Day: June 22, 2021

If there’s one thing I loathe about screen villains it’s the tendency of screenwriters to simply portray them as evil incarnate — evil, rotten fuckface psychopaths who love dispensing pain and cruelty and almost cackle with glee when they can slug or plug someone…the sheer joy of ugliness for its own sake.

That kind of portrayal might be fun for third-rate actors, but in real life villainy has its reasons and rationales. When bad people look in the bathroom mirror they see a flawed but half-reasonable man/woman who’s just doing what he/she has to do to keep moving, keep earning and not get arrested.

In Quentin Tarantino‘s Jackie Brown, Samuel L. Jackson‘s Ordell Robbie — a smooth but ruthless gun dealer who lives in Hermosa Beach — is no one’s idea of a nice guy, but he has his reasons for doing what he feels he needs to do. He’s not a Satanic emissary with horns on his head, but a guy who’s simply trying to protect himself and stay alive and not get popped.

When Chris Tucker‘s Beaumont Livingston is arrested with a machine gun or two in his car (weapons that Robbie had smuggled or was about to sell or something in that realm), Robbie knows that Livingston will rat him out to escape a long prison sentence, and so Ordell has to kill him — it’s a straight case of his survival or Livingston’s. He’s not looking to kill Livingston because he loves committing murder — he’s dead certain (and he’s right) that if he wants to keep going as a gun dealer he has no choice in the matter.

Same deal with Robert DeNiro‘s Louis Gara, a none-too-bright criminal whom Ordell first met in prison, and a guy with a hair-trigger temper who’s impulsively and idiotically shot Bridget Fonda‘s Melanie in the Del Amo shopping plaza parking lot.

When Gara tells Robbie what happened and especially the part about the money gone missing and Gara not putting two and two together and realizing that Max Cherry’s presence near the department store dressing room meant something, Robbie knows that Gara is a loose-cannon dumbshit and untrustworthy and that one way or the other he’ll do something that will put Robbie in jeopardy. And so, Robbie quickly realizes, he has no choice but to kill Gara.

Again, it’s not that Robbie loves killing or that he dislikes Gara personally, but strategically Gara is an obvious liability and so he has to go. Robbie doesn’t pull the trigger out of venality but practicality — he’s just trying to save himself from ugly consequences around the bend.

I’m not saying Robbie is a sympathetic character, but at least you understand where he’s coming from. He’s cold and ruthless, but he has his reasons for doing what he feels he has to do. When he gets it in the end, you almost feel sorry for the guy. Not quite but almost.

Now that Jon Chu and Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s In The Heights has gone down in flames, what fate awaits the next POCs-singing-and-dancing-on-the-streets-of-New York musical — i.e., Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story (20th Century, 12.10)?

More to the point, in what ways will Woke Film Twitter (or anti-Woke Film Twitter) try to bruise or take it down? In what ways might it be vulnerable or dismissable?

Before we start it’s fair to consider the possibility that West Side Story won’t be attacked by anyone — that it’ll be received as a better-than-decent and possibly even excellent musical by Zoomers, Millennials, GenXers and Boomers alike. They all might say “yes!…hail this darkly flavorful, excitingly performed, heart-massaging interpretation of Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and William Shakespeare‘s stage musical, which opened at the Winter Garden theatre a lonnnnnng time ago — 9.26.57.

A more likely reaction is that Boomers and GenXers will approve, but Millennials and Zoomers will dismiss it as a sentimental relic of a world that no longer exists.

Another possible reaction is that critics and urban cultural progressives will shrug and say “again?” Their complaint might be that the material was been performed and re-performed and revived too many times, and that it’s just too familiar and shop-worn, and that we’ve been West Side Story-ed to death.

Wokesters might feel alienated by the film’s tragic theme — prejudice and tribalism invite tragedy. Because their view is that whites and only whites are to blame for racial hatred in any given situation, and that the Manhattan-residing Puerto Rican immigrants of the story are pure victims. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (which West Side Story is a musical remake of) the Montagues and the Capulets are equally guilty of spewing tribal hate.

A small contingent of Twitter morons will probably try to revive the “Ansel Elgort was guilty of sexual assault!” conversation, which was ludicrous to begin with. The alleged victim, who called herself “Gabby,” was a legal and consentable 17 when her relationship with Elgort happened in December 2014. It was an empty Twitter drama, but that’s never stopped the #MeToo and safe-space Twitter mob when they lose their shit about whatever.

Will the same agitators who complained about In The Heights ignoring the presence of Afro-Latinos in Washington Heights…will they make a comeback and repeat the same colorist gripe about West Side Story?

Will Puerto Rican artists and activists post angry tweets about West Side Story not conveying cultural authenticity in its portrayal of Puerto Rican immigrants in Eisenhower-era Manhattan, and/or that it presents an offensively negative portrait of Puerto Rico? Remember that the beloved musical conveys negative views of Puerto Rico in “America”, an ensemble tune that is chiefly sung by Bernardo’s sexy g.f. Anita (respectively played by Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose in the original stage show, the 1961 film version and the 2021 remake). The sassy lyrics weigh the pros and cons of life in New York City vs. San Juan.

What else could screw things up for West Side Story?

I for one would love Spielberg’s version to succeed — I’ve long felt that Robert Wise‘s 1961 Oscar-winning film feels too “Hollywood” and lacks authenticity — too much bright red paint on the sides of tenement buildings, etc. I suspect that Elgort and Rachel Zegler‘s performances as Tony and Maria will deliver and then some. Ditto Ariana DeBose‘s Anita, David Alvarez‘s Bernardo and Mike Faist‘s Riff.

Rachel Zegler (i.e., “Maria” in Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story) seems like the right choice to play Snow White in Disney’s forthcoming live-action musical version, which Marc Webb will direct sometime in ’22. Beautiful, sings like a bird, etc.

There are just two problems. One is the name Snow White, which obviously reeks of racist arrogance and entitlement. Wouldn’t it make more sense in this day and age to call her Snow Brown? (I could roll with that.) Secondly, how will Webb and producer Marc Platt handle the whole “Prince Charming awakening Snow White from a deep coma with a kiss is wrong because it’s non-consensual” thing? Snow White is right on the edge of death, and yet it’s bad bad BAD for Prince Charming to have awakened her because she had no say in the matter because she was in a coma…of course!

Yes, a completely bonkers attitude or viewpoint but welcome to the 2021 lunatic asylum.

Which is the more odious viewing prospect — Coke Daniels‘ Karen, a horror-thriller based on the “Karen” meme (entitled racist white woman) or the latest “The New Normal,” a Washington Post video essay, hosted by Nicole Ellis, that focuses on toxic whiteness?

Karen is a BET Jordan Peele joke, but the Ellis video strikes me as vaguely horrifying — the scourge of fair-skinned evil. Democrats would have 60% of this country accept blame as the enemy within, and the only way the prosecution will back off is if we go through these rituals of admitting guilt + self-abasement. We bad.

Friendo on Nicole Ellis/WaPo video: “So the Democrats, aware that the right is glomming onto Critical Race Theory as the leverage they will need for 2022, are defending and doubling down on CRT. The same thing happened with Defund the Police heading into the ’20 election. Those who objected were too scared to speak against it and the loudest voices defended it until the election. This is much worse — the media and so many others are making this seem to be what the entire Democratic Party is about and what they want America to be about. I am not sure this can be stopped.

“Does this or does this not look like an informercial for a cult?”

It’s actually “drive from WeHo to La Piedra State Beach”-day. The journey lasts 70 minutes if you’re lucky. Once you’re there it’s cool — remote, high cliffs, tranquility base, a better class of visitor — but what an ordeal to get there. From Santa Monica to Malibu Canyon PCH is arguably the ugliest, most congested beachside highway on planet earth.

We were married on LPSB on 6.30.17, hence the champagne.