My God….I was almost shocked by how ineffective and annoying Steven Soderbergh‘s Presence is, and I’m saying that as one who’s generally admired or at least been okay with Soderbergh’s “bauble” flicks.
A friend calls it “the very definition of a B-minus movie.”
It’s obviously wokey in the use of Ryan (West Mulholland), a sickening psycho white kid villain…standard evil toxic paleface syndrome, par for the course. This plus a mostly Asian family of four coping with Mulholland’s initially subtle creepitude…the teenage daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) grappling with his casual-but-aggressive sexuality, and her older brother Tyler (Eddy Maday) triggered by Mulholland at the finale.
I’m sorry but David Koepp’s screenplay is just a flat-out slog to wade through. I don’t know the right term for the exact polar opposite of “sharp and engaging with an interesting subtext”, but that’s what Koepp’s dialogue is. The story also kinda blows.
I had read the Wiki synopsis a couple of times before last night’s viewing, mainly because of shitty sound mixes that sometimes obscure key plot details. I would’ve been completely lost in the thicket if I hadn’t done this.
I’d read a few reviews and found it interesting that no one even mentioned that Presence is basically about a three-quarters Asian-American family, albeit with an overweight, bearded, all-but-hairless Anglo dad named Chris (Chris Sullivan) with a worry-wart personality.
Apparently even a cursory mention of the ethnicity factor (which is obviously anecdotal) makes one a racist MAGA xenophobe, and therefore subject to termination.
Presence is set in a bland environment — a nice older home in a typical suburban town that could be fucking anywhere. It was actually shot in Cranford, New Jersey, which isn’t that far from HE’s hometown of Westfield.
Peter Andrews‘ wide-angle cinematography “lies” in the manner of online real-estate photography, which always tries to make everything look bigger and more spacious with wide-angle or spherical lenses.
And the shadowed under-lighting feels oppressive. The upstairs bedrooms have a fair amount of sunlight but the downstairs rooms appear to have been coated with a blend of turkey gravy and black bean soup. Why does it look so fucking morose?
Pretty Chloe is obviously the most sympathetic character, but she’s dull. Hell, they’re all dull. Right away I said to myself, “These people are an absolute drag to hang with…they exude misery and neuroticism and anxiety and emotional avoidance with every line, every furtive glance or gesture.
Even the protective, flitting-around, good-guy ghost is is a bit dull.
Overweight Chris brings in a similarly proportioned medium, played by Natalie Woodlams-Torr, who immediately senses the presence, and also discerns that “something bad” might happen in the near future.
Chloe shrieks early on when she sees that some books and notebooks have been moved off the bed onto a desk, but when dad asks if she’s cool, she immediately lies. Why?
Tyler is an insensitive, judgmental dick who sees nothing beyond or beneath his own macho arrogance, but at the very last second and after the ghost has woken him from drugged stupor, Tyler suddenly becomes an idiotic superhero avenger…I can say no more but in my eighth-row seat I went “what the FUCK?”
Plus Tyler’s lack of basic decency is off-putting. Right after meeting Chloe for the first time, psycho Ryan indicates to Tyler that she’s hot and he’d like to fuck her, and Tyler is seemingly “whatever” about this. This is how older brothers respond to sexual invasiveness concerning their sisters?
It turns out that laid-back, blonde-haired Ryan is a drink-spiking fiend who’s not only a threat to Chloe but was also…uhm, involved with her late friend Nadia. (Saying no more.) I was muttering to myself, “This is the best plot driver that Koepp and Soderbergh could come up with? A sinister white kid who dopes his victims and has a thing for plastic wrap?”
HE to hip filmmakers: The villain or the serial killer or the corrupt, ethically-challenged guy doesn’t have to be a white male. Creativity and imagination can and should allow for a little diversity in this matter. Go with a gun-toting lesbian on occasion. Or a Glenn Close-resembling Kentucky yokel. Or (gasp!) a black dude. Or a Latino fat-ass. Or an Islamic jihadist. Or a Proud Boys nutter who happens to be a person of color or, let’s say, a Russian gopnik.
I suffered through a nightmare early this morning. So bad it woke me up, left me with stomach acid.
Detectives knocked on the door of my parents’ Wilton home (which they sold in ‘94), and at 9:30 pm or 10 pm yet. If someone knocks on the door at that hour, you know it’s trouble.
I answered, let them in. The feeling in my chest was terrible…purely about doom The detectives were inquiring about two separate murders. They were maintaining a certain professional cool, but the evidence, they calmly stated, was pointing in my direction.
Even before I opened the door, I knew I was a dead man.
Three detectives — two polite, studiously casual, mellow-as-a-cucumber dudes plus a ginger woman detective (half Rebecca Keegan, half Jessica Chastain) who was giving me a look that would grow hair on a rock. Her eyes weren’t glaring as much as burning a hole.
Obviously a typical nightmare metaphor scenario…a metaphor for something I feel haunted by or am currently fearful of.
The Academy created the 10 Best Picture nominee list to include the more commercial films like TheDarkKnight (that they passed on nominating) so the Joe and Jane Popcorns of the world would tune in for bigger ratings, which drives their income.
But by inviting all those international filmmakers to become members, the Academy defeated the purpose of the 10 nominees because now those invitees are voting for more int’l films. Oh man. What a quandary.
And here’s the thing: if you’re going to nominate foreign films for Best Picture Oscar, then why have an international category at all? Just eliminate it or, better yet, restrict any foreign films from competing for the BP category (along with animated films which also has its own separate category). That way more deserving American films can get in (and British).
…are not “wrong ones.” There is very little public support when it comes to deporting people in the country illegally who have not been convicted of a crime. The Trump plan will reportedly initially focus on immigrants who’ve committed crimes. To what extent will ICE agents start rounding up illegals with a clean record? No telling.
Ancient Chinese movie director’s curse: “May you peak during your first six years, and then experience a long, very gradual, mostly erratic decline over the next 25 years.”
Friendo: Did you ever get to meet/interview Michael Ritchie? Yes, he made stinkers like The Golden Child and The Island. but don’t you miss the guy who directed The Bad News Bears, Smile, The Candidate and Downhill Racer?
HE: Downhill Racer, The Candidate and Smile comprise Ritchie’s masterful trio. In late ’23 I finally saw and had an okay time with The Bad News Bears, but I don’t swear by it. Plus I was agreeably amused by Semi-Tough (’77).
Friendo: You don’t think BNB was his masterpiece?
HE: No — Downhill Racer and The Candidate, both starring peak Robert Redford, are the top two. Smile is a close third.
Friendo: Disagree, pal. Ritchie’s best, in the correct order, are BEARS, SMILE, CANDIDATE, FLETCH, RACER, DIGGSTOWN and SEMI-TOUGH. I might add AN ALMOST PERFECT AFFAIR to the mix as Monica Vitti is my #1 time-travel crush.
HE: Diggstown?
EW‘s Chris Willman on 4.26.01: “It’s difficult to think of any director, ever, who had a more consistently uneven career.”
Just about everything that ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said last night was incisive, spot-on, brilliant.
Posted on Axios on 1.19.25: “The $TRUMP memecoin — a financial asset that didn’t exist [last] Friday afternoon — now accounts for about 89% of Donald Trump’s net worth.
“Why it matters: The coin (technically a token that’s issued on the Solana blockchain) has massively enriched Trump personally, enabled a mechanism for the crypto industry to funnel cash to him, and created a volatile financial asset that allows anyone in the world to financially speculate on Trump’s political fortunes.”
Posted on The Byte, also on 1.19: “The whole thing reeks to high heaven. Trump’s crypto isn’t shooting up in value because of any intrinsic technical or business acumen; it’s doing so because investors believe — rightly, in all likelihood — that it will be a lucrative conflict of interest over the next four years.”
But it certainly DOES flirt with mediocrity during the second half. And the bottom-line truth is that if not for the trans signpost factor, Perez would simply not be a Best Picture nominee.
This is a plea for Academy voters to emerge from the cultural woke cocoon of the past six or seven years, and to finally put aside sexual-identity or gender issues as deciding criteria. Enough with the social justice warrior crap.
Please consider voting for the Best Picture nominee that doesn’t do the woke two-step (please give that nagging “revolutionary” ethos a rest) while actually fulfilling and delivering a certain kind of high on its own emotional and cinematic terms. Which is what Anora, Conclave and A Complete Unknown manage to do, handily.
Joe and Jane Popcorn voted for Trump in order to get rid of the crazy wokey or at least keep it on the sidelines. For the love of God, smell the coffee. The woke point has been made, and now it’s time to set that bird free.
HE commenter K. Bowen: “It seems like the Academy is about to hand the trophy to a movie no one actually likes.”
I sympathize with owners of burnt-to-the-ground homes who want to clean up and remove debris as quickly as possible. I’m no Trumpie but The Beast telling L.A. mayor KarenBass that residents should be allowed to start clearing out rubble with all due haste…that’s a good thing. Don’t keep them from doing so because of this or that nickle-and-dime regulation…regulations which always slow things down by weeks if not months.
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...
