The state of my political world

I haven't talked about politics in this space for a long time because, frankly, the state of politics in this country bores the shit out of me. My friend, David Palmer, has tried to get me involved in a couple different efforts in the last couple years. One of them was to help Rashida Tlaib in 2018. Another one was a project oriented around voting patterns and trying to use that info to help campaigns that we were interested in (like Rashida's, by and large.) And, y'know, I was willing to help, but I didn't do either effort any justice, mostly because I've become something of a political nihilist in the 15 years since I got out of regular activity.

When I helped build the Green Party in this state and was its chair for five years, I was still an activist. There were still principles that I was willing to work a second full-time job without pay for. There were principles that I was willing to ruin my marriage for (although that likely should have ended a lot sooner than it did, anyway.) I still hold those principles among the guiding truths of my life. But most other people don't give a shit. Quite honestly, most people didn't give a shit then, which is why I walked away from it, having burned out on doing most of the work myself because everyone else had better things to do when they weren't spending a couple hours a week in a local meeting, thinking that the more they talked, the closer the world came to suddenly transforming. When Tricia and I met up with David after a concert one night, he asked her: "So, what's it like living with an actual revolutionary?" We all laughed because it was kind of a joke. I laughed at least in part because I knew that almost everything I'd done was a complete waste of time. Most revolutionaries at least have the integrity to spend a long time in prison or be assassinated or something like that.

Both of Tricia's kids, Keller and Simone, are Bernie supporters. Being from the current generation, they recognize the obvious injustices of American society and understand, as much as they instinctively understand breathing, that things need to change. I don't know how much of my occasional ranting has influenced that outlook, if at all, since they both seem to have developed opinions on their own based on their open-minded view of society. I remember when Simone was in eighth grade and mentioned that a couple of her classmates had already declared themselves to be transgendered. I just shrugged, but I chuckled inwardly, trying to imagine any set of circumstances where I could've been at the age of 13 where anyone would even consider doing that, much less actually following through. There are many things that have changed for the better on a social level in the last 37 years. And, of course, there are many things that really haven't. Such is life.

But I was having a discussion with a guy I know on that Michigan board I've been hanging out on for 23 years. I don't even watch Michigan anymore, but I've known these people for a long time and they're still worth the conversation. He's a Biden supporter because he's a former Republican, appalled at the party's descent into Trumplandia, and he just wants to remove the game show host from the Oval Office. In other words, "anyone but Trump." That's not an unreasonable position and it's been supported with Biden's victories in most of the primaries and with his support from the DNC that Sanders has continually attacked and derided (possibly not the best strategy when trying to win the party's nomination, as a non-party member. Just sayin'.) But it's also emblematic of the status quo, which is essentially "put things back to where they were", pre-Trump.

Those of you who've listened to Mike Duncan's superb Revolutions podcast will have heard him regularly opine on the difference between a political revolution and a social revolution. The former is what founded this country. It was a bunch of wealthy, highly-educated, landholding White guys who objected to being denied any way to govern themselves and to having their money taken just because they weren't part of a few particular families. It wasn't about slavery or poverty or the inability to find a job or any other basic human right. It was mostly about money. I've always said that America was founded as a way to make money and it has never changed. This event was no different. These guys were part of the Haves in 18th century America, even if they didn't have the coat-of-arms to prove it back in the old country.

A social revolution is a very different animal. It's almost always initiated by the Have Nots who have been denied those basic rights, typically because the Haves have kept those things from them. Why? Because denial of basic rights usually makes money. This class division has existed throughout human history and the consequent revolutions have occurred whenever that chasm has gotten so wide that the Have Nots on one side of it see no way that they're ever going to close it without violence. And here we are.

The trigger event, in this case, may be a global pandemic, which has suddenly kickstarted conversation on topics that were formerly taboo. Could you imagine middle schoolers declaring themselves to be TG in 1985? 1995? Of course not. By the same token, could you imagine anyone talking about a universal basic income on the floor of Congress before the last couple weeks? Or seriously discussing national healthcare as a necessity, rather than a political prize? Or, for that matter, even envision the idea of Congress discussing just giving... money... to people.., that actually need it...? I can't. It violates so many tenets of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps America that it's hard to comprehend. It's absolute heresy to the give-more-money-to-the-rich-and-they'll-be-kind-and-generous religion. But those are the realities we're facing, as the trickle-down crowd shouts that grandma should be sacrificed to their ever-failing experiment, and they somehow fail to see that "the economy" also won't recover if a good chunk of the population ends up in mass graves instead of, y'know, buying shit on Amazon. And who is our hero to carry the banner of these new, transformative measures in society?!

Joe Biden.

Joe Biden, long-time senator from Delaware, the most corporate-friendly state in the Union. Joe Biden, scion of credit card companies and the leading supporter of the 2005 bankruptcy act that makes student loans non-dischargeable (You may have heard that that's a small issue to many young Americans and Democrats.) Joe Biden, vociferous proponent of both of George W. Bush's decades-long wars, which cost ungodly amounts of money. In many ways, Biden is the model, establishment Democrat. He's the perfect example of what I usually refer to as the "I got mine!" Democrats; giving lip service to a lot of issues, but only really following through on the ones that keep the status quo for the Almost Haves. You may know them as America's diminishing middle class. They have some money. They do OK. They're never going to be a Bezos or a Bloomberg, but they're content as long as things stay the same. In other words, Biden just wants to bring us all back to pre-Trump, when the poor got poorer but there weren't as many kids in cages at the border. And the president didn't act like a spoiled child. And professionals weren't dismissed from government service for making the president feel bad. But, uh, the poor still got poorer and nothing much else really changed, especially for those young people looking to make their way in the world. "Let's get back to the time when you still didn't have much chance at finding the American Dream!" isn't much of a slogan, but it's all he's got.

And now he's the nominee. The Democrats' constant "boogeyman" approach to elections has finally reached the bottom of its barrel. Now it's not just "You have to vote for us because, if you don't, THAT GUY will win!" It's that and "You're going to help us elect a guy whose only worthwhile attribute is that he's not THAT GUY!" Get fired up, yo. And all I can do is look back at the work I used to do and think, again: What a complete waste of time. Because I'm still looking for jobs that I'll hate in order to afford the drugs that keep me alive to be miserable, since Joe doesn't want national healthcare. Most people will never be free of the mild terror of knowing that, if they lose their job, they've not only lost their health coverage but will soon be out of their home because Joe's in favor of our all-or-nothing system. A lot of people are crashing face-first into those realities right now because of that global pandemic and the inaction of the current idiot in the Oval Office. And do you know what Joe's response is?

He doesn't want to fight the president.

Millions are outraged at the president's delays, where he refused to listen to his own HHS secretary, because a health crisis would make Trump look bad. But Joe doesn't want to point that out. Despite the attempts to put a $500 billion slush fund in the emergency aid bill that was directly requested by the White House when Trump realized that 6 of his 7 biggest properties were shuttered by state lockdowns, Joe doesn't want to fight about that. Millions are appalled that news sources like the New York Times and CNN won't simply call the president on his lies, especially when they're indirectly leading to people dying from coronavirus or directly leading to people poisoning themselves with various forms of quinine. But Joe doesn't want to call the president a liar. That would be unseemly.

So, this is where we are. And I think back to David's comment... "Revolutionary." I wish it was still funny.

Deep burn

I had an odd delay with Portrait of a Lady on Fire. We saw it last week and I haven't gotten around to writing about it until now; not for any particular reason, like disinterest, but because I simply haven't. But I was writing something for ThereWillBe.Games about women in gaming and it occurred to me that I hadn't actually put down any thoughts about this film that's about as "woman-centric" as any major release is going to get.

In most cases, I make an effort to not get any of these reviews hung up on questions of identity, unless that topic is central to the story of the film, as it was in Les Misérables. I don't want to call out Portrait as a film about women because it really isn't that broad in its approach. It's a very simple story about a love affair that just happens to be between two women. Whether the discussion of its quality should be identity-focused seems to veer somewhere between irrelevant (it doesn't matter what kind of people it's about if it's a good story and a good film) and stilted (Are we talking about it being good because it's so unusual (all female cast, vast majority of the crew including writer, director, and producers also women)?) I think the former distracts from the quality of the film and the latter possibly detracts from it. People should be looking at Portrait as a work on its own merits, rather than whom it was created by. But the other thing that occurs to me is that this is a film that would often be derided as a "chick flick" and, notably, I think I, as the only male in our little film-going group, was the one who liked it best.

Now, again, that shouldn't determine or predetermine anything. The fact that I identify as male and the movie was made by women shouldn't affect anything about how I feel about it. It's either a good story and/or a good film or it isn't. But in our typically aggressive, masculine society, the phrase "chick flick" is usually meant to dismiss things that "guys aren't supposed to like" and it struck me as funny that all three women that I watched it with seemed to have reservations and I really didn't, aside from the usual French tendency to make little things have dramatic import when they often don't need to. It makes me wonder if my delay in writing about it was a subconscious instinct not to talk about those "non-male" things like (gasp!) emotion and how I felt it was the basis of a good film whereas everyone else I was with (i.e. three women) felt it was less so. The popular concept is that women generally engage their positive emotions more often than men do and are more comfortable expressing themselves in that fashion. Is that an implicit bias? Am I assuming something on the part of my girlfriend and friends that may be doing them a disservice simply because they didn't think a movie was as good as I did?

The story is set in the 18th century, as a painter (Marianne; Noémie Merlant) is hired to create a portrait of a young woman of Brittany (Héloise; Adèle Haenel) who is being married off to a Milanese noble. Héloise isn't interested in this whole transaction and, over the course of Marianne's attempts to complete her contract, the two have a brief and intense affair. The story doesn't need to be more complicated than that and director Céline Sciamma does a good job of keeping the focus on the intensity between Merlant and Haenel, as they explore life outside of 'adult' supervision (Héloise's pragmatic and traditional mother, The Countess; Valeria Golino), around the studiously indifferent glances of the housemaid, Sophie (Luâna Bajrami), and from altered perspectives (recreational opium.) The most important aspect to any tragic romance is that the audience go away not feeling like it was a completely downbeat tale, but appreciating it for the time that was spent enjoying it, whether in sympathy with the main characters or simply because it was a good story. One can hearken back to the basis of modern Western literature and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as a case example of this. Again, I think Sciamma does a good job of keeping the audience aware that the story is simple, but allowing the emotion to play out in any number of ways; from the obvious to the mildly surreal. One moment that was especially poignant was when Sophie had traveled to a local wise woman for an abortion and had to lie in a bed waiting for it to take effect while the woman's adorable infant crawled over her.

Those are the small moments that I thought brought depth and feeling and a realistic veneer to an occasionally phantasmagoric story (Marianne seeing ghostly images of her lover in a wedding dress throughout the house.) They were moments that resonated with me because of the ability to tie them to moments in my own life, even if they were based on scenarios that I have never encountered and, very likely won't, such as Sophie's abortion. That speaks to me of the essential humanity of the picture and the players, which I think was the central premise of the film: Even these people not like you are still like you and they inhabit a scenario that you'll know, even if it initially feels like a far off painting of a woman in flames.

Right Out

We saw the trailer for Knives Out a few months ago and my kneejerk reaction was: "It looks like Clue: The Movie, but with better actors." And it is quite the (middling to real) star-studded cast, with Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, and Lakeith Stanfield. There was enough intrigue there (Don Johnson, back on camera? Jamie Lee Curtis, likewise? Daniel Craig, seemingly attempting a Southern accent?) to at least make me curious. But then, seriously, it looked like the plot of a Clue-type boardgame. I suffered through enough Agatha Christie adaptations as a kid and have never been a fan of police procedurals, be they Angela Lansbury vehicles (Murder, She Wrote makes a cameo on a TV screen) or modern, CSI-type stuff. So, I waved a hand at it, thinking I wouldn't bother.

And, then, the snowball started. Audiences were flocking to it. Critics were singing about it (97% on Rotten Tomatoes!) So, I was thinking, maybe I was being too cynical. Maybe there was something here that writer/director Rian Johnson (now famous/infamous for The Last Jedi) was onto. Maybe Daniel Craig doing a faux Louisiana drawl wouldn't be that bad for two hours? So, when the opportunity came to sit down and watch something on Amazon, we decided that we'd watch one of the nominees for best original screenplay...

So, here's where you automatically say to yourself: "Always trust your first instinct. That's why they call it an 'instinct', defined as 'an inherent inclination towards a particular complex behavior.'" My particular complex behavior? Avoiding awful fucking movies, because that's what this is. It's tedious. It's obvious. It's completely predictable. I was seriously bored halfway through it while waiting for Craig to chew through another one of his monologues, none of which are memorable, half because he wasn't saying anything interesting and half because his accent is so bad as to distract from anything interesting he might've been saying. I seriously considered just doing a La La Land and turning to Tricia and saying: "Yeah, I can't watch this." But we'd paid for it, so I kept going, in the desultory hope that something positive might happen (I think I snorted a couple times, but I'm not sure if it was at an actual funny moment or in derision at their attempts to produce one.)

Best original screenplay! This film! For writing! I can't even... OK. Back up. There are generally two ways that a screenplay gets nominated: Clever writing and good storytelling (sometimes, you get both!) An example of the first is Pulp Fiction. All you have to do is say the phrase "Royale with cheese!" and you'll get most people spewing other lines from that opening dialogue between Vincent and Jules in the car on their way to a hit job. It's a totally natural conversation between two friends/colleagues and they deliver it with aplomb. Most of the lines in the film are delivered that way and that's why most of them are memorable. That's why actors clamored to be in the 'next Tarantino' because they saw that and wanted to be the next cool cat on the screen saying that cool shit.

An example of #2 could also be derived from Pulp Fiction, given its non-linear approach and sharp camera work, but my favorite is always Blade Runner, the director's cut. Blade Runner is a brilliant example of visual storytelling. Most people, indeed, think of dialogue when they think of screenplays, but the writer is also responsible for laying the groundwork for the director to build on and Ridley Scott does an excellent job of telling the story just with what you see on the screen. The idiots at Warner Bros. decided to ruin the theatrical release by adding Harrison Ford's voiceover, but you don't need that because the story is in front of you and everything you need to know about Deckard, Rachel, Roy, and everyone else appears in the words they speak and the faces they show. Those are proper screenplays; proper stories; and, often, great films. But there's an old moviemaking aphorism: You can make a bad film out of a good screenplay, but you can't make a good film out of a bad screenplay.

Knives Out has neither of those two key aspects (dialogue, storytelling.) I can't think of a single memorable line from the entire movie. I can't think of a single moment that said to me: "Yeah. I'm watching something interesting develop here." Most of these characters are intended to be contemptible. The problem is, they have to be interesting, as well, if you're going to continue to enjoy watching them, and they simply aren't. In some ways, it reminded me of another film where the patriarch (also a writer) dies and the family comes together for his funeral: August Osage County. That had an ensemble cast, as well, and the story was similar; in that old, family dynamics reemerged and chaos erupted as people remembered just how much they can't stand each other and why they left Osage County, OK in the first place. Many of those characters, likewise, were contemptible in their own ways. But they were also human and the story was heartfelt. These characters were plastic and two-dimensional, which means that there was no depth in them to be suffused with any of the genuine emotion that came from AOC.

I mean, was this supposed to be a modern Death on the Nile? Was Daniel Craig supposed to be a Hercule Poirot reference, just in case a contemporary audience hadn't seen murder mysteries from the 70s where the entire plot had to be re-told, step by step, at the end? One envisions a young Liam Neeson explaining to an equally young Jim Carrey that it's "not a ripoff. It's an homage!" in The Dead Pool (not that Deadpool...) Was Craig's Benny Blanc(o) (from the Bronx!) an homage or a parody? Were we ever going to get an explanation as to why the local cops were so willing to put up with his antics? Or why the insufferable family considered a PI some kind of voice of authority? Or why the suspicious death of a multi-million selling author wasn't immediately TV newsworthy, but his leaving all of those millions to a young, Hispanic woman somehow was, in this, our Internet age of conspiracies and Twitter hordes? Wait. Am I venturing too far outside the canned, Hallmarkian plot? Sorry. I guess I should have stopped thinking.

Every time I sit down to read a book or watch a film or an episode of a TV series, my main desire is to be told a story. It doesn't even have to be an original story. Just tell me a good one. Give me a reason to say: "Yeah. That story was good because..." This film didn't do that and, what's worse, it didn't provide any other reason (performances, cinematography, visuals) for me to think that I didn't waste two hours of my life because I, once again, didn't trust my first instinct. Every time that happens, I say: "Never again." And, yet...

Miserably good

I've only seen the original Les Miserables once. It was the 1982 version, directed by Robert Hossein, and I've never read the novel. I do, thankfully, know the story pretty well, since it's one of the fictional hallmarks of anyone that's ever been involved in progressive politics: oppressed populace with little outlet, desperate hero steals to keep his family alive, and is then pursued to the point of futility for this "crime." It's a story about economic trauma, personal obsession, and the basic ethics of society: cooperation or competition?

But I was instantly entranced upon seeing the trailer for the latest adaptation by Ladj Ly, both because it was covering a very modern premise (the immigrant slums of Paris and the general indifference shown to them by the government) and because that premise meant the story was likely going to veer pretty far from the one I already knew so well. That expectation turned out to be accurate. Thankfully, my anticipation for the quality of the story was met, as well. The story centers around a special police unit that is used to contain the projects, rather than "serve and protect", as it were. The trio of officers who carry the story spend most of their time following groups of youths who may or may not be doing anything illegal, but in true, Javert style, are determined to catch them, regardless. Competing with the police are various other entities (a community leader/racketeer; the local mosque; the thoughtful owner of a kebab shop) who are also attempting to direct the kids into what they think are constructive directions (whether for their own purposes or the actual benefit of the children.) When a confrontation between the police and their targets becomes violent and that encounter is filmed by another youth with a drone camera, it's akin to dropping the match into the puddle of gasoline.

From an American perspective, it's interesting that the encounter that the police are so determined to cover up is actually a non-lethal one. The weapon that ends up injuring one of the kids isn't really capable of killing and one could almost assume, given the circumstances, that the use of it was accidental. But, even in a situation where much of the French public is somewhere between ignorant and contemptuous of the conditions in this housing, the police are terrified that what they've done could be seen as an overreaction. I'm sorry to say that much of the American public would look at what happened as entirely justified, if not simply easily dismissed. In this instance, as in so many others, the European perspective is the more ethical one, even if the police don't generally share that perspective. But, in turn, one of the best things about the film is that Ly takes the time to show the emotional impact of the events on the three officers of the unit: the abrasive, ego-driven leader (Alexis Manenti); the jaded sidekick who grew up in the projects (Djibril Zonga); and the new guy who can't believe that this is what his job has become (Damien Bonnard.)

For all of its well-developed characters and social leanings, however, the film doesn't shy away from the action, as the final scene is both intense and compelling, dispensing with the spotlight moments that are so prevalent in Hollywood action films, which remove any doubt about the outcome. The results here, both in terms of what happens to the characters and whether any kind of resolution has been reached, are left open to question, which is almost always the ultimate sign of a good story.

There are a number of good, little details, as well; from Buzz (the drone flyer; Al-Hassan Ly) being bullied by the local girls basketball team, showing how normal the fight for hierarchical status is, no matter where kids are; to examples of The Commissioner's (Jeanne Balibar) casual corruption and opportunism; to the name of the kebab shop ("Ali Boumaye", the chant that the Zairean public issued to Muhammad Ali before and during the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 (It basically means "Ali, murder him.")) All of these details provide a textured image of a story and a community with many facets, which shows the care and attention that Ly took in shaping the story (he was also a co-writer) and delivering the final product. I've never been a tremendous fan of French cinema, but this one stood out as exceptional and is well worth the effort of tracking down.

Contrast in motivation

We had a bit of a hiatus over the holidays, so I actually wrote the review for Uncut Gems before I did one for Dark Waters, which we saw before Christmas. The problem I ran into was that I didn't feel like there was much to say about Dark Waters. It's a good film. It will make you angry, since it's the same sordid tale of corporate greed and the suffering of everyone around them (employees, local residents, investigators trying to uncover their crimes to the detriment of their lives and relationships) when it's finally uncovered and admitted to. In fact, part of my low motivation to write about it is that it's quite similar to another film about the same, damn thing: A Civil Action.

In the latter film, it's the story of a successful personal injury lawyer who gets sucked into a massive case of multiple companies poisoning the drinking water of a small Massachusetts town. It's kind of a lesson in what really matters in life, as the lawyer in question, Jan Schlichtmann, went on to become something of an environmental activist, pursuing that type of case around the country. In Dark Waters, the lawyer in question, Robert Bilott, is actually part of a firm that defends chemical companies from precisely the type of lawsuit that he ends up bringing against DuPont. So, it's a different "man comes into the light" type of tale, but not really that different. It's a good film. It's an entertaining film. But there was nothing in it that left me thinking about the story or the way it was shot or Mark Ruffalo's performance or basically any aspect of it. Maybe it's because I've been too close to those stories in my life or read about too many of them, but I didn't find myself with much that was compelling, in the end. Thus, the limp recounting here.

Strangely enough, I had the same trouble with the film we saw this week, which was 1917. I'm not particularly motivated by war films these days. I know too much about why they're started and why they're stupid to derive much entertainment from tales of heroism based in or around them. World War I is perhaps the stupidest of modern wars, based almost solely on two things: 1) Europe having gone a few decades without a large combat and 2) as Jack Reed (Warren Beatty) notes in Reds: Profits. (Aren't they all?) Now, there are differences from Dark Waters, in that I think some of the technical aspects of the film were fascinating. They attempted to show it as one continuous take; a technique that showed up most prominently in recent times in the fourth episode of True Detective (there is only one season, trust me) when an action sequence was shot in one almost seven minute take. They actually shot the sequence three or four times, but when it was finally "printed", it was done all at once. Sam Mendes, the director of 1917, tried a similar approach with this entire film, in an effort to try to include the audience in the immediacy of the action, the urgency of the plot, and the desperation and emotion of its main characters. If you pay attention, you can see the transitions where they smoothed over separate takes with CGI, but unless you're a technical nerd like I am, you likely won't notice them because the action, in truth, is compelling.

While the framework is simple (average trooper must save others in the midst of pointless violence), the delivery is excellent. You can feel the despair at the nature of the zero sum game that they're all engaged in; where men give their lives for yards of territory, only to lose it back to the enemy days later. In a way, bringing the audience past that despair with the constant nature of the production and action is probably the best way to deliver a story about World War I, without falling back to the naiveté of 1914, when everyone's heroes marched off to win a little squabble that would last six weeks. You can combine the dolor of the people involved, fully aware that their lives were irrelevant to the high command and knowing that virtually nothing would be improved for them if they emerged victorious, with the compulsion to perhaps make it so a few hundred more lives weren't senselessly wasted, at least for today. George MacKay was excellent as the lead, adding thoughtfulness to a role that required a lot of desperate panic and emotion. It was also nice to see Mark Strong show up in a small role, as well as Richard Madden for the first time that I've seen him since his performance as Robb Stark in Game of Thrones.

I also enjoyed the detail that Mendes indulged in for the trench scenes and the realities of warfare over a century in the past. While I thought, at one point, that the trenches might be a little too clean and/or dry than the reality, the truth is that region of France doesn't particularly have a "rainy season", so it was as likely to be dry as not. There was enough dirt present to make the audience aware of what a struggle it was to live in the ground, without having to deal with mud. In at least one respect, both films were about determination in the face of daunting odds; one told rapidly and the other slowly, but both with the intent of showing some degree of hope at the end, even if challenges remained. What that says about my lack of motivation to write about either of them is beyond me, at the moment.

Rough stones

I have never been an Adam Sandler fan. His kind of loud, screeching, sophomoric humor is just not my thing; even in a "It's funny to see someone else make a fool of themselves" kinda way. So, now that's he's doing dramas in the same kind of loud, screeching, sophomoric manner... Yeah, it's still not my thing. I was about 30 minutes into Uncut Gems and was thinking: "This is really tedious."; mostly because they were doing the New York Brofus culture, non-stop, where everyone is constantly loud and constantly shouting over each other in an attempt to win an argument by making the other person realize that no one is communicating and shutting up first. This was basically the entire film. It was like a New York version of La La Land, where the latter was an insipid presentation of acting culture in LA and this was an Iphone recording of the right field seats in Yankee Stadium with better production values.

The divide on Rotten Tomatoes over this one is significant, with 92% of critics favoring it and only 53% of moviegoers. The normal thought process is that regular audiences aren't cinema freaks who can't really understand the deeper meanings or hidden subtexts of the critics' favorites or choose to ignore those things in favor of being entertained. But I suspect that this is more like the difference between an insider's world and the actual world, where critics are tossing Sandler a bone because he's "paid his dues" on the comedy circuit and is now trying serious drama, and the audience is objecting to being shouted at for two hours. And, of course, drama still needs to be entertaining in some fashion and this film simply wasn't. I'm all about the main character being an asshole. I'm totally down with the "anti-hero" concept and stories about people that are generally difficult to live with. What I'm less enthused about is when every, single person on the screen is an asshole, which is what we had here. You couldn't feel sympathetic toward any of these people. Not even the kids. Even Kevin Garnett was presented as a callous prick and I've read enough interviews with the guy to know that he's actually a pretty decent human being.

And perhaps that was the point? If you show all of these people at their worst, it makes it into kind of a freakshow, where the audience just laughs and shakes their heads in wonder at the idiotic situations that all of these characters end up in. That's a fairly good summation of the bulk of Sandler's comedy, so I guess it can't be a surprise that that's how he ends up doing dramatic roles. What's surprising is that so many critics seem to find that acceptable or in any way original or worthwhile. Again, if that was the point and I'm simply missing it... OK. Again, it's just not my style. Sandler has many fans and many people loved him on SNL and in his various films. I'm clearly not his target audience.

To Sandler's credit, he does well with the role. If he weren't so loud and stupid, he'd be a genuinely sympathetic character, as he constantly thinks that he's found the next big thing that will send him on his way, whether it be because he's the only one who thought about obtaining opals from Beta Israel or because he's the one who "feels" that the Celtics will win tonight ("And no one else feels what we feel!") The problem is that we never see Howard actually fail. We see his schemes get interrupted or delayed or him run into various mishaps of his own devising. But the usual sad sack story of the born loser who finally thinks he's hit it big? That's not this story. Howard runs a jewelry business in the diamond district and can drop five figures on a sports bet. That's not a 'born loser' story. That's a gambling addict story, but it's one with very little heart because, again, everyone is loud and conceited and stupid. If you want to see a good, introspective film about a gambling addict, go see Mississippi Grind. I have to say that I was also impressed by Eric Bogosian, as Arnold, Howard's brother-in-law and the world's most reluctant loan shark. He did really excellent work conveying just how troubling it was to be dealing with his business inside the family.

So, the film doesn't entirely lack high points. They were just largely drowned out by the unending torrent of screeching low points. And, of course, a lot of Sandler's pals were dropped in, like Mike Francesa as his bookie, The Weekend, John Amos, Trinidad James, and so on. Again, La La Land, but in New York, talking about how wonderful it is to be an incredibly wealthy, loud, obnoxious New Yorker. If that's what you're into, then this is the film for you. Myself, I'll stick to things that don't make me want to lower the volume.

Same and Story

Once again, I'm doing two films in this review, largely because of the nature of them, i.e. directors doing the same thing means I don't really have that much to say. It's an interesting side note to Hollywood's obsession with IP, where everything is a sequel to something that came before (Frozen 2!), rather than an original idea/setting/character.

Right from the start, I will admit to not being much of a Pedro Almodóvar fan. I like his films because they're always well-crafted and his storytelling technique is a solid one. His characters are human, they react in very human ways, and there's always a solid foundation to build from. My detachment comes from the fact that it very often seems to be the same story, despite variations in setting and characters. Pain and Glory, his latest, is no different.

All artists draw from themselves and their own experiences. Given the semi-autobiographical nature of Pain and Glory, it probably shouldn't be that surprising that it seems like a rehash of themes that Almodóvar has used before. And, again, that doesn't mean it's bad because the final product is a good one. It's an interesting film and the story moves well and there's the usual passion from the characters that are, again, emblematic of his films. But it's also largely like the films he's done before. You know how the story is going to proceed and even the little meta twist at the end isn't anything that's particularly memorable. This is Antonia Banderas and Penélope Cruz and, especially, Asier Etxeandia doing really well with their parts and creating believable people with genuine emotion attached. Those performances alone make it a good film. But the story is still regular Almodóvar and if you've seen one you've, unfortunately, seen most of them. If you're a fan, it's definitely worth seeing. If not, it's an Amazon or Netflix choice.

Speaking of Netflix, we come to Scorsese's latest, The Irishman, which suffers from exactly the same circumstances, except worse and longer. The film is based on Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran's book, I Heard You Paint Houses. I read it years ago, around the time of its release, on someone's recommendation for an insight into "actual" mob doings. It's a good book. Unfortunately, the film is also basically a note-for-note retelling that often saps the life from the story. Sheeran wasn't trying to craft a story when he wrote it. He was just offering up an experience that he'd lived and allowing people to draw from that what they might, including the details on the Hoffa situation. Scorsese chose to highlight that moment with Hoffa by using two framing devices when telling the story: one from Sheeran's perspective waiting to die in a nursing home and one from his perspective while taking a drive to Michigan a couple days before Hoffa was sitting outside the Machus Red Fox in 1975. That turns what could have been a tight two-and-a-half hour film into an occasionally tedious three-and-a-half hour film. Scenes of the drive were repeatedly presented to try to drive home the "mob life" point that we'd already gotten and the emotional impact that Sheeran was suffering because of the nature of the task before him, which we'd also largely already gotten. That meant that they felt like filler.

What's worse is that this is the same ground that Scorsese has trod many times and with the same actors. DeNiro? Pacino? Pesci? Romano? The gang is all here and you can throw in Harvey Keitel along with them. There comes a time when a director has used an actor in the same type of role so often that all you can do when seeing the new film is be reminded of the old ones. Witness anything Clint Eastwood has done directing himself in the past 20+ years. This is what happens here, when all we think about through most of the film is how similar it is to Goodfellas or Casino. This is a Scorsese gangster film! Anyone excited?

Like Pain and Glory, the performances are somewhere between solid and excellent, although Pacino's booming voice is a marked deviation from Hoffa's which was a real problem when trying to look at him as anyone but Al Pacino. It was interesting to see the CGI effects that made them appear to be 40-year-old versions of themselves, rather than attempting a ridiculous amount of makeup. Problem is, making someone look like they're 40 doesn't affect the fact that most of them still move around the set like they're 80, because they are. So even 40-year-old Frank Sheeran made you feel like you were just seeing the same scenes that you'd watched before. And this is the root of the problem: We've all been here before. This film gives us nothing new. It's just more "mob life" stuff. They even include dates and methods of death for a lot of the minor characters, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with Sheeran's life in general or the Hoffa situation in specific, but were actually connected to the Philly mob war in the early 80s. What does that detail offer us, except "This is another Scorsese mob film"?

In a film industry that is obsessed with mining the familiar in order to guarantee ticket sales from those who seemingly never seem to tire of watching the same stuff, over and over, like sitcom reruns, these two films, despite not following that trend of "IP first, story second", actually end up doing so, anyway. It sounds incredibly ageist to suggest that these two masters of the craft should probably rest on their laurels and open up space for others if Almodóvar and Scorsese still want to work and others still want to work with them. But I'm pretty much done with the experience that they're offering and I'd much rather see something else by someone like Bong Joon-ho, if only because it won't distract me by reminding me of everything he's done before.