Joker: Folie a Deux - A Review: It’s a Mad, Mad World

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

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. But be forewarned, this is an aggressively arthouse movie that will be very unappealing to those seeking comic book entertainment.  

 Joker: Folie a Deux is director Todd Philips’ sequel to his controversial, billion-dollar blockbuster Joker (2019), and features Joaquin Phoenix reprising his iconic, Oscar-winning role as Arthur Fleck aka Joker, but this time he’s joined by Lady Gaga as his love interest Harley Quinn.

Joker was, and still is, an extraordinarily polarizing film. Back in the hyper-politicized year of 2019, Joker was instantly reviled by weak-kneed critics who labeled Phoenix’s Fleck/Joker as the “patron saint of incels”, and the film vile and potentially violence inducing because it captured the anger and resentment boiling just under the surface of America.

Despite the cavalcade of establishment media fear and loathing of Joker, the film still managed to make gobs of money and garner eleven Academy Award nominations and two wins (Best Actor and Best Original Score).

Unfortunately, no one need fear Joker: Folie a Deux becoming a blockbuster or hording trophies at the Academy Awards. Joker: Folie a Deux is going to be a certified box office bomb and is despised by critics and fans alike.

I try to quarantine myself from reviews and criticisms of a film before seeing it, but with Joker Folie a Deux it was impossible to avoid the overwhelming hate the film was receiving. Some of the most animated vitriol toward the film was coming from people who, like me, loved the original movie.

So when I strolled into an empty Sunday afternoon screening of Joker: Folie a Deux, I was mentally sharpening my knives in order to be able to properly and precisely eviscerate the shitshow I was about to watch.

But then I watched it…and maybe it was because I went in with such low expectations, but not only did I like Joker: Folie a Deux, I thought it was, in a way, much like the first film, bleak but utterly and absolutely brilliant.

The film opens with a Looney Tunes style cartoon which features Arthur Fleck and his literal and figurative shadow, Joker. This opening gives the perfect psychological backdrop for Fleck/Joker and buttresses my Jungian shadow thesis regarding Joker where Arthur Fleck is a Christ-figure and Joker is the anti-Christ/Satan figure.

The film then goes to live action and the story begins where Joker left off, with the now famous Arthur Fleck sitting in Arkham Asylum awaiting his trial for murder.

Over time the film descends into the madness of Arthur Fleck…and uses the genre of a jukebox musical as a manifestation of that madness. So as reality and fantasy blend together in Arthur’s mind, he and his friend Lee Quinzel – aka Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga, sing a bevy of American Standards…it’s sort of like a grotesque fever dream/nightmare version of La La Land.

But make absolutely no mistake, Joker: Folie a Deux is not, and is not meant to be, “entertaining”, not in the traditional sense, but it is most certainly enlightening and insightful, something which is exceedingly rare in cinema nowadays, most especially in Hollywood films in general, and franchise movies in particular.  

Joker: Folie a Deux is a work of art, which is a jarring and frustrating thing for viewers to experience when they head into the cinema expecting a franchise film piece of pop entertainment. This subverting of expectation, signified in the film with the recurring theme of “That’s Entertainment!”, is no doubt responsible for the film’s very poor reception among audiences and critics that have been conditioned by Marvel’s mindless money-making machine movies over the last 16 years…and to a lesser extent DC’s too, to expect a certain kind of pre-teen drivel as comic book cinema.

Joker: Folie a Deux is not that, instead it is a relentlessly bleak and brutal film. It is grungy, gruesome and glorious. It may make you angry, it may make you anxious, it may make you bored. But whatever your reaction to it is, that says infinitely more about you than about it, because this movie is a mirror held up to our insane, inane, indecent cancer of a culture and the vicious and vacuous world we all inhabit. Your reaction to Joker: Folkie a Deux, is your reaction to the madness of our broken and fallen world.

It seems obvious to me that Joker: Folie a Deux is director Todd Phillips’ giant middle-finger to the people who hated the first movie…and to those that loved it too. I never would’ve guessed that Todd Phillips of all people – the guy who made the Hangover trilogy, would be the auteur with balls the size of Hindenbergs who morphs into his main character, lights the match and watches the whole shithouse go up in flames. But here we are…and I’m glad to be here.

The animating characteristic of Joker: Folie a Deux is despair. Phillips’ Gotham is a hellscape…literally. For not only is it filled with vile, venal and loathsome creatures, but it is entirely devoid of any love. In a world devoid of love, despair rules the day because hope is replaced by delusion.

Arthur Fleck is, as a Christ figure, an open wound, a raw nerve, and it isn’t the hate of this world that affects him so greatly, but rather the complete absence of love.

Joker, on the other hand, as the devil, thrives in this hell for the exact reason that it cripples Arthur.

Many critics and hipsters hated the first Joker movie because Arthur Fleck was a white guy. This sort of shallow, identity driven thinking is all too common in our current age, and it reduces otherwise smart people into myopic fools unable to see the forest for the trees.

Arthur Fleck isn’t a symbol of white disenfrachisement…he is a symbol of the forgotten, the downtrodden, the outcast, and the loser of all colors, creeds and genders.

Arthur Fleck is the shaking, orphaned child in Gaza surviving in the rubble. He is the Palestinian prisoner gang-raped by his Israeli guards. He is the gay man thrown from a roof in Saudi Arabia. He is the teenage girl in Kabul beaten for showing her face. He is the black boy abused and neglected by an overwhelmed foster care system. He is Kelly Thomas, the mentally ill homeless man beaten to death by police in California. He is Ethan Saylor, the young man with Down’s Syndrome who died when Maryland cops kneeled on his neck in a movie theatre. Arthur Fleck is the helpless and the hopeless, the weak, the sick and the old…and critics and audiences who see him as a threat or a symbol of the oppressor simply due to the color of his skin and his gender are the ones who make this world the cruel, inhumane and uninhabitable shithole that it is.  

Joker is Arthur’s shadow…he is his vengeance and justice. Joker is the Hamas member slaughtering Israeli men, women and children at a desert rave. Joker is the Israeli soldier executing Palestinian men, women and children in cold blood. Joker is the cop killing pets in front of children. Joker is the school-shooter settling scores for social slights. Joker is the mayhem, murder and madness unleashed by those who feel fueled by righteousness.

Joker is the king of this fallen world…and Arthur Fleck is its victim.

Joaquin Phoenix is once again fantastic as Arthur and the Joker. Phoenix is a fragile yet forceful screen presence. His transformations throughout Joker: Folie a Deux are subtle and simply spectacular. I doubt Phoenix will be considered for any awards since Joker: Folie a Deux is so hated, but he is more than worthy of accolades.

Lady Gaga is an actress I have never been able to tolerate. I despised the trite and treacly A Star is Born and found her distractingly bad in House of Gucci.  But here in Joker: Folie a Deux I finally got to understand her appeal. There really is just something about her that is magnetic and undeniable, at least in this movie. I found her character arc to be somewhat poorly executed, but I thought her performance was quite good.

Brendan Gleeson plays a prison guard and is an ominous presence whenever he graces the screen, most particularly when he isn’t being menacing. Gleeson is, like Phoenix, one of the best actors on the planet, and he never fails to elevate any scene he inhabits.

And finally, Leigh Gill, who plays Gary Puddles, is fantastic in his lone scene. This scene, which features Puddles being questioned on the stand in court, is extraordinarily moving, and exquisitely captures the deeper meaning and purpose of the film.

Cinematographer Lawrence Sher, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Joker, once again does phenomenal work on Joker: Folie a Deux. Sher shoots the film with a distinct 1970’s grittiness and grime. He turns multiple musical numbers into uncomfortable flashbacks to Sonny and Cher episodes or other seventies type showcases and does so with a cinematic aplomb.

Hildur Guonadottir, who won an Oscar for her original score on Joker, is back on this film and once again sets the scene with an uncomfortably menacing and ominous score that drives the emotional narrative.

As for Todd Phillips, as I previously said, it’s astonishing the balls on this guy. He is basically saying “fuck you” to critics and fans alike. It’s tough to imagine him bouncing back and being allowed to do a worthwhile film after having a critical and commercial flop like this. That’s a shame though because he has proven his worth as an artist with Joker and Joker: Folie a Deux.

Phillips is a lot of things, some of them good and some of them bad, but one thing that he has been in recent years…is right.

It’s always struck me that no one (except me) seemed to notice that Joker accurately diagnosed the incandescent anger and fury that was boiling just beneath the surface of America back in 2019. I wrote about this profoundly disturbing anger prior to Joker, but Joker showed it to mainstream audiences, and elite coastal critics were so horrified by it that they blamed the film rather than the country and culture it revealed.

Joker was proven right though as less than nine months after its release that volcano of anger erupted in Joker-esque fashion with the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing riots and chaotic violence in the streets of American cities…just like in Joker.

The Joker was every BLM rioter, and every opportunistic looter and arsonist in America’s summer of rage in 2020…just like he was every flag-waving MAGA moron on January 7th, 2021, who stormed the Capitol looking to “Save Democracy”.

That Joker was correct has never been admitted by the coastal elites who hated the movie. That Joker: Folie a Deux is also correct in diagnosing the unremitting cruelty, malignant madness and incessant insanity of our culture and country will also go unnoticed by those who are too offended, or bored or angry or inhumane to care or notice.

Joker: Folie a Deux is not a polarizing film like Joker. The consensus is that it is awful to the point of being an abomination. But I am here to tell you that Joker: Folie a Deux is a brutal, ballsy and brilliant film. It is, like Oliver Stone’s manic and maniacal 1994 masterpiece Natural Born Killers, well ahead of the curve, and will only get its due when the history of this era is written and the ugly truth of our current time fully revealed.

If you have the fortitude for it, and the philosophical, political and psychological mind for it, and the ability to tolerate the arthouse in your comic book cinema, then Joker: Folie a Deux is not the steaming pile of shit that critics and audiences claim it to be, but rather a startling revelation. And like most revelations it is reviled in its own time because it tells the unvarnished and unabashedly ugly truth that no one wants to see or hear because it’s too painful to ever acknowledge.

©2024

Maestro: A Review - Lifeless Leonard Bernstein Biopic is Out of Tune

****THIS IS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS ABOUT LEONARD BERNSTEIN’S LIFE!! THIS IS TECHNICALLY NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!***

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. This movie just doesn’t work for a variety of reasons. But it’s on Netflix so if you’re so inclined watch it and see for yourself.

Maestro, the new Netflix biopic directed by and starring Bradley Cooper, chronicles the life of renowned musical genius Leonard Bernstein.

I readily admit that prior to seeing Maestro I knew little about Leonard Bernstein, the iconic conductor and composer who dominated the classical music scene in America for nearly fifty years in the 20th Century. After watching Bradley Cooper’s two-hour and nine-minute dramatization of Bernstein’s life I still know next to nothing about the man.

The film is essentially about Bernstein’s relationship with his wife Felicia (Carey Mulligan). The decision to focus on this aspect of Bernstein’s life is a poor one as the marriage is a dramatically flaccid affair. To boil it down, the plot of the film is that Leonard Bernstein, a gay man, marries Felicia, who knows full-well he is gay and readily accepts it…but then later on she gets mad that he’s gay for some reason. Not exactly compelling stuff, which is why it’s such an odd choice to focus on Bernstein’s marriage and not his music.

Even the most grotesque of philistines, like me, knows that Leonard Bernstein was a once in a lifetime type of talent, of that there is no doubt, but unfortunately Maestro is just a run of the mill movie devoid of even the most remote of insights into the great man it depicts.

Bernstein was an iconic public figure, but Cooper is incapable, as an actor and as a director, to get beyond the façade of Bernstein’s public persona and reveal the actual human being beneath it all.

Cooper’s great failings on Maestro are that he is overly ambitious while being relentlessly safe, and also egregiously indulgent.

His ambition as a director vastly exceeds his talent and skill, and so the massive scope and scale of Bernstein’s epic life, as well as his artistry and humanity, is unconscionably diminished.

Cooper the director uses a plethora of filmmaking tricks to try and make a compelling drama, for example, in the first act of the film he often transitions from one scene to the next with a time and space jump but without a cut, but these techniques ring hollow because the drama they surround is so shallow.

Cooper’s ambition as an actor is, on some level, admirable, but there too he is well out of his depth. His mimicry of Bernstein is consistent and, at times, impressive (and in the character’s later years aided by Kazu Hiro’s superb prosthetics), as he’s obviously closely studied the man’s mannerisms and voice. But Cooper’s portrayal ultimately misses the mark because, despite its showiness – or maybe because of it, it never rises to anything more than genuflection in the form of imitation.

Cooper’s indulgence as both director and actor is another albatross around the neck of the film. He directs the movie like an actor, reflexively indulging the worst of actor’s impulses. For example, he consistently holds scenes for a few beats too long – no doubt in the hope of some magic appearing, at the cost of scuttled dramatic tempo and pace.

Another example is that the acting style across the board in the film is incessantly ‘actory’ – meaning indulgent to actor’s narcissistic whims. The acting on display is all style and no substance. No characters come across as actual human beings and no scenes feel grounded, genuine or real. This is most evident in Carey Mulligan’s portrayal of Felicia, Bernstein’s wife, an awful Sarah Silverman as Shirley, Bernstein’s sister, and in Cooper himself playing Bernstein.

The only moment in the film that feels grounded, and as a result is moving, is a scene where Bernstein introduces his new girlfriend, Felicia, to David, a man with whom he has had a long running sexual relationship. David is played by Matt Bomer, and he absolutely crushes this scene. Bomer expresses David’s cavalcade of emotions with a simple and subtle series of looks. Cooper and Mulligan and the rest never approach this level of simplicity and mastery at any point in the picture.

Ironically, as ambitious as Cooper is as a director, the reality is that he has made a suffocatingly safe film. According to reports, the Bernstein family cooperated with the film and fully supported it, and it shows. Cooper’s movie never dares to challenge the Bernstein myth, but instead hews closer to hagiography, a common pitfall for films about real people with interested parties deeply invested in maintaining an image looking over the filmmaker’s shoulder.

Cooper also plays it safe himself. Yes, he is playing a gay man, but twenty years after Brokeback Mountain feels a bit less brave than it used to. But he plays it safe even there, as we never actually see Cooper’s Bernstein kiss another man…it is only implied or shown from the back and at a distance. It seems Cooper wanted to be a “brave” actor by playing a gay man but at the same time didn’t want to tarnish his movie star brand…and brand management won out.

There’s another oddity about the homosexual angle of Bernstein’s story that is mishandled, and that occurs during a scene on the street in New York City in the 1950s. Bernstein and David, his lover/former lover, walk down Central Park West and then stop and have a tender moment together in broad daylight. David caresses Bernstein’s face and kisses him on the forehead. These two men are obviously in love with each other and showing it….and no one says anything. Neither David nor Bernstein is afraid. Extras walk past them and don’t do a double take or express outrage. Bernstein says that people across the street recognize him…but he isn’t worried that they’ll see he’s gay, just that he’s famous.

This entire sequence is bizarre beyond belief. First off, just as a matter of fact, being openly gay in New York City (or just about anywhere) in the 1950s wasn’t just frowned upon…it was illegal. So, Leonard Bernstein, ambitious conductor and composer, would be scared to death to be outed because he would not only lose his job but be arrested and potentially go to jail.

Secondly, removing the stigma from Bernstein’s homosexuality, removes an obstacle for the character which existed in real life. Obstacles create drama…think of Brokeback Mountain…the two gay cowboys in that movie knew they had to hide their love because if it got-out they could be killed. Now that’s an obstacle.

An easy, and subtle, way to express this obstacle and show how constricting the culture was to a gay man like Bernstein in the 1950s, would have been to have those extras who walked by look back in disgust and horror at the two men being affectionate. And Bernstein could have struggled to hide himself or end the interaction in order to avoid detection and thus exposing himself, and his career, to peril. But no, we get none of that and all of that potential drama is neutered.

Making a movie about an artistic genius is difficult. Making one about an artistic genius who for the most part is conjuring up brilliance in his mind, is even more difficult…which is why movies about writers are notoriously hard to pull off.

Bernstein’s brilliance is both in writing and in performing – as a conductor…but we only get a scant few scenes of seeing him display his genius in front of an orchestra. The one scene that stands out as the most dynamic in the film is when Bernstein conducts an orchestra in a legendary performance in England in the early 1970s. Cooper is very good in this scene, as both an actor and director, but the success of this magnetic scene only accentuates the lifelessness of the rest of the movie.

As an actor and also as a director, Bradley Cooper is, above all else, exceedingly desperate to be good. He often reeks of desperation to such a degree, especially come award season, that it is uncomfortable to witness. But as is often the case, his level of desperation is inversely proportionate to his level of talent and skill.

Cooper’s first foray into directing was in 2018 with the fourth version of A Star is Born to hit the big screens. I found this film, which starred Lady Gaga opposite Cooper, to be cloying and mawkish, but it did have an impressive box office run and garnered a bevy of Oscar nominations but came up short in all the major categories.

I’ll say this about Maestro, I think it is much better than A Star is Born, and I think it is a much more worthy and meaningful cinematic attempt, even if it does end in failure, than Cooper’s directorial debut.

I’ll also say this…if Maestro were made twenty-five years ago, the Oscars would go bananas for it and throw every award it could grab at it because it would be considered epic yet also edgy and brave. But it’s not twenty-five years ago…and Maestro isn’t edgy and brave…it’s really rather blasé. So, I don’t think the Oscars, or anyone else, is going to be bestowing awards upon this movie.

Ultimately, Maestro as a cinematic and dramatic venture just doesn’t work, and its failure can be chalked up to Bradley Cooper’s directorial and acting ambitions being bigger than his limited talent and skill.

Tar (2022), another ambitious movie about an icon in the classical music world (albeit a fictional one), was a flawed film too but featured superior acting (it starred Cate Blanchett) and direction (directed by Todd Field) than Maestro. Neither film worked, but both are somewhat noble and worthy attempts to make a serious, adult drama with a somewhat moderate budget. We need as many of these types of films as we can get, so, while I didn’t like Maestro, I do like that this movie exists, I just wish it were much better made.

At the end of the day, I cannot recommend Maestro, but since it’s streaming on Netflix, I feel it’s appropriate to tell people to check it out for themselves and see if they like it. If you do, good for you. If you don’t, that’s okay too, because I didn’t either.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

2018 Mid-Term Elections

Ever since Trump was elected president in 2016, the media have declared that he would face a comeuppance in the form of vast Democrat victories, or as they call it, a “blue wave”, come the 2018 mid-term elections. While I would like to think that would happen…I don’t think that will happen.

As long time readers know, I was one of “those people” who, in the face of a cavalcade of opposite opinion in the media and in my social circles, accurately predicted Trump’s victory in 2016. As I said in my writing from that time, I didn’t want Trump to win (nor was I a Hillary supporter), I just thought he would. I ended up being right and we have all had to suffer through the never ending reality show that is Trump TV ever since.

The formula I used to predict Trump’s 2016 victory is my McCaffrey Wave Theory, which again, I am sure long-time readers are sick of hearing about…but what can you do? My wave theory uses, among other things, popular culture, most specifically, at least currently, film and television, as indicators of the mood in the collective unconscious. The formula of the McCaffrey Wave Theory is actually very complex and complicated, and takes into account numerous cultural and historical “waves” or “cycles” that are all simultaneously in motion.

Interpreting the data from these waves/cycles and measuring their relationship to one another is how the McCaffrey Wave Theory is able to “predict” certain turn of events. And to be clear, this is not about being Nostradamus and saying planes will fly into buildings on 9-11, but rather about understanding the ebbs and flows of the collective unconscious and knowing when both big and small shifts will occur when portions of the collective unconscious become conscious.

The key elements of the McCaffrey Wave Theory are the archetypes, narratives and sub-texts prominent in films/tv along with their color scheme and visual/cinematic tendencies. These data points are how my wave/cycle theory is able to discern which films and/or television shows are leading indicators and which are lagging indicators of the collective unconscious. Leading indicator films are the ones that express the unconscious desires/fears of the collective, while lagging indicator films are the ones that express conscious fears or desires of the collective.

Some examples of leading indicator film and tv were pretty obvious in 2017 when HULU’s A Handmaid’s Tale (its narrative and vibrant red and green color scheme) and the DC film Wonder Woman (its narrative and red and blue color scheme) jumped to the fore of our culture in the early summer. These two successful projects accurately foretold of the coming feminist outcry and the rise of the #MeToo movement in the wake of the Weinstein revelations that came out in October of 2017.

A good example of a lagging indicator film was in 2017 as well, when Steven Spielberg rushed into production his thinly veiled anti-Trump/pro-Hillary film, The Post, that underwhelmed both at the box office and come awards time. The Post failed both artistically and financially because it was little more than wish fulfillment that attempted to give the audience what it wanted, not what the collective sub-conscious needed.

In the years leading up to the rise of Trump in 2016, there were numerous films and television shows that were ominous signs of a very dark impulse coming to the fore in American life and across the globe.

Two glaring examples were HBO’s Game of Thrones with its marketing campaign which for years was warning us all with their ice-blue billboards proclaiming that “Winter is Coming”. The other was Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, a show about what America would be like if the Nazi’s and Japanese won World War II, which hit the airwaves in 2015 accompanied by a prodigious marketing campaign which had the Nazi Eagle on the American flag and the Imperial Japanese flag plastered all over the New York subway and elsewhere. Both of those shows resonated within the culture because they accurately gave voice to what was lurking in our collective unconscious. On some level we knew what was coming…a horrible “winter” and the Nazi’s/Not Sees…and these shows knew it before we were even conscious of it. (and don’t kid yourself, the Nazi/Not See impulse is not solely of the right, the left has a strong Not See impulse too).

In 2015 there were many films that were also giving us warning signs of big trouble ahead. The Martian, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant and Star Wars: The Force Awakens were all through their narratives, color schemes (Martian - Red, Hateful 8 - Blue, Revenant - Blue, Star Wars - Red and Blue) and cinematic visuals (shots of foreboding vast expanses) the equivalent of a flashing red sign that a gigantic storm was coming.

In 2016 things got even clearer, as the blockbusters Captain America: Civil War, X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and even La La Land all revealed through their narratives (internecine warfare), sub-text and color schemes (all of them with vibrant clashes of red and blue) that our cultural train was headed off the track if not the cliff.

As I have previously written, last year cinema gave us some signs of what to expect going forward. The big archetype of the year in 2017 was Winston Churchill…with the films Dunkirk, Darkest Hour and the Netflix show The Crown. The Churchill archetype can be interpreted in numerous ways, but when seen in conjunction with other wave/cycles, it strikes me that the Churchill archetype is manifesting in the Trump’s of the world…in other words…it is actually the Churchill shadow archetype that is taking center stage.

Which brings us to this year and the mid-terms. As I said, there has been incessant talk of a blue wave and in its jubilant wake the possibility of a Democratic House and maybe even Senate where, like a scene out of The Godfather where Michael settles all family business, liberals exact revenge by impeaching not only of Trump but Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. As entertaining as that liberal porn may be…I don’t think it is going to happen.

According to my wave theory, there will be no blue wave. Not only will the Democrats not win the Senate, I don’t think they will win the House either, and if they do it will be by the skin of their teeth. Now…before you stick your head in the oven…to be very, very clear…I could certainly be wrong about this, God knows it wouldn’t be the first time. For starters, I have never used my wave theory to predict a mid-term before, and it could be I am interpreting the data entirely incorrectly, this is a distinct possibility. But with that said, ever since last June, when I wrote a piece for CounterPunch on the topic, along with a follow up posting on this blog in July, I have thought that this blue wave was a mirage.

As I stated in my CounterPunch piece, the big warning signs for me were the prominence and success of both Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War, both of which had narratives, sub-text and color scheme that spoke clearly of the failure of the opposition to Trump to succeed in toppling him.

Other films, such as A Quiet Place, Hereditary and even A Star is Born, that have all resonated deeply within the culture this year, are also leading indicators of a Democratic failure come the mid-terms because of their narratives and sub-text. Believe it or not, A Star is Born is remarkably insightful sub-textually and that sub-text very clearly (once you crack the code of it) states that if not Trump, then at least Trumpism, is here to stay as a replacement for the old paradigm, as indicated by the song in the film “Maybe it’s time we let the old ways die”. (I hope to have a full analysis of A Star is Born done soon).

Just as importantly, there are lagging indicator films that are, just like Spielberg’s The Post in 2017, falling flat, which highlight what isn’t resonating in the collective unconscious. Films with similar narratives, like the “aggrieved and under-appreciated genius wife/power behind the throne” stories of The Wife and Colette, or the “police shooting/racism” films The Hate U Give, Monsters and Men and Blindspotting, have all fallen flat in the broader culture. Even the colossal failure of the cinematic celebration of multi-culturalism and female empowerment, A Wrinkle in Time, is telling us what is going on in our collective unconscious, and it isn’t good news.

Now…maybe I am dead wrong about all this…maybe I am misreading and misinterpreting the data, that is a distinct possibility. Maybe the Democrats win a huge majority in the House and even get one in the Senate…but neither of those things will lead to a return to “normal”…only an escalation of the clash for civilization that is currently taking place.

Even if Democrats win, the intensity of the political turmoil here in America will not recede but proceed at an even quicker pace. Two more years of impeachment talk and congressional hearings will only heighten the tensions that are already near a boil. If you thought Trump was awful these last two years, wait until he faces an existential threat to his presidency from a Democratically controlled House and possibly Senate.

On the other hand, if, as I have been predicting since June, there is not blue wave, don’t expect tensions to lessen. If Democrats fail to gain the House, Trump will turn his obnoxiousness up to 11 and liberals and the media will ratchet up the crazy to unseen heights. And on top of that, if Mueller ends his investigation with no bombshells or smoking gun of “Russian collusion”, the liberal and Democratic meltdown will make Chernobyl look like a cookout.

In other words…no matter the outcome on November 6th, the conflagration that is American politics will only grow bigger, hotter and much more dangerous.

The reality is that there is no stopping the collapse of the institutions of western civilizations. Trust me, we have a very, very bumpy road ahead. That means more authoritarianism across the globe (Bolsonaro will win in Brazil) and more shocks to the system, like economic earthquakes, natural disasters and war.

The good news is that this current wave/cycle of collapse and destruction will not last forever. Eventually, after maybe a decade or so (or God help us a decade or two), this collapse and destruction wave/cycle will transform into a more optimistic wave/cycle of growth, stability, relative peace and prosperity. Remember, destruction is the first act of creation, and we will create, hopefully, a more just, localized, thoughtful and sustainable civilization in the crater where this one once stood.

As for the bad news…we are still in the destruction phase…and come November 7th there are going to be a lot of really pissed off Democrats, liberals and anti-Trumpers, who will still have no power in Washington with which to vent their rage. And if you thought things have been bad the last two years, what ‘til you get a load of what comes next because you ain’t seen nothing yet.

©2018

A Star is Born: A Review

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. No need to see this tired old horse be beaten once again.

A Star is Born, written by Bradley Cooper, Eric Roth and Will Fetters and directed by Bradley Cooper, is the fictional story of the tumultuous relationship between famous singer/songwriter Jackson Maine and the talented newcomer he discovers named Ally. The film stars Bradley Cooper as Maine and Lady Gaga as Ally, with supporting turns from Sam Elliot, Andrew Dice Clay and Dave Chappelle.

For months now there has been a tremendous amount of buzz swirling around A Star is Born, with industry insiders gushing about Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut and Lady Gaga’s feature film debut. To be completely honest, I really had no interest in seeing A Star is Born, but solely out of a duty to you, my dear readers, I braved the perfect weather out here in Los Angeles and ventured out to the local cineplex in order to find out what all the fuss was about.

I went to the first show of the day on a Tuesday and the theatre was pretty crowded. I had also heard reports from other, less film business oriented parts of the country, that screenings had regularly been sold out even daytime screenings, since A Star is Born premiered. It seems that this is one of those movies that people who usually don’t go to the movies go to the movies to see.

As the lights dimmed and the film started I got distracted by an older couple entering my screening. This wasn’t just some old couple…this was the oldest couple. The man, or more accurately…the 2,000 year-old man, slowly but determinedly made his way up the stairs, with his wife, Methusala, close behind. It was hard to tell because of the darkness, but one of them was carrying a walker, which seemed strange to me that they would lug this thing all the way up the stairs. I would’ve done the chivalrous thing and helped them except I quickly deemed them enemies of my state for having arrived 15 minutes late for a movie, something that is irredeemably evil in my book.

Like the Sir Edmund Hillary of movie theaters, the 2,000 year old man climbed the stairs, then planted his flag and entered my row. He made a bee-line for the center of the row and I dutifully stood up to let him pass and stayed standing so his lagging sherpa of a wife could pass once she got to me. The thing to understand is this, I am an incredibly important and fancy person, so I only go to theatres that have assigned seats, and of course, being the law-abiding citizen that I am, I was sitting in my assigned seat.

The movie continued to play in the background as I watched the drama of the 2,000 year old man unfurl before me as he was trying to read his ticket number and the numbers on the seat in our very, very dark theatre. 2,000 year old man kept shuffling back and forth saying to himself, “fourteen and sixteen, fourteen and sixteen”. Little did 2,000 year old man know, but the even numbered seats were all the way over on the other side of the theatre, which would’ve been an Everest-esque climb to this guy who was as old as dirt. I was tempted to help 2,000 year old man out by picking him up and throwing him the 30 feet or so where his seats were, but I thought better of it…I didn’t want to get old people smell on me.

Methuselah then scurried by me and went from being a lagging wife to being a nagging wife when she decided to shout at her husband that she didn’t care where their seats numbers were, she was sitting down right where she was. She then told him to sit down too and shut up on top of it…and that is exactly what he did.

I then turned my attention to the movie screen and there was Bradley Cooper pretending to rock out with his guitar and I thought to myself “these old people are going to HATE this movie!”. It reminded me of when I was a kid and this equally decrepit old couple I knew peripherally were complaining to my parents after having seen Neil Diamond in The Jazz Singer. No doubt these dusty people saw the original The Jazz Singer when they were young and thought they were getting some more Al Jolson this time around and were viciously disappointed to get Neil Diamond instead because as we all know…Neil Diamond is no Al Jolson God-Damn it!!

The 2,000 year old man and his bridezilla Methuselah were probably a retired married couple with grown children out of the house when the original A Star is Born came out in 1937, and made a pledge to one another to only trek out to these new-fangled movie theatres if and when A Star is Born remake hit the big screen. So, by my count, this was officially the third time since 1937 that 2,000 year old man and Methuselah have hit the cineplex, having seen the 1954 Judy Garland/James Mason version of A Star is Born, followed by the Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson version in 1976…both of which I am sure were followed with a night of perfunctory yet ravenous lovemaking.

A glance at film history shows us that roughly every 20 years or so this old A Star is Born war horse is run out of the barn with a new saddle and new horseshoes and is dragged across the cultural consciousness. My math isn’t great but by my calculations that means that this new 2018 Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga version was long overdue, coming more than 40 years after the last Streisand/Kristofferson dance. As they say, everything old is new again or as I say about the 2,000 year old man and Methuselah, everything old gets older…and so it is with cinema. I am sure that 2,000 year old man and Methuselah kept their lifelong pact and followed up their A Star is Born viewing with an afternoon and evening of excruciatingly arduous and ancient sex…I hope they enjoyed that more than the movie.

In regards to this latest version of A Star is Born, I found it to be as cinematically vital and vibrant as watching 2,000 year old man and Methuselah’s afternoon delight…but before I dive into the shit pile, let’s try and focus on the positive for a moment.

The good news is that Bradley Cooper does terrific work as Jackson Maine. Cooper has matured into a quality actor and his Maine is no cookie - cutter character, but a rather a layered and complex human being. Cooper makes the wise decision to wrap Maine up tight and keep his wounds hidden until they split open and bleed all over him. I am not a Bradley Cooper fan, but I must say my respect for him as an actor is expanding over time.

Sam Elliot also does admirable work in a rather underwritten role as Maine’s brother, and every time he is on-screen the movie is elevated just a tiny bit from its descent into the bowels of absurdity.

Now for the bad news…well...A Star is Born is really little more than a paper thin exercise in star fucking. A Star is Born is the perfect Hollywood blockbuster for the Trump Age, all surface and no soul. It is a shallow, vacuous and empty shell of a film, a movie about stars, made by stars and is the perfect embodiment of reality tv filmmaking.

This is not a good movie, it is an amateurish, melo-dramatic soap-opera. I am willing to bet regular folks like the movie, but I found it to be insipid, insidious, absurd and cinematically obtuse.

Lady Gaga is undoubtedly a very talented women, but acting is not one of the talents she possesses. Yes, she is a terrific piano player and a remarkable singer, but her acting leaves a whole helluva lot to be desired. Gaga’s acting works in music videos because they are all surface and no substance and last about 4 minutes, but in a two hour movie, her lack of skill becomes more and more glaring with every passing scene.

Gaga is joined by her on-screen father, Andrew Dice Clay, as being uncomfortably bad in the movie. Clay seems like he is auditioning for a community production of Guys and Dolls or something.

As for the script…well…this film asks its audience to take extreme leaps of logic and to suspend its disbelief to such a great degree that it is simply untenable. While the core of the story is sort of “Hollywood myth-making” believable, in execution it becomes bizarrely inane.

My biggest issues with the movie are the logical problems…like since Ally is such a great song writer and has come to prominence with Maine’s audience which is rock/country, why does she then turn into a bubble gum pop idol? It makes no sense at all. On top of that, Ally’s music is a steaming pile of shit, just atrociously and comically bad on every level…why do audiences love it so much and why does she even win critical acclaim for it as well?

Now, their might be a way that does make sense, but only in the deep hidden meaning of the film, which I will get into in much more detail in a separate post. There is a deeper message in A Star is Born, and once you crack the code of it, which I think I have done, it becomes pretty interesting (and this message may be entirely unintentional and sub-conscious on Cooper’s part), but that hidden message is so obscured by the rudimentary surface of the movie that it will be totally invisible to most every viewer except the most extreme like me.

As for Bradley Cooper the director, there has been a lot of talk about an Oscar nomination for his directing, his acting and the film. I will say this, Hollywood loves its own, and I would not be surprised if Cooper gets nominated for all three categories and maybe even screenplay too…but he is not an Oscar worthy director…not even close…and is only remotely worthy of an acting nod, and even that is an incredible stretch.

Cooper’s direction is pretty lackluster. He has a distinct liking for using flattering close-ups and a whole lot of flaring light, but the aesthetic, like the story, falls rather flat. Cooper’s direction of actors isn’t much better, as many of the supporting roles (the aforementioned Clay and his limo driving cohorts) are painfully awful.

My biggest question regarding A Star is Born is why? Why make this movie? And why do people, critics included, love it? I don’t get it, I really don’t. I don’t understand why anyone would think this is worthwhile cinema. My one guess as to the commercial and critical success of the film is that in an Age of Turmoil people like their lies to be pretty and their catharsis to be easy and cheap.

In conclusion, as Bradley Cooper’s character Jackson Maine opines, an artist needs to have something to say, sadly, with A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper the director has nothing to say. A Star is Born is little more than old Hollywood nonsense that feeds America’s celebrity addiction.

As a cinematic venture, A Star is Born is all hype. It is a vapid enterprise that gives the pose of depth but is entirely devoid of soul. If you like mainstream manipulative melo-drama in a conventional Hollywood celebrity package, A Star is Born is for you. If, like me, you like your cinema to be more substance than style, you will recognize that this Star is most definitely still-born.

©2018