PG, which is mind-blowing right now. Now I'm thinking it's the Disney name being thrown around that gets this movie the PG rating. There's some mild language, but it is really intense. Like, death is very real in this movie. There's gunplay and daring-do! The bad guys are actually pretty intense scary bad guys and it's live action. Again, I'll often play for a PG, but this one is a weird choice for PG. I would categorize it as PG-13 in a heartbeat.
DIRECTOR: Jon Turteltaub Predicament: I don't want to write today. I really don't want to write about National Treasure. I don't have any particularly strong feelings about National Treasure. It's a fine movie. Another predicament: I know that people absolutely adore this movie. I realized a while ago that a lot of people don't actually read my posts, but just click the image and say "I love that movie." After I talked about the sexually aggressive atmosphere of Swiss Family Robinson and the only comments I would get would be in the ballpark of "Oh, man! That movie's great! Thanks for posting!" I'm probably going to get into some similar trouble with National Treasure because everyone I talk to refers to this movie as one of the greats, despite the fact that it's just fine and fairly forgettable. Again, I want people to love what they love. I'm not here to ruin things. But it's going to be a bit of an effort to write a lot about National Treasure and to say anything really meaningful. For a franchise that owes so much to Indiana Jones, National Treasure does the smart thing and make it contemporary. It's all a bit silly and the very casual attitude towards the freemasons bothers me. I went to an extremely conservative Catholic university and heard horror stories about the freemasons. Those were our campfire tales. But at the root of National Treasure probably lies what is blatantly there in the title: a sense of patriotism. In my look at Mission: Impossible 2, I have this theory that the progression of film would have been very different had there been no 9/11. The late '90s and early-2000s were such an aggro period for film. Everything wanted to be The Matrix and it looked like nothing was going to slow that down. But National Treasure --and this is a criminally goofy thesis --may be the first example of contemporary cinema tonally of this era. I mean, even National Treasure might be a bit dated at this point. It's 2020 and this was made in 2004. But look at the colors and brightness of this big budget action film. Compare it to those other movies I mentioned. There's nothing fundamentally cynical about National Treasure. I was noticing the weird silver linings that come out of tragedy. National Treasure is a response to a broken America coming together to be patriotic. If you tried making this four years earlier, this movie probably would have been laughed at pretty hard. National Treasure is an attempt to make the Hall of Presidents from Epcot Center as a movie. I know that I should be throwing in the Smithsonian, but National Treasure is Disney's version of American history. There's something a little rad about the whole thing. The Smithsonian is rad as well, but it doesn't really feel the need to sexy-up America. It flirts with America as is. But this is the post Pirates of the Caribbean Disney. They realized that live-action, toeing-the-line-of-PG-13 adventure films is the way to grab those older audiences. Imagine being Disney and there's this big tragedy that is affecting America, having the Pirates tone ready to go and then just combine the national mood with your original formula. It kind of makes itself. Yet, there's nothing fundamentally gross about National Treasure. There was a danger there. This is still in the era of healthy patriotism, not Operation Gridlock patriotism. (I can't believe I live in this country. Yeah, I'm pretty bitter right now.) Part of me wants to ascribe that perfect version of American history that Benjamin Franklin Gates believes that into a precursor into what we have today. But this is more Americana than it is traditionaly patriotism. Maybe that's dangerous, but it reads more Rockwellian than anything else. In terms of themes of the actual film, there's something really meta and self-conscious happening in the movie. The conflict begins when Gates calls Ian (Sean Bean just continuing his 006 performance) out on wanting to steal the Declaration of Independence. Part of this has to be blamed on marketing, but Gates has to steal the Declaration of Independence. I'm not talking about narratively. It is the central conceit of the film and this moment, when Gates lectures Ian, brings up some interesting questions. In this moment, Ian is kind of right. He's evil because of his goal is ultimately selfish while Gates is doing the same action, with an altruistic attitude. This brings up questions about the nature of the action. National Treasure, in a weird way, plays the hypothetical moral question as a central premise to the movie. It brings up something unimaginable and imbued with value beyond its making: the Declaration of Independence. Like many hypothetical situations, it forces the dynamic into a black-and-white fallacy. Gates tries warning everyone that the Declaration would be stolen. No one listens to him, despite the fact that he has pretty specific details about how and why it would happen. I want to attack the movie for forcing a black-and-white binary on the film, but then I also realized that America would be entering the era of questioning national intelligence at this point in history. In 2003 / 2004, I'm pretty sure that there was evidence that there were tips that Al Qaida would be prepping for the attacks on the World Trade Center. But I also think that the movie takes a little bit of a shortcut to get where it needs to be. It has this really over the top premise and it just gets to the goods. America is after Benjamin Franklin Gates and it is ignoring the real problem. This conflict works for the film. It's great that we have an Enemy of the State situation, which I also have to imagine is a Jerry Bruckheimer thing. I don't knwo why I like the idea that the protagonist has this ovewhelming problem that he has to solve, but he's also on the run as well. I imagine that people love the idea of the illuminati. With National Treasure, the movie offers a nicer, more palatable version of the Illuminati. There's something terribly whimsical about the forefathers building underground palaces and using clues to keep national secrets. But it's interesting if I am making the comparison to the Indiana Jones movies. When we watch an Indiana Jones movie, there are all these absurd puzzles. It seems like these primitives had these absurd connections to the universe. The gold halls would always be juxtaposed to the simplicity of a jungle or a desert. However, National Treasure has its cake and eats it too (it's been a while since I've thrown that old chestnut around). The founding fathers were both geniuses and civilized. While watching the movie, it seems like the founding fathers were so complicated and deep. But while writing this, I wonder why the secrecy. I know the movie offers explanations. But it seems like banks would probably be more of a smart move. Yeah, I know. No FDIC. But it seems like the value of this magnificent treasure (which is kind of a lazy prize on the part of the screenwriters) is only boosted by the idea of its secrecy. Like, who would be able to redeem this treasure if everything is buried deeper and deeper? The purpose of the treasure was to give America this great economic reserve. But the very nature of hiding it this intensely defeats the purpose of even having a treasure, right? National Treasure is a fun movie and totally doesn't deserve this level of scrutiny. If you are watching the movie and thinking about this stuff, you probably missed the point. But the more you think about it, the less the movie works. Who cares though? It's really long, but keeps your attention for the majority of the movie.
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Literally Anything: The Podcast -Episode Eighty-Two: The Coronavirus Quarantine Spectacular4/15/2020 It's a miracle! The Literally Anything podcast is back for an episode to help you get through your quarantine. Stay safe, stay healthy, and listen to what the boys have been absorbing for the past school year.
Episode 82 is a go! http://literallyanything.net/blog/2020/4/8/episode-82-literally-the-corona-virus-spectacular PG-13 for language, action, and crude humor. I can't use my six-year-old as a litmus test anymore. He was perfectly fine with all of the terrifying things in Jumanji: The Next Level, but got freaked out by a black eye in The Wizard. He's off the table for measuring if something is too scary for little kids. Like Welcome to the Jungle, there's lots of scary CG terrors. But the big thing I get uncomfortable with is the language and the sex jokes. It's got a PG-13 rating for a reason. But my kid really likes movies about video games and I'm a weak parent during quarantine. PG-13.
DIRECTOR: Jake Kasdan It's funnier! I get what everyone digs about Kevin Hart. He's *ahem* NEXT LEVEL funny! I'm ashamed of it, but not enough to hit backspace or refuse to share this. I read one review from Gamestop that said this movie was dumb. You know what, cynical GameStop? You were super casual about Coronavirus, so I'm going to disregard what you have to say about Jumanji: The Next Level. (Okay, there's at least two logical fallacies right there, but I'm really struggling to get started today, so forgive them.) From an entirely evaluative perspective, I may have liked Jumanji: The Next Level more than Welcome to the Jungle. I really liked Welcome to the Jungle, so I don't know which way is up at this point. These were movies that I had completely written off and thought that they were going to be dumb. I won't ever say that they are smart movies, because they are pretty basic. But there is a lot to enjoy. These are well paced movies with charismatic actors who really get comic timing. There's an engaging story throughout. It's kind of like a low-stakes superhero movie. It's a better video game movie than actual video game movies. Maybe because there's no source material to tie it to. The movies have so long ago abandoned the children's book that it has become its own beast. But this concept is a fun one. But since I gush, I do have to look at it with a critical eye. There's going to be some blurred lines between the analysis portion of this and the evaluative portion. That's nothing new, but I do want to get it out there. The problem with sequels is that you have to have characters either stagnate or grow. I'm a big advocate of having characters grow instead of retreading the same old character flaws that they had in the first movie. The Next Level does some good things with this idea, but also goes into some really dangerous territory. The side characters have all maintained a sense of healthy growth from the first film. Martha, Bethany, and Fridge all kept their growth from the first film. That's great and it works really well with the film. Because Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black can all technically play different characters in the same franchise, it gives them something new to do. But Spencer? Man, that's a really dangerous choice to make without having consequences. Spencer decided to stay the same. While everyone in the first film learned about their character flaws, Spencer is still the same insecure butthead he was in the first film. I give Kasdan a small free pass on this one because it is teased in the first film. At the end of Welcome to the Jungle, Spencer is the one who wants to stay inside the game. It's really weird because he's the protagonist. But in this film, by having Spencer willingly repair the game kind of puts him on the path to villainy. Think about this: Spencer finds self-worth in the video game. It's this silver lining to a horrible situation. All of the people he cares about almost died. To enter the game the first time was an accident that brought them all together. But Spencer, desperate for that love and adulation, goes into the game again because he got a high from it. He's basically putting a gun to his friends' heads and demanding that they love him again; that it be like old times again. That's really uncomfortable. I'm going to go into a problematic analogy, but it works for me. Think about that level of patriotism and unity that happened after 9/11. 9/11 was awful and no one wishes that anything like that happened again. But again, there was a silver lining. What Spencer is doing is that same thing. You could argue that Spencer never intended to get his friends involved. I may be remembering this poorly, but I feel there was a line that Spencer said that he never intended to get anyone else trapped in the game. But he also knew that it was a game that only worked with other players cooperating. The franchise clearly establishes that Jumanji doesn't work as a one player game. This creates an even more troubling scenario. It's either that A) Spencer wants to rekindle his friendships through video game superiority, putting everyone at risk or B) he commits suicide for a virtual heaven. The movie giving him a stern warning on either case is a big problem. The movie acknowledges that Spencer is in the wrong with this act. But the tonal comedy for the film kind of lets him off the hook because they never verbalize why it's wrong. I totally admit that if this scene happened, it would kill the film. It would be a huge bummer to talk about Spencer and his evil or Spencer and his clear depression. But the movie was so desperate to get these characters back into the game that it kind of violated the rules of storytelling. Again, I would adore to have that moment where Spencer is called out on his B.S., but that would kind of stand in the way of having Kevin Hart doing an amazing Danny Glover impression for the majority of the film. Secretly, I may simply love this movie for Kevin Hart's Danny Glover impression. There's nothing really wrong with anything else in the movie, with the exception of Dwayne Johnson / Karen Gillan's Danny DeVito impression being pretty generic. But the old people playing video games conceit works so darned well. I could honestly watch a whole 'nother movie with that dynamic happening. It just has a lot of legs and I never got bored of that joke. But I was mentioning the genius that is Jumanji as a franchise. This movie proved that you could get big name actors coming back to technically play the same parts over and over again, and give them something to play with. While I don't know if Jack Black nailed the woke Bethany, the movie sells. It's a bummer that Karen Gillan still has to play Martha, but the rest of the movie slaps completely. It's so fun seeing these characters in the same outfits in a similar situation, but acting completely differently and it makes sense. It's never really overwhelmed by its central conceit. I went from hating the idea of these movies to absolutely loving them. It's funny that I write all these negative things about a movie that I enjoyed more than the first one, but that Spencer thing is dark the more I think about it. The fact that this had to happen to Spencer may be a criticism of how the entire thing shouldn't have a sequel. I had to add mythology to Jumanji because mythology for a light-hearted franchise always drags the movies down into misery, but there have to be other ways to get these characters to interact. Regardless, I dug this movie so hard. I did embarrassing Dad laughs throughout. R for violence, language, and nudity. A lot of language and a lot of nudity. Let's just attach sexual content to that nudity. It's a pretty risque movie. There's also drug use, but it is shown in an negative / unbeatable light. According to Dolemite is My Name, it prided itself on how much it could push questionable content. It's got everything in spades. This is beyond fast-forwarding. It's pretty consistent throughout the film. That being said, it's not like it transcends offensiveness. It just is fairly consistent throughout.
DIRECTOR: D'Urville Martin I told you! I felt like a fraud! I couldn't be talking about Dolemite is My Name without watching the source material. And it was free on Tubi! Tubi means commercials, but not as many as I thought that there would be. I can't watch IMDb's video streaming service because of the commercials. But Tubi kept it pretty mild and it had a bunch of Dolemite movies. The long and short: would I watch more Dolemite? That's kind of a loaded question. Dolemite has the reputation of being kind of a cult film. When I worked at Thomas Video, I remember seeing all the Rudy Ray Moore stuff in the cult area. Our cult section was a bit overwhelming. It's really hard to browse a cult section in a video store. Much like actual cults, the choices inside the cult section seem crazy and silly until you find the one that speaks to you and you devote your life to that entry. I learned quickly to not watch cult films blindly because sometimes I just don't get it. One thing that was pretty consistent with a lot of the cult films in that they were pretty low budget. That's not absolute. I think we also kept David Lynch's Dune in that section too, so it's not perfect. But Dolemite is, in my head, completely functional for a low budget blaxpoitation film. Part of what could be disorienting about Dolemite is if you haven't seen other blaxspoitation films. I started in the deep end of the blaxspoitation pool: Black Samurai. I hadn't seen anything else in the genre before that point and I had no idea what I was signing up for. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has even gotten close to Black Samurai. I don't know if it was an insane level of self-awareness or what, but Black Samurai completely prepared me for anything that could be considered bananas in the blaxsploitation genre. The oddest thing that Dolemite really throws at me is the fact that Rudy Ray Moore doesn't really know kung fu, which is still pretty mild. People keep talking about the fact that Moore doesn't know kung fu. But that's kind of an element of the budget film. Maybe it's really Mystery Science Theater that ruined the ironic like for me. This all sounds like I'm dancing around something. I think a lot of people go into Dolemite wanting to laugh AT it. Dolemite never really gets so bad that it is worthy of mockery. It's not a great movie. But it also is kind of just a bare-bones functional film. Rather than try to push a runtime it doesn't have a foundation for, the movie clocks in exactly at 1.5 hours. There's a lot of action in the movie and the tone is actually pretty consistent. Dolemite is My Name really stressed the DIY elements to the movie and those moments aren't really as present as you thought it would be. It just comes across as a cost-cutting film. I dare you to try to watch as many movies as you can at an impressive video store. A lot more of them have low budgets than have big budgets. If the idea of a cheap movie is enough to make you howl, then you have a large selection of things to laugh at. To me, especially after watching the biopic (which clearly took some liberties with the story), Dolemite is The Little Engine That Could. There's a lot to say about DIY filmmaking and this movie really does what a lot of other movies did at the time. There are a lot of absurd moments of reasoning that we see in other movies of their ilk. The movie has a bunch of scenes that it really wants to do. These scenes are what drive the movie. That's fine. The rest of the scenes are a means to pad the movie a bit. In a lot of cases, these are scenes where Dolemite sleeps with ladies. Except without the sleep. I'm kind of a prude now that I have kids. Instead, like Kiss of Death, the movie does all it can to separate the protagonist from the antagonist in the hopes that when they collide, the world will explode. It's a sign of poor storytelling, but it's also Dolemite. It's meant to be a movie that showcases the talents of Rudy Ray Moore. And it does what it sets out to do. This is a movie about Rudy Ray Moore's character. The movie starts off with him as a legend in his own right and he's trying to reclaim what's his. There's never a scene explaining who or what Dolemite is. Dolemite is Dolemite. That's all you need to know. Can he do it? Sure. Is the man after him? Definitely. Can Dolemite be taken down? Only if you decide to play against him unfair. It's a super simple formula. There's a lot of weirdly morally dubious moments. Like, Dolemite is all about prostitution, as long as he's running the bordello. That's what it takes to be a good guy. I think this is one of the movies that stresses that sex work is work. I can't say that I get behind that, but it also is part of the rule set that Dolemite establishes pretty early. This leads to the big takeaway: watch Dolemite for what it is. If you find it hilarious to laugh at a low budget blaxspoitation film, I guess I can't stop you. I don't think Rudy Ray Moore would even hate that. Dolemite, because it is doing all it can to survive in a world that wants it to fail, is ultimately about how much fun you have with the movie. Me, I had some fun with it. I have watched way more difficult to watch movies this year. I had a good time with it. I don't know if I had so much fun that I'd want to watch everything in Moore's ouvre. But I'm glad I watched Dolemite. It did exactly what it was supposed to do, show me a good time for an hour and a half. That's all I asked for and that's exactly what I got. G. For mild peril. I mean, it's about getting stranded on a deserted island. But I really stress the "mild" aspect of the whole thing because no one seems all that bothered by the idea of survival. It makes CastAway look like an 127 Hours. There are some things that would be concerning for the 2020 audience. It's mildly racist. The pirates play huge stereotypes. They should have been killed a billion times. Also, this movie had to be somewhat cruel to animals. If you are a Tiger King fan out there, you know that these animals weren't taught through treats. There had to be some animal abuse on the set of Swiss Family Robinson. But again, I just poo-pooed a Disney classic, so take from that what you will.
DIRECTOR: Ken Annakin I don't know if there's ever been a movie that I watched so intently and felt like I cheated. I'm a big fan of throwing my phone out of reach for movies because I like watching things with a critical eye. I did that for Swiss Family Robinson. This was a movie that my wife liked as a kid and that I don't remember watching. I may have. There's a seedling in my memory that is tied to this film. But it wasn't something that clearly resonated with me. Perhaps it was our trip to Disney World a while ago (Christmas break? You know, before the world ended?) where we walked through the Swiss Family Robinson tree that probably sparked my wife's interest in this movie. But I watched this movie from what seemed like for the first time and I barely remember watching it. It wasn't that long ago. Maybe a week ago? That kind of says something. What kind of breaks this movie is that it is a movie that refuses to really have stakes for the characters. Narratively, there are a ton of perils on this island. The youngest kid almost gets eaten by a tiger fairly early on. He is being considered prey while --wait for it --trapping an elephant for fun. This is immediately after getting shipwrecked. Yet, there's no scolding. The entire movie is blanketed in this wash of optimism. I get it. It's Disney. It's supposed to be this fun adventure, not a scary breakdown of society. But Disney's actually pretty impressive when it comes to appropriate scares. Heck, sometimes those scares get to be a bit too scary. Swiss Family Robinson has the vehicle and the formula to deliver on some truly scary stuff. But the movie is almost exclusively a series of setups for terror, but never creates the atmosphere for it. The movie never really lets us think that there's any consequences for anything, with the exception of the two brothers having a falling out. By the way, thank goodness for that toxic storyline because it is the only thing that really generates any character arcs. The Robinsons are too perfect. It's not fair that I'm using Lost in Space as a point of reference, but I'm going to do it anyway. There is some genuine peril in Lost in Space, especially the Netflix version. Yes, the children get into trouble equally between its original version and its sci-fi remake. But even though the Robinsons are tight in Lost in Space, there's actual genuine terror going on. Will gets a stern talking to on Lost in Space. Francis can just do whatever he wants and it's considered adorable. It instantly means that the majority of the movie won't matter. Imagine, though, if it did. Like, the entire movie just chuckles at Francis's dangerous ideas and then he just dies a horrible death? Oh my goodness, you couldn't get me to stop talking about Swiss Family Robinson at that point and it's really dark morality. When the danger is actually removed from the island, there's something actually really quite gross going on in the majority of the story. Mother and Father don't really want to leave. Whatever problems they had in civilization are done away with in the awesome impossible treehouse they made. Danger doesn't really exist. The arrival of the pirates seems to be the main plot, but there's no danger because they just have a grand old time for the majority of the film. It really comes down to forcing this one stranded girl to be a sexual object for procreation. Love triangles are tough. Lots of stories come down to love triangles because someone instantly has to become the villain. But Roberta, played by Janet Munro, is super uncomfortable because she instantly steps into that role. Instead of being about finding a human being and saving her, the boys instantly start sparring about who gets to marry her. Part of it is for pacing reasons. This is a movie and the central conflict of the movie, despite the fact that it should be about survival, is who is going to marry Roberta and what is this going to do to the family? It's just that it is so sexually charged that it is uncomfortable to think that this is a G-rated movie. They never call it sex, but that's what it is for. It's about companionship. This could be all colored by the idea that I watched 28 Days Later last night and that's the central problem in that movie. But the villains in that movie know that there are no more women left, so they treat the two surviving females as objects of reproduction and companionship. In that one, it's very rapey. It's only because Roberta simply slides into her role as a companion that it kind of becomes okay. There's a weirdly fine line between "romantic" and "gross". Casually watching Swiss Family Robinson makes it seem really romantic, but it just comes to two brothers fighting over the claim to a single woman. It's really uncomfortable. In fact, THAT is why it is on an island full of danger. It covers up the really uncomfortable elements of that relationship. Then the whole movie just wraps itself up. There's no killing. I swear, every single one of those pirates should be dead. And because they are able to repel the pirates, the story just resolves itself. The movie, through the whole Roberta sequence, builds Fritz to be the villain. (If I have the wrong brother, I apologize.) He actually gets pretty gross. The boys end up fighting and hating each other. It gets to an oddly dark place. But even the more heroic of the two brothers, (the one that Roberta likes because the story made it convenient for her to like him), get pretty gross in the process. But the movie completely just releases the tension of this moment by having animal races and pirate attacks. There's something very off-putting about the whole thing. When you offer hypothetical worst-case situations, you stick characters on a deserted island. Lord of the Flies works because the rules of civilization are out the window on an uninhabited island. Every story that involves isolation on a deserted island leads to man dealing with his inner demons. You have these two boys who both savagely have laid claim on the last woman (I've already discussed the problematic storytelling element here) and the story is just defused because pirates showed up. Swiss Family Robinson is escapist fantasy. It's playing up on that imperialist attitude of white society, taking over the uncivilized domain. But like how we have whitewashed our history of imperialism, we have refused to acknowledge what is really going on there. The pirate attack makes a traditional good versus evil / us versus them situation that is super uncomfortable the more you think about it. It is wrapped up so nicely that we can't address the moral evils that are running in the background of the island. And with the end, the Robinson patriarch proclaims himself the lord of the island. The way I understand it, there are no inhabitants of the island. But it does reflect the idea that civilization is better than primitive ways. The Robinsons are traditional colonizers. Because the Robinsons are so care free and unchallenged by the ravages of nature, there's a message behind the movie that man is meant to bring civilization to the unconquered areas of the world. I know. I'm ignoring the purpose of the film: to have fun and adventure. But there's a lot of weird subtext happening and I really can't ignore it. Again, I tried engaging with the movie on the level it recommended and I just wasn't having it. It's kind of a boring movie that, if you stop having fun with it, brings up questions it doesn't want answered. R. As much as I want everyone to watch this movie, it's pretty darned offensive. Starting at just an impressive amount of language, the movie has a lot of sex and nudity. It's kind of the central premise. I know that makes me sound really skeezy that I'm recommending a pretty filthy movie, but I'll get to that later. There's a ton of offensive content and if you know anything about Rudy Ray Moore, then that should come as a given. R.
DIRECTOR: Craig Brewer Okay, yeah! It's really offensive! I can't stress that enough. But I also don't think I've enjoyed a ton of movies on the level that I enjoyed Dolemite is My Name in the past year. (The capitalization on IMDb is silly. I also should lowercase the "m", but this is my compromise.) There's something about a movie that is ABOUT making movies in the indie style somehow pushes my buttons. Like, this hits all kinds of great buttons about wanting to make it. I should confess that I didn't know much about Rudy Ray Moore before going into this movie. I know that Dolemite movies rented fairly regularly when I was working at the video store. I've seen my share of blaxspoitation films, but Dolemite always was on the to-watch list. I do have to say, in an attempt to give my blog a little bit of cred, I followed watching Dolemite is My Name with a screening of the original Dolemite film. It's not quite the way I like to play things, but you take what you can. It's hard to sell that a movie as dirty as this has so much heart. I can't say that Eddie Murphy is doing a tonally perfect impression of Rudy Ray Moore. After watching Dolemite, I realize that Murphy is just kind of resting in his favorite voice. But I don't want to detract that from his performance overall. While I love absolutely perfect impressions when it comes to biopics, there might be something about getting the essence of a character without actually just duplicating things. Murphy's primary goal is to make Rudy Ray Moore completely human and he does that in spades. For the length of the film, I kept wondering what I thought about that performance and I can officially say it did the job. It was because I didn't know Moore's mannerisms before going into this film that made it work. I've heard Eddie Murphy do that voice before, but it comes more from Murphy's vulnerability, which I wasn't used to seeing. There are elements that make him a scumbag, and I want to discuss that later. But there are also these moments that show real heart. His relationship with Queen Bee is wonderful. When we get the story of the quick success, like Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman, we always seem to get the tale of the inflated ego that thinks its better than everyone else. Dolemite is My Name handles that moment so much better. The core of the movie is in this relationship. I adore that Moore is someone who seems to have aged himself out of success only to find it. But the victory of the film lies with Queen Bee. Okay, Rudy Ray Moore was obsessed with sex and hot ladies. I can't say he's progressive on that front. But he meets this woman who has a cheating husband. She's overweight and alone and he decides to take her under his wing. It's not later in life, when he has nothing to lose. Moore is this guy who burned bright and fast. He had no idea how long that this success was going to last and he decided to share that wealth the second he got it. It never seemed to be sexual, but he recognized the outsider in Bee. It's this absolutely perfect story that makes Moore a genuine hero. And that's actually a pretty difficult idea to sell in a movie like this. If I had to summarize the movie for you, it would be about a loser who is obsessed with fame. He steals a bunch of homeless guys' jokes and rises high in the clubs. He releases a bunch of offensive albums with naked girls on the cover and decides that he's not famous enough. So he makes a movie that bankrupts everyone he knows until it finally works. From that description, he seems like a complete jerk. But it's the way he treats everyone along the way that sells the movie. There's the one obligatory scene where he loses his cool, but that screams "storytelling". The character has to lose everything before gaining it back. But Moore, for all of his ego and desperation to gain fame, actually seems like a really cool dude in this. Part of what makes Dolemite work is the collaboration he keeps with the people who got him there the entire time. If anything, Dolemite is My Name is a celebration of artists supporting artists. Yeah, they give each other nonsense through the entire film. It's ribbing and it's adorable. But Craig Robinson's character was this guy who had moderate success in his music. Without thinking, he sees constant failure Rudy Ray Moore find a little bit of footing...and he jumps in. An artist wants to see another artist succeed. That's the Queen Bee thing. Moore sees Bee floundering, and he helps her. Tituss Burgess isn't a manager. His character never even thought of himself as a producer or a manager, but he's there for the entire situation. It's because these people were there for Moore when things weren't good that they stick around for when things are good. I'm really gushing by this point. I can't speak enough about Moore's influence on others, because of this movie. I love Keegan-Michael-Key's Jerry and the arc that he goes through in the film. Jerry is a guy who has made it locally. He considers himself as part of the community, but in a high position. He's in this liminal state that puts him in a place of being an advocate, but also above common culture. It's the high art / low art character. Jerry's reasoning for being an avatar for the arts makes sense: he knows that art can change how we live. So his reticence to join Dolemite makes all the sense in the world. But, from an audience's perspective, we just want to say, "C'mon. It'll be fun." And we see Jerry get squeezed and squeezed, only to eventually submit to something that ended up being one of the most fun things that he's ever done. It's not an artificial shift. It's these small moments where Jerry becomes part of the squad and it's perfect. There's a line that may be more of a critique of Jerry's imposter syndrome where he's defending the more absurd elements of the Dolemite script that explains that moment where he shifts out of stodgy Jerry. I don't know anything about the real Jerry Jones, but I'm not sure if the movie is selling that he's not a great writer. Regardless, Jerry is great. It's odd to see Wesley Snipes in anything. This is a completely heartless thing to say, but there's a weird silver lining to having Snipes out of prison. *Geez, I hate myself right now*. Snipes was obsessed with being a big action Hollywood star. Seeing him in a movie like this is perfect for him. His performance is way more nuanced than anything I've seen him do previously. It's an honest-to-goodness acting. He's a bit of a villain for the piece in the smallest way possible. But it really works for him. It's kind of ironic that Snipes's character thinks that he's too big for this film because that's how I could read him being in Dolemite is My Name. Being lame, I don't know what's hilarious about Rudy Ray Moore's comedy. But I can say that the movie is marvelously charming. It hits all of the buttons that Be Kind Rewind did, but with a raunch and vulnerability other movies haven't. I'm not surprised that Craig Brewer directed Hustle & Flow because he's got the voice of someone who gets the vulnerability of trying. (I mean, I am now realizing they are very similar movies with different tones.) Regardless, Dolemite is My Name should have garnered some Oscar attention. Maybe the content wasn't palatable for some, but I think it really works. Rated R for sexuality, violence, language, a really uncomfortable cut to the nose, and a reveal that's pretty darned gross. I try not to put spoiler stuff in the MPAA section. I save that for the actual content. Regardless, the movie does play up some uncomfortable stuff. Also, there's a really racist joke that's told in the film. It's meant to be seen as racist, but that doesn't really downplay the fact that the joke is inherently racist. Regardless, the movie is a well-deserved R.
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski It's another entry in the film noir class litany of films. I've seen Chinatown too many times. Heck, I dressed as Jake Gittis for Halloween one year. I used the image above as my frame of reference. It wasn't as high res, but it was a very similar still. Chinatown is a movie that I've always loved for its tone and aesthetic, but I always have to admit that I never really understood the movie as a whole. If I'm being conservative, this has to be my fourth or fifth time watching the movie. And now, I think I finally get it. Before there weren't stakes. But I have to constantly maintain my persona of the class smartypants. (Trust me, I'm insufferable. I hate me and how much I throw my weight around.) The wife had fallen asleep about forty minutes in and I threw my phone away so I had to pay attention. As much as I've always loved the movie, by the time that Jake gets to the dry LA River, I start to tune out regarding the water / real estate plot. There's something very emotionally distant about the land grab element of the story. If you are signing up for Chinatown, you're probably in it for the meat of the character stuff. That character stuff is fantastic. You remember Gittis being a punk. You remember him getting his nose cut. There's the dead bodies. And there's the incest. Those are the takeaway moments. After watching the movie a few times, the water thing is not only necessary, but it's also kind of the point. Again, the incest is what we keep coming back to. But there's something inherent in the fact that this is a film noir set in the '30s but made in the '70s. Shy of the fact that it can get a hard R rating, which other films noir can't (I choose to make up my own pluralization of "film noir"), there is something really woke about the movie as a whole. I'm clearly coming to this conclusion after everyone else because the most famous line of the movie is "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." Cross is a bad dude all around. He's a guy who is manipulating something so fundamental to society all for the sake of a greater profit. There's a line somewhere in there where Jake comments on the idea that he has more money than he can spare in his lifetime. He has a retort about immortality or something like that. His answer doesn't ultimately matter. It's a justification for evil and that's what we need to take away from that. The water / real estate scandal (which is a variation on something that really happened) is a commentary on social sin. Yeah, we all hate him, but that's what corporations do. They take money away from people who really need that money. It's nothing new. But water is something so fundamental to survival. The movie starts off with good people yelling at farmers because they need water as well. But since Cross controls the water, he's something essential to civilization. He's one of them necessary evils. He is the criminal in charge of something that is almost a force of nature. Jake isn't a moral crusader. He's involved, very much like Mike Hammer, by circumstance. He wants to know how and why he was manipulated. Yeah, he wants to take Cross down, but mainly because Cross is a pain in the butt. But the big takeaway is that Jake isn't a zealot. He got stuck in something bigger than he is and he doesn't exactly want to take down the system from his position. It's only when we realize that Cross isn't just slimy and destroying the lives of millions in exchange for a profit, but he's an incestual rapist are we really taken aback. Jake's vitriol at the end of the film is the result of Evelyn's rape. That's good. It's healthy. Jake's facade is completely removed when he discovers this. But if the '70s were commenting on the Nixon administration and all of the shady dealings happening then, Jake is the wake up call for a lot of people. Jake can't afford to look corporate America in the face without doing something. He has this rage, trying to get justice for the recently murdered Evelyn. So that line, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown" is kind of a depressing commentary on what we consider vital. Because Cross has our comfort in his hands, he's allowed to do whatever he wants with impunity. I was thinking what the movie would be like if the entire film was focused simply on Evelyn's small, yet vital story. What would happen if all of the water land grab stuff disappeared and it became a character drama for the entire film? I mean, it would still be haunting. But ultimately, because incestual rape probably doesn't affect the masses like corporate greed does, we could distance ourselves from this moment. It would be a lot more tight of a film, and it probably would actually be closer to films noir of yesteryear. But Polanski has this insane budget and an R-rating behind him. He can tell this truly disturbing tale and have it mean something when the movie ends. (I would say "credits roll", but the movie actually starts with credits. I don't know if I've written about distancing the artist from the art on this blog before. I've now written so many of these that they all kind of blur together. Some are better than others, but I feel like I have to talk about Polanski. I don't think I have a conclusive attitude about divorcing the artist from the art. Annie Hall is still one of my favorite movies. But since I've become more informed about Allen, I don't think I've watched it. The last time I've seen it was on a date night with my wife who was then my girlfriend. For those who don't know that Polanski is super gross, I do want to analyze the prophetic elements of Chinatown and how they relate to this whole discussion. Chinatown came out in 1974. A few years later, after the murder of his wife by the Manson family, Roman Polanski would rape a thirteen-year-old. That's horrific, but it's also something that can't be written off in any framework. Some people would drop cultural background, but Chinatown kind of damns Polanski pretty hard. When Evelyn is emotionally breaking down describing Cross's rape of her, she shouts out "I was only fifteen!" (similar to a criminally looked past line in Raiders of the Lost Ark). By throwing this line in and stressing it, Polanski is aware of the evil that is being committed past the concept of incest, but also into the realm of statutory rape. Polanski has no legs to stand on. I love / loved Polanski when I was first discovering him. Yeah, Rosemary's Baby is a real slow burn. But then there are also films like The Tenant and Knife in the Water that are just absolute genius. How does one separate from the artist? I know that I can't listen to Michael Jackson stuff anymore and my Woody Allen collection sits on the shelf, collecting dust. Part of me hopes that if I ever saw Annie Hall again, I would hate it. I know I didn't hate Chinatown on this watch, but it was very uncomfortable in moments, particularly when he appears on screen. Chinatown is a work of genius. Like Rosemary's Baby, it is a slow burn that is really worth it by the end. I don't know if I could ever freely support Polanski again, but the old stuff I guess can't be ignored for what it does. A PG movie that just happens to have Nazis in it. There's actually a tremendous amount of violence. One guy sets himself on fire as he screams into the camera. Another guy has all of his bones broken multiple times as he's tortured. There's gunfire and a decent amount of death. Like, it's 1991, PG. Mostly, it's only Nazis and gangsters that get killed. There's an odd amount of patriotism in the movie, allowing the distinctions between criminal class to exist.
DIRECTOR: Joe Johnston I don't know if this shocks anyone, but the guy who directed this also directed Captain America: The First Avenger. (It's not at all shocking. If anything, The Rocketeer is a proof of concept for Captain America: The First Avenger.) I remember watching this movie on repeat as a kid. I also remember having the NES game and getting pretty darned far in the game as well. That was one of those games that didn't really give you the core power until you earned it. I remember squandering the heck out of my gas supply in that game. But we're not here to talk about my odd obsession with playing licensed titles for video game consoles. We're here to talk about The Rocketeer. What would it be like to be a descendant of Errol Flynn and to watch The Rocketeer? I mean, it's bad enough that everyone is calling your patriarch a Nazi who met Adolf Hitler. But then, a movie comes out and Timothy Dalton plays a thinly veiled version of your Nazi great-grandfather or whatever. I don't think I knew about Errol Flynn being a Nazi back when I was a kid. It's more than likely that I didn't really understand what a Nazi was back then. I was just obsessed with my Nintendo, unlike today, and loved the movie that hearkened back to yesteryear. I claimed that there wouldn't be Captain America: The First Avenger without The Rocketeer. Part of it is tone. But the other half is a glorification of the past. This is the 1940s that glorifies the Greatest Generation. I had a discussion about this the other day in my film class. I brought it up because I'm a busy-body know-it-all in that class (and in others). I was discussing that there are just a lot of movies that glorify the past, similar to what George Lucas did with American Graffiti and what Linklater does with Dazed and Confused and Everybody Gets Some. Joe Johnston probably gets a pass because he wasn't a member of The Greatest Generation. Rather, this is a romanticizing of America when we remember being at our best: fighting Nazis. The world of The Rocketeer is one free of racism mainly because the world is entirely white. Yeah, it's a real bummer. I have to imagine that, if I was being really honest, Captain America: The First Avenger probably shares the same problem. But Johnston wasn't from the '40s. Perhaps Johnston has that World's Fair view of the past that we all hold onto; a world where art deco ruled supreme and that Howard Hughes never went absolutely nuts. The Rocketeer is a weird superhero. He stems from the same era as Superman and the ilk. He really rides that '40s vibe a little harder than other superheroes, mainly because he isn't that famous outside of this film. If Spider-Man is a character who doesn't always win, Cliff almost never wins. That might be somewhat inaccurate. He wins...almost by accident. Like, imagine that Superman just kept on accidentally laying a punch on someone. I'm in the plausibility camp that says that flying rocket men could probably do some serious damage, especially in war. I mean, it is the central premise for the film. It's why everyone is trying to get Cliff. But he really just kind of keeps falling into success. A central element of the film is that Cliff has no idea what he's doing. He's a fly boy, which allows the audience to understand that he has no fear of highs or for flying a million miles an hour. But there's never really a moment where Cliff has it together. He's a bit of a Mr. Magoo when it comes to saving the world. But there's something really charming about that whole element. As an avatar for the audience, I wonder if he thinks "I should probably just turn on the rocket. After all, that's what's gotten me through so far." It's actually bananas that Cliff isn't just flying that thing constantly. Like, he's such a likable character and I'm not sure why. Is it because he's good looking? It's because he's good looking, isn't it? But The Rocketeer goes into some stuff that is just kind of frustrating towards women. I remember having a mild crush on Jennifer Connelly at one point. I want to chalk it up to The Rocketeer, not Labyrinth. Sorry, the rest of the Internet. The Rocketeer was my movie. Labyrinth was fine and I totally respect Labyrinth's game. But I knew Connelly from The Rocketeer. When she was in other movies that weren't The Rocketeer, I was waiting for her to make a Rocketeer reference for some reason. But I realized something from a rewatch that mostly held up: she might not be a great actress. Secondly, I also realize that comment might not be fair because she's not given a lot to work with in this film. Jenny is kind of the worst in this film. She is with Cliff. She knows his hopes and his dreams. Yeah, he should have shared his terrible news with her, but she is not painted in a very flattering life. She starts dating a guy who risks his life doing trick things with planes. She's floored when he is embarrassed to share that news with her. This gives her one real motivating trait. She spends the entire movie annoyed with a fight they have, despite the larger narrative happening. Part of this comes from the cartoonish attitude that comic book adaptations of the '90s had. It never goes full Dick Tracy, but there are a lot of crossover moments. This mundane side story possibly grounds the film a bit, making Cliff an even more relatable character. But then it also just makes these two a couple that no one is really rooting for. We get that Cliff is in love with Jenny, but Jenny seems really put out by this guy who comes across like a bit of a loser when all is said and done. It's this artificial split of a couple that we weren't ever really rooting for to begin with. But the oddest thing about The Rocketeer is that it holds up. The '90s were a time in superhero cinema where C and D list characters reigned supreme in substandard movies. Steel, The Phantom, and Dick Tracy were the big contenders, not to even start speaking of the other Captain America movie. I thought that The Rocketeer was really just the best of a bunch of slobs. But for a movie that is completely standalone, the movie is functional. I mean, it shouldn't be functional. If I had to plot this movie, it would be the following: Cliff is in trouble, he uses the rocket, wackiness ensues, repeat until he gets good at it. But this movie has that soundtrack that has been used in every heartwarming nostalgia trailer since this film existed. The movie thrives on the aesthetics of the film as a whole. There's a scene where Cliff disguises himself as a waiter. Instead of removing what was sure to be his "iconic" leather bomber jacket, he simply puts it over it. It's actually a miracle that everyone didn't know that Cliff was the Rocketeer because he's constantly dressed like the Rocketeer. I'll always talk about the gorgeous work that Marvel does with their cinematic universe compared to any cinematic universe. But there's something perfect about a movie that was always meant to be a standalone film. I'm sure that if Disney continued to have faith in the Rocketeer, there would be a sequel. But there's no even hint that Cliff would strap on the rocket one more time for more adventures against the Nazis. The movie goes as far as to blow up the rocket so no one else can use it. Do you know how gutsy that would be today? I mean, it's so gutsy, that Iron Man 3 decided to do the same thing with its film and then just immediately ignore that precedent. The best part is that my kids liked it. I know that there's a Disney Junior version of The Rocketeer that looks very silly and lighthearted. But they really got into it. It fed that little Marvel hunger that they had and yet, was still more family friendly. There's some goofy things. I mentioned the Dick Tracy tonal stuff. The Jaws-henchman is a bit shameless. But the movie rides pretty high on what works and just embraces some goofy stuff. Special effects wise, it's really good for the '90s, but not today. But again, my kids didn't care one iota. It was a fun time and a great family movie night. PG-13. Yeah, we let our six-year-old pick a PG-13 movie that no one in the family had seen. It's odd picking PG-13 stuff. It can be all over the place. It's funny. He's the one who gets scared at everything. But because this movie had to do with video games, he suddenly got super cool with the whole thing. We had to pay to rent this one. He liked it so much, we had to pay to get the next one. "Um...", you might be thinking, "aren't you the parent." Shut up. There's language, scary stuff, and genital jokes. PG-13.
DIRECTOR: Jake Kasdan I hate blog entries where I have to remind myself of how much of a snob I am. I don't know what it was about these trailers that made me not want to see the movie. Part of it had to be how overadvertised it was. I mean, this trailer was attached to everything. I couldn't get away from Jumanji no matter what I did. If I have to be even more self-critical, I also knew that this fundamentally wasn't MY Jumanji. That's a thing that I've talked about for a lot of films, divorcing yourself from your nostalgia. But I'm part of the problem as well. When people kept telling me that this movie was pretty good, I really refused to believe them. It seemed like it was people who weren't exactly harboring the same tastes that I did telling me that this movie was great. Okay. It was pretty great. My son's insistence on watching this movie got me kind of excited about it. When he's excited about something, it really breaks down a lot of my walls. Yeah, I knew we were feeding the video game beast. His obsession with video games is pretty palpable. He doesn't play as much as he talks about them. But that might give me an insight into the role of entertainment. Jumanji was initially a book. My kids didn't know it was a children's book. The weird thing is, I am certain that we owned it at one point or another. It might have been in my oldest daughter's collection when she was really young. She went through this phase of drawing in books and eating books that things had to get tossed. I imagine that was the final fate of our copy of the children's book. I should replace it. I loved that book when I was a kid. But I'm sure that there were probably naysayers about the book being adapted into a film when I was a kid. After all, look at how contained the original book was. It was like the edgier Cat in the Hat. (And I mean the book of that. The movie, I hear, is a travesty.) The book had these kids play a board game that allowed jungle animals destroy their house. By the end of the book, everything was fine and back in place. Contrast that with the original film with Robin Williams. In the movie, the story spans over generations. The entire city is engulfed in chaos. Eventually, everything is put right, but after a fair amount of destruction occurs. My knee-jerk reaction to Welcome to the Jungle stemmed out of the idea that Jumanji had to be one thing. I rolled my eyes at the video game element and never let it get past that. I'm not saying that Jumanji shouldn't be a board game. The movie even goes as far as to stress that this is a sequel to the original movie. The board game exists. It just changed to match civilization as it is today. Really, the movie calls me out on my stubbornness and reminds me that things change and adapt. And it's not like the original Jumanji was the pillar of class. We may have put it on a pedestal because of the involvement of the late, great Robin Williams. But Welcome to the Jungle both tips the hat to the things that came before and then go ever further by being its own thing. The smartest thing that this movie could have done was to decide to be its own thing. There's nothing beholden to the previous movie here. The way that the movie defines itself to something closer to a reboot probably helps the movie tell jokes. There's not exactly a ton of nostalgia for the original Jumanji. It wasn't a franchise. It was just a movie that a lot of people probably remember from their childhoods. Unless I'm missing flyers for Jumanjicon (it's a soft "i"), this is just something people kind of like. That's great. This movie has to be an actor's dream. Playing against type is positively a brilliant element that everyone involved has to embrace. The entire joke is playing against type. I'm going to talk about this a lot more when I write about The Next Level. But the concept of confidence is something that is addressed here pretty well. I mean, kids' movies are meant to be morality plays, so I'm not exactly adding this as a novel concept. But every character approaches confidence in a unique way. Spencer, as the protagonist of the piece, has no identity shy of what he can provide for others. If the Rock / Dr. Smolder Bravestone represents anything, it has Spencer's identity for providing everything, but he ultimately doesn't need the approval of his peers. It's a really interesting connection. Spencer, academically, is the most talented of the group. However, he only gains confidence when he looks like he is valuable. When he's giving Fridge answers, he defines his friendship by his usefulness. Yet, he never needs that confidence when he's in someone else's body. Bethany's confidence is undeserved, yet it doesn't ultimately matter what body she's in to have that attitude come through. Martha is kind of the parallel to Spencer, but she's less morally culpable than Spencer. She defends herself when needed in the real world. Really, having Karen Gillan for a body is just a confidence booster. Then there's Fridge, the dangers of being overconfident. Yeah, I just explained a really basic moral premise for a movie that isn't hiding it. But it works, regardless in the story. I also give the movie points for not really backtracking a lot of these life lessons, shy of Spencer who almost might be the villain of part 2. Regardless, I'm a punk who should just enjoy movies in the way that I claim to enjoy movies. I mean, I had the same chip on my shoulder when it came to The Fast and the Furious franchise. Admittedly, I went from disliking those movies to kind of liking them. Honestly, I could really go for another entry in the franchise, which seems like a given at this scenario. R, for a lot of sex, nudity, and torture. It's pretty American of me to be so scandalized about sex in a movie that talks about how governments stigmatize sex, especially when there's a scene of rats trying to gnaw a man's face off. It's all very uncomfortable. I don't know if this surprises you, but 1984 is supposed to be an uncomfortabe movie, thus the R rating is totally valid. R.
DIRECTOR: Michael Radford I see what they did. It was actually the year 1984, so they made a movie out of the book. These are things that I think about pretty often. Like, you know that there was at least a conversation that some studio head had in 2001 to remake A Space Odyssey. There had to be. Some guy threw it down and thought it was genius and I'm probably grateful that it got shut down early. But there is an odd thing that happens when we adapt literature so far after it has become a classic. I also have to say that my politics aren't exactly in the same place that they were when I first started loving Orwell. I guess there's going to be a journey of self-discovery going on when I write this because I don't know where this is going as of right now. There's something very odd about 1984 coming out in 1984. I can't deny that the film that Radford made isn't extremely effective. It is bleak as heck and it is meant to be so. If there's ever been a movie that is so blatantly screaming about the dangers of an all-powerful government, 1984 is that movie. I get it and I don't want to pull from it. But the same thing kind of happened with Back to the Future II a few years ago. It's not as overt as Back to the Future II, but it definitely has that element about it. 1984, from Orwell's position, was the near future. It was far off enough to know that, if as a a culture we screw up the planet, this was how it was going to look like and we'll mostly be alive to witness this living hell. But making 1984 in 1984 gives us a kind of alternative history. Alternative histories are kind of fun. It's guessing what could have happened if things played out kind of differently. But the big split between Back to the Future II and 1984, in terms of alternative histories, is that 1984 is meant to be a cautionary tale. It's this story that reminds us that we are oh-so-close to causing our own annihilation. Does it still do that? I suppose. But the other factor is that it also allows us to pat ourselves on the back for a battle won. And we really haven't won that battle. I'm going to get political here because I...I just can't not get political. ('Tis a double negative, but 'tis also a litote.) The world's pretty much ending right now. Each time that I think I've seen the last generation ending disaster, we're entrenched in something bigger. I apologize for being such a pessimist, but that's where I'm at today. Tomorrow might be different. The thing that's driving me nuts is...I don't know if the deaths of so many Americans due to governmental mismanagement has changed the mind of one single Trump supporter. There is so much evidence that Trump bungled everything, leading to me being in my house for weeks on end and fearing for the life of my wife and unborn child and trucks stuffed with dead bodies because morgues are overflowing...but still Trump rules supreme? If George Orwell is "yay, capitalism", it's really weird that Trump represents the most intense version of capitalism. This leads me to all kinds of thinking when it comes to breaking down the message versus the context. Soviet Russia was pretty rough. They aren't great now under Putin, but I know about what resulted out of the Russian Revolution of 1917. I continue to teach Animal Farm every year because I think it is an absolutely essential book. But I also can't stop thinking about how Orwell might be all about President Donald Trump and his capitalist ways. We're, right now, living in a culture where a major part of the population gets its news from Fox News, the same people who openly called Covid-19 a hoax and no worse than the flu. And the viewers of Fox News just accept that. It is part of the history of the past month. (Please note, I hate getting political. I'm very scared deep within me about the safety of my family and I need to vent. 1984 seems like the good place to bury this stuff.) The government has control over the media. Our president tells us which news sources not to listen to because they are too critical of him. Watching 1984, I felt both gross and responsible at the same time. Yeah, 1984 is a knee jerk reaction to communism in many ways. It's afraid of dictatorship, and at the time that meant being afraid of the communists. But I also think of the people who are so brainwashed out there that they can't possibly split from Big Brother today. I know that there was a spike in 1984 sales (the book) when Trump took office. At first, watching the film, I thought it was a stretch. But now I'm scared and I can't help but wonder what the heck is going on with the world. 1984 is a sledgehammer. Rather than actually being concerned with a story, Winston is a means to world build. He has a goal. I read the book. The movie is actually slavishly devoted to the tone that Orwell fashioned in his novel. I'm not saying that this is a good or a bad thing. As much as I love Animal Farm, I am not the biggest 1984 fan. It's really hard to bond with Winston because Winston isn't a fully developed character. When horrible things happen to Winston, it's kind of equivalent to horrible things happening to the camera of the film We get that it is terrible and we emotionally shift from a place of comfort to a place of discomfort. But Winston was never in a place to tear down a system. Oddly enough, it feels like Orwell and, by proxy, Radford are all about the reader / audience experiencing one thing: disappointment. The entire movie is an attempt to bolster hope only to remove it. It's because Winston is on rails. With Big Brother constantly monitoring him, everything that is laid out is somewhat of a trap. The entire point of the story is that Winston isn't special. Throughout the story, there are confessions being broadcast all over the country. Someone is always getting caught for this. If anything, Winston's crimes are minor. He never tries raising the revolution. His crimes are minor on purpose, showing the true evil of a dictator police state. But this is a world without hope. We're pretty much on an-rails ride through the sad world of 1984 and there's nothing anyone can really do about it. Winston, at best, teases that there might be a revolution out there. And that's probably why 1984 does nothing for me. Not nothing, but it just leaves me empty. The movie isn't about fighting the system or even having a prayer to fight the system. I don't mind a movie where the system wins. I actually like bleak endings. But Brave New World has those moments where the protagonists actually fight the system and lose. That's never really Winston. There's never this moment where "He's gonna do it" and then does. The movie doesn't even imply hope. The disappointment comes from the idea of a chance of a man just hiding out while the world passes him by. So what does this tell us? From an optimistic (relatively) perspective, it could be that we have to fix the world now because we won't be able to fix it later. But pessimistically, we're told never to fight back, because the government is always too big. That's where we're all bummed. Because there is no fighting against people like Trump who shut down the media and tell false histories. People want to embrace someone who tells them how to think and there's no fighting against that. I can't change good people's minds about the evils of this man and 1984 got that as right as possible. There is no fighting this system. But should I still try? It might be because I don't bond with Winston as a character that I'm reminded about the importance of trying. Winston goes through the ringer. That rat thing? Gross. But it probably doesn't get worse than that. If Winston Smith is tortured for falling in love (a very nice way of saying what is going on in the film), what more could happen if you actually fought the system? O'Brien implies that he's a former rebel, but now he's the head of the re-education of rebels. The worse thing is that he's lost his soul...but so has Winston. There's little fight in him at the end. They wouldn't have released him if there was. I can't help but make the comparison to "There are Four Lights." I mean, we all acknowledge that The Next Generation got it from 1984, but I love "There are Four Lights" so much that I don't even care. It's bleak. It's music video bleak. Part of me always thought of the commercial (Pepsi?) and that was all that existed. But 1984 is one of those bad times that might actually put you in a bad mood. That's the worst takeaway I can give, but it is also incredibly honest. It's made the way that Orwell probably would have like, Eurythmics and all. But it isn't the movie I wanted for today. The world is bleak enough as it is. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
May 2024
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