January 23, 2018

"But isn’t this a bit of a cautious, comfort-food nomination list? Oscars to soothe everyone in troubled Trumpian times?"

"A brilliant exercise in exotic fantasy in an imagined American past, and some rousing journeys back to Britain’s wartime past in Dunkirk and Darkest Hour? Creatures in the water ... Winston in the bath? I wonder. The Shape of Water is great: but Hollywood feels on the back foot right now. The movie establishment might in other circumstances feel moved to let rip with rage at the hated pussy-grabber. But the Weinstein fallout is clearly making the tuxed throng of awards season feel they’re living in too a fragile a glass house from which to be throwing stones. The Post — a movie which feels tacitly anti-Trump — has not made much of a ripple. As for the documentary nomination list, there are some great movies on there. But I’m waiting for a Michael Moore moment, a repudiation of politeness, a confronting of the elephant in the Oval Office, a ferocious upsetting of the apple-cart — something to infuriate both the conservatives and the sensible liberals."

Writes Peter Bradshaw (in The Guardian). Trump is himself such a ferocious upsetter of apple carts that it's hard to see how it's possible to confront him with ferocious upsetting. And the news and social media confront him continually. What would work in a movie? The Trump presidency is already the movie (the nightmare).

49 comments:

buwaya said...

Dunkirk deserves some awards, certainly.

A Michael Moore-esque movie about Trump would just reiterate a flood of Facebook memes.

A truly interesting and topical movie would concern a second American Civil War, or at least the circumstances of its outbreak.

The public mood is there. The ideas for a screenplay are there too. "The Turner Diaries" has all the set-pieces.

madAsHell said...

a cautious, comfort-food list in Trumpian times

My first thought was......What a FUCKING pussy!!

Upon continued reflection, didn't we just learn that kneeling at a football game only serves to diminish ticket sales.

Nonapod said...

But I’m waiting for a Michael Moore moment, a repudiation of politeness, a confronting of the elephant in the Oval Office, a ferocious upsetting of the apple-cart — something to infuriate both the conservatives and the sensible liberals."

It seems like these people still have no idea about how to deal with Trump other than throwing tantrums. What does this person imagine such a "repudiation of politeness" would achieve? What form would it take? Is it the form of a screaming pussy-hatted protester, hurling insults and invective at random passersbys? I think that's been happening already. Is it some sanctimonious speech at an award ceremony decrying the mean old orange man in the Oval Office? Cuz we've done that a bunch too. Is it some god awful movie or play or TV show depicting a far fetched patriarchal dystopia where women are a slave caste and the main plot is larded with heavy handed moralizing? That's been done already as well.

Come on! What do these people think's been going on?

buwaya said...

The latent-coup theme already exists.

A "Seven Days in May" sort of film would be terrifically topical.
Heck, its versimilitude is just going to grow, exponentially.
Real-life trumps fiction, and there are no end of details to mine for such a thing.

Even the most dramatic drama would not strain credibility.
The thing will have all the sex, sleaziness, paranoia, violence and spectacle you could ask for.
It would be a "Godfather"-esque production.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

The Trump presidency is already the movie...

...the feel-good movie of the year... --The Fat One
...a light-hearted romp through the deep state swamp... --The Other Guy

buwaya said...

"Come on! What do these people think's been going on?'

Not enough it seems.

madAsHell said...

or at least the circumstances of its outbreak.

I believe it was here in the Althouse blog. A very interesting discussion of nullification going back to President Jackson, and leading up to the Civil War.

Look at the headlines today, sanctuary cities, and marijuana laws are challenging the federal government. How is that not nullification?

Paddy O said...

After the McCain and Romney nominations, Trump is the repudiation to politeness.

The idea that a documentary could somehow repudiate politeness against Trump should be enough to never let the writer write another published word in his life. The problem on the Left was policing its rage, with severed Trump heads and no end of comedian spittle-rage trying to compete for the most outrageous virtue signaling.

It's like saying that in order to help spread the Gospel, Christian tele-evangelists really need to overcome their aversion to money.

robother said...

Comfort food. What Hollywood turns to when they no longer just let you grab them by the pussy. Actually, Hollywood has been approaching this risk-free boring movie moment for some time. I suspect it has more to do with the money guys being in charge of everything.

I saw I Tonya the other day, thought it the best movie I've seen this year, but honestly that aint saying much.

Rob said...

Trump is the lobster, Mueller is boiling the water, and the impatient media have been working at the meat with their picks even before the lobster is dropped into the pot.

tim in vermont said...

This has been the most feel good year I can remember since Reagan was president. I don’t know what these guys are talking about, but I suspect it is the same thing that the New York Giants’ fans feel because their team sucks this year.

tim in vermont said...

Look at the headlines today, sanctuary cities, and marijuana laws are challenging the federal government. How is that not nullification?

LOL! Remember when Obama was president and the shoe was on the other foot? Arizona, I think? Ha ha ha!

madAsHell said...

Upon further review.....I got a little comma happy in that last paragraph.

CJinPA said...

Always illuminating to see cultural influencers opening calling for the politicizing of art.
There must be no escape. Art that is not political is worthless to them.

Beach Brutus said...

How does this movie year have anything to do with Trump's election? All of these movies were in various stages of production before he was elected.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Trump is forcing the Left to see something that they don't want to see -- that they are the establishment, Trump is the one giving voice to popular sentiments, and speaking truth to power ("The game is rigged against you").
The giveaway is that they proudly call themselves "The Resistance." These aren't revolutionaries working to overthrow a corrupt system, They are the corrupt system. We are all just human grist for a mill that devours human beings and excretes money & power. The #metoo people are natural allies of Trump (despite what they say).

Wince said...

The Post — a movie which feels tacitly anti-Trump — has not made much of a ripple.

Maybe it's been low-key precisely because it isn't anti-Trump?

Hell, we're on the precipice of someone in congress leaking the sordid history of the FBI abusing it's surveillance authority and conducting dirty tricks against Trump?

On MLK's birthday, I'm surprised Trump didn't say "I know how MLK felt" being the target of illegal FBI surveillance and dirty tricks.

Watch the Left's collective heads explode!

Balfegor said...

Re: CJinPA:

Always illuminating to see cultural influencers opening calling for the politicizing of art.
There must be no escape. Art that is not political is worthless to them
.

What has been most surprising to me is the vicious "If you're not with us, you're against us" attitude that has been deployed against politically neutral or discreet celebrities, like that singer Taylor Swift(?). There's a lot of people hard at work deliberately eroding any remaining non-political spaces. It's frankly disgusting to see.

Those dumb NFL protests are another example of that -- they didn't need to open themselves up to the protests, since they apparently had a neutral rule they could have used to block them from the field. But they decided to choose sides and, predictably, alienated a bunch of their audience. And now they can't go back, because the side they chose will (rightly) see it as a defeat if they try to return to neutrality now.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

rehajm said...

a confronting of the elephant in the Oval Office, a ferocious upsetting of the apple-cart

It's been done ad nauseam. Now, if you really wanted an original how about an earnest and scathing reflection of what fuckwads you're all being?

I'm Full of Soup said...

I saw a minute of Stephen Colbert last night while channel surfing....he was telling some tired Trump line/ alleged joke....what will Colbert and the other Dem comics do if and when Trump's approval rating gets up over 50% or so and the normal Americans get comfy with Trump as president?

Colbert and the others are probably on the road to career hari kari.

wbfjrr2 said...

I have no idea why anyone would read anything the Guardian puts out, nor why a UKpaper is so focused on the US instead of their own problems/issues, like being overrun by Muslim sharia thugs.

CJinPA said...

Balfegor,

The NFL learned it's lesson. No more shots of anthem protests. It's dishing out MILLIONS to left-wing causes supported by the protesting players. Most of the largest corps. and colleges are going to pay out Social Justice protection money.

Spaceman said...

Hey, is there anything Trump can't do? He's everywhere.

The Godfather said...

If Hollywood had any balls, and not just pricks, it wouldn't be making movies about the evil orange man, but about the battle against the deep state's subversion of freedom. Movies like Three Days of the Condor, Seven Days in May, Minority Report, the original Blade Runner (the new Blade Runner is such I mess I can't tell what it's supposed to be about).

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Ann wisely notes:

And the news and social media confront him continually.


Hillarywoodland(D) might want to consider unceasing Trump-bashing can boomerang. There is an exhaustion factor and deplorable America is quite sick of it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

A movie about The Democrat Party Official Newspaper starring #SHEKNEW Streep(D) isn't making ripples?

Barry Dauphin said...

How does this movie year have anything to do with Trump's election? All of these movies were in various stages of production before he was elected.

...or even before he announced his intention to run. The "experts" can't get him out of their heads.

tcrosse said...

Marx was writing before the invention of movies, so he didn't realize that Film Actresses are the true revolutionary class, not that deplorable proletariat. To the barricades, ladies !

DavidD said...

"Trump is forcing the Left to see something that they don't want to see -- that they are the establishment...."

Who knew that being a conservative could be counter-cultural?

Jim at said...

The NFL learned it's lesson.

No. It hasn't.
It's tripling down on stupid.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/2018/01/22/amvets-says-nfl-censored-its-ad-against-flag-protests/

Comanche Voter said...

Trump said he could grab pussies; Weinstein did grab pussies and whatever else came to hand.

Way back in the day (the early 60s) some college girls had a phrase "NATO"---as in "No Action Talk Only". They used it when they were disappointed that their date hadn't come on "strong"

I don't know--Trump is a lot of talk on occasion. Certainly compared to Weinstein and Matt Lauer, Trump is strictly in the NATO camp.

DavidD said...

From Jim at’s link:

“The anthem protests began in 2016 when then San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick opted to sit during the anthem singing as a protest against racial inequality and police brutality.

At the suggestion of former Staff Sgt. Nate Boyer, who played football in college, Kaepernick opted to change his protest to kneeling during the anthem, echoing troops ‘taking a knee’ during a mission.”

What? What kind of mission has troops taking a knee? Unless it’s a kneeling firing position, I suppose.

William said...

Part of the reason why their brand is so severely compromised is that they don't realize how severely compromised their brand is. Don't try to stick it to Trump. Stick to thanking their mothers and their high school teachers. Be bland. Be brief. Be gone.

wildswan said...

Save the Last Mime For Me. An African American couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her Republican fiancé, an out-of-work comedian who mimes. He explains that the parents think of him as a white, misogynist, racist, sexist, chauvinist, imperialist, Nazi whereas he thinks of himself as a clown making children laugh. This attempt at a non-political outlook on the arts is met with the scorn and contempt it deserves and the father delivers the finest lines of the movie when he says: "Let me tell you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue and shooting clowns in the defense of liberty is no vice!” while taking out a shotgun. The couple flee without coats or even a cell phone between them. A severe snowstorm brought on by global warning catches them without warning and they die in one another's arms unable to text for help or for Uber or reach location services or post a last photo on Facebook. He puts on his clown face as a last defiance of a world that cannot laugh and dies; and she, dying, struggles to wipe his face clean knowing that no one will understand this last mime. As she does this she hears a snowplow approaching but refuses to signal and turns away to die by her Republican clown. The snowplow covers them and they are found the next spring encased in ice with a strange smile on each face. The father repents. "This was the noblest clown of them all," he says. And the Civil War breaks out at their funeral as the Mourners fight with the Anti-Mos.

Gahrie said...

Save the Last Mime For Me

Didn't Jerry Lewis try to make this movie?

narciso said...

Interesting seven days in may, wee about a righteous liberal presidency being undone by paranoid military chieftain, they did a remake in the 90s,
With Jason robards as Lancaster's Sam waterston in marches and forest Whitaker in Douglas's

Of course the Post concerns as much jfk and lbj's policies as much as Nixon,
Liberals decided to ignore those predecessors as being more enlightened like thucydides re pericles, throwing shade on cleon, their version of Nixon. Thug was not an impartial observer as don kagan pointed out.

buwaya said...

"Who knew that being a conservative could be counter-cultural?"

Its been counter-cultural for the last thirty years at least, in this country.
More in some, less in others. But pretty much everywhere now.

Cool at last!

buwaya said...

Wildswan's treatment would make a superb indie film.

Imagine the hippie-bearded free-spirited conservatives in a close-knit community (commune) living a life close to the soil.

While the aspirational, Google-employed parents struggle to stay politically-correct enough to hold on to their gilded materialistic lifestyle, threatened with dismissal at every turn, lest they miss the latest twist of ideology.

buwaya said...

Vaclav Havel was a bit of a hippie. Hmmm.

tim in vermont said...

I love how they said “soothe everyone” as if half the country didn’t exist.

narciso said...

That's why he made frank zappa minister of culture fir a time.

traditionalguy said...

The Brits are still awe struck by what the long despised half-American crazy man Winston Churchill did in May, 1940. The German Royal Family had its deal struck to surrender Europe to Germany's mad man, provided they kept the rest of their World Empire. Then the sneaky new Prime Minister who was to take the heat for signing the surrender documents, instead cheated Hitler and the Windsors by using the 3 day semi-truce of May 25, 1940 to rescue the rest of the 300,000 English and French troops on the beach at Dunkirk over and above the 50,000 aristocrat officers that the Royal navy was limited to evacuating with 4 ships.


By June 2, 1940, Winston had gone rogue, rescued the Army, if without their weapons, and began to fight the Germans...and told the King guy to go fuck himself.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I like the idea of them being crushed and frozen by an avalanche of whiteness, Wildswan.
Personally, I think teeth are racist. When you see a person with white teeth, you think "Gosh! Those are some healthy looking chompers!" When you a see a person with black teeth, you think "My those aren't at all like healthy teeth. I wonder if that poor specimen of humanity is from a shithole country?"

Night Owl said...

Thinking along the same line as wildswan, if Hollywood wanted to be edgy it would remake "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", only this time the shock wouldn't be that the white girl's boyfriend is black but that he is a black, Republican, Trump supporter.

Hollywood writers, directors and producers could challenge themselves to look beyond their bias and portray the character as intelligent and dignified as Sidney Poitier's character.

(It's doubtful that they could.)

narciso said...

It would but instead they resort to the confortable paraNoia of get out, a fever dream seemingly concocted by derrick bell, I've referred to him in the past.

buwaya said...

The problem with remaking a Sidney Poitier film is there no longer are any Sidney Poitiers. If there were someone would have put him in the Senate.

Unknown said...

I know that people will complain about their marriage, and their relationship, especially the women, usually complains that her husband does not love her anymore, her husband cheats on her and even her husband left her, I had a very similar case with them, my husband left me with my two kids for no reason, he said his no longer in loves with me, He walk away for about 5 months, he never called me or the kids, I had a girlfriend, who had a similar case like mine, but her husband is with her now, I told her about my problems I was facing, she told me about a man that helped her resolve her problems, she introduced me to priest manuka, who actually helped me with his great powers to recall back my husband within 7 days, but today am proud enough to testify about him for what he has done for me is not easy to be a single mom, today my heart is filled of joy and peace of mind, may the GOD'S be with you and bless you for the smile you have put in my face...Contact him for help his temple is real he will talk with you on video for guidelines via email::lovesolutiontemple1@gmail.com hangout is priest manuka .THANKS

mikee said...

Pete Bradshaw, a Brit with no actual dog in the Trump dog fights, wants to inject more politics into the entertainment industry of the US.

Remember that the Academy Awards are nothing more than a self-promotion of the movie industry, by the movie industry, for the movie industry.

And then ask yourself why a leftist writer for the Guardian should want that long annual commercial for films to be a political event.

And then stop reading that leftist idiot.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

I think I saw exactly one nominated film (The Big Sick) and checked out halfway due to extreme, potentially fatal, boredom.