Nationalist anti-immigrant sentiments have surfaced in several European countries over the last few years, and now Georgia Meloni, a hard-right, anti-immigrant politician whose principal affiliation is with the radical Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia), has been elected Italy’s prime minister.

It is fair to presume that Meloni’s’ victory is mostly about ground-level, Average Joe racism — wanting to protect traditional Italian culture from a feared flooding of the country and the culture by Middle Eastern and northern African immigrants.

The electoral ascension of the hard-right Sweden Democrats represents another cultural convulsion caused by this same concern.

N.Y. Times reporter Steven Erlanger: “European Union leaders are now watching [the Meloni] coalition’s comfortable victory in Italy…with caution and some trepidation, despite reassurances from Ms. Meloni, who would be the first far-right nationalist to govern Italy since Mussolini, that she has moderated her views.

“But it is hard for them to escape a degree of dread. Even given the bloc’s successes in recent years to agree on a groundbreaking pandemic recovery fund and to confront Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the appeal of nationalists and populists remains strong — and is spreading, a potential threat to European ideals and cohesion.”

Some are under an impression that Ti West‘s Pearl (A24, currently playing), the X prequel, is some kind of unusual, imaginative gothic slasher film blah blah. And I’ve been told “you really ought to see this.”

Well, I caught it last night, and shame on the above-described. They need to beg for forgiveness, take their shirts off and beat themselves with birch branches, wash their mouths out with soap.

That goes double for a friend who wrote that “while X is a generic slasher flick, Pearl does flesh out some of the X characters. X is X but Pearl is something completely different. I don’t know if you’ll like it or not, at the very least the cinematography is fairly stunning.”

Allow me to ask a question of the Pearl fan clubbers. The question is “what is wrong with you?”

Pearl is a facile, lazily conceived, sloppily written, incongruent American gothic slasher flick that basically asks “what if Dorothy Gale was an enraged, self-hating, mother-hating, animal-hating, everything-hating fiend who uses a three-pronged pitchfork the way Norman Bates used a kitchen carving knife?”

I know what strikingly handsome, wow-level cinematography shot in a wide-open farming locale looks like. Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler‘s lensing of Days of Heaven is one example. The bucolic farm images of Pearl (shot in New Zealand, pretending to be Texas) are decent but nothing to get too excited about. Bothersome at times…under-lighted, sometimes muddy compositions. It reminded me of the visual palettes of The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit On Your Grave and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Seriously, fuck this movie.

Random jottings during the screening:

(a) “This is low-rent crap…perverse, brainless, derivative psycho Americana“;
(b) “Pearl’s hard-nosed German mother (Tandi Wright) emphasizes that life is hard and they need to struggle to survive, but she refuses a neighbor’s gift of a stuffed pig?”;
(c) “An alligator living in a lake in Texas?”;
(d) “Mia doesn’t like to be stared at by the brown cow”;
(e) “For my money the cinematography is on the muddy and grainy and under-lighted side”;
(f) “Wright’s performance is pretty good”;
(g) “The 1920s silent stag film was diverting”;
(h) “Masturbating with the scarecrow was okay“;
(i) “The allusion to the 1918 pandemic was interesting”;
(j) “Why doesn’t she chop her father’s hands off with an axe and feed them to the alligator? Why doesn’t she feed herself to the alligator?”;
(k) “Stupid crap…wasting my life watching this shit…feed him to the fake gator!”;
(l) “Where does Pearl get the idea that she’s some kind of good singer or dancer? I know she’s delusional but why go to an audition if she doesn’t have some kind of half-reasonable hope that the audition guys will respond to her skill and talent? That said, the World War I chorus girl sequence isn’t bad”;
(m) “Pearl pitchforks the only nice, sensible guy in the whole film because he begins to realize she’s a bit of wacko, which of course she is”;
(n) “I’m soooo glad I never saw X. I’m ecstatic that I missed it.”
(o) “Ti West is an animal…a serious primitive…the polar opposite of a filmmaker like, say, Todd Field.”

At what point can The Woman King, which cost $50M to produce and another significant chunk of change to sell, be considered profitable? Theatrical revenues are, of course, just one aspect of the overall revenue stream these days, and The Woman King hasn’t really opened internationally yet. But right now the worldwide earnings after the second weekend are around $37.5M. Not bad, I guess, but not earthshaking.

The film has nonetheless connected to a decent or moderate degree. Will it end up as a break-even, which is to say earnings of well over $100M (as you do have to add marketing costs)? You tell me.

Right now I would describe The Woman King, all things considered, as a modest, respectable success. That’s fair, no? A friend says that “given its budget and lack of star power, it was never meant to break the bank. But it’s done quite well.” Sure, no arguments, respectable showing.

But this morning I looked at the Woman King audience scores on three aggregate sites — Rotten Tomatoes (99%), Metacritic (2.5%) and IMDB (6.1%). And the evidence seems clear (or strongly indicates) that the Rotten Tomatoes gang has “cooked the books” as far as The Woman King‘s audience score is concerned. With the other two aggregates reporting much lower audience reactions, what are the odds that RT’s 99% score is trustworthy?

Not even Goodfellas, which everyone likes or admires, has managed a 99% audience score.

Three days ago (9.22) Evie‘s Gina Florio took note of this incongruity. Her article is titled “There’s Speculation That The Woman King Audience Score And Reviews On Rotten Tomatoes Are Manufactured.”

Florio links to a Twitter dude named @fatherquads, who believes that a faction within RT is indeed posting fake audience numbers.

“The [RT] profile claims to have 99% audience score, and over 2,500 verified reviews,” he tweets. “The only problem is that [the blurbs are] all short, posted soon after one another, and don’t talk much about the content of the movie, rather how much of a YAS SLAY QWEEN Viola Davis is.”

Friendo: “RT is a totally corrupt and despicable entity that I’ve loathed from day one and never pay the slightest attention to. Their data is mostly meaningless (or so obvious that it tells you zilch). ‘Interpreting’ RT tells you nothing. And who cares what demo The Woman King is appealing to? Who cares what action fanboys think? The fact that black women had an action film to call their own is, I would say, a good thing. I mean, why not?”

It only took me five weeks to finally watch John Patton Ford‘s Emily The Criminal, which is pretty close to being as good as I’ve been told. It’s not crazy-holy-shit good but good-good, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s basically a realistic and wholly unpretentious small-time crime film…no muss or fuss and down to business. But it’s only moderately involving at first. It takes a while to get there.

Aubrey Plaza is suitably fierce and guarded in the title role, a debt-ridden 30something in Los Angeles who gets involved with a phony-credit-card ring. At 93 minutes Emily takes a good 45 or 50 to really put the hook in and get moving, but the last 35 to 40 minutes are quite exceptional.

An expert actress who always invites you in and tells you what’s up, Plaza delivers a pro job as Emily. I really loved her moments in which she was angry and alarmed, and especially a “cut the bullshit” job interview scene with Gina Gershon.

Plaza is one of the producers (along with Tyler Davidson and Drew Sykes) but you know who’s also quite arresting and compelling? Theo Rossi, who plays Youcef, Emily’s mentor-in-crime and later her lover. I’d never paid attention to this guy before, but I will from here on. There’s one moment towards the end when Rossi disappointed me, or his character did rather. I won’t get into it but you have to watch your back.

Emily’s arc is what makes the film fascinating — she starts out as an almost listless, half-invested scammer who’s basically an in-and-outer, but the more criminality takes over her life the stronger and tougher she becomes. By the end she’s almost become a version of Neil McAuley or Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather. The film basically says “theft and criminality is its own buzz, but you have to become a kind of fierce animal to really survive in this realm…you have to convince others that you’re scary when crossed so they’d netter not fuck with you.”

One reason I didn’t get to Emily before last night was that it’s still not streaming. I’m sorry but it didn’t strike me as worth $18 or $20 plus popcorn and whatnot, and it’s not like it’s playing in a lot of theatres.

An article by a veteran Academy member has appeared on The Ankler, and it says something that The Ankler‘s Richard Rushfield, due respect, wouldn’t dare post himself.

As you might expect the piece in question has been written by a guy “who has asked to remain anonymous.” (But of course!) It’s titled “Notes From An Oscar Meeting Gone Wrong“, and the author is a self-admitted white middle-aged male…brrrnnggg!

What the article says, boiled down, is that over the last six or seven years the Academy has not only bent over backwards to address inclusion and equity in the ranks, but has totally lost sight of the fairy-dust factor, which has now all but evaporated.

Yes, the pandemic and streaming did a lot to kill exhibition. But that doesn’t change the fact that over the last seven years (basically since #OscarsSoWhite) the Academy and the industry, hand in hand, have put progressive politics above the creation and celebration of movie magic.

“Wolfe Reminds, History Repeats, posted on 3.22.21: “Generally the making of cinematic art, like canvas art of the ’30s, has been largely called off in favor of serving the industry’s social justice revolution.

Just ask the curators at the Academy Museum (aka “Woke House“) — they’ll tell you all about it.

“The result has been a new form of enlightened propaganda cinema — movies that basically say ‘this is what should be‘ rather than ‘this is what is.’

White Middle-Aged Ankler Male: “To be clear, yes, I am a white male, and I believe in diversity and inclusion. But the way the Academy has gone about trying to meet the moment — both in those aspects and in the fight for relevancy — makes no sense.

“I personally can’t point to the exact moment the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences died for me, only because there are so many to choose from.

“Was it January 15, 2015 when media strategist and lawyer (but not Hollywood filmmaker) April Reign tweeted #OscarsSoWhite after none of the 20 acting nominations that year included people of color?

“Maybe it was June 19, 2016, when the Board of Governors panicked under Twitter pressure and rushed to invite 819 members, fully 20 percent of the then-current members to join — many of whom existing members did not believe were admitted based on merit?

“How about April 17, 2018 when Bill Mechanic, the former head of Fox who co-produced a great Oscar ceremony in 2010 and was nominated as a producer for Best Picture, resigned from the Board of Governors with his letter including this line: “We have settled on numeric answers to the problem of inclusion, barely recognizing that this is the Industry’s problem far, far more than it is the Academy’s. Instead we react to pressure.”

“Or July 21, 2020 when producer Michael Shamberg (Erin Brockovich, The Big Chill) filed suit against the Academy because it did not want to listen to his constructive initiatives to move the organization into the modern era?

“Was it April 25, 2021, when the Academy produced the lowest-rated Oscar ceremony in the history of the awards? True, it was a pandemic event, but the lack of film choices did not require a lack of entertainment value.”

HE comment: The Soderbergh Oscar telecast was the most despairing, spiritually enervated, bad-acid-trip Oscars in Hollywood history. In no small part because Anthony Hopkins had the temerity to to snatch the Best Actor Oscar that the late Chadwick Boseman was supposed to win…Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister was especially upset by this.

“Certainly the Oscars were already on life support by March 27 of this year when Will Smith, snot dripping from his nose, smacked comedian Chris Rock for a stupid joke (he is a comedian, I said) that Smith didn’t like. No one in charge of the Academy was actually in charge. Smith, guilty of assault, was very soon after feted with a standing ovation by those assembled as he won the Best Actor award — for playing an abusive father.”

Yesterday I tried to elaborate upon my positive Telluride reaction to Sam Mendes‘ Empire of Light (Searchlight, 12.9).  Toward the end of the comment thread Rosso Veneziano replied as follows:  “I respect your take but the general consensus is that the movie is bad. 58 on Metacritic, 47% on Rotten Tomatoes…and that means rotten. It’s not just critics at Telluride — the TIFF reviews were even worse.”

HE response:  You first have to remember that many if not most of the critical elite are not standing on the same terra firma as the rest of us.  In more ways than one they’re living on their own frilly planet.  Every consensus opinion that emanates from this bunch has to be filtered through this basic reality.  Most of them are not of this earth.

Trust me — they’re dismissing Empire of Light because they’re unable to buy the curious but ultimately poignant romantic bond between the two leads, played by Michael Ward and Olivia Colman.  (If Ward’s Stephen character was played by a non-POC, the reactions would be quite different.)  I myself was skeptical of this dynamic going in, but the fine writing, acting and overall period swoon effect, which is partly if not largely due to excellent production design plus Roger Deakins‘ handsome cinematography…all of this won me over.

Filmmakers are generally required to depict POCs with a paintbrush of presentism these days (i.e., presenting them according to contemporary sensibilities), and many critics, knowing this, will get all riled when a Black character is presented “incorrectly” within a period film. Many elite critics see themselves as white-knight figures whose task is to bestow dignity or even majesty upon characters of color.

Ward’s performance will never be criticized, of course, but there’s no dodging the fact that he’s a handsome actor of considerable poise and charisma playing a decades-old period character in a film written and directed by an older white man. (Not unlike Mahershala Ali in Green Book.)

And there’s a fascinating violent moment in this film, by the way, that I haven’t mentioned. Racist skinhead goons are lurking on the fringes of this story, and early on a few of them are taunting Stephen on a sidewalk, and one strikes him with a head slap. And what does Stephen do? He does the smart thing by ignoring the attacker as he continues to walk away. He knows these animals are looking for an excuse to beat him senseless, and he doesn’t give them that.

A violent moment such as this runs against the presentism aesthetic. A Black man of today would never ignore or cower from an attack of this nature if it was depicted in a present-tense film.  Our post-George Floyd mythology demands a greater measure of defiance and dignity.  And yet Mendes, adhering to the ugly reality of things in rural 1980 England as much as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza was truthfully immersed in the Los Angeles culture of the ‘70s, does the stand-up thing.  I know that the instant I noticed Stephen’s reaction to the head slap, I went “wow…that’s unusual but then again that’s Mendes.”

Last night I ran into an old friend who’s no longer a friend because he’s more or less turned into a wokester fanatic. Yes, the viral insanity has even permeated the exurban, tree-shrouded hamlet where I now hang my hat. I won’t name names but the words between us were (mostly on his end) awful.

It happened inside Wilton’s Village Market sometime around dinner hour, and it started when I saw him poking around the exotic cheese section. He was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, a fall jacket, a smallish hat and a black mask. No point in ducking the guy so I walked over and offered a greeting. Small talk followed.

Then I asked what was up with the mask, and stated in moderate but plain terms that the pandemic is over, and then asked how many booster shots he’d had, etc. I told him I’ve had four, and that I succumbed to the Omicron virus late last year. One of the reasons he wears a mask, he said, was to wind up people like me. And then we were off to the races.

He began ranting about the anti-woke assholes who refused to be vaccinated last year, and I agreed, I said, that the anti-vaxxers didn’t help matters at all, especially those who refused to mask up. Then he expanded the topic to include all anti-woke people of whatever persuasion, and I said, “Well, that’s me…I’m an anti-wokester because of the shrill lunatic attitudes of the woke left.”

And then the subject drifted over to my deluded enemies in the #MeToo congregation, which mainly stems from that unfortunate March ’21 episode in which I posted a friend’s Oscar-related opinion about how the horrific Atlanta massage parlor shootings (which the left tried to characterize as a racial hate crime until the facts began to dispute that) might blow favoring winds in the direction of Chloe Zhao.

I took the sentence-long comment down after a brief Twitter flare-up, but the haters were on a rampage and before you knew it I was being blamed for everything including the burning of the Reichstag, even though I’d actually done zip. As in Z-I-P. I had written dead fucking nothing.

Then he looked me in the eye and said I deserved all the rain that had fallen on my head since that episode, and said — this was classic — that I was just as deplorable of a human being as Harvey Weinstein. I gulped. “You can’t be saying that…you can’t be,” I replied. But he was. He’s King Lear with three Millennial daughters, you see, and they’re all wokesters and he feels he owes them his allegiance. So we’d basically entered cuckoo-bird territory.

I’ve known this guy since high school, and have regarded him for decades as one of the best and brightest, a guy whose views and judgments I’ve always felt were wise and on-target…I could have never imagined that this guy, of all people, would look me in the eye and essentially call me a piece of shit who deserved to die.

It was like speaking to Tom Courtenay’s “Strelnikov” character in Dr. Zhivago during that train-car scene with Omar Sharif. It was as if this former friend had been taken over by a woke pod person from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Decades of trust and affection and mutual respect, and this guy had chucked it all over a moronic woke-vs.-anti-woke, Hatfield vs. McCoys blood feud.

I wrote him a couple of hours later. “You’re aware that 70-plus years ago a hardcore cabal of allegedly patriotic rightwing Americans devoted themselves to punishing people who’d sympathized with Communism in the ‘30s,” I said. “Careers and lives ruined because righties were trying to purify America and cleanse it of Communism.

“Has it occurred to you and your fanatical spawn that you’re trying to do exactly the same thing now? You and your woke Robespierres are looking to cleanse the country of the wily anti-woke pathan. You’re doing the same damn thing, man. And you know what? People hate who you are, and what you’re about. I just can’t believe that you’ve turned into a woke seed pod. It’s scary.”

I whined about this supermarket trauma to a friend, and the friend decided to write Strelnikov and share a few thoughts.

At least Christopher Walken‘s Dwayne, the brother of Diane Keaton‘s Annie Hall in Woody Allen‘s same titled film, was polite about it. Before sharing his shattered glass, car-crash death fantasy, he asked Alvy Singer, the stand-up comedian played by Allen, if he could confess something. By sitting down Alvy was saying “sure, Dwayne…shoot.”

If I’d been Alvy I wouldn’t have said “excuse me, Dwayne, but I have to be back on planet earth.” I would have said that I’ve also channeled a few brief death fantasies, and they’re not that big of a deal (or they don’t need to be that big of a deal) because they’re mainly about feelings of drifting and helplessness and career panic.

These feelings fester inside lots of young guys, i would have said, and especially those who are feeling pressured by society or parents or their own sense of guilt to get out there and achieve something. It’s just a signal, Dwayne, that you need to face whatever your challenge may be head-on. Life can be terrifying, but it’s even worse if you don’t man up and do something about what’s rattling you.

In short, Dwayne, you need to move out of your parents’ home and start fending for yourself. You need to start wrestling with the rough-and-tumble of life rather than hiding behind secure walls.

In my mid 20s I twice experienced a death dream that wasn’t too different from Dwayne’s. I was inside a commercial jet that had lost power, and it was tumbling downward through the clouds, going faster and faster. I could hear the fuselage skeleton groaning and cracking as the plane fell. I was a dead man. A flaming inferno death was only 25 or 30 seconds away, if that. And then I’d wake up.