Writes Owen Gleiberman, in "'One Battle After Another,' With Its Thriller Vision of Authoritarianism, Is the Rare Movie That Could Rule the Cultural Conversation/Paul Thomas Anderson's wild swing of a movie connects with the moment we’re in like nothing you’ve seen"
(Variety).
And here's Ben Shapiro's view of the movie, from the right:
If this sounds like a total mess to you, it's because it is, it is an ideological mess, but it's more, more than a mess. It's actually quite ideologically bad. The basic suggestion is a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists and all people of color and a few nice incompetent fellow travelers like Bob are going to take on that entire system. And that system must be taken on at the cost of family, at the cost of friendship, at the cost of decency, at the cost of basic human capacity for success.
It is better, in other words, to be a complete loser who wastes your life bombing things randomly in order to free illegal immigrants to run willy-nilly across the border than to be like a productive citizen of that. At no point is that actually considered by anyone, by the way, like just to be a productive citizen of society because the society, as we know, is run by white Christian nationalists....
This entire film is that there's a conspiratorial group of white Christian nationalists who are targeting people of color. Those people of color have to ban together along with a few moron, fellow travelers like Bob in order to take on that conspiracy. And they should bomb things and they should kill people and they should do terrible things and say radical things while doing it. I'm in search of subtlety here. I do not understand, honest to God, I do not understand the attempts by some to say that this is a subtle movie in any way. It has the subtlety of a brick....
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122 comments:
"the fate of our fucking country" This is the standard of writing in Variety? And they say Trump is crude.
It's been "one battle after another" for a long time, but these guys are just not used to losing them.
It sounds as though this film captures the current entertainment industry zeitgeist. You don't despise them enough.
You never hear of black inferioritists.
"It's been "one battle after another" for a long time, but these guys are just not used to losing them."
Well said, Jaq.
I lived through that era of the Kathy Boudins and the exploding Manhattan townhouses on through to the Symbionese Liberation Army featuring “Cinque” and “Tonya.” I lived in a house in Palo Alto with Venceremos supporters. It was a crazy time with crazy people.
I just rewatched Robert Redford’s 2012 film “The Company You Keep” about what happened to these “revolutionaries” 35 years later after they’d killed a few people and gone underground. Their lives felt empty and filled with self-delusion.
That said, I’ve been a longtime fan of PT Anderson’s work, and look forward to seeing his new film at some point.
Does anyone on the left understand that many Blacks and especially Hispanics are Christians?
Literally, two movies on one screen.
Jaq said...
It's been "one battle after another" for a long time, but these guys are just not used to losing them.
Indeed, and let's hope that losing continues. The Jay Jones episode reminds us that Democrats have cultivated such an atmosphere of hate that a large portion of their voters believe violence is justified, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk has only whetted their appetite for blood. They don't just need to be defeated, they must be pounded into dust at the polls.
In the uproarious comedy One Bottle After Another, hapless bartender Wheezy Stumbles finds himself in a tidal wave of booze-fueled chaos. After accidentally serving a mob boss a flat beer, Jerry’s life spirals into a hilarious string of misfortunes. One spiked drink leads to a bar brawl, which leads to a mistaken identity fiasco involving a karaoke-singing biker gang, a runaway llama, and a wedding crashing gone horribly wrong. Each attempt to fix his problems only leads to more chaos, including a tequila-fueled chase through a petting zoo, and an unfortunate encounter with a very judgmental homeless dude. This laugh-out-loud parody of relentless misfortune proves that for Wheezy, when it pours, it’s probably just another round!
If it weren't for their violence, the left's meltdown would be amusing. Autocracy, my ass.
These are actors, directors, coddled show-biz people who are wealthy and isolated from any consequences of their make-believe heroism. With little connection to the actual concerns of any real people, they use pretend violence to carry out their fantasies. How about if someone were to take them seriously and firebomb their movie set? In the name of The Greater Good, of course, as interpreted by someone with unapproved opinions.
BarrySanders20! Take my money! I will see your movie!
More trash from the dump. There's a reason people are not flocking to movie theatres these days.
I realize that the f* bomb is much more common than it used to be, but I cringe every time I see it used casually in an article. More often than not, I stop reading when I find it, as it seems to be a pretty solid indicator of the writer's quality. I find it tiresome even when used as a direct quote, rather than using an asterisked substitute or other indicator of profanity. It's just another example of accepting, even reveling in, the coarsening of our society. Life is coarse enough without encouraging the performative profanity of puerile journalists.
Roger von Oech mentions the delusions of the 60s, the era when I came of age. The phrase I heard so many times, so earnestly stated, underscored that fantasy: "The rev's coming, baby!"
The revolution will not be televised.
It WILL be on TikTok....
Indeed, and let's hope that losing continues.
The problem is we're dealing with a cult. Losing only reaffirms their narrative.
We are reliving the 60's and 70's, and there are going to be a lot more bombs and assasinations before we can return to normalcy. In the meantime, government efforts to stop the bombing and killing will only serve to reinforce their "authoritarianism" claim that they believe legitimizes their actions.
@BarrySanders20 - I'd be first in line to see that. Well done, sir. Well done.
Christian Nationalists freed the slaves and preserved the Union.
Always with the revolution talk vomited up by extreme paranoid ends of the political spectrum. Real life is a boring evolution punctuated by occasional trainwrecks signifying nothing.
If we could force Covid "vaccines" on everyone, then we should be able to force psychiatric work on TDS victims. It's in the interests of public health and a matter of compassion. As irritatingly obtuse as they are, we still need to care for these poor souls, especially since the disease prevents it's victims from noticing the symptoms, which from all signs never improve
Also like the pandemic, those infected should be quarantined to protect the rest of us.
Amazing how minds wander. The Democrats lost a f&f election. In 3+ years, there will be another one. Business as usual.
The movie is two weeks in and is undeniably a bomb, considering the theaters' cut. $101 million gross so far, reported $130 million production budget (some allege the production budget was more like $150-175 million), then there's the marketing budget, and theaters take 40-50% of the gross. It is going to struggle mightily to break even and far more likely than not is going to result in a loss of at least several tens of millions of dollars. Left-wing agitprop movies have not, do not, and will not make money.
I reviewed this film in these comments the weekend it came out. I won't bore you all by repeating it. But I will repeat a couple of points: there are some good shots at snowflake culture, mostly made by Leo as kind of a lefty Archie Bunker. Del Toro is Fantastic as a Latino Mr Wolf, calmly solving problems. And yes,as these reviewers nkte, the resistance seems to be futile, but people do it anyway. CC, JSM
It sometimes seems to me that the whole point of this radical-activist Alinskyist cycle is to goad and provoke individuals on the other team to react, and get them in trouble. As the Rule says, 'personalize it'. But there's an unintended consequence peeking out at us, there. By personalizing the struggle and focusing on individual targets, however many, on however many fronts, sooner or later the base is going to activate in response, not just the individual. There's a lot of pent-up frustration, there, and the crowd is growing. Just sayin'. Black-bloc mobs are tiny, by comparison.
Is this a documentary?
The right’s christo fascist stormtroopers just burned down a judges house in South Carolina, she had dared to rule against Pedo Mussolini.
I predict box office failure and no sequels. Dystopia is the left's goal yet always the future imagined under their enemies. It really is clearly pathological that hollyweird keeps masturbating to the same handmaid's image while overlooking Islam BUT trying to remake Red Dawn with hero/villain roles reversed. At the same time.
PTA lost me when he did that awful movie about the West San Fernando Valley in the mid-70s. Licorice Pizza. Completely inauthentic much like the Valley Girl song by Moon Unit Zappa. A much more accurate touchstone is Tom Petty's Free Fallin'.
In the film One Bugger After Another, Kampala Harris searches for a running mate. Pete Booty-Judge looks promising - too promising. A Greek chorus (pun intended) of trans people comment on how none of her interviews really hits with the people. Finally, Kampala settles on Governor Waltz - not a typo - who dances and prances around, all the way to defeat. Finally, the chorus cry 'Slay, Queen!'. Kampala thinks it's support for her, until Sex-Treas Scott Best-end shows up and dick slaps her and her husband senseless. CC, JSM
Howard is right. That movie sucked. If my buddy Tim Conway Jr. didn't relentlessly pimp it to me I wouldn't have seen it.
Come on. These Hollywood progressives care more than you. Rumor has it there’s a push for them to start paying their illegal maids and gardeners the minimum wage.
The judge was out "walking the dog" allegedly when the home went up in flames. And the husband is a bankrupt "developer" who built house before going out of business. It will be interesting to hear the rest of the story when known, and without the stupid partisan positioning of trolls here. When you are reduced to hoping someone Trump-adjacent committed arson when not even the cops say it is arson then you might be the sick fuck. Think about it.
especially since the disease prevents it's victims from noticing the symptoms, which from all signs never improve
As we have seen.
That fire - it may have been arson. At present it's still being investigated. And it may be that if it was arson, it was perpetrated by one of the people who apparently sent death threats to this judge regarding her recent decision against the Trump administration.
But the characterization of everything the (or "a") Trump administration does, however precedented by liberal/progressive heroes like Obama, as "fascism" appears to be a primary symptom of the syndrome, and indeed, the continuation of symptoms no matter how often the dichotomy is pointed out between "Obama did it - Defending Democracy™!" And "Trump did it - Fascism!" does seem to indicate that the syndrome never improves.
As always, it's "creeping autocracy" until a Democratic president is elected and does the exact same thing, in which case it is "bold leadership" or something like that.
Yes, of course MAGA denies/warps/ lies about it.
Attaboy!
Charlie Kirk committed suicide. I know this because christo fascists had the most to gain by his death AND I feel it in my tum tum!
The red-state demo has tended to shun films that suck. We love to watch films that don't suck, but they're few and far between in recent years.
"Trump-adjacent committed arson when not even the cops say it is arson then you might be the sick fuck. Think about it."
Asking TeaBagHag to think about, well, anything is like asking a dog to solve a differential equation. That house fire might well be arson but, if it is arson, it will 95% probable the arsonists are the homeowners and that the death threats were their preparation to burn the house to the ground.
Mike, I was introduced to this phenomenon decades ago. A commercial developer who was trying and failing to sell his wine country estate suffered a mysterious gas explosion while the family were elsewhere. Reduced the entire house to toaster-size fragments.
My company wisely chose a different partner.
Obama fascism = wore a tan suit and said mean stuff about bitter clingers
Biden Fascism = protect yourself and your neighbors in a pandemic by getting the vaccine that scientists working under the Trump admin developed
Trump fascism = masked agents kidnapping citizens on the street and disappearing them with no process
Sending soldiers, Instigating and escolating violence In US cities
Silencing critics by removing them from the airwaves
Silencing critics by removing them from the country
Yeah, totally the same
Another choice would be the film “Primitive War”… it’s as if “Apocalypse Now” was thrown in a blender with “Jurassic Park”… Joe Bob says two thumbs up.
Vietnam War and dinosaurs… together again.
Streaming now!
What Biff said, including on this blog. Most posters here have a large enough vocabulary that they don’t need to resort to profanity to make their point.
Abortionists in Our Midst is trending.
The Ouroboros Tourist is a migrating pick.
Victor Victoria at the Village venue.
kidnapping citizens.. disappearing them... Silencing critics...
Don't forget he's jamming progressive's cellphones so that no one anywhere has video of these kidnappings, disappearings and silencings that holds up to even minimal scrutiny.
On the third of the three wildly hystrionic pseudo-terms I quoted, if Trump's critics are "silenced" why are YOU still communicating with us? Why is any leftwinger on air anywhere?
I know Yancey. I know, but troll-bashing is part of my occasional exercise program. Knowing wink back at Drinkwater.
Hoooo boy a $61 million bankruptcy could have left a LOT of pissed off homeowners who bought a pig in a poke.
"Yes, of course MAGA denies/warps/ lies about it.
Attaboy!"
Authorities say the fire was started by an explosion at the judge's house. So unless someone tossed some kind of IED or a Molotov cocktail in, the most likely explanation is a gas leak or an electrical issue.
Vietnam War and dinosaurs… together again.
One Bronto After Another.
"...our fucking country...."
Not certain how the adjective applies.
Can someone do a planetary survey "Countries with most and least frequent copulations per capita, segmented by age group of participants and by duration?"
Roger, Robert Redford's film was a grotesque and dishonest exculpation of the people who destroyed lives, literally and figuratively. And now they are figures of great wealth and social power, not lil' Thoreaus mulling over their choices. They won the revolution and they regret nothing. This was your idea of fun? How grotesque. I suggest you look up some of the coroner photos of the victims of their nail-filled pipe guns. Your eagerness to whitewash this era is the problem with both the killers and this movie and book.
I'm thrilled that Redford the pathological liar is finally dead. He abbetted in hiding cop killers and maimers, and never even had the integrity to apologize to his victims. Redford should have died in a prison cell.
Yes Mikey, unless everyone is arrested/deported/silenced
then nobody is.
There are countless videos of Pedo Cheeto’s masked gestapo throwing citizens into unmarked vans. But you might not be actually looking for them in good faith?
The red-state demo has tended to shun films... which it views as liberal-left agit-prop, but I suspect that there’s something about the big vision of 'One Battle After Another' that could prove uniquely inviting
You fuckers with all your climate armageddon crap and break the 4th wall embedded leftie rants ruined movies for us. I decline your invitation…
Agree with Old-and-Slow, Biff, and Mongo. I take inappropriate references to sexual intercourse to be more than sloppy writing and ignorance. I take it as a conscious effort to sew chaos, to destroy an essential element of society - mutually shared meaning of words. The writer is evil.
I will make note of the writer and of the subject, then bail out.
"There are countless videos of Pedo Cheeto’s masked gestapo throwing citizens into unmarked vans." (emphasis added)
uh-huh
Oh, you assume I meant US citizen. As if that’s the only kind of citizen?
We’ll never actually know who the people are or what there status is because no due process is a feature of Pedo Mussolini’s christo fascist authoritarianism, not a bug.
“Most posters here have a large enough vocabulary that they don’t need to resort to profanity to make their point.”
You’re goddam right!
The red-state demo has tended to shun films... [ ] but I suspect that there’s something about the big vision of 'One Battle After Another' that could prove uniquely inviting.
Yes, of course, you just need the right framing for the message for us all to see how right you are.
Live where Vistavision available and waiting for sell-outs to end.
Rhardin suggested that: "You never hear of black inferioritists."
Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Margaret Sanger would like you to subscribe to their newsletter.
Short version: Movie Projection.
I take inappropriate references to sexual intercourse to be more than sloppy writing and ignorance.
Also lack of imagination, it seems to me.
...Oxford lists a definition of fucker as a contemptible of stupid person without reference to intercourse. I call language police infraction...
Just another movie about Hollywood's hatred for average white people - Christians and Republicans in particular. Of course as an israeli living in the USA, ben shapiro cant really focus on that.
For the millionth time we get some violent racist neo-nazi group that must be fought and destroyed. And some authoritarian white man in uniform (Lockjaw) who must be fought in the name of "Freedom".
The oddest thing about the movie is except for Sean Penn as Lockjaw, and DeCaprio, every other major character is black or brown: Regina Hall, Del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim, Wood harris etc. We even have a character named "Junglepussy".
Its labeled a dark comedy. And yes, it is.
I'm sensitive to references to sexual intercourse that's sloppy, ignorant and inappropriate. I'm still down, but it hits a little close to home.
Libtards will lap this up, imagining themselves as the white heroes fighting with their beloved blacks/browns against the evil Trumpists. Just like the middle class libtards join up with Big city blacks in Michigan, Minnasota, Illinois, or Pennsylvannia to deliver the states to the Democrats.
Democrats and Hollywood are now fighting for "immigrants" against the evil Conservatives. Fighting for open borders and 50 million new 3rd world immigrants is the new Civil rights struggle.
'One Battle After Another,' on the other hand, is a wildly entertaining, awesomely unpredictable screwball political thriller that on some level forces you to confront… the fate of our fucking country."
Finally, the stupid vulgarity of the Hollywood press matches that of its audience. Piss finds its own level.
I'm sure we would notice if the left was being silenced. The loss of that insect-like drone of "racism, Hitler, fascist" would be startling. Or maybe they ARE silenced and Trump has substituted that drone across all media to make the left look like fools. He is that devious, and it's working.
Naw, that’s cute but the whole Trump derangement syndrome was a cute deflection for a while but right NOW we’re facing a government that kidnaps citizens at random and encourages its foot soldiers to burn down the houses of non compliant judges.
Show me the person being RELEASED by ICE who was "wrongly arrested." Every single video I followed up on eventually has turned out to be lacking the "rest of the story" as old Paul Harvey would say. Heard a rumor about a guy who actually is suing ICE but again, it was a lefty reporter and no evidence has appeared yet.
IF you actually had facts at hand then YOU would have already put a link in here. One of us would look. But there's no link. Cuz you're full of shit as usual. Boo hoo there are no disappeareds.
More blatant lies from the liars on the side of anarchy trying so hard to pretend to be the good guy:
NOW we’re facing a government that kidnaps citizens at random and encourages its foot soldiers to burn down the houses of non compliant judges.
That’s the whole problem, MAGAt. Masked thugs are disappearing them and the victims of the kidnappings AREN’T resurfacing.
You know a lot of German citizens had no idea or refused to believe the evidence that gypsies, Jews, queers, commies, etc.
Were being exterminated until after the war.
"Over the weekend, both Czechs and Japan elected their own version of Trump, while the Macron establishment regime imploded for good." —Zerohedge on X
Funny that he has to use the very term "Pedo" that his guy, Joe Biden's own son, referred to his father as, you know, the President who took showers with Hunter's kid sister, Pedo Pete's own daughter.
It's all about projection. It's right out of Goebbels's playbook, and yet we are the nazis.
You need to be familiar with Pynchon — or at least his worldview — to enjoy it fully. The astrology references were weird rather than part of the plot, for example.
Plus the stoned detective accidentally unlocking larger plots had already been plundered from Pynchon in the Big Lebowski (without the social criticism).
I liked it — but the dialogue was dense and allusive (like the source). Early Quentin Tarantino meets Vanishing Point.
I suspect this one will age very well over time, and that's quite some resume that Anderson is putting together.
"The right’s christo fascist stormtroopers just burned down a judges house in South Carolina"
A judge's house in SC burned down. The cause is not yet known.
vineland was probably unfilmable, so I guess anderson went on this fever dream, but these fables of 'noble' terrorists, die hard, one of the first of these, was the rebel, directed by irvin winkler starring a young henry winkler with sissy spacek, as ayers and oughton, (some details were changed) then there was a similar one with jennifer connelly, in the oughton role name escapes me now, billy crudup was also in it, that was in the 80s, running on empty, the sidney lumet vehicle with judd hirsch character showing some contrition, law and order before it went totally off the boards was glamorizing
left wing radicals from the 70s, even a lesser known vehicle, called numbers, had a continuing arc linking the protests of vietnam and Iraq, the government was somehow at fault, not the terrorist themselves,
"Why is any leftwinger on air anywhere?"
Why isn't TBH in Gitmo? Damn sloppy work if you ask me.
It seems familiar somehow. Didn't I see this movie fifty years ago? And 40? How have the Christian Nationalists still not won after all this time?
the actual story was somewhat different, bill ayers escaped accountabililty for both his poor bomb making skills and his greater designs by burying into academia, his wife bernardine doehrn, the manson murder fan, did serve some time, kathy boudin served some, her son chesa was the san francisco da, until just a few years ago, Susan Rosenberg the Capitol bomber, and her designs in organizing the protests that became occupy and so called antifa have been referenced , those that tried to stop their reign of terror,
were often ridiculed or dismissed, the whistleblower who described ayers big plans, of course we have obama rising out of that poisonous stew,
Ayers has gone international in his 'missionary work' using aboriginal rights in Australia, as well deep in the whole Gaza Hamas support system, the same sort that believe in teh 'Gaza genocide' yet ignore the actual recording of ritual bloodletting on october 7th,
this is the fan fiction the No Kings moron, vibe on, like a used bong, Sean Penn seems to serve the villain role, more poorly than say Robert Foxworth, from the Omen films to DS 9 as a mutinous Star Fleet admiral,
Did Bad Bunny and P Diddy do that funkay thang? with baby oil?
Nice going NFL - classy entertainment for the whole family.
I think what TeaBagHag is trying to warn us about is that Soylent Green is citizens!
Saying that out loud is quite brave, and I for one appreciate the risk taken to warn us.
in execution, its more like that crazy zac snyder space opera, that probably ended his future prospects 'the one with slow motion, grain sifting 'rebel moon'
back in the real world
https://nypost.com/2025/10/06/us-news/wild-video-shows-unhinged-driver-slam-into-ice-vehicle-in-chicago-amid-string-of-attacks/
the trench-mouthed hussy
Harbinger of teh Haggis
frog mouth plum suckler
If you really want a good, action-packed, well-crafted thriller, I recommend The Lost Bus. Watched it last night and it's quite good.
I can hardly wait to see it.
owen has come a long way from peddling tripe on entertainment weakly to heavy duty tripe at variety,
alas 'its a more selective crowd'
My wife and I watched that one too, NeggNogg. That is an entertaining film!
there's a real sense of menace, believable characters something the big studios seem incapable of delivering,
I was going to comment but I see the Church Ladies are out today and I don't want to reveal my limited vocabulary and be subjected to ridicule.
encourages its foot soldiers to burn down the houses of non compliant judges.
If attempted assassination is just 8 years; house burning is what? 3 years' probation?
roske got 8 years because he declared himself trans, thats about 2 1/2 years for each target,
TeaBagHag said...
Naw, that’s cute but the whole Trump derangement syndrome was a cute deflection for a while but right NOW we’re facing a government that kidnaps citizens at random and encourages its foot soldiers to burn down the houses of non compliant judges.
Shouldn’t you be hiding in a basement somewhere with Gestapo mega police running all over the place disappearing people?
You actually believed anything you said you wouldn’t be on a public forum like this trying to get arrested. You’re either knowingly lying or you’re a fucking retard.
I embrace the power of and. You know that you are lying but you don’t realize how stupid you sound.
PT Anderson is a very good filmmaker, so I suppose I'll see this eventually even though I can sniff the Antifa from here.
I watched his debut Hard Eight last weekend. That was quite good.
neither the hero (in his own mind) or the villain are really compelling characters, which is rare for Anderson,
More leftist propaganda from rich white leftists in Hollywood.
Pass.
Owen Gleiberman started out reviewing movies for Boston's "underground alternative weekly" The Phoenix. I always assumed he was some old 60s/70s radical. He's actually younger than that. He started writing for the paper in 1980 after it had already become bourgeois and establishment (the rival "alternative weekly" was funded by investors led David Rockefeller Jr.). But in the 80s there was still a lot of the spirit and style of the 60s/70s and nostalgia for that era at the paper, so it's not surprising that Gleiberman feels as he does about America and civil war.
Last year's Civil War film was made by an Englishman and showed little understanding of American politics or American life. The point was to be cinematic and put posteriors in the seats. That may have been the motivation behind this film as well.
PTA is married to Maya Rudolph, so that makes him Black-adjacent-adjacent, and perhaps more woke than many actual African Americans.
"Ghetto" Pat Calhoun and Perfidia Beverly Hills are members of the far-left revolutionary group the French 75. Breaking out detained immigrants from a detention center in California, Perfidia humiliates the commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw, who develops a sexual fascination with her. Pat and Perfidia become lovers as the French 75 carry out attacks on politicians' offices, banks, and the power grid. Lockjaw catches Perfidia planting a bomb, but lets her go after she agrees to have sex with him at a motel.
Seriously?
TeaBagHag said...
Oh, you assume I meant US citizen. As if that’s the only kind of citizen?
*****************
How lame. World-class lameness. Olympic Gold-level lameness. TBH lameness. But I repeat myself.
What interests me about this sort of dynamic is that it leaves out the POV of the victims (or the relatives of victims) of the terroristic crimes. A film with a relative seeking private revenge in the case of an unprosecuted/unconvicted terrorist, another Ayers say. Ayers got away with it because he mainly instigated others to kill themselves. But if it had gone further?
These things are not ONLY political acts, they are also private ones.
The neurotic leftist trope that the U.S. is a "post-capitalist" hellscape is irritatingly provincial.
It sounds like this movie endorses the idea of committing political violence. Pretty much the opposite of what the culture needs now.
I suppose another “battle” we must have is whether one can just enjoy a movie anymore. I saw it today for the second time and as a piece of art it’s simply incredible. I suppose when it comes to politics I align pretty closely with Ben Shapiro but when it comes to movies I’m much more of a Paul Thomas Anderson guy. My suggestion is to ignore the culture war for a few hours, get yourself to a 70mm IMAX theater, and have some damn fun. Don’t let the left or right political critics box you in and rob you of a good time. Ocean waves. Ocean waves.
@Biff. Agree with you.
"It is better, in other words, to be a complete loser who wastes your life bombing things randomly in order to free illegal immigrants to run willy-nilly across the border than to be like a productive citizen of that. At no point is that actually considered by anyone, by the way, like just to be a productive citizen of society because the society, as we know, is run by white Christian nationalists.... "
This is a garbage paragraph. Among other things, it is trash to use 'IOW' to restate/manipulate/imagine what others say, and then after that restatement to attack the restatement, instead of attacking what others actually said before you restated them. Why not just attack the true stuff they said, if you have a legit POV on the other side of their actual words don't 'IOW' manipulate what they truly said, and then go after your restatement of what they acutally said?
BTW. I can suss out the stuff DJT says when you need to know a bunch of background before you can understand some of his ramblings/weaves. I can create a picture that fills in the stuff he jumps over when he talks/truths/blathers/etc. But here we are seeing the opposite of the intellectually honesty that I do re DJT. Never mind filling in the gaps, or at least taking the words as they truly are: here the 'IOW' is used to create a paper tiger target.
Anywho, looking (literally and accurately, sans 'IOW' reinterpretation) at one section from Ben, i.e.: "because the society, as we know, is run by white Christian nationalists..."
I have a question: Is Ben acknowledging that it would it be good to resist a society that is run by white Christian nationalists? My interpretation of this Althouse excerpt is that the writer (Ben) thinks it would be good to resist a white Christian nationalists in our government. And I think he's saying that we don't have that now, but for some reason this fictional movie makes him defensive re if we have white Christian nationalism in our government now.
I'm guessing that you don't need to hit seventy-five on an IQ test to notice what is going on here. IDK.
"I saw it today for the second time and as a piece of art it’s simply incredible."
OK. What's so great about the art of the movie? The acting? The script? The camera work?
Details please.
You should see the movie if you have not. It's terrific and only political in a very broad sense. Both Gleiberman's and Shapiro's takes are hotheaded and stupid -- and say much more about their worldview than the movie's, which is more focused on providing great action, drama, and comedy than it is on saying anything political.
I've seen the movie, and yes, if you want to turn off your brain, ignore the obvious political pro-antifa messages, and don't mind see the same ol' boring story of good guys fighting evil Christian nationalists (aka Nazis) that we've gotten in 1000 other movies, you might enjoy it.
Its interesting how if you make a movie where White/Christians/Rightwingers are the villians and they're killed by the "Good Guy" white or black leftists, everyone cheers and you're not supposed to care about the message.
Imagine if it was reversed. Imagine if the movie was about some Good Guy Christian white man who ends up fighting a bunch of evil Leftwing blacks. Would everyone say "Hey ignore the politics, its a good movie. Enjoy yourself".
LOL. LIke hell they would. You'd immediately see the critics, the ADL, and everyone on the Left screaming about how the movie was racist/facist/ Propaganda. And of course, no movie with that story could ever be made by Hollywood. They hated Mel Gibson for making a movie about Jesus Christ!
They hated Mel Gibson for saying Fucking Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. "and don't mind see the same ol' boring story of good guys fighting evil Christian nationalists (aka Nazis)"
Here's a question for you. How many movies have black or explicitily Jewish villians? Now, how many movies have explicitly Christian or white villians AND have POC Good guys or Jewish Good Guys? How many times have you seen preachers as corrupt, evil, or bad guys. Now tell me how many times they've been black. Or how many Rabbis or Muslim Clerics have been corrupt, evil or bad?
If it doesn't matter what the race/nationality/etc. of the villian is, why all the fuss about "Oliver Twist" in 1948, or the Merchant of Venice?
RC, if you want more movies that have black and Jewish villains. I guess you need to stick with the classics you mentioned (and those you didn't mention): "Oliver Twist," the Shylock thing-y, Mein Kampf etc.
Who knows, maybe your favored plots with black and Jewish villains will become popular again, then you'll be satisfied.
Well thanks Le Douanier, what are the movies "i didn't mention"? Why don't you "mention them"? LOL. Cause they don't exist. And is "Mein Kamp" a movie? Was the that one Mel brooks did. LOL.
But then you don't really know anything, do you? You're either a troll or a dumb libtard doing "pushback".
One Battle after Another had production and marketing costs of $200,000,000; the first weekend it generated $22,000,000 in sales DOMESTICALLY. So much for "saving the f------- country"!
RC,
You're right, we don't have a bunch of the movies that you say you'd like to see. Not too many offerings for folks like you that are asking to see black and Jewish villains. For now, rather than seeing that sorta movie, you will need to read when you want to get into Mein Kampf and Storefront et. al..
Racist is as racist does.
Ah, so no evidence was presented, as expected. The only ways to earn respect here are to bring receipts or clever original prose. Neither has proven achievable for the majority of the left-leaning side here, boringly relying on repetition and cut & paste plagiarism. Heavy on vulgarity and vapidity and quite lacking in wit.
How it would subvert expectations if the country were run be Christian nationalists, instead of White Christian nationalists.
What a conundrum if the God-fearing, patriotic evil oppressors were of all races and ethnicities, working in peace and harmony to run the country with an iron fist.
People of color are already banding together on Sundays and making serious bank.
Racist is as racist does.
Oh noes. I'm so shocked. A leftist calling someone a racist. Well, I think you're a racist too. nahnahnahnana.
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