Day: April 27, 2023

“My favorite Sicario character by far was Benicio del Toro’s Alejandro, a shadowy Mexican operative with burning eyes and his own kind of existential attitude about things. Benicio the sly serpent…the shaman with the drooping eyelids…the slurring, purring, south-of-the-border vibe guy.

“My second favorite, a senior veteran with a semi-casual ‘whatever works, bring it on’ attitude, is played by the ever-reliable Josh Brolin.

“The tale, such as it is, is told from the perspective of Emily Blunt‘s FBI field agent, who, being a 21st Century woman who’s in touch with her emotions, is of course stunned and devastated by the unrelenting carnage blah blah.

“You know what I’d like to see just once? A female FBI agent who isn’t in touch with her emotions, or at least one who tones it down when it comes to showing them. Too much to ask for, right?

“Sicario is basically about heavily militarized, inter-agency U.S. forces hunting down and shooting it out with the Mexican drug-cartel bad guys, and at other times flying here and there in a private jet and driving around in a parade of big black SUVs and so on….zzzzzz.

“It’s a strong welcome-to-hell piece, I’ll give it that, but Sicario doesn’t come close to the multi-layered, piled-on impact of Steven Soderbergh‘s Traffic, portions of which dealt with more or less the same realm

“I knew for certain that a lot of what was happening on-screen — the super-grisly violence, the despairing godforsaken atmosphere — wasn’t that interesting or logical even, and that Villeneuve seemed more interested in nightmare vibes than compelling specifics.

“Villeneuve has called Sicario, which was written by Taylor Sheridan, ‘a very dark film, a dark poem, quite violent…it’s about the alienation of the cycles of violence, how at one point we are in those spirals of violence and ask ourselves ‘Is there a solution?’ My movie raises the question, but it doesn’t give any answer.’

— excerpted from HE’s 6.9.15 review.

Once he found his groove in ’94 or thereabouts, the antics of Jerry Springer never failed to lower the conversation and degrade the sordid remnants of American lower-middle-class culture. All during the ’90s, aughts and 20teens I never once sat down and watched The Jerry Springer Show…24 years of the scurviest, most genetically deprived low-life behavior ever seen on American television. (The low-rent stuff didn’t begin until ’94.) Yes, I occasionally watched Springer clips on YouTube but only when I was in a slovenly mood. The reigning trash TV pioneer passed earlier today.

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…who doesn’t kowtow to the bumblefuck mouth-breathers would obviously be better than Orange Plague, right?

In their heart of hearts the MAGA faithful know Trump can’t win, of course, and most of us are pleased about this almost certain fact. But what a gross and depraved spectacle a Trump ’24 candidacy would be, and what a low-rent, soul-depleting conversation we’ll all be having when he squares off against Joe Biden — an animalistic, saliva-spewing sociopath vs. a mellow, steady-as-she-goes octogenarian whom many center-lefties aren’t that thrilled about serving a second term.

Biden’s second term would begin on 1.20.25 (when he’ll be 82) and end on 1.20.29 (when he’ll be 86).

I know that Vivek Ramaswamy can’t possibly beat Trump in the Republican primaries or delegate race, in large part because the mostly rural, racist Republican community won’t vote for anyone whose last name they can’t spell or pronounce, but he’s obviously a better, smarter, more forward-looking fellow than Trump has ever been, and we could all look forward to a more stimulating, issue-driven 2024 Presidential race than if he were to somehow prevail. I love Vivek’s anti-woke determinations, and I’ve long admired super-brainy Millennial moderate righties as a rule (Konstantin Kisin, even Rishi Sunak).

I would still hold my nose, shrug my shoulders and vote for Biden, but it would be great to have a whipsmart rightwing candidate instead of a spray-tan animal brain.

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I really don’t care about this. I stopped re-watching E.T. decades ago. Too many viewings. The greatest aspect is John Williams’ score.

So far I’ve only managed to trudge through episodes #2 and #3 of Alice Birch‘s Dead Ringers (Amazon, 4.21), an expanded, feminized remounting of David Cronenberg’s 1988 feature.

Jeremy Irons played twin Toronto gynecologists in the 35 year-old original; Rachel Weisz does the same this time, playing both the prim and proper Beverly Mantle (cautiously mannered, hair-bunned, lesbian) and her twin sister Eliot (louche, profane, hair-trigger, straight).

At first Beverly and Eliot are depicted as brilliant, bristling partners in business and visionary birthing (“we’re both extraordinary”), and then, inevitably…you know what happens.

Cronenberg’s feature was definitely a perverse rogue-male thing; the Amazon series is also perverse but informed by boundary-pushing 21st Century womanhood top to bottom.

I can’t say I’m feeling especially won over. You can detect the diseased dynamic between the twins immediately, and right away it brings on feelings of fatigue. Portions of the piecemeal narrative feel hazily plotted and puzzle-boxy. Jody Lee Lipes and Laura Merians Gonçalves‘ cinematography is too under-lighted — everything has a chilly, grayish-blue tint, and I was very quickly annoyed by this.

For my money Birch’s Dead Ringers doesn’t so much mesmerize or disturb or guide you into some weird nether realm as vacuum you dry. With the exception of a killer dinner-table argument scene, that is, which I quite enjoyed.

All six episodes have been written by women (and two by Birch). Sean Durkin directed episodes #1 and #2, and co-directed episode 6 with Lauren Wolkstein; the other three episodes were directed by Wolkstein, Karena Evans and Karyn Kusama.

I shouldn’t say any more. Except that I really don’t want to sit through episodes #3 through #6. Okay, I’ll watch them but not with any haste or dispatch.

I caught a series of four or five short naps…five minutes, 20 minutes, five again… napping as I went along. I tried to keep the shut-eye to a minimum by catching a 15-minute snooze before it began, but the Denis Villeneuve “sandman” effect was too much to withstand.