The Holdovers: A Review - A Happy Humbug for the Holidays

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

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Not a great film, but a good enough one. It’s an exceedingly safe movie that boasts quality performances from a terrific cast.

The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne and starring Paul Giamatti, tells the story of a teacher, student and cook who are stuck together at a tony New England prep school over the Christmas holiday break in 1970.

I consider myself a marginal fan of director Alexander Payne. I’ve loved some of his movies, like About Schmidt and Nebraska. I’ve liked some of his movies, like Sideways and Election. And I’ve loathed some of his movies, like Downsizing and The Descendants.

The Holdovers, Payne’s first film since the box office and critical bomb Downsizing in 2017, was in theatres at the end of October and is now streaming on Peacock.

The film, set at the fictional prep school Barton, tells the story of Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a stern and curmudgeonly academic who attended the school in his youth and has taught there for the vast majority of his adulthood.

Hunham is just like Robin Williams’ iconic character John Keating in Dead Poets Society…if Keating had a wall-eye, bad body odor and was despised by both students and colleagues alike. Hunham’s students would only stand and recite “O Captain! My Captain!” if they were about to frag him.

Hunham is, much to his chagrin, tasked with taking care of a rag tag group of students who, for a variety of reasons, have nowhere to go over the Christmas break. One of these students, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), is abandoned at the lasty minute by his mother and step-father for the holidays.

After a twist and turn of events, the only people left at Barton for holiday break are the sad-sack trio of Hunham, Tully, and the school’s head chef Mary Lamb (DaVine Joy Randolph). The one thing these three all have in common though is that they’re all in various stages of grief, such as denial, anger and depression.

The tone throughout The Holdovers is one of melancholy mixed with a cloying sentimentality. Yes, there are some amusing bits and sequences, and Giamatti’s Harvard educated Hunham has a quick, erudite and eviscerating wit, but for the most part this is a straight forward, throw-back, adult dramedy.

The Holdovers is a return to scale if not entirely to form for Alexander Payne. I thought the film was…fine. It isn’t great. But it is good…enough. It is proficiently made, well-acted, and entertaining. But what it lacks is…well…some sense of profundity, as it is incessantly safe above all else.

This is the type of film that would be perfect to sit down with extended family during the holidays and watch without anyone getting offended or upset or even all that excited. It is, as I said, above all else - safe…but it’s also entertaining and kept me captivated for its full two-hour-and-thirteen-minute running time.

The performances from the three main characters are all noteworthy. Giamatti, one of our better actors, is terrific as Hunham. The dialogue for Hunham is very well-written by screenwriter David Hemingson and is expertly delivered by Giamatti. Giamatti is very comfortable in the discomfort felt by the irascible egghead with the literal googly-eyes who smells like fish. He trudges through Hunham’s dramatic odyssey with his usual aplomb.

Dominic Sessa is a discovery as Angus Tully. This is Sessa’s first movie and while he is a bit rough-around-the-edges he brings a vitality and adolescent angst that is impossible to fake.

The big revelation though is Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb. Randolph’s character Mary is the least well-written, but she fills the spaces with a weight that speaks volumes. What impressed me the most about Randolph though is that she absolutely, but subtly, nails her Boston accent, which is something that such luminaries as Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson and Julianne Moore have embarrassingly butchered (Hanks on multiple occasions).

When I have loved Alexander Payne’s films, like About Schmidt and Nebraska, it’s because they have had an acerbic and wickedly cutting and subversive nature to them. It also helps that those films star Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern respectively, giving some of the best performances of their careers.

When Payne loses me is when sentimentality and shtick come to the fore, like in The Descendants and Downsizing. (I also thought George Clooney and Matt Damon, respectively, were actively awful in both of those movies)

The Holdovers has a mix of both the best and the worst of Payne. It’s filled with sentimentality, but also features a great actor, Giamatti, swimming in a thick sea of acerbity (much like he did in Sideways).

It also has some shticky moments that disappoint and irritate. Like when Hunham chases Tully through the school, which was very reminiscent of a dreadfully bad sequence in The Descendants where George Clooney goofily runs up and down a long winding road.

But despite those contrived moments and disappointing bits, I found myself buying in to The Holdovers almost entirely because this type of movie – a smart, adult dramedy, which used to be so common in the 1970’s, is so rare nowadays.

Well-written, well-acted small comedy-dramas made by quality directors featuring skilled performers, are unfortunately few and far between in today’s Hollywood. Which is maybe why The Holdovers is being so well-received by critics and audiences alike.

If you have Peacock, I definitely recommend you watch The Holdovers, and if you don’t have Peacock, they’re always having one-week free trials so sign up for a free week and watch the movie and then cancel.

Ultimately, I enjoyed The Holdovers despite its various shortcomings and lack of artistic ambition, and frankly, I think you will too. It’s a safe movie and it definitely won’t change your life…but it also won’t disappoint.

 Follow me on twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Review and Commentary

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An unforgettable true story turned into a completely forgettable motion picture.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever is the amazing, nearly unbelievable, true story of John “Chickie” Donohue, a seemingly dim-witted, ne’er do well merchant mariner from Inwood in New York City, who decides to show his support by traveling to Vietnam in 1968 to deliver beer to his neighborhood buddies serving in the war.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever, which is written and directed by Peter Farrelly and stars Zac Efron and is currently streaming on Apple TV +, is a really great story…but unfortunately, it’s a bad movie.

Farrelly (There’s Something About Mary) won a Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscar four years ago for Green Book, his much-maligned movie on race relations, which was also set in New York City in the 1960’s and dealt with a conservative seeing the light and embracing a more progressive vision.

Green Book wasn’t as bad as the interminably aggrieved victimhood brigade would have you believe, but it also definitely wasn’t Best Picture material (although with the laughable CODA winning the award last year who the hell knows what a Best Picture worthy movie is anymore). Green Book was basically a well-crafted, well-acted, rather simple-minded movie about hope for humanity, no wonder it was so hated in our current awful age.

With The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Farrelly seems to, in the wake of the Green Book criticisms, be trying to either bolster his much tarnished liberal bona fides or give a mea culpa for his perceived sins against the new woke religion. Whatever he’s trying to do…he fails miserably.

Green Book, for all its shortcomings, worked as a piece of middlebrow entertainment masquerading as upper middle-class art, because it featured two really terrific actors, Viggo Mortenson and Mahershala Ali (who won a Best Supporting Actor for his work). The Greatest Beer Run Ever is not so blessed, as it stars poor Zac Efron.

Efron seems like a nice guy, and I have absolutely no animus towards him whatsoever and wish him nothing but success. But the truth is he’s an extremely limited actor and those limitations are laid bare in this film.

Efron’s Chickie is like a more handsome, street-smart Forest Gump who stumbles through history oblivious to his own buffoonery. As one Sergeant says upon meeting Chickie in a war zone, “don’t worry about him, some people are just too stupid to get killed.”

As for Efron, he’s a good-looking kid (“kid” – he’s 34!) but he’s utterly devoid of charisma and magnetism. He almost seems to be trying to hide in front of the camera. Emotionally he’s a black hole from which no life or light escapes. And his dismal New Yawk accent is come and go for the first third of the film and then disappears completely for no apparent reason.

To be clear, Efron isn’t the only bad actor in the movie. The entire supporting cast, with two notable exceptions, are simply dreadful.  The egregiously amateurish cast are either over-the-top caricatures or underwhelming to the point of invisibility.

In particular, Chickie’s group of friends in New York are portrayed by a collection of the worst actors I can remember seeing in a mainstream movie and their accents are less New York than they are a rancid stew of Providence, Boston and Maine. I won’t name any of them out of some twisted sense of compassion, but holy shit they are embarrassingly bad.

The two notable exceptions regarding the abysmal acting are Bill Murray as The Colonel, a World War II vet who runs the local bar, and Russell Crowe, as a journalist in Vietnam. Murray and Crowe are not particularly exceptional in their roles, but whenever they are on-screen a sense of relief comes over the viewer as they know at least they’re in the hands of professionals. Murray and Crowe feel at home on the screen, whereas everyone else, most notably Zac Efron, does not.

To be fair to Efron, Farelly’s script and his direction are no help either as they’re utterly atrocious.

There are major plot points and dramatic moments throughout the movie that need to be earned but simply never are, like when Chickie makes the decision to go to Vietnam, it just sort of happens…and everything, particularly the crucial emotional beats, are as vacuous as that.

Another grating thing about the movie is that a major plot point is Chickie must carry a bevy of beers (Pabst Blue Ribbon cans) in a duffle bag across the ocean and all over Vietnam. Beers are heavy, but Chickie’s wondrous bag always seems nearly weightless and empty, but he continuously pulls beer after beer after beer out of it like it’s a magic hat.

If that bag were realistic, and Chickie had to lug it around and decide between dumping out beers or staying true to his mission, then the story and his burden would take on great meaning. The duffle bag literally could’ve been Chickie’s (and America’s) cross to bear across the globe for the sin of the Vietnam war…but instead it’s just a ticky-tack prop that draws viewers out of the reality of this astounding true story.

Another major issue is that Farrelly’s tone through much of the movie is whimsical, and it undermines the horror of the war we see unfolding before us and it all feels…unseemly. There’s a scene like this at the front lines in Vietnam which is so poorly choreographed and directed, and tonally off-kilter, that I found it repulsive.

What’s so grating about The Greatest Beer Run Ever is that it really could have, and should have, been great.

As I watched I kept thinking of how amazing this film would’ve been if it were made in the 1970’s, when the topic, a conservative ‘Road to Damascus’ moment regarding the crime and calamity that was the Vietnam war, would have more cultural resonance, meaning and impact. Imagine a movie like that directed by someone like Hal Ashby and starring Jack Nicholson, I mean God-damn…THAT would’ve been worth seeing!

But instead, we get this rather pathetic modern-day effort from Farrelly and Efron that feels almost instantaneously forgettable.  

To be fair, there are a few sequences that I thought were well done, most notably when Chickie runs into a little Vietnamese girl in a field and tries to interact with her. The scene is shot without sound with music playing over it and it’s easily the best and most profound scene in the film. Another interesting visual is what I will call “the falling-man” shot…which was very reminiscent of 9-11 and therefore was loaded with uncomfortable but insightful symbolism.

What is most interesting to me about the rather uninteresting The Greatest Beer Run Ever though, is that Farrelly was attempting to make somewhat of an anti-war movie in an age when anti-war movies are so rare as to be extinct. The reason for this is two-fold…first, the Pentagon and intelligence community control Hollywood and the messages about the military and war that it produces – and anti-war sentiment is not on their agenda. This manifests in movies and tv shows like Top Gun: Maverick and Seal Team getting made and movies like Oliver Stone’s long planned project on the My Lai massacre not finding funding. Secondly, the anti-war movement in America, along with Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party and the rest of the populist movements of both left and right, have been successfully co-opted and crushed by the establishment, resulting in the anti-war movement being virtually non-existent today.  

Anti-war sentiment is now anathema in America, as liberals – long the vanguard in anti-war movements, have been so easily conditioned to demand blood lust, most notably against Russia. The same liberals I marched with against the Iraq war in 2003 are now ignoring the War in Yemen and demanding all-out war in Ukraine – up to and including nuclear war, and unthinkingly regurgitate vapid establishment propaganda like children reciting their A-B-C’s.

If you apply logic and dare to question establishment propaganda, like the obvious inanities of the Ghost of Kiev, or the Snake Island buffoonery, or the less obvious but equally dubious claims of the Bucha massacre, or the supposed Russian rape camps, or you speak out against the U.S. escalating the war by sending billions upon billions of dollars to Ukraine (in the form of weaponry) and sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines, you’ll be reflexively tarred and feathered as a shill or stooge for Putin.

People have become deathly allergic to context (and thinking), so if you point out the fact that the U.S. instigated the illegal coup in Ukraine in 2014 ,and later broke the Minsk Peace agreements, and point out the fact that Ukraine killed 14,000 ethnic Russians (who were Ukrainian citizens) in the Donbas in the eight years after the coup, and that the Ukrainian government is riddled with fascists who banned the Russian language and shut down media outlets and opposing political parties, you’re just a useful idiot on Putin’s payroll.

This sort of shallow, simple-minded, historically illiterate, Manichean, knee-jerk jackassery used to be what liberals called out on the right and righteously fought against, but now liberals act exactly like flag-waving, McCarthy-ite right-wingers demanding all those with opposing views slavishly obey the establishment line or be branded a traitor or Russian sympathizer, or both. These empty-headed, emotionalist liberal fools are afflicted with the same disease they used to fight against, and are completely blind to their reactionist Russo-phobic conditioning.

The co-opting of the anti-war left by neo-con war mongers and neo-liberal corporatists is a calamity and will be catastrophic for the health of our nation, and may well lead to another world war and all of us to a fiery death.

On that less than pleasant note, let’s return to an equally unpleasant but much less important topic…The Greatest Beer Run Ever.

In more skilled and gifted-hands The Greatest Beer Run Ever could have made salient points on these weighty and vital issues and held a mirror up to reveal the madness that has engulfed America and its anti-anti-war discourse and actions. But unfortunately, Peter Farrelly lacks the needed craft, talent and courage to make such a meaningful movie, and instead churns out this flaccid, flimsy, D-level nonsense that will come and go with no one noticing.

The bottom line is that The Greatest Beer Run ever is a missed opportunity, and you would be wise to miss it too.

©2022

James Gunn's Shockingly Unwoke 'Peacemaker' Finale

After demeaning and berating white men for the first seven episodes, in the season one conclusion, James Gunn flips the script.

This article contains spoilers for the season one finale of ‘Peacemaker’!!

The first season of James Gunn’s ‘Peacemaker’, the HBO Max series which follows the travails of the flag-waving, meat-headed DC superhero Peacemaker, played by John Cena, came to a somewhat surprising conclusion.

After the series spent the first seven, and the majority of the eighth and final episode, painting all white-men as, at best, adolescent buffoons, and at worst, unrepentantly racist and psychopathic Nazis, and all minorities and women as smart, savvy and tough, the show’s climax was downright shocking.

In the final episode, Peacemaker and his band of misfit special agents head to a farm to try and stop a giant alien caterpillar, which is the lone food source for a large population of alien butterflies that are embedding themselves in powerful people on earth, from being teleported to a safe location, thus ensuring that these butterflies take over the planet.

After a long battle scene, Peacemaker and the lead butterfly named Goff, which has embedded itself in an Asian-American female police officer Sophie (Annie Chang), stop fighting and talk.

Goff pleads with Peacemaker to help the aliens because they left their planet due to global warming, and have come to earth not seeking conquest but to save the planet from the same environmental calamity.

In Goff’s passionate monologue she rails against climate change deniers and those who “ignore science”, as well as the plethora of Neanderthals that see “minor inconveniences as assaults on their freedom” instead of as a way to save the planet. In our current age of Covid, this harangue by Goff sounds very familiar.

Peacemaker ponders Goff’s appeal, and it certainly seems like he’s going to be won over. As a viewer, I was rolling my eyes as I fully expected Peacemaker to follow the Hollywood blueprint and be fully redeemed through embracing the fight against climate change, a staple in storytelling in recent years.

But then, much to my surprise, Peacemaker shoots and kills Goff and uses a voice-controlled Peacemaker helmet being worn by Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), a black lesbian woman on his team, to use her as a missile that he launches into the giant caterpillar, killing it and ending the alien butterfly threat.

In the aftermath, Peacemaker helps Adebayo out of the caterpillar corpse, then picks up and carries his wounded, hard-nosed feminist compatriot Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and carries her to the hospital, but not before cursing out the Justice League.

At the hospital, as Peacemaker awaits word on Harcourt’s condition, he second-guesses himself and asks Adebayo, “Did I just kill the world?”

Adebayo responds, “Maybe you just gave us a chance to make our own choices instead of our bug overlords.”

She then asks him, “Why did you choose not to help? Because of your proto-fascist, libertarian idea of freedom?”

Peacemaker replies, “Because I knew they’d hurt you and the others if I did (help them).”

In the context of the show, which I often found amusing despite its incessant woke preening regarding the evils of white men and the glories of everybody else, Peacemaker’s ultimate heroism was a stunner.

Equally stunning was the inherent admission from creator James Gunn that all the woke preaching in the previous seven episodes was a pose. Peacemaker may have a “proto-fascist, libertarian idea of freedom”, but he wasn’t a bad guy or a racist or misogynist, it was the bevy of snarky minorities and women around him that projected racism and misogyny onto his buffoonish and brutish personality.

The bottom line was that it was Peacemaker, the questionable white guy, who not only saved the day, but revealed himself to be considerably stronger mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically, than all of the women and minorities who berated him for his barbarity throughout. And these women, like Adebayo and Harcourt, grew to love Peacemaker for who he is, and no longer hated him for what he wasn’t, and for the reflexive wokeness that he lacked.

In a way, this conclusion paints Peacemaker as the embodiment of the famous Jack Nicholson speech from the film ‘A Few Good Men’, where his Colonel Jessup declares, “You can’t handle the truth!...we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You?...You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know…and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall.”

Peacemaker may be an idiot and a jackass, but the woke brigade on the show need him on that wall, as he is not only able, but willing, to do what needs to be done, and those that ridicule him for his prehistoric cultural politics are ultimately grateful for him because only he can keep them safe.

The irony of it all is that it’s uncouth, brutal men like Peacemaker, with their “libertarian ideas of freedom”, who do the nasty, dirty work that create the protected, safe spaces where the decadence of racial and feminist wokeness can be born and thrive.

‘Peacemaker’ isn’t a perfect series, and James Gunn’s writing and directing style can be grating at times, but to his and the show’s credit, Gunn cleverly turned the usual woke politics of entertainment on its head with ‘Peacemaker’s’ conclusion, which was a refreshing change in the suffocatingly uniform cultural politics of Hollywood.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota : Episode 57 - Spider-Man: No Way Home

Barry and I show off our new technical and audio prowess in this scintillating episode that is the season three premiere of everybody's favorite cinema podcast. The film discussed on this glorious episode is blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home. The wide ranging discussion touches upon such diverse topics as the Sony-Disney soon to be not-so-civil war, good guy Andrew Garfield, stealing from the Dennis Hopper film Colors, and dreams of The Flash and Jack Nicholson's price to reprise the Joker.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota : Episode 57 - Spider-Man: No Way Home

Thanks for listening!

©2021

Transit: A Review

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

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT - Cinephiles should definitely check out this meditation on fascism, but be forewarned, this is a very “foreign” film so those not accustomed to such unconventional storytelling might want to skip it.

Language: German and French with English subtitles

Transit, written and directed by Christian Petzold and based upon Anna Segher’s 1942 novel of the same name, is set in modern times and follows the journey of Georg, a German trying to escape Fascists as their totalitarian reach stretches out of the Fatherland and across France. The film stars Franz Rogowski as Georg, with supporting turns from Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Barbara Auer, Maryam Zaree and Ronald Kukulies.

Transit is a fascinating and politically prophetic and potent film that masterfully creates the visceral experience of modern world where fascism reigns supreme. The film is based upon Anna Segher’s novel about the Holocaust, but in its more modern setting it is equally chilling. The suffocating sense of impending and unstoppable doom that permeates this movie makes setting this story in modern times all the more chilling because it seems so effortlessly believable. The archetypal energy currently on the rise across the globe (and whether we want to acknowledge it or not, in our own hearts) is that of the fascist, and in the long shadow of the fascist, fear, isolation and resignation grow like poison mushrooms. Transit tells the story of those under the boot of fascism and the attempt to balance primal instincts to survive against the spiritual need for human connection and love.

Director Christian Petzold’s strength in this film is in making fascism feel tangible and palpable. The ominous sense of danger that Petzold conveys in this film, be it with a simple siren, screeching tires, a women on a street corner pointing or refugees refusing to look each other in the eye, is electric.

Petzold’s minimalism in respect to creating this menace is magnificent. By not physically transforming the world in which we live, but simply distorting our perception of it, Petzold makes the fascist threat feel immediate, intimate and personalized.

On one level, Transit reminded me of Michelangelo Antonioni’s intriguing film The Passenger (1975), in that it deals with a man stealing the identity of a dead man and having to face the repercussions of that act. In Transit, Georg assumes the identity of a dead writer in order to escape Paris as it comes under the perilous grip of the fascists.

Georg’s escape out of Paris leads him on a odyssey that reveals his external desperation to survive and his internal yearning to maintain humanity at all costs. The fascist menace forces Georg to fight this battle between his instinct and his humanity, where he must choose what kind of man he is and what kind of life he will lead.

Transit, which is in French and German with English subtitles, is a decidedly foreign film in that it does not conform to Hollywood conventions. This eschewing of storytelling convention can be somewhat frustrating for the uninitiated or for those not prepared for it, so consider yourself warned. Understand that this film is really about the pressures of living, or trying to live, under the toxic cloud of fascism, and how the existential fear of obliteration at the hands of totalitarians turns people upside down to the point where they behave emotionally and in ways that seem irrational to those on the outside. Seeing the film through this lens will hopefully help make any moments in the film that seem unclear or unrealistic much more palatable.

As for the cast, Franz Rogowski does stellar work as the conflicted Georg. Rogowski is Joaquin Phoenix’s German doppleganger, cleft lip scar included. Rogowski even has the same energy as Phoenix and he carries that burdensome darkness and despair with him through this film like an iron cross on the road to his Golgotha. Rogowski’s intensity is heightened by his silence and stillness, which are filled with a vibrant intentionality that acutely convey his internal struggle.

The ever luminous Paula Beer (last seen in the Oscar nominated Never Look Away) plays Marie, a mysterious beauty who keeps stumbling into Georg on his journey. Beer is a captivating and dynamic screen presence whose Maria is a compelling cauldron of regret, determination and despondency that never falls into caricature or fails to surprise.

The rest of the cast all do solid work, particularly Barbara Auer as a steely architect turned maid, in creating the atmosphere of maddening, dehumanizing and frantic fear that descends upon those under the thumb of a fascist threat.

In conclusion, Transit is not for everyone as its unconventionality can be at times unsatisfying, but for those who make the leap, they have the chance to be rewarded with a film that isn’t perfect but that is rich in psychological drama and political poignancy. My recommendation is for cinephiles who enjoy foreign film to definitely see Transit in the theatres. For those with less sophisticated film tastes, maybe start by watching Antonioni’s The Passenger, it stars Jack Nicholson and can be pretty challenging but is a good place to dip your toe into the water. If you like that then it is worth giving Transit a shot when it becomes available on Netflix/Amazon or Cable because even if you end up thinking the movie fails as entertainment, you may find that it succeeds as prophecy.

©2019

Casting the Comey Affair

Estimated Reading Time : 6 minutes 38 seconds

Due to a very, very serious, dare I say, life-threatening illness (a chest cold!), I have not been able to keep my not-so-adoring public up to date on my feelings regarding the goings on in Washington, Hollywood and the world these past few weeks. I was unable to cover the Comey hearing, the British election and now missed the Sessions hearing. Due to a truly heroic effort on my part, I was able to read a bit about all of those proceedings in my weakened state, and even saw some clips on the television. Of course, any insights I may have been able to provide are long past their used by date, once again proving I am a day late and many dollars short. 

That said, I am not completely without some relevant thoughts. For instance, the thing that instantly occurred to me as I watched the coverage of Comey's testimony was, "who is going to play him in the movie?". I promise you there are some Hollywood suits who are plotting a film or miniseries about all of these made-for-tv political events. So I put on my sleazy producer hat and started thinking right along with them. I came up with multiple casts for the film I have titled "The Comey Affair". 

Some are Oscar bait, some are box office beasts, some are desperate wannabes and some are quick money grabs, but all of them are being contemplated by some fat cat in an office here in Hollywood…I promise you that. So sit back, relax, and enjoy inhabiting the mind of a Hollywood power broker!!

Here are the films.

STAR EDITION : THE A-LIST

Directed by Steven Spielberg, and typical of his films, his "The Comey Affair" will have lots of flag waving and swelling music. The establishment media will lap it up and heap praise upon it no end, but in reality the movie will be as awful as Bridge of Spies or Lincoln…which is really, really, really awful. 

James Comey - Tom Hanks : Of course Tom Hanks plays Comey. Hanks is incapable of playing any other character but a condescendingly noble and morally and ethically impeccable man with a heart of gold, and so it is with his rendition of James Comey. Think Sully, Captain Philips and Bridge of Spies guy crossed with his Saving Private Ryan character. 

Donald Trump - Jack Nicholson : This is both Nicholson's comeback and swan song. A surefire nomination for Best Supporting Actor will follow Jack's peculiar and erratic performance. Nicholson's work as Trump will be sub-par, like much of his work over the last thirty years, but he'll be rewarded anyway because Hollywood likes their icons to go out on top. Jack's Trump will be a combination of his Whitey Bulger-esque character in The Departed and Nicholson himself.

Mike Pence - George Clooney : Clooney will co-produce along with Hanks and Spielberg, so he'll play Pence in order to boost box office. He will do his usual lackluster, smirky work but will be taken seriously for some mysterious reason. The media will fawn all over George as he recounts one of the myriad of impotent pranks he pulls on his adoring co-stars. Oh, George, you cad.

Jeff Sessions - Kevin Spacey : Spacey will do little more than reprise his House of Cards character Frank Underwood as Sessions with some Keyser Soze mixed in. Spacey will no doubt try and talk Spielberg into letting Sessions have a scene where he sings, hopefully he will be thwarted. Bottom line is that Spacey will chew scenery and try and upstage his esteemed colleagues…hell…maybe it'll work. 

Melania Trump - Julia Roberts : Roberts, like Nicholson, is using this role as a comeback of sorts. She wants to get back into the Oscar discussion, so she tarts herself up and turns Erin Brockovich into an aging Eastern European model. Her accent will be atrocious, but her push up bra will earn a Best Supporting nomination. Robert's work with Clooney on the media tour blitz will be vital in attracting the insufferably vacuous Clinton Cult Feminist audience. GIRL POWER!!

Ivanka Trump - Margot Robbie : Margot Robbie will struggle with the accent as well, namely losing her Austrailian one, but, as usual, she will no doubt do stellar, and under appreciated work as Ivanka. Robbie is a solid actress, and she will tell a story with her Ivanka that will be both appealing and unsettling. 

Jared Kushner - Leo DiCaprio : Leo will make Jared into a quiet, reserved, nearly mute young man in public, but a crazed and maniacal wild man in private. Think of Leo's Jared as a cross between his Jordan Belfort character in Wolf of Wall Street, his Howard Hughes from The Aviator and Frank Abignale from Catch Me If You Can.

OSCAR EDITION

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Anderson brings an artists eye to the proceedings, making his "The Comey Affair" a mix of There Will Be Blood, The Master and Magnolia. A taut and tense story brought to life by a stellar and sublime cast.

James Comey - Daniel Day Lewis : Lewis, a master, is tall, which is needed to play Comey, who is a towering 6-8. He also brings the skill and versatility to give the goody two shoes Comey some much needed inner life and turmoil. Lewis' Comey will be a cross between his Bill The Butcher in Gangs of New York, his Abraham Lincoln in the aptly titled Lincoln, and his Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, and will be much more interesting than Comey himself.

Donald Trump - Brendan Gleeson : Gleeson is an often over-looked great actor. His subtle work and physical pseudo resemblance to Trump will make his performance as the President Oscar worthy. Gleeson's artistic furnace burns hot, and when put into the container of Donald Trump, will be down right combustible. 

Mike Pence - Gary Oldman : Oldman, like Gleeson, is an under-appreciated genius, and his Pence will have the exterior of his George Smiley from Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, and the toxic inner life of Oldman's electric Sid Vicious. Oldman's Pence will be a ferocious wolf in delicate sheep's clothing.

Jeff Sessions - Chris Cooper : Cooper never fails to flesh out his character in the most insightful of ways, and his Sessions will no doubt be reminiscent of his closeted American Beauty character. Defiance and vindictiveness wrapped in the sing-song charm of the Old South.

Melania Trump - Cate Blanchett :  Blanchett's Melania is the beauty and the brains behind The Donald. Always at least three steps ahead of everyone else, Blanchett's Melania is playing chess, while Donald plays checkers. She let's everyone think she is a prop, but the reality is that she is the only one who knows how to manage the man-child that is her husband. 

Ivanka Trump - Jennifer Lawrence : Lawrence dazzles as Trump's darling daughter, bringing her to life with a mixture of her Rosalyn Rosenfeld from American Hustle and Joy Mangano from the accurately titled Joy. The dynamics between Ivanka and Melania in this film are both toxic and combustible. 

Jared Kushner - Ryan Gosling : Gosling's Kushner is an amalgam of his Dan Dunne from Half Nelson, Dean from Blue Valentine and Jared Vennet from The Big Short, and gives Jared a depth that he undoubtedly lacks. Struggling to keep up with Ivanka, Gosling's Jared bites off more than he can chew, and gets in way over his head with the Russians.

STANDARD STUDIO VERSION

Directed by Some Studio Hack, this film will get lots and lots of hype, but will be terribly uneven because it is little more than a reenactment of events rather than an artistic pursuit. It will make a ton of money though, and God knows that is all that matters. It will run almost continuously on HBO once it is out of the theaters.

James Comey - Ben Affleck : Affleck has dark hair…so he's perfect as Comey! Or so the thinking goes with the Einsteins running Hollywood. Affleck's Comey is, not surprisingly, a bit wooden, a bit dull and a bit one dimensional….not unlike the actor himself! I'm kidding, I like Ben Affleck, but his work as Comey is less like his Batman, which I enjoy, and more like his Nick Dunne from Gone Girl, which I do not enjoy. 

Donald Trump - Matthew McConnaghey : McConnaghey sinks his teeth into The Donald and conjures up an over-the-top, make-up ridden performance that he thinks is wonderful, yet rings as hollow as his work in those atrocious Buick commercials. McConnaghey's real value will be in drumming up business for the film on the media tour, something at which he is very good. Alright, alright, alright!

Mike Pence - Liev Schrieber : Schrieber's Pence is just as quiet as the real man, but considerably more menacing. I would enjoy an entire film devoted to Schrieber's portrayal of Pence, but sadly, he is a bit player in this Hollywood monstrosity. 

Jeff Sessions - Scott Glenn : Glenn gives Sessions a complicated humanity, which is a sign of his great skill as an actor, but completely at odds with reality. Underused in the film, Glenn's talents are squandered in favor of more generic characterizations.

Melania Trump - Nicole Kidman : Kidman goes all in and gives an Oscar worthy performance as Trump's conflicted trophy wife. Sadly, Kidman's great work is overshadowed by a shallow script and her co-star McConnaghey's Trumpian histrionics. Much like her marriage to Tom Cruise, Kidman deserves a much better fate.

Ivanka Trump - Brie Larson : Larson is out of place as Ivanka, and struggles to find any sense and rhythm with her performance, sort of like her work in Kong : Skull Island. But thankfully Larson is still able to let Casey Affleck know she disapproved of his winning an Oscar…a show of true courage…so there's that.

Jared Kushner - Emile Hirsch : Hirsch is an inconsistent actor, but he conjures up his best work as Kushner, combining his Christopher McCandless from Into The Wild and Johnny Truelove from Alpha Dog to create a luminous portrait of the enigmatic son-in-law.

BAD IDEA/STAR VERSION THAT MOST DEFINITELY MIGHT GET MADE

Directed by some low level guy desperate for a shot at the big time, but he…and it is always a HE…is hired for the sole purpose of being Tom Cruise's lackey. The film spends more than 100 times its budget on marketing…and the film reflects that. 

James Comey - Tom Cruise : Cruise is more than a foot shorter than Comey, but even when the sign says you must be this tall to ride, Cruise never lets that stop him (Jack Reacher). Cruise turns Comey into someone who runs a lot, he is either being chased, or chases after things a great deal, for no apparent reason, but Cruise likes to run in his movies so he demands it happen. More Border Collie than FBI director, Cruise's Comey is a cross between Brian Flanagan from Cocktail and Daniel Kaffee from A Few Good Men. As short as Cruise is, he seems even smaller playing Comey.

Donald Trump - Nic Cage : Cage envisions his Trump as his chance for a big comeback and goes all in. Covered in make-up, he gives a distractingly horrible performance, sort of a cross between…well…actually just like everything else he's ever done. Over-the-top and bombastic, with all the subtlety of an Elvis impersonator, Cage does the nearly impossible when he sinks even lower in the eyes of critics.

Mike Pence - Emilio Estevez : Estevez gives a nuanced, thoughtful and remarkably poignant performance as Mike Pence, and absolutely no one notices because he's Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise and Nic Cage are on set. 

Jeff Sessions - Nathan Lane : Lane plays Sessions as almost identical to his character in The Birdcage, which delights liberals everywhere, and infuriates Trump and Sessions.  

Melania Trump - Emily Ratajkowski : Radakoski is much too young to play Melania, but no one cares because she does numerous nude scenes and everyone forgets about how awful this film is for a few, brief, glorious moments. 

Ivanka Trump - Emma Watson : Watson's Ivanka is Hermione without the wand...which is a pretty accurate portrayal of Trump's most favored off-spring.

Jared Kushner - Taylor Lautner : Lautner's Kushner takes his shirt off in nearly every scene, even the ones in the Oval Office. There is usually no rhyme or reason why he does it, he just does it, and it seems completely appropriate. Lautner, just like Kushner himself, is not allowed to speak in the film, only take his shirt off and do pull-ups. 

WILD CARDS

And now…some out of the box choices that could be very interesting if they were given the chance. Along with some interesting directors like Steve McQueen, Gus Van Sant, David Fincher or Darren Aronofsky, these make for some intriguing combinations. 
 

James Comey - Colin Firth : Firth doesn't look like Comey, but he is a master craftsmen as an actor, and he could flesh out the lanky G-man's  more conflicted and complex inner life as well as any actor out there.

Donald Trump - Sean Penn : Penn would have to wear a lot of make-up, but he could be phenomenal in the role. Penn's commitment and volatile energy would be mesmerizing to see as Trump. Especially opposite Daniel Day Lewis' Comey.

Donald Trump - Al Pacino : Pacino could capture the essence of Trump perfectly, the braggadocio, the bluster, the hollowness. Pacino at his best could even make Trump a sympathetic character, which would be a Herculean task, but a fascinating one to watch.

Melania Trump - Angelina Jolie : Angelina would be a brilliant choice, a powerful, beautiful and wise woman stuck being a trophy wife to a buffoon who is the most powerful man in the world. This role could spark Jolie's artistic renaissance.

Melania Trump - Amy Adams : Adams is able to portray an existential sadness and melancholy that is so captivating it mesmerizes, and Melania may be one of the saddest and most melancholy women walking the planet. A daring casting choice, but one that I think would pay off "Big League".

Mike Pence - Kenneth Branagh : Branagh could play Pence's false humility and stifled arrogance to perfection. Pence isn't so much King Henry V, but someone who thinks of themselves as Henry V.

Jeff Sessions - Mark Rylance : Rylance has a soft energy to him, but it conceals the fire breathing lion in his belly, which is just like Sessions, the southern gentlemen, who would eat his own young in order to gain power.

Ivanka Trump - Saoirse Ronan : Ronan is as good as it gets as an actress, and her Ivanka would no doubt be an intriguing and layered performance that would reveal more about Trump's iconic daughter than even Ivanka is aware.

Jared Kushner - Joaquin Phoenix : Phoenix would instantly make Jared a very complicated, troubled and captivating character to behold. Phoenix would make the Prince of Trumpdom one part Freddie Quell from The Master, and two parts Commodus from Gladiator. A daring, and original piece of casting that would elevate any film bold enough to undertake it.

DISASTERS IN WAITING

Here are some really bad ideas for casting this film, that are most certainly being considered by the morons running Hollywood. 

James Comey - Colin Farrell : The studio wants a star and no one else will sign on, so they go with Farrell because, just like Comey he has dark hair!! I like Colin Farrell, but this is a catastrophe waiting to happen. 

James Comey - Brad Garrett : Garrett is very tall, maybe even taller than Comey himself, so you know some studio dope thinks he is the "right fit" to play the part. Of course, Garrett is also the opposite of Comey in every single way and completely ill-prepared for the acting challenge portraying him would bring. That said, it would be wonderfully unintentionally funny.

Donald Trump - John Travolta : Travolta would think this is his ticket back to the big time so he would ham it up to the extreme, just like he did on the People v. OJ Simpson as Robert Shapiro. This would be just another opportunity for Travolta to embarrass himself…and I am sure he would take it.

Donald Trump - John Goodman : Goodman is adored by Hollywood for some weird reason, so he'll get a shot to audition for the role. And even if he's terrible, which he will be, they still might give him the gig because, hey…he's John Goodman!

Jeff Sessions - James Spader : Spader would bring his usual smugness to the role and little else, but damn, he is really good at smugness!!

Melania Trump - Sofia Vergara : Vergara has an accent and wears skimpy clothes, so she'd be perfect as Melania, or so the thinking goes. But the fact that she has a Latina accent and looks as Eastern European as Oprah Winfrey will not stop Hollywood from casting her.

Ivanka Trump - Juliana Hough : Finally, a role that will propel Hough to the stardom that Hollywood has been trying to create for her for years. The only problem is that Hough can't act and certainly couldn't bring Ivanka to life with any believability. 

Jared Kushner - Toby Maguire : Maguire's doe-eyed Kushner would be so underwhelming it might actually make the real Jared Kushner look vibrant and virile. 

BAD MADE-FOR-TV

And in conclusion…the cast of the made-for-TV version of The Comey Affair. This would most likely end up collecting dust on the Hallmark Channel.

James Comey - Josh Duhamel : Duhamel is tall…JUST LIKE COMEY!!! So he gets the part regardless of the fact that he is one of the most insipid actors walking the planet. 

Donald Trump - John Heard : Heard's work as Trump would make his dreadful performances in the Home Alone series look like Sir Laurence Olivier at his peak. To his credit, he has the physique for it. 

Mike Pence - William Peterson : Peterson has gray hair, so does Mike Pence! I actually am not sure if Peterson acts anymore as he is probably relaxing in his solid gold house and driving his rocket car…but if he wants the Pence part, it's his!

Jeff Sessions - Jim J. Bullock : Bullock has a southern accent…YOU'RE HIRED!!!

Melania Trump - Marg Helgenberger : Along with Peterson, this would be a nice reunion of the CSI gang, which might attract the older audience this tv version desires. 

Ivanka Trump - Kaley Cuoco : She stars on the number one sitcom in America!! Sign her up!!

Jared Kushner - Jim Parsons : Parson's Jared would actually be interesting to watch…of course it would be terribly written and shot so any worthwhile work he could muster would be drowned in a tidal wave of poop. 

Thus concludes my casting session for The Comey Affair…best case scenario...coming to a theatre near you Christmas Day 2017!!!! Or, worst case scenario, airing on the Hallmark channel Thanksgiving night!! 

Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars America!! We'll see you at the movies!!

©2017