Rittenhouse Reflection

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Yesterday a Facebook friend chose to process the Kyle Rittenhouse “not guilty” verdict through a racial lens, using the whole tragic episode as an opportunity to lament racially-stacked decks and dump on the general venality of white people. I replied as follows…

“Agreed — if Rittenhouse had been black, the cops probably would have shot him. Then again why would a black dude want to use a loaded weapon against rampaging white leftists? Speaking as a small business owner, my heart went out to retail storefront owners whose businesses were trashed in May and June 2020 because of George Floyd’s murder.

“The Tulsa race riots — a deplorable, shameful chapter in this country’s history — happened almost a century ago. Most of us understand that our culture has progressed since then. This is a significantly different country than it was even in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“If you want to be completely condemning and dismissive of white people, you can say ‘nothing has changed…they were largely racist and evil then, and they’re pretty much driven by the same white supremacist attitudes today.’ If you want to insist on that viewpoint today, have at it.

“Trump voters are obviously or largely still living in the past (say, the 1950s) but, the racist Charlottesville marchers of 2017 aside, even they wouldn’t be part of a homicidal race riot today. Either you accept that society has the capacity to adapt and evolve, or you don’t.

“The fact is that wokesters have overplayed their hand over the last four or five years, and the recent defeat of Terry McAuliffe in Virginia is probably a good forecast of what will happen a year from now. Outside of Trump loyalists and QAnon loonies, most people, I believe, are basically sensible and decent and will support sensible liberal policies. But they largely hate the radical wokester left, and I for one understand why.

“Wokesters are the new McCarthy-ites — scolders, social-media blacklisters and reverse racists. Thanks to the militant left and proponents of CRT in grade schools, the term ‘older white American male’ is now an epithet. And now the chickens, trust me, are coming home to roost. Congrats.”

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Don’t Kid Yourself

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Clark Gable drank and smoked himself to death. Three packs a day, according to some accounts. Plus cigars and pipes. Reportedly a binge drinker. His age (59) had relatively little to do with anything. He bought it.

Curdled, Morose, Melancholy

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Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review of Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog explains why Campion may win the Best Director Oscar (for crafting an intense backwater realm and going whole-hog on the perversity), but why it has almost no chance as a Best Picture contender. Nobody will want to celebrate how this grim and odorous parlor drama makes them feel — they just won’t.

One Tiny Slip-Up

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In an otherwise perfectly edited sequence in American Graffiti (’73), director and co-writer George Lucas got one tiny thing wrong. Dragging a cable line with a hook, Richard Dreyfuss attempts to attach the cable to the rear axle of an idling cop car. So far, so good. But all the cop behind the wheel had to do was glance into the side rearview mirror at the wrong time and Dreyfuss would’ve been toast. He needed to approach from a blind spot.

Obviously not a big deal to anyone except myself, but it’s always bothered me. If Rififi‘s Jules Dassin (61 when shooting began in the summer of ’72) had somehow directed it never would’ve happened. Ditto the nine-year-old David Fincher — even at his age he would’ve fixed the problem.

I’d forgotten that American Graffiti, released domestically on 8.11.73, is one of the most profitable films ever. It cost $777,000 to shoot, and brought in $140 million domestic and $200 million worldwide. There’s an inflation factor of a bit more than six times when you adjust, so AG‘s $140 million domestic haul translates to over $840 million in 2021 dollars.

And you know what? It was never any kind of great film, certainly not from any kind of Movie Godz perspective. AG is engaging and taut and well-observed in a thousand different ways. A perfect mainstream package for its time and place. A nostalgic boomer high, a lot of specificity in terms of character (they all seem relaxed and lived-in, never trying to “sell” their performance) and mood and atmosphere, great ’50s and early ’60s jukebox tunes.

Altogether a very effective thing — a horse that launched a thousand ships. Except for that one boo-boo.

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Not With A Knife At My Back

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And not with a loaded gun pointed at my head either. I would really, truly, honestly rather jump into a pit of hungry, soaking alligators than watch this film. Okay, that’s not true — I would choose watching over being torn to shreds by reptiles. And I would rather see it than get shot in the head. That aside…

Bob Strauss + “Red Rocket” = Caveat Emptor

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You can’t leave your morality in the parking lot when you visit the megaplex. It’s a crucial part of who and what we are, of course, and surely a determining factor in how we react to amoral or immoral characters on the screen.

Obviously some bad guys can be charming or at least fascinating. I could post a long list of bad-guy protagonists who qualify — Kirk Douglas‘s Midge Kelly (Champion), Douglas’s Jonathan Shields (The Bad and the Beautiful), Anthony Quinn‘s Zampano (La Strada), Marlon Brando‘s Sir William Walker (Burn!), Rip Torn‘s Maury Dann (Payday), James Gandolfini‘s Tony Soprano, etc.

But every now and then you run into a scuzzy lead protagonist who crosses the moral-ethical line, leaving you no choice but to say “oh, give me a break!” or “all right, that’s it…I need a shower!” Such a character is Simon Rex‘s aging porn star (“Mikey Saber”) in Sean Baker‘s Red Rocket.

Roughly six weeks ago I wrote that Red Rocket teeters on the line between mostly legitimate film festival-smarthouse cinema and relentlessly depraved and disgusting sociopath-porn.

“It’s ‘good’ in the sense that Baker isn’t afraid to show his lead character diving into gross and reprehensible behavior; ditto most of the supporting players. We’re talking bottom-of-the-barrel Texas trash here.

Nor does Baker feel obliged to deliver some form of moral redemption for Mikey, which I respect.

Yes, Baker occasionally delivers slick chops and whatnot, and yes, Mikey has a sizable horse schlong (even when flaccid), but the scuzz factor in this film is REALLY rank. Yes, I realize that Baker isn’t out to soothe or feel-good me. I respect his integrity but the way Red Rocket makes you feel is not good in any way, shape or form.

The crowd I saw it with in Telluride left the theatre without comment. In short, they seriously hated it. Any human being who’s seen Red Rocket would understand that reaction and tread very lightly in recommending Baker’s film, if at all.

Unless you’re elite hipster critic Bob Strauss, that is, in which case you go “wheeee…one of the year’s best! Unless, of course, you can’t tolerate the lead character but if you’re really hip like me, you’ll get past that!”

HE to Strauss: Is this your new Get Out, Bob? Seriously, do you honestly think that people tell their friends and coworkers to see films about characters they may not be able to morally tolerate? You wrote “if you can tolerate the awful person he plays”….WHAT? Rex’s character is raw sewage. What kind of reprehensible scumbag would be cool with the company of this animal?

The “naked Mikey wearing a huge red donut” poster is much more audience-friendly than any stand-out aspect of the film, although I should offer side props to Susanna Son, who makes an impression as “Strawberry,” Mikey’s gullible, up-for-anything girlfriend.

Thank You, Dan Gaertner

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Now that the dust has settled and the Edgar Wright fanboys have finished jerking off to this candified, nonsensical, horribly written film, the truth can be acknowledged by sensible film mavens.

Garcia-Hill Reaction

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Critic friendo on Martin Scorsese and Jonah Hill’s Jerry Garcia project: “Personally, I’d rather have seen them cast someone like Sam Rockwell. The speaking voice is the key and Jerry Garcia ‘s voice had this uniquely nasal California twang.

“The film starts with Garcia going into a coma in ‘86 and then the film unfolds as a trippy, dreamy coma flashback. Ends with him coming out of the coma and playing his first triumphant show, over which the headlines of his subsequent death roll.

“And you are correct: Live Dead is the ne plus ultra of live Dead releases. At this point, I could probably whistle the entire album, I’ve listened to it so many times.”

Here We Go…

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Cue the crazies and street fighters…time for a little righty-vs.-lefty action…smashed windows, shields and helmets, tear gas, all manner of mayhem.

And Away We Go…

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9:30 pm: A for vision, A for speaking comic truth, A for Leonardo DiCaprio’s explosive acting in two temper-tantrum scenes and….uhm, somewhere between a B-minus and a C-plus for execution.

Very ballsy and bold Strangelove-like satire that feels like an extended, gargantuan, improv-y, effects-laden SNL super-skit about massive self-delusion & self-destruction, and yet oddly inert in certain portions. But not entirely.

Because at the same time it’s really out there and righteously wackazoid, and it works now and then.

A crazy-ass Covid and climate-change comic allegory, for sure. It says the right things, totally eviscerates the right and especially the dumbfuck denialists.

It hits the mark a few times, and as broad apocalyptic satires go, you certainly can’t say it doesn’t swing for the fences. Leo really nails it in two screaming scenes (as noted), and it ends with a kind of hand-holding family whimper scene that I responded to.

I can’t in all good conscience say it’s “Casey at the Bat” because it’s really, REALLY saying the right & necessary things, and I loved it for that. But it felt strangely off in a way that I found head-scratchy. But (yes, I’m repeating myself) I loved what it was saying. Call it a ground-rule double with issues.

That said…