January 2024 – The Grouchy Editor

28Jan

Barbie

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Thoughts on Big, Bad Barbie

Satire works best when it has at least a trace of subtlety. Barbie, the live-action cartoon from director Greta Gerwig, has all the subtlety of a fart in the face. Its message: Patriarchy is bad, patriarchy is everywhere. Patriarchy is responsible for all the (primarily female) misery in the world.

If only feminists always had the upper hand and men had more feminine natures, everything would be great!

**

Plot: Margot Robbie’s “stereotypical Barbie” leaves her Mattel-created fantasy land and discovers the horrors of the real world, in which men dominate and women are downtrodden.

Barbie (and Ken) returns to fantasy land, having learned a valuable lesson. Everything is better when men are their “true” selves (i.e., more like women) and women assume their natural roles of running everything.

Uh-huh.

**

In the Barbies’ fantasy land, women drive pink convertibles (likely built by men) and live in dream homes (likely built by men) and idle away their days complimenting each other, dancing … and taking men for granted.

In the so-called real world (which is apparently 1965), construction workers slap women on the ass. Every Supreme Court justice is male. Every member of corporate boards of directors is male. The injustice of all this male domination culminates in a pity-party speech by Oscar-nominated America Ferrera (above). She wails about how difficult and unfair it is to be a modern-day woman.

I am sure there are coal miners, single dads, and military amputees — most of them men — who shed tears as they listen to Ferrera’s heart-felt speech.

**

Margot Robbie (not Oscar-nominated) and Ryan Gosling (Oscar-nominated) as Barbie and Ken:

They play plastic dolls in goofy, likeable manners. That’s it.

Somehow, I doubt that Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier are having their acting-chops legacies challenged.

**

Ugh. I had to pause this movie at the halfway point because it was so tedious. As if the insufferable musical numbers weren’t enough to put me off.

Here’s a novel thought: Maybe, just maybe, the world works best when men and women use their complementary traits to problem solve — rather than by glorifying one sex and demonizing the other.

**

I’m giving Barbie an average grade because, despite its propagandizing and politics, it is a handsome production, and it does have some witty dialogue. And although it’s too long, it’s certainly thought-provoking.

Release: 2023 Grade: C-

27Jan

The Weekly Review: January 21 – 27

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Looks like “tough guy” Joe Biden is about to abandon Texas the same way he abandoned Afghanistan, with his tail between his legs.

In this case, let’s hope that’s what he does.

*

Biden’s position on Supreme Court rulings when it comes to student-loan payments, or contracts between landlords and tenants: Screw the Supreme Court. Find a loophole or just ignore the court’s ruling.

Texas’s position on its border dispute with Biden: Screw the Supreme Court. Just ignore the court’s ruling.

So much for the power of the Supreme Court.

*

It does seem as if Biden is trying to poke, poke, poke the conservative bear, hoping to goad it into doing something rash so that his administration has an excuse to crack down (again) on the civil liberties of the right — before Trump gets back in power.

**

Chick on the Daily Mail going to town No. 1:

Callahan’s much too tough on Trump in this column, but otherwise, you go girl.

Chick on the Daily Mail going to town No. 2:

Kennedy’s much funnier in print, like in this column, than she is on TV.

20Jan

The Weekly Review: January 14 – 20

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Bill Maher’s false equivalences

Bill Maher recently topped a “most trusted media personality” list.

I guess that makes sense. Unlike so many progressive pundits, Maher’s a long-time liberal who at least acknowledges leftist lunacies.

But he’s blinded by his hatred of Trump and a desire to maintain his liberal bona fides by continually making false equivalences between the left and the right.

In recent years, on nearly every major issue — border security, inflation, LGBTQ demands, censorship — the madness is generated by the left.

It’s tiresome to hear Maher preface every (correct) criticism of left-wing lunacy by telling us that “both sides” are influenced by extremists. That’s bullshit. Only one side is constantly pushing to change or destroy social norms and laws.

One more thing: Jake Tapper is trusted by anyone?

**

Sean Strickland

Mixed-martial-arts champ Sean Strickland doesn’t strike me as the brightest bulb on anyone’s Christmas tree, and some of his recent press-conference comments seemed unduly homophobic. However …

Strickland’s larger point — that liberals in general and the corporate press in particular, are sheep (“weak men”) marching in lockstep to whatever progressive crap is being pushed — is absolutely spot on.

**

Funny Video 1

Click here to watch the video.

Funny Video 2

Click here to watch the video.

**

Reality TV Bare Ass of the Week

Julie Theis of Netflix’s The Trust

15Jan

Reviews in Short: January 2024

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Society of the Snow

There aren’t many true stories that inspire multiple first-rate movie and book adaptations. A 1972 plane crash in the Andes, in which just 16 of 45 passengers survived — including a grueling 72 days stuck on a mountain — is one of them. The book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors is superb. A 1993 movie, also titled Alive, is riveting. Now we can add this Spanish-language production, which might be the best rendition of all.

The harrowing flight disaster is remembered today, in part, because the group of mostly young men had to resort to cannibalism to survive. But what resonates most for me about this saga is not the cannibalism, but rather the heroism. Release: 2023 Grade: A

Would I watch it again? Yes, but not right away.

13Jan

The Weekly Review: January 7 – 13

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Da’Vine Joy Randolph investigates a murder in the building

To Woke, or Not to Woke

As I (finally) watched season 1 of the acclaimed Hulu show Only Murders in the Building, I thought about “wokeness.” Early in the season, we learn that the investigating detective is a lesbian black woman who is expecting a child with her female partner.

At this point, I had questions: Was this virtue signaling, an attempt by the producers to pre-empt criticism from the left about yet another high-profile show starring two straight white males (Steve Martin and Martin Short)? Or was it organic storytelling? Hmmm.

I was reminded how tired I am of cop shows about grizzled, white, middle-aged men solving crimes and battling the world at large. You know, like Martin’s character-within-a-character in Murders, the TV detective “Brazzos.”

When showrunners finally introduced non-white, non-male actors in these cop roles some years ago, it didn’t feel woke; it came as refreshing, welcome relief from the same-old, same-old.

The problem, it seems to me, arises when non-traditional roles and concepts are paired with heavy-handed preaching, and when the only acceptable villains are straight white males.

It’s a fine line. You succeed when the story feels natural, not woke. I think Only Murders succeeds in walking that line — at least so far.

“Brazzos”

**

As if we needed more evidence about the bottomless greed of the NFL.

06Jan

The Weekly Review: December 31 – Jan. 6

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We are starting out the new year by being under the weather. Sicky-poo.

Please dry your tears by enjoying these quotes and a picture:

“Me and Mike, ve vork in mine,

Holy shit, ve have good time.

Vunce a veek ve get our pay,

Holy shit, no vork next day.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

“And the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine.”

— George W. Young

02Jan

Benighted

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by J.B. Priestley

In 1932, legendary Hollywood director James Whale gave us The Old Dark House, a real gem of a movie. Whale infused his film with his trademark wit, humor, and camp. Oh, and yes — at least by 1932 standards, it was quite scary.

Whale was also remarkably faithful to the plot of his movie’s source material, J.B. Priestley’s 1927 novel, Benighted.

The plot of both book and film: A group of five young travelers take refuge from a raging storm in an isolated mansion inhabited by members of the Femm family, a collection of oddballs ranging from the eccentric to the sociopathic.

Is Benighted as good as Whale’s movie? I’d say yes and no.

Priestley’s novel is more introspective, getting inside its characters’ heads and finding there: despair, disillusionment — but also glimmers of hope — in the mindsets of young people struggling with the aftermath of The Great War.

Priestley’s focus is on psychology. Whale dispenses with all the navel-gazing and instead highlights the Femms, whose members resemble a 1920s version of the clan of lunatics in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

I prefer Whale’s funhouse interpretation. But I also recommend the book.