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08Jul

The Weekly Review: July 2 – 8

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The Interview

Seems obvious that if we wind up in a nuclear war with North Korea, Hollywood will be to blame. There is precedent for this kind of thing.

The Great Dictator

Back in 1940, Charlie Chaplin released a satire about Adolf Hitler called The Great Dictator, and a few years later we were engaged in a world war with the mustachioed madman. In 2014, Seth Rogen and James Franco released a comedy about Kim Jong-un called The Interview, and then …

Nutzoid dictators don’t take kindly to Hollywood spoofs.

*****

Quote of the Week:

There are new hamsters in the Big Brother house, so we should have no shortage of memorable quotes this summer.

Cody and his gal-pal

Cody: “I’ve done everything stupid that I possibly can.”

Cody’s Girlfriend: “That’s true.”

Also per tradition, the houseguests this year are quite camera-shy:

*****

Maybe the new Shakespeare series on TNT will be one of the greatest shows in television history. But when I see ads in which the Bard of Avon is portrayed by yet another male-model type, well ….

02Jul

Reviews in Short: July 2017

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Elle

Elle begins with a brutal rape, but in its aftermath the victim does not go to the police, nor does she inform close friends. In fact, middle-aged Michele appears to be borderline blasé about the attack. When her rapist continues to stalk her, she almost seems to welcome it. But why? The answer unfolds gradually, and while it does Elle is a tantalizing mystery with a commanding performance by Isabelle Huppert. But once we learn the reason for her strange behavior – not to mention the identity of the rapist – the suspense of the film begins to lose its power. Release: 2016 Grade: B

**

Passengers

Considered a critical and box-office failure, it’s true that Passengers is no science-fiction classic, but if you enjoy big-budget spaceship movies that look cool and keep the plot simple, as I do, you could do a lot worse. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt play space tourists who get a much longer trip than they bargained for in this essentially simple, old-fashioned romance. Release: 2016 Grade: B

**

Her

At first, I was disinclined to like this drama about technology and our evolving connection to it. Protagonist Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and his privileged pals seemed to embody every negative stereotype about West Coast liberals: living lives of economic ease, self-absorbed, and endlessly seeking emotional safe spaces. But Theodore’s growing relationship with his computer operating system, a husky-voiced charmer dubbed “Samantha,” tapped into some disturbing truths about the modern world. The result is a film that achieves something rare. It makes you think and it makes you feel. Release: 2013 Grade: A-

01Jul

The Weekly Review: June 25 – July 1

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“Talking” Heads Who Just Can’t Seem To

On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell showed why he’s one of America’s preeminent news anchors, giving viewers a master class on how to read a teleprompter:

**

Someone needs to send talking head Marie Harf to a speech therapist. Either that, or certain words and phrases need to be off-limits to the mush-mouthed miss.

Seems like every time I catch Harf on TV, she is discussing something like the “administration’s structure” or its “strategy,” which comes out of her mouth as the “adminishtration’s shtructure” and “shtrategy.”

Luckily for Harf, the most common word on cable news these days is “Russia.”

**

Amazon is now censoring something it calls “spite speech.” In other words, if Amazon’s crew of amateur editors doesn’t like something you write in a product review, they spite you by banning it.

**

The most recent episode of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks was off the rails. The last time I was this confused/mesmerized by on-screen weirdness I was 10 years old and watching Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in the Roxy Theater in Bird Island, Minnesota. (That’s not a complaint.)

27Jun

Reviews in Short: June 2017

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Becoming Cary Grant

“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.” – Cary Grant

Well, maybe not everyone. Possibly not viewers of Becoming Cary Grant, a mostly cheerless yet spellbinding documentary about the demons haunting Hollywood’s most famous leading man.

The filmmakers use Grant’s own home movies, a melancholy musical score, and excerpts from the actor’s unpublished autobiography to tell the story of a 9-year-old Bristol boy who lost his mother (she was committed to an asylum), then as an adult went through a series of failed marriages, and who gradually invented the persona of “Cary Grant,” the enigmatic, charismatic star we all know from the movies.

It’s a sad — if incomplete — portrait of the man everyone wanted to be. Release: 2017 Grade: B+

25Jun

White Working Class

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by Joan C. Williams

Since November 8, there have been hundreds – possibly thousands – of published articles about that branch of humanity famously labeled “the deplorables” by Hillary Clinton. Many of these election postmortems are clueless and/or condescending attempts to dissect and explain (to liberals) the strain of American voter that supported and continues to support Donald Trump.

But some of these election analyses are insightful. Joan Williams’s White Working Class expands on a previously published essay and it’s mostly an evenhanded, enlightening study of the social gap between the country’s “Haves” (the elite) and “Have-a-Littles” (what Williams labels the “working class”).

Williams, herself a born-and-bred member of the liberal elite, occasionally slips into full-on Democrat mode (in praise of big government) and takes some unwarranted swipes at Trump (a pure racist, even when his supporters are not), but she also has the balls to lay most of the blame for our current House Divided at the hands of those who hold the most power: the elites.

It’s too bad she doesn’t stick to her strong point, the first two-thirds of the book when she concentrates on the evolution of class division. Toward the end of White Working Class, Williams cannot resist tackling a host of other societal ills: abortion, race relations, illegal immigration, etc., and allows her inner liberal to promote the usual progressive remedies. It’s almost as if, after hammering liberals on their class cluelessness, Williams felt the need to soften the blow.

24Jun

The Weekly Review: June 18 – 24

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One of the perks of running a Web site that very few people read is that, when you’re thinking,“I don’t feel like publishing any crap today,” you don’t have to publish any crap today.

And so until next week, please enjoy this picture of Nancy Pelosi.

17Jun

The Weekly Review: June 11 – 17

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.

*****

Good for C-SPAN, which finally got to broadcast something people wanted to watch. Well … at least for an inning or two.

*****

Sign of the Apocalypse No. 1

Sign of the Apocalypse No. 2

*****

If they are planning another reboot of The Addams Family, it will be a sad world indeed if they fail to cast Laura Prepon as Morticia.

10Jun

The Weekly Review: June 4 – 10

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Smug Dicks and Creepy Pricks

There was something very satisfying about watching Bill Maher, who regularly lectures Americans about how “stupid” they are, eat shit on his show Friday after getting busted for using the n-word.

There was also something pathetic about watching the comedian try to pass off his mea culpa as a “teachable moment” for all of us, rather than what it really was: a lame attempt to preserve his bona fides with fellow liberals – not to mention his show on HBO.

*****

Jared Kushner: Who the hell is this rich punk? Apparently he’s been charged by his father-in-law with saving the world, yet I am still waiting to hear him utter a single word.

They say Robert Mueller is investigating Kushner’s role in possible collusion with Russia. I don’t believe that. I believe Mueller is investigating whether or not the kid’s vocal cords have been removed.

*****

Trump doesn’t seem to understand – or worse, doesn’t care – that “the swamp” isn’t just composed of Democrats, the media, and Obama holdovers. It’s also composed of creepy conservative pricks like this guy:

05Jun

Flashman

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by George MacDonald Fraser

Flashman chronicles the misadventures of a 19th-century cad who, through sheer luck and an uncanny ability to be in the wrong place at the right time, manages to emerge a national military hero in Britain.

Imagine James Bond as a racist, misogynistic coward, and you’ll have the gist of this series (begun in 1969) about Harry Flashman, an unapologetic jerk in 1840s Afghanistan who deflowers dimwitted country girls, fornicates with superior officers’ wives and, when things go badly, as they invariably do, pins the blame on someone – anyone – else. Bottom line: Flashman is amusing, albeit forgettable, fluff.

03Jun

The Weekly Review: May 28 – June 3

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Homophobia Week!

*****

I was as surprised as anyone when the White House introduced new Press Secretary Gary Blackman at Tuesday’s daily press briefing:

*****

Apparently the Lifetime logo in movie ads is meant to be the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, or a symbol of quality, like whatever it is that Disney uses. But I’m afraid the logo is backfiring for some of us.

I was a bit intrigued by The House Sitter — until I noticed the dreaded Lifetime logo, at which point I thought: “ugh.”