riot and overran the building.

And then there’s the mysterious white power groups that march, always masked and anonymous, at various spots to generate media attention. These people seem to me be obvious federals agents/assets meant to drum up turmoil and media attention. What is strange is that even when these people are detained by police they are never unmasked, and the media never dives deep to find out who they actually are.

This is all a long way of saying that the intel community is up to their usual games and they will do anything to eliminate Trump from power – for whatever reason.

The final thing that could happen is that, and let me be one thousand percent clear on this - I’m not calling for this or wishing for it nor do I support it, Trump could be killed.

I know, I know…I’m a conspiracy nut. But this is how the world works. Trump has been made into the ultimate enemy of American democracy, a Hitler in waiting who will never leave office once he gets in despite the fact that he already left office after his first term.

The existential angst coming from all corners of the media and democratic establishment has people in a frenzy, and if you don’t think this is a dangerous thing to do, you don’t know what the intelligence community are capable of.

Some “lone nut”, thinking they’re a patriot, could do something terrible and think it is righteous because they’ve been conditioned to think of Trump as Hitler.

I know democrats who hate Trump so much they want him dead, this is clear, and when things get that hot someone could very well go full Lee Harvey and cast the one vote that matters. Of course, it won’t be a “lone nut”, it’ll be an orchestrated and manipulated event by the people most committed to stopping Trump, but the “lone nut” narrative will be easy to sell.

The other thing is that Trump, a rather unhealthy 78-year-old, could drop dead from “natural causes” that I promise you won’t be natural at all. The intel community is good at this stuff and they will have the support of the media to tell whatever story they want.

Regardless of how it happens, my sense is that Trump will not be president again. This will come as a relief to the democrats in my life who are apoplectic at the thought of four more Trump years.

That said, I don’t know who will be president. I don’t even know if Biden makes it to election day. In fact, I don’t know much, and could be totally and completely wrong about everything I’ve just written, but what I do know for sure is that no matter who gets elected in November and who gets inaugurated in January, we’ll all be entirely fucked…that you can take to the bank.

 

©2024

Beverly Hills Cop 4: Axel F - A Review: Eddie Murphy...is that you?

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. It’s a formulaic action-comedy…but it does boast an engaging and energized Eddie Murphy…something we haven’t seen in a really long time.

It’s hard to believe it but Beverly Hills Cop, the blockbuster action comedy that made Eddie Murphy a megastar, hit theatres forty years ago in 1984.

To put that into context, consider that forty years before Beverly Hills Cop, World War II was still going on and Bing Crosby was the biggest star in Hollywood.

It’s easy to forget now, but Eddie Murphy was, back in the 1980’s, the most massive star in the Hollywood universe – he was like Bing Crosby with ba-ba-ba-balls. He was the biggest tv star (SNL), movie star and comedian on the planet…he was so big he put out musical albums that were atrocious but they still sold well and got continuous radio play. I mean, who could forget the hit song “Boogie in your Butt”?

Murphy’s superstar status, which reached its apex in 1984 declined slowly…and then all at once. In the wake of his supreme successes with 48 Hrs. (1982), Trading Places (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Coming to America (1988) the quality of work began to decline - despite a minor renaissance in 1992 (Boomerang, The Distinguished Gentleman).

In an effort to salvage his stardom Murphy made Beverly Hills Cop 3 in 1994 and it was brutally bad and instantly forgotten. At that point the bloom was definitely off the Murphy rose. He then sold his soul and dignity and dove into the Nutty Professor and Dr. Doolittle franchises and his cache and career went precipitously down from there.

Murphy has spent the last quarter of a century – with the exception of 2006’s Dreamgirls, churning out the laziest, most awful, money-grab garbage imaginable.

In recent years he has returned to his earlier successes in the hopes of a career resurgence or a money infusion. First there was Coming 2 America, a sequel to 1988’s brilliant Coming to America…which is arguably Murphy’s last good movie. Coming 2 America was a comedically flaccid venture devoid of Murphy’s charm and heart that so effectively fueled the original.

And now there is Beverly Hills Cop 4 which premiered on Netflix July 3, 2024. Murphy is back as Axel Foley, the wise cracking Detroit cop who is a very fast-talking fish out of water in the posh confines of Beverly Hills. Also back are Taggart and Rosewood, John Ashton and Judge Reinhold respectively, as well as Paul Reiser as Axel’s fellow Detroit cop Jeffrey and Bronson Pinchot as Serge. Joining the festivities are Beverly Hills Cop newcomers Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as a cop, Kevin Bacon as a bad guy cop and Taylour Paige as Axel’s adult daughter.

Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2 were big hits and perfect vehicles for Murphy’s charisma and comedy. Beverly Hills Cop 3 (1994) was apocalyptically awful. Beverly Hills Cop 4 is…somewhere in between.

Is Beverly Hills Cop 4 a good movie? No. Is Beverly Hills Cop 4 a bad movie? Not really. It’s just sort of a formulaic movie (that somehow cost $150 million to make!) that plays out in front of you and then it’s over and no one will really care one way or the other.

The one notable thing about Beverly Hills Cop 4 though is that it’s the first movie in decades…maybe since Bowfinger (1999), where Eddie Murphy seems engaged and energized and not simply there for the check.

Murphy, at his height, had an undeniable charm and charisma that dominated the screen, which is why it was always so jarring to see him dead-eyed and dull sleepwalking through the second half of his career.

But in Beverly Hills Cop 4 Murphy is back being at ease and comfortable on screen. Axel Foley is sort of the Eddie Murphy of old and Murphy makes the most of it. He is funny, cool (but not too cool) and enjoyable to be around. You never feel like Eddie Murphy is phoning it in and just going through the motions…which is a refreshing change of pace.

The film follows its action-comedy roots and sticks pretty tight to the formula…a formula which it perfected back in 1984 and which others have used and abused ever since with ever more diminishing returns. To give an indication of how culturally mammoth the original Beverly Hills Cop movie was and what an extraordinary talent Murphy was, consider that Michael Bay poached the formula with his Bad Boys franchise and had to use both Will Smith AND Martin Lawrence to fill the Eddie Murphy role.

Beverly Hills Cop 4, which is the directorial debut of Mark Molloy and is written by Will Beall and Kevin Etten, is very conscious of the franchise’s past and winks along to the nostalgia. For example, in the first ten minutes of the movie it features the hit songs from the Beverly Hills Cop movies in the 80’s. It opens with Glenn Frey’s “The Heat is on”, followed by Bob Seger’s “Shakedown”, then the Pointer Sisters “Neutron Dance”, and of course the franchise’s synth-heavy anthem by Herbie Hancock. That Glenn Frey and one of the Pointer Sisters are dead, and that Bob Seger is permanently retired, only goes to emphasize how damn long ago that first film really was.

The plot of Beverly Hills Cop 4 is not really important. Just know that there’s trouble in Beverly Hills involving Axel Foley’s estranged daughter and he comes to LA from Detroit to figure everything out and make things right. Taggart (John Ashton) is now a police chief in Beverly Hills, Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) is a private detective and Serge (Bronson Pinchot) is still a weirdly gay-ish foreign man about Beverly Hills.

There’s a copious amount of plastic surgery apparent on both Reinhold and Pinchot’s distorted faces (oh Hollywood!) and none of the old cast bring the same joie de vivre as Murphy does, but what can you do?

There are some action sequences, none of which move the needle very much. And there’s some shootouts which feature villains who can’t shoot straight and good guys who can.

You won’t care about the convoluted plot or how it resolves (it resolves exactly like you think it does) or anything like that, but the only reason to tune in, then tune out and watch Beverly Hills Cop 4 is to see Eddie Murphy.

Murphy isn’t his old self in this movie…and he isn’t even a shadow of his former self in this movie…but he is a shadow of a shadow of his former self…and that’s better than anything Will Smith and Martin Lawrence or any other pretenders to the Murphy crown could ever hope to muster.

If you like Eddie Murphy, then Beverly Hills Cop 4, despite being mindless and middling movie mundanity, is worth watching to remember what was…and what might have been.

Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

The Bikeriders: A Review - Foundational Flaws Make 'The Bikeriders' an Uneasy Rider

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

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. A flawed movie that could’ve been great but ended up being just average.

The Bikeriders, starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a Chicago-area motorcycle club from its benign founding in the early 1960’s to its malignant expansion throughout the 70s.

The film, which is inspired by Danny Lyon’s photo-book of the same name and is written and directed by Jeff Nichols, opened nationwide in theatres last weekend.

The Bikeriders has a lot going for it, like an appealing aesthetic, a banger of a soundtrack and three solid, attractive actors atop the cast list. And yet, the film struggles to captivate because it is fundamentally at cross-purposes with itself.

On one hand it wants to be a gritty, Goodfellas-esque, guys being guys motorcycle movie/crime drama (in fact an early sequence in the film is an homage to Goodfellas), and then on the other hand it wants to be a rather safe, cinematically antiseptic Hollywood movie and star making vehicle.

These differing desires are never more apparent as when comparing the performance styles of the two lead actors, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer, who play Benny and Kathy, the couple at the center of the drama.

Jodie Comer is a very, very pretty woman, but she’s not nearly as pretty in The Bikeriders as the beautiful Austin Butler, whose Benny is the brooding, blue-eyed, bad boy biker with the perfectly tussled hair who is the object of everyone’s desire.

The Bikeriders is a star-maker for Butler, as his job is to show up and pose and preen his way through a role without actually doing much heavy lifting. That he can be little more than a mannequin in this movie and women will still go absolutely bananas for him and dudes will still want to be him, is a testament to his innate star potential.

In contrast, Jodie Comer plays Kathy and has been unsexed to such a staggering degree as to be astonishing considering her preternatural allure. Adding to her unsexing is the fact that she’s doing a deeply studied performance which features a spot-on, but still grating, Chicago accent, and her wardrobe seems designed to eliminate any possible feminine appeal.

In terms of acting style, Comer is doing 1970’s Meryl Streep method acting and Butler is doing an Armani photo-shoot, and the clash of styles is not only cinematically confounding but also greatly diminishes the drama.

For example, Kathy and Benny, whose attraction/relationship is the center piece of the narrative, are completely devoid of any sizzle. There is not one iota of chemistry between Butler and Comer. Adding to the frigidity is that they never kiss, not even once, in the entire film. In fact, I don’t recall seeing the two of them ever touch…and not even in a sensual or romantic way, but at all. How can you have two ridiculously gorgeous people play a couple in a movie and never once show them kiss?

Now, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal except it undermines the narrative and dramatic premise of the entire project. Benny is allegedly torn between the motorcycle club and Kathy, but he doesn’t seem all that interested in Kathy, and frankly, Kathy doesn’t seem all that interested in him, which makes the whole thing dramatically incoherent.

What Kathy and Benny need is uncontrollable, blood-pumping, frantic passion, which would give Benny a reason to keep coming back and, more importantly, Kathy a reason to do EVERY SINGLE THING SHE DOES. But it has none of that and thus the drama of the film is neutered.

To be clear, I didn’t hate The Bikeriders. In general, I dig motorcycle movies (or car movies) and the film looks good, is aesthetically pleasing and stylistically intriguing, and it has a cast of solid actors.

For instance, Tom Hardy does a good job as Johnny, the founder of the Vandals, the fictional motorcycle club at the heart of the movie. Hardy splits the difference between Comer and Butler’ acting styles by giving a half method/half Hollywood performance, and it actually works.

The collection of actors in the motorcycle club, guys like the always reliable Michael Shannon, as well as Damon Herriman, Norman Reedus and Boyd Holbrooke, all do solid supporting work and make for believable bikers.

The costumes work as well, and the cinematography by Adam Stone is pretty standard but well executed.

Ultimately, The Bikeriders is one of those movies that could have been great but which never figured out what it wanted to be and more importantly, how it wanted to be or why it wanted to be.

The film could’ve been a steamy star-vehicle with Butler and Comer being their beautiful selves and lighting up the screen with a scintillating and sexy love story.

Or it could have been a gritty crime drama, with Benny and Kathy as the Henry Hill and Karen in a Goodfellas style tale.

But instead, the film tries to be both and ends up being neither.

One can’t help but wish that director Jeff Nichols could have had a more clear, coherent and concise vision for The Bikeriders, and a more-deft artistic, dramatic and cinematic touch in order to make the most of the tantalizing story hinted at in Lyon’s compelling photo-book of the same name.

The Bikeriders could have been extraordinary, but due to a lack of narrative and dramatic clarity, it’s just ordinary. Which is disappointing, but nowadays, not all that surprising.

Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

@2024

Brats (Hulu): A Documentary Review - The Brat Pack, Revisited

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. A nostalgic, often narcissistic despite lacking self-awareness, journey back to the 80s that never adequately answers the question at its center.

Brats, a new documentary by “Brat Pack” actor Andrew McCarthy (now streaming on Hulu), examines the origins of the label “Brat Pack” and how it impacted that group of young actors from the 1980s.

I’m a Gen Xer through and through, so the Brat Pack era coincided with my early teen years, but in case you missed it, the Brat Pack were a collection of actors in the 1980’s who starred in films that were geared toward teens and young adults – movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful.

The Brat Pack included, but was not limited to, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy and Andrew McCarthy. Other actors who are sort of Brat Pack adjacent are Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Cryer, Lea Thompson, John Cusack, Joan Cusack, James Spader and even such luminaries as Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr.  

The term Brat Pack was the brainchild of David Blum, who in 1985 wrote a profile of Emilio Estevez for New York Magazine where he lambasted the group of young actors taking over Hollywood for being vapid, entitled and spoiled. At best, the term “Brat Pack” is reductive and unkind, at worst it is vicious, mean-spirited, and derogatory…although despite that truth it must be remembered that the reality is that it’s just a label, and not a prison sentence.

Not surprisingly, the members of the Brat Pack didn’t like being called the “Brat Pack”. The label being like a scarlet letter to them and they pushed back against it, and worked hard to overcome it. None more so than Andrew McCarthy.

McCarthy’s career cratered in the wake of the Brat Pack designation, and he was never able to recover. Brats is his attempt to make sense of it all. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he’s able to.

McCarthy was always a bit of a wet noodle of an actor, and in real-life, at least according to how he presents himself in Brats as he drudges up the past by interviewing fellow Brat Packers, he’s not much different. A morose and melancholy fellow, McCarthy is so fragile and sensitive he’s like a hemophiliac, and any bruise, no matter how small, could be fatal. Someone this thin-skinned and soft trying to navigate the rough and tumble, cutthroat world of Hollywood, particularly in the 80’s, is like having a newborn infant try to run with the bulls at Pamplona.  

Brats is, in the broadest sense, heartbreaking, for no other reason than Andrew McCarthy let some two-bit, douchebag writer, and make no mistake, writer David Blum is a douchebag, essentially ruin his career by letting him get into his head with some shitty article forty years ago. That McCarthy is still so under the spell of Blum’s contrived moniker, is, frankly…pathetic. That McCarthy, even when presented with the opportunity to confront Blum in Brats, is unable to muster even the most minimal amount of testicular fortitude, is humiliating for McCarthy and frustrating for viewers.

McCarthy is not alone in having been destroyed by the Brat Pack label. Emilio Estevez, who was maybe the leader of the Brat Pack, seems to have lost the most. At the time, Estevez was the “it” guy in Hollywood. He was starring in movies and directing them too. But he came across as frivolous, delusional and arrogant in Blum’s piece and then spent the next decade trying to escape the Brat Pack curse, but to no avail.

The truth is that Estevez, and many of the Brat Packers, WERE arrogant. Estevez in 1985 thinking he’s the second coming of Francis Ford Coppola is, if nothing else, hysterical for his inflated ego and its delusional nature.

But…thus is Hollywood….home of arrogance and delusion and all sorts of other malignant maladies that are so rampant as to be as commonplace as herpes and depression.

The Brat Pack were no more or less obnoxious and arrogant and delusional than any other bunch of actors having massive success at a young age. The Brat Pack also weren’t unique in having been targeted by a bitter and jealous press out to knock them down a notch or two.

The problem with the Brat Pack is that they responded to negative press, like being called the “Brat Pack”, in the worst way possible. They let it get to them.

For example, Estevez and McCarthy admit in Brats that they didn’t make a movie together back in the 80s explicitly because they wanted to avoid the Brat Pack label.

My thinking regarding the “Brat Pack” moniker is why not lean into it? Grasp it with both hands and say “fuck it and fuck you!” And then only make movies with fellow Brat Packers…or Brat Pack adjacent. If they’re going to force you into a group…then pull some marketing jiu-jitsu and make it the “in” group.

McCarthy and Estevez are certainly the actors who were most crippled by the Brat Pack designation, at least among those featured in Brats (not all Brat Packers are in Brats – Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson the most conspicuous absences). Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy seem to be the most self-aware. Moore, in particular, is quite a charming and captivating a figure in Brats, and speaks with a grounded wisdom that feels hard-earned and genuine.

Rob Lowe on the other hand, feels as inauthentic as ever, as he’s like a bad politician doing a late-night infomercial in his interview with McCarthy.

When Estevez sits down – actually they both awkwardly stand during the interview – with McCarthy it is as uncomfortable as can be and they seem like two people who just met while waiting in line at the DMV. Estevez seems like a hollowed-out human with the accompanying thousand-yard-stare. Estevez and McCarthy standing across from one another, well into middle-age, both wearing the same shirt, look like Vietnam war veterans, shell-shocked and diminished by what went wrong over there.

As for the documentary filmmaking on display in Brats…the uncomfortable truth is that Andrew McCarthy was never a good actor…and he’s not much of a filmmaker either.

McCarthy does all he can to make himself seem like a serious documentarian, but he is exposed by his inability to stick to the subject and hold himself and his subjects to account.

Brats just isn’t as well-made as it could and should be. For example, there’s a meandering and meaningless section in the middle where the lack of diversity in the Brat Pack and in 80s film in general takes center stage. This section is so devoid of any insight or intelligence it gave me a migraine. That this topic is beside the point is never considered by McCarthy because the only reason it’s in the film is for McCarthy to virtue signal and to pander to the usual suspects.

Another example of McCarthy missing the point is when he sits down with the villain of the movie, David Blum. McCarthy is so neutered he can’t even rip into this guy whom McCarthy thinks ruined his life. If McCarthy, through his inability to stand up for himself seems to be so disinterested in confronting his demon, why should we as viewers care about any of this weak-kneed nonsense?

If someone had socially “slandered” me and “ruined” my career, I would let that person know, in no uncertain terms, that there’s a price to pay for that and that price is having me eviscerate him in person and in my documentary. McCarthy obviously thinks differently. Maybe he’s a better person than I am…but he’s certainly not a better man.

It would be nice to think that McCarthy is some sort of evolved being and going to battle with Blum is beneath him…but the entire premise of Brats says otherwise. As does the fact that McCarthy not only made this documentary but also wrote a book about his life in the Brat Pack. The ugly truth is that McCarthy, despite his posing, isn’t evolved and he isn’t self-aware…no…Andrew McCarthy is weak…and a coward…and this is how he got into this whole mess.

On the bright side, McCarthy wisely uses music from the 80’s peppered throughout Brats in order to generate nostalgia, and for the most part is works. But besides the soundtrack the documentary feels incomplete and often times unsatisfying and un-enlightening.

Ultimately, my takeaway from Brats is that if you were a member of the Brat Pack, why give a shit about some hump from NY Magazine and the label “Brat Pack”? You’re young, successful and making movies…of course you’re going to have to endure the slings and arrows of a mendacious and malicious media…but so what? Why let that cripple you?

Unless, of course, like Andrew McCarthy, you subconsciously want a way out…and this is the excuse you give yourself for not wanting to endure and compete and potentially fail due to a lack of skill and talent. So, you blame some moronic label put on you and then go off and pout about it for the next forty years…not even man enough to take responsibility for your failure or lack of toughness. In Andrew McCarthy’s world it’s always somebody else’s fault.

But when it comes to Brats, McCarthy has no one to blame for the film’s failure but himself.

 Follow me on Twitter: MPMActingCo

©2024

The Acolyte: TV Review (Three Episodes) - In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...the Same Old Culture Wars

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

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT.

The Acolyte, the new Star Wars series streaming on Disney +, tells the story of a murder mystery and intrigue involving the Jedi during the High Republic era a hundred years before the Skywalker saga begins.

The series’ first two episodes premiered on June 4th and a third episode was released this week, with a new episode releasing once a week for the next five weeks.

The Acolyte has generated a great deal of conversation online because, according to its detractors, it shatters the lore upon which the Star Wars franchise is built and is copiously filled with an over-abundance of token diversity. In contrast, the show’s adherents cheer the show exactly because of its diversity and covert socio-political agenda.

While I have enjoyed, to varying degrees, the Star Wars franchise over the years, I’ve never been a super fan and so I really don’t have a dog in the fight between the old traditionalist Star Wars fans and the new progressive Star Wars fans. All I want is for Disney to produce good Star Wars series and films.

Disney’s track record on Star Wars, particularly the shows, is not great. On the bright side, The Mandalorian seasons one and two, and Andor, were phenomenal.

On the down side, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi Wan Kenobi, season three of The Mandalorian and Ahsoka were absolute trash.

After having watched the first three episodes of the 8-episode season of The Acolyte, I can objectively report that the show is a dull disappointment that dwells among the latter rather than the former.

The Acolyte is a perfect embodiment of everything that is wrong with Disney’s Star Wars output. The writing is egregiously bad, the staging, cinematography, fight choreography, production design, directing and acting are so sub-par as to be astonishing and outright embarrassing.

The show is created by Leslye Headland, whose previous claim to fame is the series Russian Doll and having been Harvey Weinstein’s assistant (yikes!).

Headland’s visual style is one of claustrophobia, as nearly every shot and every set is cramped and confined. The resulting affect isn’t one of dramatic intensity but of artistic bankruptcy.

Headland’s story, at least what is seen through three episodes, is completely ignorant of the power of myth and archetype, dramatically inert and narratively adolescent. The dialogue, in particular, is so puerile as to be painful.

Adding to the issues of Headland’s extremely limited artistry and stunted creativity is the fact that this show, which boasts an enormous $180 million budget, looks unconscionably cheap. The sets look like something borrowed from a drama school stage play and the costumes and makeup fare no better, as everything feels thrown together and lacks definition and detail.

One of the biggest issues with The Acolyte is the poor casting and consistently abysmal acting.

Amandla Stenberg stars as two characters, twins Osha and Mae, and she is truly terrible in both roles. She is awkward, unskilled and unathletic, and is so devoid of charisma and screen presence she’s as compelling as a dog turd baking in the hot sun.

Stenberg fails to make any distinction between her portrayals of Osha and Mae and thus you’re never sure who you’re watching in any given scene…which doesn’t add to the drama but only confuses it.

Stenberg isn’t helped by the childish script – which has her waking up breathless no fewer than three times in the span of about fifteen minutes or so, but Stenberg certainly isn’t ready to carry a series on her diminutive shoulders with her exceedingly minimal talent.

Lee Jung-Jae, who recently starred in The Squid Game, fares no better with the script. Lee, who learned to speak English specifically for this role, struggles to speak with any cadence or rhythm, and thus brings every scene he inhabits to a grinding halt.

The rest of the cast are equally incompetent, most notably the two actresses playing Osha and Mae as children. I know it’s difficult to find child actors but good lord these two kids are a train-wreck.

The one bright spot in the cast is Jodie Turner-Smith who plays a witch who is the “mother” to the young Osha and Mae. Turner-Smith is the only actor on the series who fills her character with an inner life and whose eyes project a dramatic meaning and purpose. While everyone else is play-acting, Jodie Turner-Smith actually IS acting.

Disney’s marketing plan for its Star Wars (and Marvel) franchise projects is to be aggressive in turning these traditionally male myths into female led stories chock full of diversity with minimal white male presence. Or as South Park so expertly said in its evisceration of Star Wars production chief Kathleen Kennedy and Disney, “put a chick in it and make it lame and gay”. Mission accomplished, Ms. Kennedy.

The reason for this “chick/lame/gay” approach is that Disney wants to politicize their franchise projects by turning them into referendums on culture war issues. This is meant to aggravate and alienate traditionalist fans (mostly straight white men), and arouse progressive non-fans (women, LGBTQ etc.) in the hopes of turning them into loyal fans. The idea being that the original fans will never leave, even if it means they hate watch, and new progressive fans will watch out of political loyalty turned into brand loyalty, rather than due to unabashed fandom.

When the traditionalists cry foul over a show or movie with a female lead or color-filled cast, the progressives, most notably in the media, will reflexively and instinctively rush to defend the show because if the “bad people” (white men) are against it…then it must be good. And even if it isn’t good, it must be defended because the fight really isn’t over the quality of the show but rather over the importance of the diversity on display.

The Acolyte, which has a gay non-binary woman of color as its lead, and which features – and this is no joke – a coven of lesbian witches who create human life without males (and this coven is involved in one of the worst scenes in any Star Wars venture – it’s during a ritual and it is like something you’d see at a junior high school drama club production at an all-girls school), and which is created by a lesbian (Headland) who has openly stated the series is the gayest Star Wars show ever, is the perfect example of Disney’s divide and conquer culture war approach.

The results are as you’d expect…critics from the establishment media adore the show, giving it a robust 85% rating. Meanwhile, audiences despise it having given it a 20% rating. Of course, the critics counter that the series is being “review bombed” by disingenuous audience members who they claim are “racist, sexist and homophobic”.

What the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Uber Alles brigade fail to recognize is that while the audience score may be a result of “review bombing” by a handful of troglodyte ne’er do wells, the critical score is also likely a result of “review bombing” by shameless shills and socio-political sycophants among the media establishment.

What is always amusing to me is that months after having rabidly defended the latest Star Wars or Marvel atrocity and having praised it for its daring diversity and inclusion these same critics will usually, and sheepishly, admit that the show or film actually really does suck but that it was still “important” because of its diversity and inclusion.

I have long said I don’t give a flying funnel cake about diversity and inclusion, my only priority is quality. Make a good show and it makes no difference to me who wrote it, directed it or starred in it.

For example, you never heard anybody bitching about Andor being led by a Mexican (Diego Luna) and being filled with a plethora of female characters. You know why? Because it was fantastic. That show was so expertly written and exquisitely executed that troglodyte trads didn’t bitch about diversity and critics didn’t have to lie about its quality. The female characters in Andor weren’t girl power tokens, they were complex creations with specific intentions and purpose, and are among the very best ever created in the history of the Star Wars franchise.

In comparison, The Acolyte, which by the way is a great name for a show – too bad it’s ruined on this piece of poop, is so atrociously made as to be criminal. The characters are paper-thin, the acting abysmal, the plot inane and the production astonishingly sub-par. And it’s because it’s so bad that’s why Disney and its media minions have turned it into ground zero for the culture war.

I, for one, am so tired of the endless and fruitless culture war, and by extension Star Wars and Marvel and the rest of our lazy and disingenuous pop culture, that I want to gouge my eyes out and light my brain on fire. And yet…here I am, once again, bitching about the same old culture war issues in a galaxy far, far away, that makes our own galaxy such a very unpleasant one.

The bottom line regarding The Acolyte, at least through the first three episodes, is that this show isn’t worth fighting over as it is simply bad television. I have no idea if it violates and upends the foundations of Star Wars lore and mythology, I just know it fails to reach even the most rudimentary level in regards to entertainment and storytelling.

If you’re a huge Star Wars fan you’ll probably watch the show because you watch everything Star Wars, and you’ll probably dislike it but not enough to break your addiction to all things Star Wars. If, like me, you’re a fair-weather fan, then you can definitely skip The Acolyte...because, to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, “this is not the Star Wars you’re looking for.”

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Hit Man: A Review - Missing the Target...but Not by Too Much.

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

My Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. A harmless bit of entertainment that is enjoyable if you go in with low expectations.

Hit Man, starring Glen Powell and directed by Richard Linklater, is a noir rom-com loosely based on the true story of Gary Johnson, a psychology and philosophy professor who worked undercover for the New Orleans police department posing as a “hit man for hire”.

The film, written by both Linklater and Powell, follows the travails of the nerdy Gary as he finds his true self by embodying the various hit man-characters he concocts in order to dupe customers and thwart murders before they happen.

Hit Man was released on Netflix on June 7th, 2024, which is how I watched it.  

I have heard Richard Linklater called the cinematic voice of Generation X, which I find to be an odd choice for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that he is just a bit too old to qualify for Generation X. As a Gen X-er myself, I have found Linklater to be, for the most part, a forgettable filmmaker. I find the vast majority of his work to be, at best…just fine. In general, I find nothing remarkable about his work at all. I don’t hate it, but I also don’t love it, and the truth is I never think about it.

The film that put Linklater (and Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck) on the map was Dazed and Confused (1993). I never understood the love for that movie despite having recognized my life being portrayed in it. It wasn’t a bad movie, but it also wasn’t a very good one.

I felt the same about Before Sunrise (1995), which made Ethan Hawke a movie star. Once again, I recognized myself and my generation in that movie, I just didn’t think it was particularly noteworthy or compelling cinema.

In 2014, Linklater was a favorite to win an Oscar with his coming-of-age film Boyhood, which was famously shot over a ten-year span. Critics adored the ten-year-shoot gimmick, but I found the whole enterprise to be gratingly vapid, pretentious and second-rate.

The Linklater films I have liked a lot are Waking Life (2001), an esoteric cinematic exploration of the meaning of life, and the mainstream School of Rock (2003). Waking Life was a ballsy movie to make because it was unapologetically arthouse while School of Rock was unabashedly crowd-pleasing.

Which brings us to Hit Man. Hit Man is a mainstream movie but not quite as mainstream as School of Rock…but it also has a subtle strain of the arthouse weaving through it.

The film flies as high as its star, Glen Powell, will take it…which is high but not that high. Powell, who is definitely the current “it” guy in Hollywood, and is poised to have a big Summer with his new Twister movie coming out in July, is charming and relentlessly likeable, but there is no denying that he’s a sort of a C or D level McConaughey – which isn’t exactly a compliment.

Powell’s various hit man characters are good for a few laughs in a showy “look at me” acting type of way, most notably his impression of Christian Bale from American Psycho, which is pretty great. But Powell, for as conventionally handsome as he is, is just a nice, good-looking guy…and that’s about it. He’s likeable, but he’s not very interesting. That doesn’t mean he won’t be a big movie star, it just means that he won’t be a very interesting movie star.

Powell’s co-star, Adria Arjona, who plays Gary’s love interest Madison, is certainly easy on the eyes, and she does a decent enough job in the role. But Arjona, like Powell, feels like a C or D level talent…which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it also isn’t the best.

One can’t help but think while watching Hit Man that thirty years ago a movie like this would’ve starred George Clooney and Julia Roberts and been a massive hit…but in today’s world, it stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, and is streaming on Netflix and, frankly, will be forgotten almost as soon as the credits roll.

And that is the problem…Hit Man isn’t a bad movie, but it also isn’t great. It is an adequately-made, amusing-enough piece of middle-brow entertainment with some dark twists thrown in to give it some artistic credence.

The film tries to be sexy, but just isn’t steamy enough to make the grade. It tries to be funny, but never consistently hits the comedy mark. It tries to be dark and daring but doesn’t have quite cajones to be fully either.

This isn’t to say the film is bad…it really and truly isn’t. It certainly has its charms and it is entertaining enough, and to its credit it does have something to say and says it in a rather clever and covert way. It is well-constructed and professionally crafted, but ultimately this is a movie that comes and goes and that is the end of that…which is emblematic of the state of cinema and the movie business.

Unfortunately, Hit Man is, like so much of cinema today, fine but forgettable. That many critics are fawning all over it speaks less to the quality of the film than the overall diminishment in the quality of cinema (and film criticism) as a whole in recent years.

To circle back to the notion of Linklater as the cinematic voice of Generation X, I would point readers in the direction of a film that came out last year, also about a hit man, also on Netflix, titled The Killer. The Killer is darker, smarter, funnier, more masterfully made and substantially better movie than Hit Man. The Killer’s director is David Fincher, who is of the same generation as Linklater and is infinitely a better filmmaker…as are a plethora of filmmakers from a similar era, which is why Linklater being the labelled the Gen X guy is so absurd.

Regardless of Linklater’s filmmaking status, the question is…is Hit Man worth watching? My answer would be…sure…why not? It seems like a good date movie as it’s a rather harmless, safe, middle of the road movie that breezes by and never moves you one way or the other over its brisk 115-minute run time.  

So, if you do watch Hit Man, my recommendation is to go in with low-expectations…you won’t be overwhelmed, but you won’t be disappointed either.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Hollywood's Self-Inflicted Box Office Problems

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 57 seconds

There’s been a lot of gnashing of teeth in recent weeks because the box office has been so sluggish, most notably the failures of The Fall Guy and Furiosa, which both painfully underperformed in their opening weekends and beyond.

The Fall Guy had such bad box office numbers it actually went to VOD 17 days after premiering in theatres. Not good for a movie boasting two “movie stars” and a gigantic marketing push.

If one were to look at the dismal box office results this Spring and come away thinking the sky is falling, that would be understandable.

Ever the optimist, let me put your mind at ease though regarding the sky is falling pessimism. The sky isn’t falling regarding the movie business…because it’s already fallen. Many will point to last year’s duel strikes as a reason for this year’s box office gully…but that misses the big picture.

The movie business, like American empire, is a dead man walking. That doesn’t mean it’ll vanish off the face of the earth and never be seen again…no, it just means that it will continue its descent into irrelevancy year after year after year until a giant asteroid comes and wipes us off the earth.

The reasons for this are numerous but here are a few of the major ones. 

The corporatization of Hollywood that began in the Reagan years is now complete. The corporate mindset has destroyed the mid-level budgeted movie in favor of blockbuster hunting, and that has led to bloated budgets, and bad movies. The stark decrease in the quality of cinema is pretty dramatic (with notable exceptions).

Another issue is that movie theatres and the theatre-going experience are both abominable. Theatres throughout the country, thanks again to corporate short-sightedness, are equipped with sub-par projectors which result in a greatly diminished viewing experience. Why go to the theatre and pay all that money when you can have a better visual experience at home on your big screen tv in a darkened living room?

As Sartre once taught us…hell is other people…and that is never more apparent than when you go to the movies. Dipshits and dumbasses talking and looking at their phone throughout a screening makes for a very tense and distracting movie going experience….another issue that is resolved by watching a movie at home.

Add to this that very, very few movies are so culturally compelling that people NEED to see them right away in order to stay in the loop. Barbie and Oppenheimer filled that bill last Summer, but those are definitely outliers. For example, would you be “out of the cultural loop” if you didn’t see Dune II in theatres this winter? It’s now streaming on Max just a few short months after premiering in theatres and you can watch it without all the bullshit of theatres, in the comfort of your own home…and go to the bathroom when you want without missing anything and not have to tell people to shut the fuck up or put their phones away. Will a big budget film like Dune II be diminished at a home theatre? One would expect the answer is ‘yes’ as it was made to be seen on a big screen…but considering when I saw it at a movie theatre I felt like I was watching it under three feet of water because the projector sucked so bad, my answer would be no.

The same is true of Furiosa. I like the Mad Max movies, but I’m not itching to go see Furiosa in the theatre because it isn’t mandatory in order to stay current culturally. So, I’ll see it when it comes to Max in a few months…or sooner.

The same is true for the glut of Marvel movies. For the longest time Marvel movies were must-see because everyone was talking about them….and now they’re not. Marvel movies ran its course but Disney keeps cramming them down our throat expecting the same results. I’m sorry but The Marvels isn’t moving the needle. No one cares.

Speaking of Marvel and Disney, another issue is that the massive success of the Marvel movies pre-2020 totally skewed the expectation IN HOLLYWOOD for what constitutes a successful movie.

Marvel movies routinely hit the billion-dollar mark and that became the standard for success. But that was then and this is now and studios and analysts are delusional about the box office potential for most movies. And that delusion gets baked into the cake regarding the budget for films.

Once again Barbie and Oppenheimer were outliers in this regard, and ironically have done more harm than good in regards to setting expectations for studio executives (and the general public).

For example, spending over $300 million to make a new Indiana Jones movie or Mission Impossible movie, is frankly nuts since neither of those creaky franchises are going to generate the kind of interest that will satiate a billion-dollar box office yearning.

The same is true for the new Marvel movies, as the stars of that franchise and the characters they played, are gone. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is not walking through that door…and I’m sorry but Brie Larson isn’t going to fill that void.

The solution to the Hollywood problem is to change the corporate strategy, and instead of trying to make a billion dollars with a single blockbuster that costs at a minimum $250-300 million to make and another$150-250 million to market, is to make six or seven medium budget films for $50 million or less each with a focus on quality, in the hopes that one of those movies will hit big and fill the coffers.

Examples of what I’m talking about are movies like Parasite, which costs $15 million to make and brought in $262 million at the box office. I understand that Parasite is a remarkable movie from a brilliant filmmaker, but it shows what is possible.

The same is true of movies like Spotlight, which had a $20 million budget and made $98 million. Or even Good Will Hunting, which starred nobodies (Affleck and Damon) and was directed by a non-mainstream guy (Gus Van Sant) on a $10 million budget and raked in $225 million.

The key of course is that the movies have to be good and they have to avoid bloated budgets. The other benefit of making good movies is that more often than not if you make a good movie, it will get Oscar recognition and thus free marketing and a second life at the box office.

It goes without saying that Hollywood will not change its approach if for no other reason than corporations are allergic to actually thinking. And so, the studios will continue to relentlessly bang their heads against the bank vault door in the hopes one of these times it’ll open, even if just for a moment…like it did with Barbie and Oppenheimer, but if Barbie and Oppenheimer type success only comes along every five years or so, that won’t work as a business model.

The bottom line is that Hollywood fucked up their business and fucked up movies in the process…and we are all paying for it and will continue to pay for it for years to come. As a cinephile it gives me no pleasure in saying this but movies, much like popular music, is essentially dying as an artform and is too beholden to corporate interests to be able to save itself.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

The Trump Legal Charade and Other Uncomfortable Truths

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 49 seconds

I loathe Donald Trump with the fury of a thousand suns but it seems obvious to me as someone aligned with neither political party, that the legal cases against him are third world, banana republic level political warfare manufactured to thwart his political ambitions.

This is the sort of legal maneuvering that the CIA routinely works overseas to knee cap political opposition to the corporate stooge they placed in power.

Make no mistake, Trump is a scumbag and a charlatan but the same could be said for every single president in my lifetime.

Bush and Cheney lied us into an illegal war that killed millions and ran a torture program and illegally spied on Americans. No charges. Obama willfully murdered Americans without trial. No charges. Wall Street honchos and their lackeys in government willfully defrauded the American public for billions if not trillions with the housing bubble and subsequent collapse, and not a single one of them was held “accountable” for their crimes. And yet, people celebrate when Trump gets convicted of this manufactured, pissant bullshit? Can people really be that gullible, that controllable and that stupid? I guess so.

Trump’s conviction isn’t about “holding a president accountable!”, it’s about inoculating the corrupt establishment from legal consequences by punishing a loudmouthed incompetent for deviating from the script (but not the narrative) and daring to disrespect the deep state. Charging and convicting Trump and not Bush, Obama and the bevy of bad boy Wall Streeters is the point and is meant as a way to rub any thinking person’s nose in shit.

Understand that Trump is meant to be a scapegoat (in the Girardian/classical sense - although certainly not an innocent) upon which the establishment can throw its sins and cathartically cleanse themselves in the eyes of the public through his legal crucifixion.

For example, the fact that Trump is facing prison for paying hush money to a whore while war criminals Dubya and Cheney bask in the glow of liberal love, is frankly, horrifying and extraordinarily revealing about the state of our country and the vacuous, vapid and venal nature of 21st century liberals. The fact that Trump is an icon of the right to begin with says the very same thing about modern-day Republicans.

Another note on Trump is that the big selling point for Democrats and Biden is that Trump is a threat to democracy…which is hysterical. What “democracy” exactly?

I think Trump is less a threat to our alleged “democracy” than the people in both parties who keep third parties off of ballots and allow corporations and Israel to meddle unabated in our elections and government.  

A line I often hear from Democrats is that this could be our last election because Trump won’t leave office if he wins. This is moronic. Trump is an actor…and just because he improvises his lines doesn’t mean he’ll change the storyline.

Do people not remember that Trump was president already…and many claimed he wouldn’t leave office then too…and yet…he isn’t president anymore. He left office. The retort to that fact is often “he didn’t concede”. What does that even mean, really? He left office…so who cares if he “concedes”? Do Super Bowl losers have to concede the game before the trophy is handed out? No. The game was played and the score is the score even if the loser doesn’t like it.

And speaking of the fact that Trump was already president…any dope that still thinks he is some outsider who will drain the swamp needs to be institutionalized if not lobotomized. Trump ran the first time, and is doing it again, as the ultimate outsider…and in a way he is...but not really. What he really is, is the ultimate outsider among insiders…like an uncouth dinner guest who shits on the duck l’orange.

The most repulsive thing about Trump, and there’s a lot to choose from, is that he ran as a man who’d drain the swamp but when elected stuffed his administration chock full of the most vile and corrupt, swampiest swamp creatures who have ever existed.

As for Biden…those delusional dingbats who think he’s doing a great job and that the economy is robust and that he is some kindly, dignified statesman, are even dumber than the MAGA morons.

Biden is a dementia-addled shitbag who is one of the most corrupt politicians of the last 60 years…which is quite an accomplishment considering the array of assholes who’ve held office.

The bottom line is it actually doesn’t matter in the least who wins the election because the brutish, barbaric beast will continue slouching towards Bethlehem and the decadent and morally diseased American Empire will continue its decay and decline leading to its inevitable collapse. And regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, know this, that every member of the ruling class, including the president, aren’t indifferent to your plight…no…they actually actively hate you and desperately wish you and your family great harm.

Understand that when you are voting in November you aren’t choosing a leader, you’re simply casting the lead for the clown-show that is American politics and whom you want to see on your tv every night. You can either have the corrupt, senile scumbag or the corrupt, blowhard carnival barker.

Regardless of how Trump’s legal issues play out or who gets the most votes in November, the bottom line is that no matter who wins, we all will lose.

Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Anyone but You - A Review: Sydney Sweeney Busts Out

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Despite Sydney Sweeney’s breast efforts, this movie falls flat.

Anyone but You, the rom-com starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, hit theatres back in December and became a bona fide box office sensation. I missed Anyone but You in theatres but it’s now on Netflix and I just watched it…and I have some thoughts.

The film, written and directed by Will Gluck, tells the story of Bea (Sweeney) and Ben (Powell), two attractive people who had a magical meet cute but then for some moronic reason now hate each other and are forced to attend a getaway wedding in Australia. In order to stave off prying parents and make ex-lovers jealous, Bea and Ben decide to pretend to be a couple at this wedding…which of course is not just a lesbian wedding but an inter-racial lesbian wedding because we live in a pandering hellscape.

The premise of the film is absurd to the point of abject stupidity, and the filmmaking on display is at best amateurish…so why did this film make $219 million at the box office. I’ll tell you why…because Sydney Sweeney is a force of nature…or more accurately stated, Sydney Sweeney’s magnificently magnetic mouth-watering melons are a force of nature and may in fact be so perfect as to be the epicenter around which the known universe rotates.

I’m kidding…sort of. Sydney Sweeney is an odd duck…she’s certainly beautiful and sexy…and her ample bosoms are the greatest thing this country has produced in the last 200 years…but she also talks like she has a hearing impairment and has the facial expressions of the new kid in the special ed class.

To her great credit though she is totally game and up for anything to try and get a laugh in this movie…most of the time she fails miserably but it is her commitment to the buffoonish bits that makes her such an appealing and compelling screen presence.

Sweeney is sort of a cross between Bridget Bardot and Jennifer Lawrence. She’s not as naturally gregarious or hot-girl-next-door-ish as Lawrence or as incandescently sexy as Bardot, but she’s got roughly 25% of each woman within her and that makes her 50% interesting.

Sweeney’s co-star, Glen Powell, is poised to be the next “it” guy and it’s easy to see why in this movie. He’s certainly handsome in a rather boring and sterile way, but like his co-star he too is down to do whatever needs be done to make a bit funny. Again, the bits rarely if ever work, but Powell’s commitment to them is very endearing.

Powell feels like a hybrid between Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Gosling. He’s sort of a safe version of the lesser parts of both men. Powell isn’t as charming and sexy as McConaughey or as funny and talented as Gosling, but he’s sort of in the same ballpark…if it’s a really, really big ballpark…like the Big House in Michigan – home to the NCAA Football National Champion University of Michigan Wolverines (Go Blue!).

Despite the charms of Sweeney and Powell, Anyone but You is, frankly, dreadful. It is painfully stupid, poorly shot, and except for Sweeney and Powell, exceedingly poorly acted. For example, GaTa, who plays the lesbian bride’s brother and Ben’s friend, may be the worst actor I’ve seen in a feature film in the last decade. This guy is so awful it felt like a mentally ill homeless man wandered on to the set and no one had the heart to ask him to leave.

But in GaTa’s defense, much better actors didn’t fare any better. For example, veteran actors Bryan Brown and Dermot Mulroney both give astonishingly poor performances that are not just awful but embarrassing. Brown and Mulroney’s performances feel like they’re from two people who’ve never seen a movie, never mind acted in one. The once promising Rachel Griffiths doesn’t fare any better.

The truth is that the only reason to watch this witless movie is to spend two hours with Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. Whatever Sweeney’s and Powell’s faults as actors the one thing that is undeniable about them is that they are both extremely likable…and in today’s watered-down movie culture that’s more than enough to pass as a “movie star”.

Anyone can guess what the future holds for Sweeney and Powell. Sweeney, who was quite good in HBO’s Euphoria and The White Lotus, needs to navigate the perilous minefield that is being a sex symbol in our current culture, no easy task as being so sexually appealing to men can often turn the female audience against an actress. She and her team will need to figure out how to make men want her and women relate to her – something Anyone but You successfully accomplishes. One hopes that she can find her way and build a career filled with much better films and interesting roles…she certainly has shown flashes of the talent and skill required to become an actress of impact.  

Glen Powell seems to have a much lower ceiling than Sydney Sweeney, but a much higher floor only because he is not the type of actor men will dislike since he isn’t one of those grating Hollywood pansy-ass pretty boys. Powell’s greatest strength is that he seems to be a good dude…and while he is good looking, he isn’t too good-looking…hence the high floor/low ceiling.

As for Anyone but You and whether you should watch it…well…I can’t imagine telling anyone that they need to see this movie. It is instantly forgettable and aggressively idiotic. It’s the type of movie you watch on a plane when there’s nothing else available, or when you’re on the couch recovering from surgery and can’t quite reach the remote without bursting your sutures.

The bottom line is that Anyone but You is a bad movie, but years from now we might look back on it as the big box office breakout for the biggest, breastiest movie star of all time, Sydney Sweeney, and say “thanks for the mammaries”…I certainly hope so.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

The Idea of You: A Review - Looking for Love (and Entertainment) in All the Wrong Places

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

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An insidiously venal piece of rom-com slop.

The Idea of You, the new Amazon movie starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, is one of those insipid romantic comedies that is neither romantic nor comedic.

The film, written by Jennifer Westfeldt and Michael Showalter and directed by Showalter, tells the tale of Solene Marchand (Hathaway), a 40-year-old divorcee and single mother who owns an art gallery in Los Angeles.

Through happenstance Solene takes her teen daughter and her friends to Coachella for a music festival and there she meets and begins a love affair with Hayes, the lead singer of a popular boy band, who happens to be sixteen years her junior.

The story of The Idea of You, which apparently is based upon a book of the same name that no self-respecting human being should have ever read, is one of those divorced wine-mom wet dreams where middle-aged women can imagine themselves being so uber-desirable and hyper-successful and amazing that some high value, wealthy, famous and handsome young stud falls head over heels for them.

For an outsider like me, who is neither divorced nor a wine mom desperate for glory days gone by, this story and the character of Solene seem both fantastical and frankly pathetic. No doubt I would be run out of the mid-day chardonnay ladies book club for voicing such a misogynistic and hateful opinion.

The problems with The Idea of You go well beyond the ridiculous premise. The film bills itself as a romantic comedy yet there isn’t a single thing in it that is even remotely funny or even approaching funny.

The romance side of it is pretty lacking as well, as Hathaway and Galitzine have all the sexual chemistry of week-old dog turd roasting in the hot sun.

That Anne Hathaway is once again playing a sort of ugly duckling transformed into a princess (sexy or otherwise) is, to borrow from her favorite acting tick, eye-rolling. Yes, she has succeeded in this type of role in the past in films like The Devil Wears Prada and those Princess Diary movies, but the bloom is off the rose and it falls entirely flat in The Idea of You.

Ms. Hathaway is certainly a beautiful woman, and to pretend like she’s not or that she’s some frumpy old hag, is absurd to the point of being annoying. Even more absurd is the fact that her daughter in the film, Izzy (Ella Rubin), looks like she is Solene’s slightly younger sister.

In fact, the age difference stuff is the most-inane part of this entirely inane movie. Solene is forty but looks thirty-three, and Hayes is twenty-four and looks thirty-two, and Izzy is seventeen and looks twenty-eight. Everyone seems to be in the same suffocating age bracket and none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

Another extremely annoying part of the movie is that viewers must suffer through musical performances by Hayes and his insufferably awful boy band. Galitzine is apparently a singer in real life, so I assume he’s doing the actual singing in the movie, and I suppose it’s fine, it’s just that the songs are so god-awful atrocious as to be criminal. And that we must sit through entire renditions of these terrible songs that seem interminable throughout the film, feels like a crime against humanity.

In addition, Galitzine’s Hayes and his boy band bros are supposed to be the biggest boy band around but they are so relentlessly amateurish and such raging mediocrities, and their performances so stilted and underwhelming that it all seems even more ridiculous than the asinine premise of the movie.

The Idea of You also violates one of the rules that rarely if ever fails me, namely that if a character must run the gauntlet of a gaggle of rabid journalists/paparazzi at any time in a movie…then that movie sucks. I cannot recall a time when this rule was violated and the film was good and The Idea of You is perfect evidence of the rule’s validity.

Now, to be clear, I am not exactly the target audience for this film. But it is streaming on Amazon and that behemoth has put its considerable corporate heft behind the movie and promoting it, so it caught my eye and I gave it a watch…so you don’t have to.

What is so striking to me about The Idea of You is that this movie, its aesthetics, its tone, its story, the performances and everything about it except its star, is a Hallmark level piece of work. If this were starring Lacey Chabert and running on Lifetime, no one, myself most of all, would even know it exists or ever watch it. But because it stars Anne Hathaway and Amazon is behind it, it is thrust into the cultural spotlight and is taken seriously…or as seriously as a movie like this can be taken.

The truth is that if this movie were made fifteen years ago and starred Julia Roberts and Ryan Gosling, then it maybe, might’ve had a chance to be a big hit. But it wasn’t…and it definitely isn’t.

Anne Hathaway has her charms, but in a role like this in a film like this, they wear unconscionably thin, and Nicholas Galitzine is neither sexy enough nor interesting enough to move the needle in either direction, and so, The Idea of You ends up falling decidedly flat.

If you are looking for a mindless piece of rom-com entertainment, best avoid The Idea of You because it is either too mindless…or ironically, not mindless enough, to be of any value or worth.

The bottom line is that The Idea of You is a bad idea made into a bad movie, and rom-com lovers who seek it out will be looking for love in all the wrong places.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: A Review - Middling Monkey Business

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

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This flawed film is the worst of the fantastic recent reboot franchise, but it’s decent enough for Planet of the Apes fanatics despite its very pronounced flaws.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the Planet of the Apes franchise reboot (and the ninth in the overall franchise), hit theatres this past weekend and handily won the box office by raking in $129 million.

The film, written by Josh Friedman and directed by Wes Ball, is set many generations after the events of its tremendous predecessor, War for the Planet of the Apes, which dramatized Caesar, the patriarch of the intelligent apes, delivering the first generation of said apes to the promised land.

In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the memory of the founding father Caesar is long forgotten by many tribes of apes living in isolated enclaves. One of these tribes is an eagle collecting group of apes, among them a young chimp named Noa (Owen Teague).

Noa accidentally stumbles upon another group of apes who not only remember the history of Caesar, but exploit it for nefarious, authoritarian means. This group, led by Proximus Caesar and his henchman gorilla Sylva, go on a rampage of conquest in order to Make Planet of the Apes Great Again….and Noa and his peaceful tribe bear the brunt of their ambition.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has Sasquatchian-sized shoes to fill considering the brilliance of its three predecessors Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes, and, to be frank, it never even approaches adequately filling them. To be clear, the film isn’t bad, but it also isn’t the least bit great, and it is easily the worst of the four films in the rebooted franchise.

Planet of the Apes films, even in the original franchise of the late 1960s and early 1970s, have always been great ideas with social issues embedded deep within the sci-fi splendor.

The same is true of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, as it explores authoritarianism, exploitation, manipulation and other social issues. But just like the flawed early 1970’s sequels, Kingdom is much better as an idea than it is in execution.

The biggest issue with Kingdom is that none of its characters are even remotely compelling. The protagonist, Noa (Owen Teague), is no Caesar. He’s a rather dull and disinteresting chimp surrounded by equally dull chimps, like his friends Soona and Anaya. It also doesn’t help that it’s very difficult to tell the chimps apart as they – excuse my chimp racism – all look alike.

The uniformity of Noa’s tribe is further hampered by the flatness of each character. None stand out and none are fully fleshed out. As a result, none of their relationships are developed to the point where they’d be meaningful, never mind captivating.

The humans don’t fare any better. Nova (Freya Allen) is a mysterious human woman who isn’t that mysterious nor interesting. We never truly understand where she comes from or what motivates her. Trevathan (William H. Macy), is a human who works with apes and his story might’ve been pretty interesting but we never get to see it so we’ll never know.

Besides the lackluster characters, the film also suffers due to a lack of narrative clarity and visual crispness. Both of these shortcomings fall in the lap of director Wes Ball. Ball’s previous films include the Maze Runner trilogy, which isn’t exactly the pinnacle of cinematic experience. Watching Ball’s Planet of the Apes movie only increases Matt Reeves standing, as he directed the stellar Dawn and War films and has now graduated to the Batman franchise.

Kingdom’s plot jumps around from a coming-of-age story to a road picture to a fight-the-power narrative, but by trying to be all of these things it ends up being none of them.

Yes, Kingdom does nicely pay homage to the original 1968 film, particularly in one section with its distinct visual style and signature music, and it also gives adequate depth to the franchise’s mythology and archetypes, like having Noa (the biblical Noah – get it?) survive a flood of monkey shit both figuratively and sort of literally. But the movie never grabs you by the throat and makes you pay attention. It never makes you care much about the characters you’re supposed to care about, and never hate the characters you’re supposed to hate.

The best character in the entire film is without question Raka (Peter Macon), a monastic Orangutan who is keeping the gospel of Caesar and his sacred sayings alive, even if it is just to himself. But even Raka is not as good as say Maurice, the stunning orangutan from the previous trilogy.

That said, Raka has far too little screen time, and would be very well served with a Disney + mini-series (as would the entirety of the Orangutan class in the Planet of the Apes universe – give us a Dr. Zaius series!!), which I would voraciously watch. But instead, he’s given short shrift and the film suffers because of it.

The same is true of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), the villainous chimp leader of a powerful group of apes, and his number one general Sylva (Eka Darville), a rough and tumble lowland gorilla.

The origin story of Proximus and Sylva too would make an interesting mini-series or feature film, no doubt more compelling than the rather tepid adventures of Noa, the good-hearted country ape forced to face the big, bad world. But instead Proximus and Sylva are rather thin characters despite there being a lot of meat left on those bones.

As far as the visuals of the film go, cinematographer Gyula Pados never paints with much flair, unlike his predecessors in the reboot trilogy. The film looks fine, but in comparison to the luscious visual feast of War for the Planet of the Apes for instance, Kingdom falls flat. The same is true of the action sequences, as the fight scenes, most notably the climactic battle, are dramatically underwhelming and poorly designed.

In addition, the CGI, for some reason, looks a little bit off compared to the previous films, or maybe it was just the lack of unique and compelling characters that made the visuals seem less than. For example, there is no character in this entire film that looks as good as say Koba or Maurice from the three previous films.

Another issue is the acting. Despite it being motion-capture acting, it is still acting, and the cast of the previous three films, most notably Andy Serkis as Caesar and Toby Kebbell as Koba, showed audiences the brilliance possible while acting through technology. Nothing in this film even comes close the stellar work of the cast in the previous films.

For example, Kevin Durand gives a rather trite and predictable performance as the villain Proximus. His bluster and big voice are routine for any first-time actor trying to play the heavy.

Owen Teague as Noa never lives up to the work Serkis did as Caesar, which to be fair, is an impossible task as Andy Serkis is the Marlon Brando of motion-capture acting….but still, the drop-off is notable and uncomfortable.

Now, with all of that bitching and moaning aside…I still have to admit that I liked Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes mostly because the original Planet of the Apes movies were my favorite film franchise of all-time and the reboot trilogy has only made the franchise in total even greater as they were sensational. Kingdom definitely has massive flaws – as explained above, but on the bright side, unlike Tim Burton’s shitty 2001 Apes movie, this is a real film and is passable entertainment. While not great, it is not an embarrassment to the franchise or the rich mythology of the franchise.

If, like me, you love the Planet of the Apes in general, you’ll like this movie well enough. It isn’t anywhere near as good as the previous three films, but it isn’t catastrophically bad either. But the bottom line is…Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a professionally made movie about talking monkeys plotting against and beating the hell out of each other…what’s not to like?

That said, one can only hope that the next Planet of the Apes film is a step up from Kingdom, or at least a step in the right direction, and this extraordinarily long-running, high-quality, fascinating franchise finds better footing moving forward.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Shogun (Hulu): TV Review - A Leafless Branch

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

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. A beautiful but dramatically and emotionally empty series that features quality craftsmanship across the board yet never rises to become must-see.

Shogun, the highly-acclaimed ten-episode mini-series based on the James Clavell book of the same name, just finished its original run on the streaming service Hulu…and I have some thoughts.

The series, which began streaming on February 27th and concluded on April 23rd, was created by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks and stars Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai and Cosmo Jarvis.

Shogun tells the fictional tale of John Blackthorne (Jarvis), an English sailor marooned in 1600s Japan, who must navigate the customs and culture of his new land and serve as an advisor/political pawn to Lord Taranaga (Sanada), the powerful lord of Kanto. A critical side story involves Blackthorne falling in love with his translator Lady Mariko (Sawai).

Shogun is a strange series in that I watched each episode as it rolled out weekly and yet never thought about the show for a single second when it wasn’t playing in front of me. I never once mused or anticipated about what would come in the following episode and very often entirely forgot what had happened in the episode I had just watched. For example, I watched the final episode five days ago and cannot remember much of anything from it.

In this way Shogun is like so much of tv in this bloated streaming era, in that it is eye-candy that comes and goes without the slightest impact one way or the other.

Another show I watched recently, Netflix’s Three Body Problem, was similar in that it generated lots of manufactured light, especially in terms of cultural discission, but exactly zero heat. The big difference between though Three Body Problem and Shogun though is that Three Body Problem was a thoroughly second-rate production that looked unconscionably cheap…whereas Shogun is undeniably a top-notch production that looks more expansive than it probably was.

Shogun is a beautiful production that is exquisitely shot, professionally acted, and boasts superb production design and costumes…and yet…as good as the show looks and all the pieces are near perfect, it still seems oddly forgettable, or better yet – irrelevant, as a whole.

To the show’s credit, it does believably transport you back to 1600’s Japan, and that can be enjoyable, but it never rouses enough interest in its characters to cross the threshold from interesting to emotionally or dramatically impactful.

The thing that struck me most about Shogun was that it was, much to its credit, shot and framed like a feature film. Rarely were objects of interest set center frame, which was a refreshing change since center-framing has become standard, particularly in television, in our wholly unfortunate era of Tik Tok. So often nowadays television cinematography has all the skill and artistry of a grandmother using a disposable instamatic on a family trip to Disney. Thankfully, Shogun never suffers from this lack of attention or visual care.

Also compelling are many of the performances.

Anna Sawai, in particular, is quite good as Lady Mariko, the tormented translator who must contain her emotions and control Blackthorne. I last saw Sawai in the Apple TV series Monarch, and thought she wasn’t quite yet ready for prime time, but here she is sharp and sexy…a luminous and alluring presence filled with a vivid and visceral inner life she masterfully fights to contain.

Hiroyuki Sanada too does solid work as the scheming Taranaga. Sanada is so unrelenting in his performance that it is actually surprising when Taranaga isn’t quite as smart as you believe he is.

Cosmo Jarvis as Blackthorne gives an intriguing performance, as he at once feels out of place yet also somewhat magnetic. Jarvis never quite earns the emotional arc his character takes, but to his credit he is game and never shies from the challenge or the camera.

The CGI used in Shogun is worth mentioning as well as the wide shots of Osaka are obviously fake but still impressive to behold. As are the fight sequences – with a few notable exceptions…like when Lady Mariko morphs into a girl power goddess and slays some samurai.

Despite all of the positive attributes present in Shogun, it just never grips you by the heart or throat and forces you to care. Ultimately, I didn’t actually care about any of the characters in Shogun…not really. And the usual cultural storytelling instincts we have become accustomed to are not satisfied in the story because it ends not with a compelling climax but with understated subtlety.

I have never read Clavell’s book, nor have I watched the 1980 mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain and the great Toshiro Mifune. Maybe if I had I would have more attachment to the characters and investment in the story. But I didn’t and I don’t.

At the end of the day Shogun is a beautiful but forgettable piece of television that I desperately wanted to love because of the subject matter, but never did. The series is simply something to watch to pass the time, and requires little emotional investment and negligible dramatic payoff.

I didn’t hate Shogun, not at all, but I didn’t love it either. It’s an impressive piece of television solely for the craft on display, but in my opinion is not compelling enough to be considered must-see.

I respect the craftsmanship on display in Shogun enough that my recommendation is to watch the first episode and see if it grabs you, and then proceed accordingly.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 120 - Civil War

On this episode, Barry and I charge headlong to the front lines of Alex Garland's dystopian film Civil War. Topics discussed include missed opportunities, spitting out the lukewarm, and the albatross of poorly developed characters.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 120 - Civil War

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Civil War: A Review - A Lukewarm Film for our Scorching Hot Times

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

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This is a mixed bag of a movie that should have, and could have, been great, but ultimately pulls its punches and ends up being just okay.

Civil War, written and directed by Alex Garland, is a new dystopian war film that follows the travails of photo-journalists as they chronicle the last stages of a modern-day American civil war.

The premise of Civil War is a provocative one – what if the cold civil war that rages in our culture and country turned hot? Unfortunately, Civil War doesn’t exactly live up to the promise of its provocative premise.

Civil War suffers because it isn’t popcorn enough to be a blockbuster, and not intellectually hefty enough to be an arthouse darling, and not quite enough of either to be award’s material.

That is not to say that the film is bad…it isn’t…but it also isn’t great. It is undeniably compelling and is cinematically very well-crafted, but it is definitely a middlebrow movie posturing like it’s high-brow.

The film follows four journalists, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura), Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and aspiring photojournalist Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), as they head out of New York City in the hopes of getting to Washington, D.C. to interview the three-term President presiding over a chaotic civil war who hasn’t given an interview in fourteen months.

The country has broken into multiple factions and the government seems on the precipice of falling to the Western Forces – made up of California and Texas, all while other factions like the Florida Alliance and the New People’s Army are roaming around.

To get to D.C. the journalists must drive west to Pittsburgh, then head south to Charlottesville in the hopes of getting to D.C.. The film is essentially a road movie as the journalists navigate the treacherous journey to the failing nation’s capitol.

Much has been made about Civil War being apolitical, and I suppose that is true to a certain degree as the film never explicitly lays out the context, political or otherwise, of the civil war that now rages, but that is not the major problem with the film. No, the biggest issue with the film is that the journalists who are our protagonists are some of the least developed, and least captivating, characters you will ever stumble across.

Kirsten Dunst leads the charge as world-renowned photojournalist Lee Smith, but we know next to nothing about her and never get to know her on the journey. Yes, Smith undergoes a character arc of sorts, but it is predictable, and at its climax, trite and poorly executed. Dunst is good at giving a sort of dead-eyed, thousand-yard stare, but beyond that she fails to generate enough of anything to be able to carry to narrative load.

Wagner Moura is a decent actor but he is nearly invisible as Joel, the journalist set to ask the tough questions to the tyrannical president. Moura lacks the charisma to make his poorly written character come to life, and that he is front and center at the most critical point of the film diminishes its impact.

Cailee Spaeny plays Jessie Cullen, the young woman who wants to be like her photo-journalistic idol, Lee Smith. Spaeny does her best with what she’s given, but like her co-stars she isn’t given nearly enough, and she is not quite dynamic enough to generate interest.

Stephen McKinley Henderson plays the veteran, aging journalist Sammy, who has seen a lot and wants to see how this civil war concludes. Henderson has an innate humanity about him which jumps off the screen, and he does the best of the cast despite being limited by a poorly developed character.

The best performance in the film, and the best scene in the film, is by Jesse Plemons who plays a nameless militiaman the journalists have the unfortunate luck to come across. This scene is electrifying and Plemons absolutely crushes his role with an underplayed yet undeniable aplomb.

Another issue I had with Civil War was that the way it was constructed eliminated much of the drama. For example, early on in the story the journalists are on the road and then somehow are embedded with a rebel force, I suppose the Western Forces, but we never see the first contact between them. How did they hook up with the Western Forces? Were they in danger when they first met? How did either side know who was friendly and who was dangerous, especially in a world where the most banal of things and people are menacing? That would’ve been a great scene filled with drama – just like the scene at a gas station earlier in the movie, but it is never shown so we’ll never know. This type of thing happens throughout the film and it diminishes the drama.

Director Alex Garland cinematographer Rob Hardy shoot the film well and it is gorgeous to look at. The soundtrack is very good too and so is the editing by Jake Roberts. I would say that this is easily Garland’s second-best film, but it is miles behind from his directorial debut Ex Machina (2014), which was a mini-masterpiece. I found Garland’s two other features, Annihilation (2018) and Men (2022), to be underwhelming and poorly executed.

As for the politics of this film…well…when a movie titles itself “Civil War” and sets itself in modern-day America, the expectation of audiences is that current politics will be front and center. Civil War though never clearly sets the context for the war it dramatizes and so we don’t know the why or how or even the who of it all. This is not a crime in and of itself, but it does limit the film in terms of its appeal to more blockbuster-oriented audiences.

That said, the reality is that there is an undercurrent of present-day politics in the film, but for the most part the movie is sly enough to let the viewer project their own political pre-suppositions onto the festivities, which is a very arthouse sort of way to go about things. Liberals will see the bad guys as Republicans and conservatives will see the bad guys as Democrats…for the most part. For example, there is a reference in the film to an “Antifa massacre” but it never states whether it was Antifa being massacred or doing the massacring, which is pretty clever.

The president in the film (played by Nick Offerman) certainly seems Trumpian enough though to satiate the left and piss off the right, but it’s never too explicit and that’s probably the point.

On the other hand, the racial politics are pretty clear as the bad guys out in Middle America only like “real Americans” and kill unwhite people, and a black woman plays a pivotal role in the climax of the film and that is definitely not a coincidence.

Another thing to remember when judging the film’s politics, or lack thereof, is that this movie had a budget of $50 million – which isn’t a whole lot, yet it had to use a pretty decent amount of military equipment…helicopters, tanks, fighter jets, etc…and those things aren’t free…unless you make a deal with the Pentagon and turn over final edit and final say over the theme of your movie. It seems to me that Garland neutered the politics of his movie in order to get it made and play nice with the Department of Defense. I don’t know that for a fact but I would bet it’s true.

The political “subtlety” of the film is certainly a choice, but it clashes with the action-oriented/Hollywood climax that is meant to appeal to blockbuster audiences, and so the film, with clowns to the left of it, and jokers to the right, is stuck in the middle.

When I walked out of Civil War I admit I was a bit perplexed by the mixed bag I had just watched. I wanted the movie to be better, and thought it should have been better. Alex Garland had, a decade ago, made one of the very best, and most currently relevant films of this century when he took on the topic of Artificial Intelligence in the movie Ex Machina, and in the context of our current debate over AI, Ex Machina was eerily prescient.

But Civil War seemed less relevant than it should have been considering the political moment we find ourselves in here in the U.S. and across the globe. That’s not to say Civil War won’t seem prescient ten years from now, but right now it feels too lukewarm to be meaningful, which is a terrible shame.

To quote Jesus from the Book of Revelations 3:15-16 (what other book from the bible should you be quoting nowadays but Revelation?), “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth”.

I enjoyed the taste of Civil War as a compelling, if intellectually and often dramatically vacuous, piece of cinema. But ultimately, I’ll spit it out of my mouth because it is too lukewarm for my liking.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024