Movie That Can't Movie

Clever marketing I'll give them that. That's about all I'll give them.

So where do I begin ...I threw up, and I came home shaking. And no this wasn't from a night of heavy drinking. I don't drink anymore but after seeing Mother! I wish someone had stuck a bottle of vodka up my ass. So many things bother me about this absolute garbage presented as art, (and I should know, I wrote my graduate thesis on Warhol). So, let's start with the big one: ripping off so many filmmakers I can't even count. I'll take you through the short list. The obvious one is Polanski, in particular Rosemary's Baby, then the body horror sub-genre created by one David Cronenberg which was totally bastardized. The pseudo-realism of Michelle Gondry, and the female protagonist suffering and being unconscionably passive a la Cassavetes (who is one of my favorite filmmakers).

'What have you done to its eyes!?' The iconic ending of Rosemary's Baby proving that the real horror is on the face of the person reacting, therefore there is no need to actually show it. What the human mind can imagine is always worse than any horror you can show. Again, epic fail Mother!

Horror movie that took forever to horror was not so much a fright or a smart unraveling of a mystery like say Get Out, which breathed new life into a dying genre. This was just torture. I paid Aronofsky to torture me for 2 hours and three showers couldn't shake that shit off of me. 

This blog post might not make much sense but that's how disoriented I am. Fuck this movie, seriously. I know that Aronofsky has a penchant for religious symbolism and imagery but pick a fucking lane. You either utilize the symbolism or you go full monty on the blood and guts. This was the latter as if I was watching a film student ripping off the SAW franchise. To say that this was an unpleasant experience is an understatement, but back to the religion stuff. There's a shit ton of it and he's spreading it thick like cement; he's layering it like a parfait; pick a metaphor. 

This was in the trailer so it's fair game. Really driving the Garden of Eden metaphor all the way home. 

One thing that my friend and I agreed on was this whole idea that Aronofsky seems to be obsessed with is the parable from the Old Testament where God is apparently drunk on the job and keeps creating societies that he disapproves of, boom comes a flood, and clean new start. That's actually explored and nuanced (somewhat sloppily in his prior film; Noah), but that sentiment is crammed down our throats so hard with a chimney sweep's brush. Apparently Aronofsky has never heard of nor is familiar with the concept of subtlety. I really can't go further into it without revealing the plot and the marketing department made so sure that they weren't going to give away ANYTHING to trick people into shelving out 12 dollars to see CENSORED CENSORED of fucking CENSORED CENSORED. Here are a few biblical themes that I'm just going to shuffle for you just to confuse you because I'm confused and I don't want to be the only one: Cain and Abel, immaculate conception, Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus healing the blind, lots of Jesus actually; garden of Eden, forbidden fruit, original sin, there's some myth of Sisyphus sprinkled on it as well. It literally just builds until even the most well versed graduate student in Divinity would go; fuck this shit. 

Director David Cronenberg in between takes with his star James Woods on the set of the film Videodrome; which this film steals heavily from and as a Cronenberg superfan, it's infuriating. 

Want to watch a competent film with religious allegory check out Fellini's Satyricon, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, Todd Hayne's Poison, ANYTHING by Ingmar Bergman, or even some episodes of 'Lost' will do. 

Another thing that really pissed me off was that Aronofsky decided to throw out structure all together. You really would think that this was some bullshit made by a first year film student at a bottom tier film school (sorry film schools). Movie takes two and a half acts to movie and most of the first 110 or so minutes are following Jennifer Lawrence with a shaky hand held, camera making me more nauseous than watching Blair Witch on the big screen. It was done so much ad nauseam that I actually got to study her cool updo's and french braids pretty well because there was little else to do. 

Again, I really can't go into the plot, and if I did, you wouldn't see the film, but how about this; take my word for it. I'll even throw money into the pot. Don't see this movie. Or do, you might be a masochist, whatever. 

The golden rule of filmmaking that was first coined by the late great Billy Wilder and echoed by filmmakers worth their salt for generations is; 'respect your audience'. You're not making a film for yourself, you're making it so others will see it otherwise, what's the damned point? Aronofsky apparently didn't get that memo. 

The Battle of the Tennis Movies

LaBeouf and Gudnason.

TIFF just opened its doors and premiered with the anticipated Borg/McEnroe with Hollywood's favorite bad boy de jour Shia LaBeouf as the favorite bad boy of tennis John McEnroe, and newcomer (at least to American Cinema) Sverrir Gudnason as Björn Borg; the machine. This film (bio-pic what have you) is about the 1980 Wimbeldon match. The first Wimbeldon and Borg in his record-breaking 5th. It was perhaps the most important match of 21 year old's McEnroe's career and just so happened to be the first out of the gate. He was the only thing standing between Borg and a record of 5 straight Singles Men's Wimbeldon wins. This is all before McEnroe started a reputation of yelling at referees, throwing rackets, and just turning the whole sport into a spectacle. Don't get me wrong, he's talented AF, so the spectacle was still one hell of a sport to watch when McEnroe was playing it. That's perhaps why LaBeouf was cast. Perhaps they are kindred spirits. The film premiered a few nights ago, and LaBeouf received almost universal praise for his portrayal of the tennis legend even though he looked nothing like him nor really played tennis.  

The real Borg and McEnroe minutes before their showdown. Costume and makeup are going to get major props for this. 

LaBeouf is a damn good actor (as tired as that hyperbole is), and yeah I said it so you know where I stand. I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm optimistic as hell. Everything about it looks like those great sports movies that used to exist in the 80's before Disney had to go fuck it all up; one word - Miracle. 

The only person that didn't praise his performance was the man himself, shocker. But I also want to see if Sverrir was any good and coming from a Swedish/Icelandic background I'm sure he's a machine, much like Borg. But what I really want to touch on and provide a good segway into the next film is the idea of sports films. In the 80's you had really great sports films; from Chariots of Fire (which started the trend), to The Natural, to Hoop Dreams, to Breaking Away.  It all climaxed with Field of Dreams, and then it all went to shit. And my generation was stuck with crap like Blue Crush, Hot Shots! and fucking Varsity Blues. What the hell happened there? I'm not big into sports but my god. Yeah, have a protagonists perhaps two and make it about the primal struggle which is basically what sports is. It's about winning and losing, no philosophy, no fuss. Just simple human competition. That's drama right there. I believe that these two films are going to restore that void that's been missing in cinema. Some sports moments last forever. One of which that I'm sure everyone has heard about is the Miracle on Ice in 1980 when team USA beat the Soviet Union in the Olympics. Basically accomplishing the impossible hence the term 'miracle on ice'. Thanks Disney for ruining it for a generation that never got to live through that or experience the actual brilliance of that moment. (I didn't live through it either, but I've seen the actual footage and it was way more intense and dramatic).

The media was right there capturing every insane moment leading up to the Battle of the Sexes.

Anyway! Speaking of another thing I didn't live through (I was born in '85, ok gimme a break, I'm not that old, but I do know my history) was the Battle of the Sexes. It was a tennis match, and that's what they called it. It is also being screened at TIFF and stars Emma Stone (whatever) as feminist icon and tremendous tennis player Billie Jean King and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs; the has-been, outlandish and flamboyant champion from a million years ago pinned in a battle of man vs. woman, which really did turn the game into a spectacle when he challenged the former to a tennis match in 1973 basically to make an extra buck and draw attention to himself. Billie Jean King reluctantly accepted, and Bobby Riggs would not stop spouting chauvinist rhetoric at her just to get people's ire up. Billie Jean King was in her prime, and with an actual battle of the sexes going on in society at the time, this tennis match drew a great deal of attention and King's inevitable victory meant a great deal to the American feminist movement. She went from icon to legend. I'm not sure if Emma Stone is the best casting, but unlike Shia LaBeouf, the original that she was portraying gave her a wonderful review.

The real Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs posing for a publicity still. 

I'm excited for both films. I feel like Battle of the Sexes is going to be more of a politically skewed film that deals with the zeitgeist of the times and heavily pushes the second wave of feminism movement of that period, and Borg/McEnroe is going to be a much darker psychological exploration of athleticism and dreams; accomplished and broken. Both sound great to me and I'm really stoked. 

Another film that may redeem the genre is the upcoming Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan biopic; I, Tonya starring Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding, which I actually did live through. And I really can't wait for that one because when that whole shit went down, I was actually a figure skater myself. Granted I was 8, but I never lost interest in the sport. If a film can make you fall in love with a sport that you otherwise don't care about, they've done their job. 

Trailers for both films below: 

Casual Racism #SquadGoals

Happy 4th White America!

There was a great article after 1989 came out by I think (and pray) Judith Butler or Linda Williams (there goes my academia swag card) that labeled Taylor Swift and her 'squad' a bunch of neo-nazi Barbies. I tried to find it, and if you Google Search 'Taylor Swift Nazi' you get about 2 million results; the most compelling of which is this one. It's not difficult to see why that is. I'm sorry but Taylor has been selling herself as kind of a faux Jill-of-all-trades, twerking in her 'Shake it Off' video, and most recently blatantly ripping off Beyonce's 'Formation' video with 'Look What You Made Me Do'. She's a tall Aryan-AF looking blonde who loves to play the victim; and what do white nationalists do aside from playing the victim all the time.

Taylor's go-to music video director Joseph Kahn tweeted that the 'Look What You Made Me Do' video is not in Beyonce's art space ...I beg to differ. 

Perfect example: Kanye the villainous African American man is ruining the 'reputation' of a helpless young white girl. What is this, 'Birth of a Nation'? (The D.W. Griffith version). All you have to do is watch the Viceland documentary on the Charlottesville rally to see why that is. I won't go as far as to say that she's their cultural icon, but she's strange not to denounce the rumors much like Trump. However she has no trouble denouncing rumors about her flimsy and flighty love life...hm. But most of this started when the whole squad became a thing. She surrounded herself with tall blonde girls who looked just like her. It was only when she received criticism for that, that she 'allowed' Zendaya in her clique. Like the whole world is her basic Aryan high school. I think Zendaya is doing just fine without her. 

Squad goals?

Cultural appropriation is just as bad as outward racism in my opinion, so let's move on to the greatest 'culture vultures' of our time; Kendall and Kylie just can't help fucking up can they? Let's get this out of the way. They are white girls. Sometimes, I like to see what idiots on social media are getting up to, and it doesn't look any better for either of them. Firstly, the unspeakable and tone-deaf Pepsi commercial that would have ruined anyone's career that Kendall miraculously survived, where some genius thought that to make her the face of the Black Lives Matter movement was a good idea. Then came the T-shirt line. If you don't know, let me catch you up. Kendall and Kylie are so obsessed with their own faces they decided to super-impose them unto T-shirts of album covers by Biggie and Tupac. Are you fucking kidding me? And because they wanted to market it for basic bitches, the gave it a vintage look and charged a hefty 125.00$ price tag for them before quickly removing them from the market.

I'm sure the Muslim community is totally fine with this. 

Kendall herself is also getting quite a bit of flack because her IG is chalk full of offensive and insensitive imagery such as her dressed up in a Hijab, to a shirt with a confederate flag on it. Also, lest we forget, she tagged a photo of herself and her sisters with the caption; 'girl power ...sister power' with a fist bump emoji on it. Only problem is that the fist bump color was basically three emojis darker than white, implying she was somehow on board the brazen cultural appropriation train without actually doing anything for the community that she is stealing from. I think my fave response to that bullshit was a girl who told her straight up to stick in her emoji lane.

Tupac always wanted his legacy to be two white girls' initials over his image.

The most recent BS regarding members of Taylor Swift's Aryan squad that's popped up is with supermodel Gigi Hadid. You'd think she gets a pass because she's half Semitic; born to a Dutch mother and a Palestinian father. And yet, she got a shitload of well-deserved flack when she announced that she would be walking in the Victoria Secret fashion show that would be held in Shanghai this year. Now, don't think that because she's not full blood that she doesn't enjoy white privilege. Her entire life was spent in Malibu living with her mother and rich, white stepfather, David Foster. Perhaps you're the biggest asshole when you don't admit that yeah you enjoy the fuck out of white privilege. Anyway, someone managed to dig up an IG video of her at a Chinese restaurant with her sister Bella, who did a weird quasi and really racist Asian bow, as Gigi held up her cookie in the shape of a Buddha face and squinted. That's some ratchet shit right there. 

Presented without comment. 

Now yeah, these things may seem minimal, but this is how it starts. And with racial tensions at an all time high, I'd be a bit more careful if I was a cultural icon, especially one that children look up to ...for some reason. Ana Navarro? No thanks ...Kendall. They're role models whether they like it or not, and people are just not having anymore of their casual racism. You don't get away with everything just because you're pretty, ladies.