Conclave: A Review - Committing a Cinematic Cardinal Sin

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

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A well-crafted and well-acted film that ultimately condemns itself to hell with an inexcusable plot twist that is so inane as to be infuriating.

Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and written by Peter Straughan (adapted from Robert Harris’ book of the same name), tells the story of Cardinal Lawrence, a man struggling with his faith who must navigate palace intrigue in the Vatican as the College of Cardinals assembles to elect a new pope.

On the surface, Conclave has a lot going for it. For example, it stars a cavalcade of top-notch actors, with Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, Stanley Tucci as Cardinal Bellini, John Lithgow as Cardinal Tremblay and Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes among the cast.

In addition, it is directed by Edward Berger, whose last film, All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), was a phenomenal, Academy Award nominated piece of work, my favorite of that year because it was so beautifully shot and masterfully executed.

On a personal note, as a Catholic myself (I’m not a good one…but I definitely am one) who has visited the Vatican on numerous occasions, I find the subject matter of a conclave in the wake of a Pope’s death, and the pomp and circumstance and politicization and jockeying for positioning that takes place, to be extraordinarily compelling.

And speaking of politics, in the wake of the US presidential election, Conclave is perfectly positioned to have something interesting to say about elections and liberals versus conservatives and the power of convictions and possibilities of backlash.

This is all to say that Conclave, which was released in the U.S. on October 25th and is still in theatres, had me in the palm of its hand even before I sat down in the theatre to watch it.

And yet…it failed to capitalize on all of its advantages and, in fact, alienated me in such a profound way with an excruciatingly egregious and inane plot twist, which I found to be a mortal moviemaking sin and entirely unforgivable.

In order to avoid spoilers, I will not reveal the specifics of the plot twist but will only say that it occurs in the final ten minutes or so of the film and is so contrived, bizarre, atrocious and appalling, and is such a grievous dramatic error, and so narratively unsound, that it ruined everything good about the film that led up to it and completely scuttled the good ship Conclave.

But besides that…how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Truthfully, it was pretty good.

The film is well shot by cinematographer Stephane Fontaine, who uses a soft light and wonderful composition to often times create scenes reminiscent of Caravaggio’s great works.

Fontaine is aided by the spectacular work of the set and costume designers who masterfully recreate the distinct look and feel of the Vatican and the Cardinals’ outfits.

In addition, the entire cast all do tremendous work.

Ralph Fiennes in particular is outstanding. His Cardinal Lawrence is the Dean of the College of Cardinals and must wrangle the Cardinals to come together to vote for a pope and make sure everything is on the up and up…and it is never quite clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

Fiennes is a supremely gifted technical actor whose skill is as good as anyone working today, and he brings all of those skills to bear as Cardinal Lawrence, a man who is struggling with his faith and his self.

An Oscar nomination, and even a win, could and should be in Fiennes future for his work in Conclave.

The supporting cast are also excellent.

Stanley Tucci is as reliable an actor as there is and he brings a subtle power to portrayal of liberal Cardinal Bellini that is enjoyable to behold. Tucci expertly embodies the illiberal liberal who is enthralled by himself more than humanity.

John Lithgow’s Cardinal Tremblay is a character that in lesser hands would’ve been forgettable, but here, Lithgow never breaks and lets the audience off the hook, so even after the film has ended, you’re still wondering if he’s a mistreated martyr or an exquisite liar.

And Isabella Rossellini has a small role as Sister Agnes, but every time she is on screen she crackles with an incandescent light and life that is undeniable.

But despite all of the magnificent artistry on display in the form of the acting, cinematography and costumes and set, Conclave commits too egregious a sin to ever be forgiven.

That sin, which is not venial sin but a mortal one, is the cheap, absurd and unearned plot twist that turns a compelling Catholic mystery and thriller into a pandering and pathetic cinematic exercise that feels like it deceived and betrayed you and stole two hours of your life.

For Catholics, Conclave will hold some appeal because it is a look behind the curtain of something familiar but still mysterious, namely the inner working of the Vatican and the conclave. In this way the film is compelling for Catholics…until the plot twist…which not just many, but I would say most, Catholics will find at best annoying, and at most infuriating (I’m in the infuriating camp).

Non-Catholics will find the majority of the film impenetrable for its disorienting maze of Catholic-ness. For example, I’m not even sure I can ask my podcast partner Barry, who is not Catholic, to watch this movie because he’s not going to know, or care, about all the Vatican and Catholic stuff that made at least the premise of the film interesting to me.

Regardless of all that, the bottom line is that I simply cannot, and will not, recommend Conclave to readers because the plot twist near the end eviscerates any artistic good the film achieved which led up to it.

If you’re interested in watching a challenging yet entertaining piece of Vatican/Pope artistry, I recommend you go back and watch The Young Pope (2014) series on HBO starring Jude Law. That overlooked, off-beat, exquisitely avant-garde series is very insightful and spiritually invigorating.

And if you’re just looking for a great story of Catholicism and Catholic priests, I highly recommend you check out Xavier Beavois’ 2010 film Of Gods and Men. It is a extraordinarily moving and spiritually insightful piece of work.

Both The Young Pope and Of Gods and Men are everything Conclave should be but ultimately isn’t. Go watch them, and skip Conclave…I certainly wish I had.

©2024

Just When You Thought Celebrities Couldn't Get Any Worse, the "I Take Responsibility" Video Comes Out

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 21 seconds

In response to America’s racial unrest, Hollywood celebrities once again feel the need to flex their virtue signaling muscles with a nauseating, self-serving video.

Unfortunately for us, Hollywood never lets a good crisis go to waste.

First there was the coronavirus pandemic.

Hollywood bravely responded to that calamity with Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot, and a cavalcade of her clueless celebrity friends putting out a video of themselves “singing” John Lennon’s saccharine anthem Imagine.

The world responded by collectively throwing up in its mouth.

With Imagine, Gadot and company appeared to have the Cringe-Worthy Video of the Year Award all wrapped up.

But then there was the police murder of George Floyd, an unarmed and handcuffed black man in Minneapolis, followed by protests, riots and looting across the country.

A new collection of entertainment industry nitwits has responded to that catastrophe with an anti-racism video titled ‘I Take Responsibility’.

Ladies and gentleman, the race for the Cringe-Worthy Video Crown has a new front-runner.

‘I Take Responsibility’ features Sarah Paulson, Aaron Paul, Kesha, Bethany Joy Lenz, Kristen Bell, Justin Theroux, Debra Messing, Mark Duplass, Bryce Dallas Howard, Julianne Moore, Piper Perabo, Stanley Tucci, Ilana Glazer, and Aly Raisman telling us they “take responsibility” and “stand against hate”.

The unintentional comedy of the video is absolutely off the charts, as it is littered with sub-textual ironies like the fact that it is shot in black and white (apparently it doesn’t see color!) and is entirely devoid of any racial or ethnic diversity.

One of the more hysterical moments is when these Hollywood dopes repeatedly tell us that they “take responsibility” for “every not so funny joke, every unfair stereotype”.

What about the funny jokes and the fair stereotypes? Who is going to take responsibility for those? Wouldn’t a video made by the people taking responsibility for the funny jokes and fair stereotypes be much more enlightening and entertaining than this dour diatribe?

Other lowlights of ‘I Take Responsibility’ are the egregiously brutal performances.

Aaron Paul, who is one of the worst actors of his, or any other, generation, strains so hard to be credible he appears to be actually moving his bowels on camera. And if you listen closely enough when he speaks, you can actually hear the wind whistle through the vacant and cavernous void where his brain should be.

Debra Messing only makes a brief appearance and seems to have been abruptly awoken from a nap to record her lines. I understand why she is so tired, as she looks like she was up all night haunting houses. Yikes.

The talented Sarah Paulson brings much-needed gravitas to the festivities in the form of ridiculously oversized glasses. As everyone knows, it is a scientifically proven fact that people who wear oversized glasses are both serious and incapable of racism…especially when they have an adorable lisp.

Academy Award winner Julianne Moore appears in the video and nobly casts hyperbole aside and tells the unvarnished truth when she adamantly declares “black people are being slaughtered in the streets!”

I’d be willing to bet that not only are the streets where Ms. Moore lives devoid of slaughtered black people, they are most likely devoid of all black people.

Stanley Tucci and Justin Theroux get in on the act by not acting at all. They are so flat and dead eyed they could’ve, and should’ve, been reading from the phone book.

Speaking of reading…by far my favorite part of the video is the fact that these actors and actresses, who literally memorize dialogue for a living (and they make a very good living), apparently care so little about “taking responsibility” and “standing against hate” that they cannot be bothered to put in the least amount of effort and memorize their idiotic mini-monologue.

This cornucopia of clowns may have set out to highlight how “not racist” they are, but instead, by obviously reading their lines, they only proved how entitled and lazy they truly are.

As I watched this train wreck I couldn’t help but wonder…who is the target audience for this thing?

The answer is self-evident, as the video is made solely for the people in it and their fellow privileged Hollywood elites who enjoy watching masturbatory displays of faux, me-first moralism.

As a not-so-proud resident of Los Angeles and an active member of both the entertainment business and the creative community, I do hereby declare that I do NOT take responsibility for anything these mindless morons vomit out onto the world.

They claim to stand against hate…how impotently and insipidly trite of them.

In contrast…I stand against virtue signaling. I stand against moral preening. I stand against the vain, vacuous and vapid pandering of elitist prigs. I stand against the shameless self-indulgence and self-righteousness of Hollywood narcissists too enthralled by their own sense of superiority to see that they are utterly and ridiculously absurd.

In conclusion, I think I speak for every sentient being in the universe when I take a knee and plead with these imbecilic celebrities to pretty, pretty please…from now on, just…Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Spotlight : A Review

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

MY RATING : SEE IT IN THE THEATRE!!

Spotlight, directed by Tom McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer, is the true story of a team of reporters from the Boston Globe's Spotlight team, who investigate and report on child sex abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston Diocese. The film stars Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, John Slattery and Liev Schrieber.

Spotlight is one of the very best films of the year. It is a tense drama, exquisitely acted by a sterling cast, deftly directed and intricately edited. Spotlight is the type of film that seems like it could have been made during cinema's golden age in the 1970's. It feels like a distant cousin of that decades All the President's Men, another story of journalism and hard-driving reporters investigating a scandal deep at the heart of a thought to be untouchable power. Interestingly enough, in Spotlight, John Slattery plays Boston Globe journalist and editor Ben Bradlee Jr., the son of famed Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, one of the key players at the Post during their Watergate reporting, who was played by Jason Robards in All the President's Men.

Even though Spotlight is set in the late 1990's and early 2000's, it is really an insightful period piece about the last days of the relevancy of newspapers, and of the dying craft of investigative journalism. The film pays homage to the last generation of journalists who will have had the opportunity to work full-time doing investigative reporting for a newspaper. Corporatism and the internet have devastated the newspaper industry, and Spotlight shows us that industry's last gasp, and what we are missing now that it is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Spotlight is also about the scourge of institutional blindness and the insidiousness of silence in the face of that blindness. The willful institutional blindness of the church, the press, the courts and law enforcement, and of the people of the city of Boston is on full display in the film. At its heart, Spotlight is really an indictment of the city and the people of Boston. Boston is one of the most parochial places you could ever imagine. For a place filled with legendary institutions of higher learning, it is remarkably narrow-minded and short-sighted. As the film shows us, the suffocating claustrophobia, knee-jerk myopia and the vicious parochialism of Boston created a toxic brew of dysfunction, arrogance and deference in which predatory priests and the Church hierarchy thrived. Only an outsider could break the spell of Boston's willful blindness, and in Spotlight that role is played by Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, a Jewish editor from Miami who is new to the city and the Globe, and not beholden to the Church. Baron is the one who instigates the Spotlight team into investigating the church and pushes them to dig deeper and reach higher up the hierarchy in their work.

When the story of Spotlight ends, and the indictment of Boston is complete, a very long list of other cities and town scrolls across the screen. These cities and towns are places where other Catholic sex abuse scandals have been uncovered, and the viewer gets the dawning realization that Spotlight isn't an indictment against the city and people of Boston, it is an indictment against all of us, no matter where we live. We are all guilty of the same blindness and cowardice, to one degree or another, on display in Spotlight.

Director Tom McCarthy and his editors do a spectacular job deftly maneuvering the viewer through the morass of the allegations and the cover up at the heart of the film. He keeps a solid and steady dramatic pace, never letting the story lose steam or the viewer lose interest. McCarthy shows a great skill in pacing and tempo throughout the film. Spotlight is littered with detailed little gems which frame and shape each scene and propel the story through the entirety of the film. McCarthy is an actor himself, and his understanding of acting is on full display in Spotlight. He keeps the scenes tight and the actors loose. McCarthy directs the drama to be  vibrant, but never pushes the pace too hard that we lose the subtlety, specificity and humanity at the heart of each of the performances.

The acting on display in the film is exquisite across the board. Even the small, local hires, playing abuse victims and local residents, hit it out of the park. This is a top-notch, professionally acted film from top to bottom. Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian D'arcy James play the Spotlight reporters perfectly. They bring a tangible sense of purpose and vivd detail to their work that drives each scene and ultimately the narrative of the entire film.

It is great to see Michael Keaton follow up his great artistic success in last years Birdman, with his solid work in Spotlight. Keaton is pitch-perfect as Walter "Robby" Robertson, a native son of Boston and well-respected journalist. I hope Keaton continues to make these kinds of choices in the projects that he chooses as he is such an asset to any film where he can bring his skill and experience to bear.

McAdams does the best work of her career as reporter Sacha Pfieffer.  McAdams is as grounded and genuine as she has ever been on screen. She displays a humanity and a compelling internal life that is both steady and captivating.

Mark Ruffalo follows up his terrific work in last years otherwise disappointing Foxcatcher, with a dynamic performance as reporter Michael Rezendes. Ruffalo brings a magnetic power and a tangible wound to the role that is mesmerizing. Ruffalo has been on a roll lately with great work and Spotlight is some of his best.

Both Liev Schreiber and Stanley Tucci have smaller roles but they do spectacular work. Both men are actors of extraordinary craft and talent, and they both bring all of their skills to bear in Spotlight. Without Schrieber and Tucci's multi-dimensional portrayals, the film would have suffered greatly.

Spotlight is the type of superbly crafted film of which I wish Hollywood would make more. Spotlight, The Big Short, which is another great film from this year, and 12 Years a Slave from 2013, all had minuscule budgets around $20 million and all of them at least more than doubled their budgets in profits. Instead of spending $100 or $200 million to make a monstrosity like The Avengers or some action piece of crap, why not take that money and make five or ten Spotlights, or The BIg Shorts or 12 Years a Slave? Those three films combined cost $60 million to make and have grossed $363 million. With moderate budgets like that, there is less risk and higher reward, as opposed to a $200 million film, which will nearly double its budget on marketing and then need to make a billion dollars just to be considered a success. Spotlight shows that good and great films can be made relatively inexpensively using just the skill, craft and talent of the people involved. I wish for all of our sakes that Hollywood would learn that lesson, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they won't. Regardless of the state of the film industry, Spotlight is proof that there are still artists out there capable of making high quality, smart films. 

In conclusion, Spotlight is one of my favorite films of the year. It teaches us hard lessons about our own cultural blindness and the price that the most vulnerable among us pay for it. It also shows us a time not long ago, when the press could, on its better days, hold those in power accountable. Those days are long gone, and Spotlight reveals to us that our culture is lesser for the loss of true investigative journalism. Spotlight is well worth your time, money and effort to go see it in the theaters. I strongly encourage you to do so. 

©2016

****WARNING, THIS FOLLOWING SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS!! THIS IS YOUR OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT****

FROM THE KONSPIRACY KORNER!!

(This section is written by my lifelong friend and our resident conspiracist, Prof. Rev. Dr. Steve Keithans a.k.a The Mayor of Westfield. The good Professor Reverend Doctor Keithans views may or may not be the same as my own, but regardless, I am happy to share them here with you now.)

The strangest thing…when speaking with my good brother Michael McCaffrey about the film Spotlight, one of the great elements that we both noticed about the film was how fantastically well paced it is. But to my eyes there was one small hiccup which stuck out to me like a sore thumb. Films have a visual style, rhythm and pace to them. Shots are consistently framed and lit in a certain style and held for a certain length creating an unconscious rhythm for the viewer of a film. Each shot informs the shot that follows it and is informed by the one that preceded it. Spotlight quickly establishes its visual rhythm and sticks with it through the entire film…except for one…single...shot.

The shot in question takes place at exactly 1 hour 23 minutes and 22 seconds of the film. The shot is of the Boston Globe parking lot as editor Mark Baron (Liev Schreiber) arrives to the office. It is a wide shot, one which we have not seen yet, nor will we see it again. We have seen this same parking lot before but only in close ups and two shots of the actors in their cars. In this shot, from a high angle wide shot, we see Baron pull his car in to the parking lot. Looming over the parking lot, and dominating the shot, is a big "AOL Anywhere" billboard and the background is the skyline of Boston. Here is a screen capture of the shot.

It is an odd shot in the context of the visual style and rhythm of the film and it is jarring to the unconscious of the viewer because it breaks that rhythm. It is pretty striking that the one shot that is out of rhythm with the entire film is that of an AOL Anywhere billboard which happens to have a giant pyramid with an all seeing eye in it. What makes the shot all the more jarring is the context of where it shows up in the film. The scene directly following this shot shows Mark Baron entering the Boston Globe office, in the foreground a group of people are gathered around a television watching breaking news. The breaking news is the 9-11 attack. Baron stops in front of the television long enough to see a jumbo jet crash into the World Trade Center. 

When I first saw the film I felt uneasy with the parking lot shot, but didn't really give it much thought. The sensation was one of slight discomfort, something just seemed off, nothing more. It was more subconscious than anything and it barely registered in my conscious mind except to say…"hmmm…that feels…off".

Upon my second viewing of the film, I was more consciously jarred by the visual anomaly, and I wondered if this was just a very unsubtle case of AOL product placement.  

Then I thought, well, maybe the director is trying to symbolically say that newspapers in general, and the Boston Globe in particular, don't know what is coming at them, the black swan theory if you will…that they are blind to their own on-coming demise in the form of AOL (the internet), much like the U.S. was blind to the 9-11 attacks. 

Then I wondered if maybe this shot has a deeper meaning that the director was not even conscious of, or maybe he was…who knows, right? Maybe the all seeing eye highlighted in that shot is symbolic of one of the shadowy "secret societies" that are known to use child sex abuse rituals when they practice their dark art. Or maybe it is symbolic of the all seeing eye of "the powers that be" in the military-intelligence-surveillance industrial complex who were either complicit or entirely behind the 9-11 attacks in order to increase their power and control by creating a "new Pearl Harbor". Or maybe those two groups, the child sex abuse ritual people, and the military-intelligence-surveillience industrial complex people are cross pollinated and are actually one in the same and this shot shows us a brief glimpse of their vast power and control…the billboard does say "AOL Everywhere" after all.

Then I wondered if maybe this shot was a secret warning from an insider of one of these groups, alerting anyone with the eyes to see that this nefarious, shadowy group was behind both the sex abuse in the Catholic church, and 9-11 and most everything we see in the media (once again…"Everywhere"). And then I wondered if this shot was indicating that another 9-11 was coming, this time aimed at Boston.

And then I wondered why my head hurt so much, and then I realized that my tinfoil hat was on way too tight. Sadly, after I removed the tinfoil hat from my head, the aching still remained…and even more unsettlingly, so did the anomaly of that shot and the all seeing eye in the pyramid looming over the city of Boston, and glaring right at me…and seeing right through me…knowing and controlling…"EVERYTHING".

©2016