Replicas: I Watch Movies So You Don't Have To

So, this will be a first for the blog. I have decided not to spend any energy on reviewing this absolute catastrophe of a film, but instead I'm going to spoil the everloving shit out of it. I don't care. And I know you don't care, either. You either have never heard of Replicas or you weren't fuckwitted enough to want to see it. I didn't even want to see it. And... let's clear this up right now... I did NOT go see this movie. I found it online by accident and watched it at home for a laugh with a sick wife. I pay $20/month to get three free movies at an AMC theater and I'd rather pay the money and see nothing than use this film as one of my three. So, without further adieu... here is what you're missing with Replicas.

So, Keanu is Bill. He's a scientist working for a company called BioSomething. He's been working on an algorithm to transfer the thoughts and memories and every part of a person's brain and consciousness into a robot. He's about to boot up test subject 354 into a robot that looks so utterly ridiculous, even video gamers would complain how shitty the robot looks:

It's like you described the robot from I, Robot to a blind person and had them design what you described on a computer from 1994. Anyway, they bring in a dead soldier - because that's what he's trying to do, save dead soldiers - and they transfer his consciousness to the robot. But, once the dude realizes he's a robot... he freaks out and starts ripping out his own face. Another test failed. Sad Keanu.

Keanu's boss tells him he has one last chance to get it right or he's going to shut Keanu down. Keanu goes home to his family. His hot wife, his son, his older daughter and his youngest daughter. They're about to take a family vacation. Keanu's co-worker Thomas Middleditch (that dude from Silicon Valley) comes over to...uh... watch the family fish while they're away? (I'm not making that up.) So, the family departs, but on the way, there's some bad weather and Keanu hits a tree that impales his wife and sends him off the road. Instead of just hitting the brakes like a normal human would do, Keanu lets the car careen into a river where the rest of his children drown. He has to pull them from the wreckage. In a moment of panic, Keanu gets out his phone. He does not call the police or do anything remotely legal. Since he does science good, he knows there's another option - call his co-worker and the two of them can clone his family.

Co-worker shows up, questions the morality of the situation for like two seconds, then the two of them take the bodies to Keanu's garage. Co-worker brings him pods to grow clones out of. Only... there's three pods. That's it. Only three. But there's four people. But three pods. Keanu wrestles with this internally and decides there's only one possible way he can figure out who to save and who to leave fucking dead - put names into a bowl. He selects hot wife (obvs), older son and older daughter. Young daughter has to go. He also figures that instead of having to explain to hot wife how there was only a limited amount of pods and little daughter had to stay dead, he would just wipe their memories that little daughter even existed in the first place. Don't think too hard about the fact that there are a myriad of people in the world who would know about this girl's existence (doctors, extended family members, the government). As long as his wife and kids forget here - he's in the clear. And so goes growing his family back over a seventeen day period.

In the meantime, Co-worker reminds Keanu that there's other people in the world who will realize that his family is missing for seventeen days. So, Keanu gets out all the tech - computers and cell phones. He tells the principal he's decided to home school his kids. He tells his kids' friends that they can't come out because they're grounded. He discovers his daughter has a bae named Juan and winds up telling Juan she's grounded until she's 18 bc Juan wants to smash. Anyhoo, he brings the family back. They wake up and everything is normal. The end. Except not the end at all. Keanu hasn't really wiped out the memory of youngest daughter as things start to come back to the family - things like there was once a bunkbed in older daughter's room... son remembers there being extra pictures of someone on the wall... hot wife remembers name of daughter. But before they can hash out the fact that Keanu literally wiped the memory of a fucking human daughter person... Keanu's boss shows up and interrupts dinner.

He reveals that he knew what Keanu was doing all along and let it happen because Keanu doesn't actually work at a BioSomething company - it was just a front for - uh... nefarious shit? Boss wants Keanu's algorithm, and for him to say goodbye to his family before he kills them for good. Goons show up to the house to kill them and Keanu and family manage to escape. But, after a very lackluster and boring car chase, the goons get the family. So, Keanu decides to imprint his own brain into the robot. The robot comes to life and talks just like Keanu (don't think too hard about how vocal cords are what make our voices sound like us and not our brains). Robo-Keanu stops the bad guys and regular Keanu makes a deal with his boss. If boss lets them escape, he'll let Robo-Keanu stay with him and make him tons of money doing... nefarious science shit? Boss agrees. Regular Keanu and family escape to the beach and he winds up bringing back youngest daughter because he apparently found another pod to grow her in, but didn't have this pod last time, but now has the pod this time because reasons. The last shot of the movie is boss leading a sick, old, rich dude in Dubai into a room to promise him a new opportunity at life. He reveals his business partner - Robo-Keanu... who, no joke... wears a fucking three piece suit.

Replicas is a dumb as balls movie from dumb as balls people. John Wick has really been a godsend to both us as audience members and Keanu in revitalizing his career. But, he really has to stop making movies like Replicas if he doesn't want to fade back into obscurity once the John Wick movies are really done (I hope they never are). I love me some Keanu, but damn if this movie isn't three shits to the wind stupid. Don't bother with it. But I don't have to tell you that - you weren't going to see it anyway.

D-

The 10 Best and Worst Movies of 2018

 2018. What can we say about the films of 2018? They weren't exactly great and they weren't exactly very memorable. I surveyed a few people to ask them what their favorite movie was of last year and all of their responses were: "what came out last year?' 2017 was an exceptional year for movies, so naturally 2018 was going to be lackluster. (This means 2019 is going be killer.) The biggest problem I found in compiling the list this year is that even though I did see quite a few very good movies... I never saw one that stood out better than the rest. I've ordered this list several times now and there is no clear-cut #1 movie. I looked around the internet at various magazine lists of the best movies of 2018 and they all have different movies on the list, different movies ranked at number one, etc. There was just no obvious standout for number one. Nearly every movie on my list of ten could've been the best of the year because they were all equally good. But, unlike the last six years of making this list, picking the best movie of the year wasn't easy. The worst movies of the year were. Again, I stayed away from a lot of the obviously bad movies of 2018, so if you don't see one on here that you hated, chances are I didn't see it. (Films like: Fifty Shades Freed, I Feel Pretty, Overboard, Life of the Party, Gotti, Uncle Drew, The Darkest Minds, Night School, Robin Hood, Mortal Engines). There were also a few of the good movies I never got to see, either. Unfortunately, I missed out on Can You Ever Forgive Me? The Ruth Bader Ginsberg film On the Basis of Sex is taking its sweet time to make it to theaters. And, I know I should be better about this... I still haven't been able to watch Roma. It looks like a movie that demands my patience. I can give that in a theater. It's hard to muster at home. I'll watch it and amend the list accordingly, if necessary. But for now... here are the Best and Worst movies of 2018 according to me.


The TOP 10 BEST FILMS of 2018:


10. The Hate U Give

 










I was unfortunately unable to catch this one in theaters and didn't even get to do a proper review for the movie. But, I watched it last week and was blown away. This movie went very under-the-radar for most people. It had a quiet theatrical run and didn't make a ton of money - a movie that should've made more money than half of the releases in 2018. It's about a young girl in high school who watches her childhood friend killed by a cop at a routine traffic stop. It's not just a powerful, timely and poignant movie, it's a movie that should be required viewing for every living soul in this country. The performances are amazing, the movie is harrowing and heartfelt, and it gives the viewer plenty of thinking to do after. And while it's not an easy movie to watch by any means, it is a very good movie.


9. Mission: Impossible - Fallout

 










I toyed with making this one an "Honorable Mention" rather than putting it on the list of only ten. But then I watched it again, and my god... get away from the fact that the Mission: Impossible franchise is six movies deep, and get away from the fact that Tom Cruise is a Scientology nutbag and you start to realize just how good these movies are. Not only are they the best spy movies around (and have been for the better part of two decades), but they're one of the rare franchises that keeps getting better with each entry. Mission: Impossible: Fallout is just a fun and incredibly entertaining movie. It's well-written, it's well-directed, it's well-acted. It's funny, it's thrilling, and it's a movie that serves as a definition for why people like to go to the movies. So, by those standards, it really was one of the ten best movies of 2018.
Review HERE.


8. Hereditary

  










A24 is killing it with original horror content, but they're doing it in a different way. They're not doing it in a commercial Blumhouse way. They tell different, unconventional horror stories. Ones that don't necessarily appeal to the masses. There's no jump scares, there's no obvious twist endings. These are movies that are full of tension and scare you not just while you watch, but stick with you for a long time. It's been several months since I saw Hereditary and the movie still lingers in the back of my mind. It's one of the most horrific and disturbing movies I've ever seen - in a good way. It's a wonderful movie that not a lot of mainstream audiences are going to connect with or even enjoy, but I still urge everyone to see it if you think you can handle it (you won't). Toni Collette should be nominated for an Oscar for her performance as she's fantastic in it. It's also one of these movies that you have to watch more than once. With each new viewing, you catch something new and the story comes even more into focus and you realize just how genius the film really is.
Review HERE


7. Bad Times at the El Royale

 











A film that slowly unravels, revealing secrets and lies from a bunch of mysterious strangers staying at the same El Royale hotel splitting the border of California and Nevada. I love when movies like this come out. They're wholly original content, so literally no one entering the theater knows where it's going to end up. We all get to see it unfold together. We're guessing in our minds what's going to happen, but there's slick twists and turns around every corner. Bad Times at the El Royale was one of the coolest movies of the year and one of the best written movies as well. Each character is layered with such depth and each actor (especially Cynthia Erivo) gives it their all to make it a fun, gorgeous, beautifully shot mystery thriller. Director Drew Goddard takes the best of his directorial influences (there's Quentin Tarantino and Scorsese peppered all throughout) and makes one of the best original movies of the year. Unfortunately, it fared terribly at the box office because audiences are just reinforcing Hollywood's fear that no one wants to risk their money on something original anymore. But, I strongly urge you to rent this movie tonight.
Review HERE


6. Avengers: Infinity War/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

  

So, this is one of the first times in the history of my doing these reviews and these lists that I'm changing my point of view on a movie. You guys should know by now that I'm just not a superhero movie guy. The over-saturation of Marvel has put a sour taste in my mouth and I never WANT to go see their movies, but they're always so highly praised that I do anyway. When I first saw Avengers: Infinity War I wasn't blown away. In fact, I was a little pissed off. I felt like Disney had copped out on the deaths we were promised and the movie was lacking severely. But then I watched it again. And then again. And then again. And for some unexplained reason... I really, really like it. I find myself wanting to watch it over and over. I've seen Avengers: Infinity War more than any other movie this year and I didn't even think it was that great on first viewing. Now... I find myself unable to wait patiently for the second part. It had to make the list because it's grown on me and if I've watched it more than any other movie this year - how can it not? The other part of this is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which I've only seen once, but resonated with me more than most superhero movies ever do. It's beautifully animated, it's hilarious, it's fun, and it's the best Spider-Man movie ever made. I find myself wanting to watch Spider-Man as much as I want to watch Infinity War. Marvel can do away with all the other movies. Give me Thanos and give me Miles and I'll be a fan for life.
Avengers Review HERE (though the thoughts and opinions have changed)
Spider-Man Review HERE


5. A Star is Born

 










At the beginning of the year, you wouldn't have been able to convince me that I would even SEE a movie starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, much less putting it on my favorites of the year list. Even seeing the trailers I didn't have a desire to watch the movie. But again, favorable reviews for the film convinced me otherwise and I'm glad I changed my mind. A Star is Born gave me a look at what an incredible actor Bradley Cooper really is. Yes, he caught my attention with Silver Linings Playbook, but the man really opened my eyes with this film. He SHOULD be a shoo-in to win Best Actor, but with Rami Malek's Freddie Mercury, Christian Bale's Dick Cheney, and both guys in Green Book it's a much tighter race. I'd still personally give it to Cooper because not only is he beyond perfect in this film, he directed it as well. (Plus, there's that killer soundtrack.) And A Star is Born is the one movie on the list I'm most surprised with how much I genuinely loved it. 
Review HERE   


4. The Favourite

 











Period pieces are not exactly my cup of tea. But, ones that are this funny and this dastardly are really rare. The Favourite showcases three magnificent actresses in a wickedly dark comedy about femininity and backstabbing. The movie excels because it's three leads own the witty dialogue and make the movie feel contemporary. All three give the best performances of their careers and deserve all of the praise the film has thus far received. It's a difficult task to be able to despise each of these women, as well as empathize with them through each scene and banter and betrayal. It's such a fun and engrossing movie to watch. Don't let the time period let you overlook this one. It's one of the more interesting and original movies of the year and I loved every second of it. 
Review HERE


3. Green Book

Chalk this one under one of the more surprising movies of 2018. Peter Farrelly, whose entire career has been directing raunchy comedies with his brother Bobby, turned a corner and gave 2018 one of the most tender and honest films that I had the pleasure of watching this year. Two veteran actors give it their all in an unorthodox road trip movie about love, acceptance, understanding and tolerance. And much like The Hate U Give should be required viewing, so should Green Book. Unlike The Hate U Give though, it's actually a joy to watch. It's equal parts dramatic and funny. Both of these actors should win all the stuff and I genuinely hope this movie gets more and more recognized as the years go on. This movie won't and shouldn't be forgotten anytime soon. It's genuinely earned its spot as one of the best movies of the year.
Review HERE



2. Black Panther

Yes, Black Panther really did come out in 2018. In a time when the majority of movies released feature predominately white males, Black Panther is a genuine game-changer. It's probably Marvel's best movie to date and Director Ryan Coogler takes great care to make sure it not only entertains, but gives us a timely message as well (all while brilliantly honoring African culture). I've also not seen a villain in a Marvel movie (or most Marvel movies) who is so well-crafted, to the point where it was difficult to decide who to root for. Both hero and villain are right to be fighting for what they're fighting for and its execution is heartbreaking as well as genius. Beyond just being a great movie, it sends a message to Hollywood that we moviegoers are craving diverse films more than ever. This is due to the fact that it's one of Marvel's highest grossing films. Coogler, Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, and the rest round out a wonderful cast for a truly amazing and iconic film that should only lead to even greater things for everyone involved.
Review HERE


1. Eighth Grade

Like I said... it was difficult to pick a number one. Genuinely, any of the movies on this list could be argued as the best... however, I believe any other year, none of them would be. But Eighth Grade just spoke the most to me out of all of them. It's another film on the list that was surprising with the fact that a director who has only done comedy in his career has put out such a touching and affecting film that seriously resonates with its audience. Musical stand-up comic Bo Burnham's directorial debut serves as a movie that will reach everyone who ever watches it, and that's why it gets the coveted number one slot. Even though it's about the life of a middle school aged girl in 2018, there's not a person watching the film who won't relate to the struggles and the awkwardness and the turmoil of eighth grade life or its protagonist. Lead Elsie Fisher is perfect as Kayla and this movie shows us that she's destined for great things. It's a difficult movie to watch (especially one scene) because of how uncomfortable it makes the audience with every bumbling encounter Kayla has. It's near impossible not to squirm in your seat while watching it both because you feel for Kayla, and because you remember similar moments in your own life. It's rare for an indie movie like this to have such a large impact on its viewer. It allows curmudgeons like us to be able to finally empathize with the youth today. I hope both Fisher and Burnham keep churning out projects like this. If they do, we're in for some seriously great movies ahead.
Review HERE


HONORABLE MENTIONS: Blackkklansman, Hearts Beat Loud, If Beale Street Could Talk, Isle of Dogs, A Quiet Place, Widows, Won't You Be My Neighbor
 











The TOP 10 WORST FILMS of 2018:



10. Truth or Dare

 









Eh, they can't all be winners, can they Blumhouse? First of all, from what I could tell, the movie had always intended to be R rated. I'm not sure which studio head influenced you to go PG-13, but I guess it doesn't matter because Truth or Dare was going to be rotten either way - at least with the R rating we might've gotten a few bloodier deaths. So, since I never reviewed this movie, here's the synopsis: teenagers in Mexico play truth or dare with a douchebag. Douchebag has a curse on him where he MUST play truth or dare... or die. Group now has curse. When you don't tell the truth or don't do the dare, you get a stupid fucking grin on your stupid fucking face and die. It's at the bottom of the list because I respected the ending... but that's it. The rest is lazy, garbage writing with an even worse gaggle of actors trying to act afraid. (However, this movie can be really fun if you're with friends and doing a lot of alcohol mixed with illegal powders).


9. Incredibles 2

I still realize that I'm in the minority on this, but I think Pixar's worst movies are the Incredibles movies. Not because I don't think that they're clever or well-written or lazy or anything like that. They're not. That's Cars. No one expects anything from Cars. That's their "we're out of ideas right now" movie. Incredibles actually has something to say. Actually has a good story with a good message. Only... all of it coming together just never works out. All the pieces are there to make a brilliant film - but it's so unbelievably boring, I never cared about anyone. This movie bored me to tears. Two other people in my theater were sleeping and I envied them. As it moved on (and I kept guessing plot twists), I realized just how bad the movie really was. It wasn't me. I was trying to like it. But it was so slow and boring that I can't imagine any kids really liked what they were watching either. It makes the list because I hold Pixar to the highest standard for animation. So, when it comes out with a dull, used-eraser like this - it makes the damn list.
Review HERE


8. The Cloverfield Paradox

It was Super Bowl. Last year. Everyone's gathered around the TV. Everyone stuffed with meat and beer. And a trailer drops. A trailer for a new Cloverfield movie drops. A trailer for a new Cloverfield movie that's been released on Netflix THAT NIGHT drops. That's brilliant advertising. Netflix realized that to reach the most people watching TV at the same time was Super Bowl. Flash forward 24 hours later. Those of us who fell for the hoax were pissed off. Pissed off that whatever monstrosity that movie decided to call itself was somehow inexplicably related to Cloverfield. Both the first film and 10 Cloverfield Lane were quite good and we don't exactly crave more entries into the series, but they're always welcome. This one. This was a rip off of Alien and Sunshine, only it's not scary, interesting, fun, or good. Then, because Netflix and whoever else got conned out of money to fund this shit, realized it was filth... they slapped the Cloverfield nametag on it so people would watch. The name of the ship in the movie is the Cloverfield. That's it. That's every connection to the series. Netflix: "April Fools, fuckers!"
Review HERE


7. The Happytime Murders

 













You remember when you were a kid and you did something shitty and you were expecting to get lambasted by your dad or mom, like a real thrashing, like your favorite thing in the world was about to be destroyed right in front of your eyes for what you did... but then they didn't yell? They didn't scream. They didn't even raise their voices. They said, I'm not mad... I'm just disappointed. And somehow, THAT crushed you more than anything else you could've expected? That's how I felt about The Happytime Murders. An R-rated movie... with vulgar puppets... and a murder mystery... and comedic genius Melissa McCarthy? How do you mess that up?! Oh. Okay. By making the protagonist puppet unlikable without any personality. By making the punchline of every "joke" just having a puppet say the word 'fuck'. Oh, by putting the "sex scene" in the trailer to draw us out... but then revealing that the sex scene was the only funny part of the movie. There was the opportunity to have a Muppet Team America here. Instead... we got a shitty, forgettable, Muppet-stained trough of bullshit. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.
Review HERE


6. Solo: A Star Wars Story

Progression of events:  

• Star Wars: Episode VII is released to critical acclaim and a shit ton of money.  
• Studios go - Hey, we should do some spinoff Star Wars shit so we run it into the ground
• Rogue One is released. It's very good. It makes a lot of money. 
• Studios go - Hell yeah! We did it. Let's release this massive list of all the spinoffs we want to do. I'm talking balls deep into the characters. Let's start with young Han Solo!
• Solo is released. It sucks ass. It loses money.
• Studios go - Ah shit. Star Wars is dead. Let's just build a Star Wars section at Disneyland and charge people to see it. 

Solo is arguably the worst non-prequel Star Wars-related entry (yes, worse than Episode VIII). No one wanted to watch Han Solo without Harrison Ford. And because the movie was so bleak and dark no one really could. Chewy now apparently eats people. Han didn't actually do the Kessell Run by himself (a robot did it for him). And the reason he's called Solo is because he was traveling... alone. Suck a bag of dick sliders with fries everyone involved with this movie.
Review HERE


5. Action Point

 










Human beings... especially Americans... are generally dopes. We put on a face of being intellectual or having all our shit together and liking high brow shit. But we all love to see Johnny Knoxville fall down or hit in the nuts. It's something that nearly every American laughs at. The Jackass movies/series are painfully funny and no matter how often you watch them, they'll send your gut in fits of aches from laughing so much. Action Point is the complete opposite. It's unfunny. It's pointless. It's juvenile in a way that makes us hate everyone involved. There's absolutely nothing to laugh at in the entire movie other than the couple of yuks you've already seen from the trailers. I understand Knoxville is getting older and torturing his body in Jackass ways isn't exactly feasible anymore. But don't give us this half-assed horseshit and call it a comedy. We're not buying it.
Review HERE


4. The Nun

James Wan has crafted some seriously iconic horror movies over the last decade or so. He began with the, still, underappreciated Saw (which gets shit because of all the bad sequels, but it still a great solo film). Then Insidious. Then The Conjuring. All of his horror movies are well-made and frightening and damn near perfect. But, Hollywood doesn't leave well enough alone and they make too many of them and kill what made his movie good (Saw/Insidious). OR they make a bunch of dumbass spinoffs from the villains of the films (Annabelle/The Nun). I'm very disappointed in people. Not just the producers greenlighting these movies. You guys too. And myself. For giving money to these rat-stenched movies even though you know they're going to be terrible. The Annabelle doll doesn't even move. Even its face. And there's two goddamn movies about it. The Nun is even worse. It's a person, but behind shadows it gives you the willies. When it runs around shrieking like a fucking goat for two hours... it's laughable. And not in a good way. Shame on you Hollywood.
Review HERE


3. Venom

 










Well, Marvel... you can't win 'em all. You managed to get three movies on the ten best this year... but you fucking EARNED this spot on the worst. Venom is painful to sit through with its poorly written dialogue, to its unbearably bad CGI, to its cartoonish villains we're supposed to fear, to its badly designed plot to literally everything involved (minus Tom Hardy - that man is a God). And on top of that it should've been rated R. Watching Venom felt like getting repeatedly punched in the face with pies by an angry clown who keeps shouting "Are you having fun yet?!" while intermittently puking and laughing next to me.  Venom should be taught in all screenwriting classes as a spectacle of what not to do when writing a script or writing characters or writing dialogue. I liked it better when it was called The Mask and it actually made people happy.
Review HERE


2. Holmes & Watson

A recreation of an interaction with Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Director Etan Cohen.

Cohen: Hi, gentlemen. Welcome to the first day of shooting Holmes & Watson. I'll be your director, Etan Cohen.
Ferrell: Great to meet you, Ethan. I loved your work with Fargo and The Big Lebowski.
Reilly: I particularly loved O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Cohen: Ha ha. Yeah. I get that a lot. Except I'm not Ethan Coen, one of the Coen brothers. I'm E-tan Cohen. I did Madagascar 2 and Men in Black 3.
Ferrell: Oh. I see. So, do you have any experience with comedic films?
Cohen: Actually I do. I even directed you in Get Hard, Will.
Ferrell: So, no? No actual experience in comedy?
Cohen: No. No, not really.
Reilly: That's okay. We're really funny together. We can make almost anything work. We've done a lot of stuff with Adam McKay and he's been our comedy mentor, so this'll be fine.
Cohen: Great! Here are your costumes. Put them on and let's start shooting.
Reilly: Sorry to nitpick... but I was kind of hoping before shooting the movie... we might get a peek at a script.
Cohen: Oh jeez. This is embarrassing. I thought they told you. There's no script. We just pitched a Sherlock Holmes movie starring you guys and here we are.
Ferrell: There's no script?
Cohen: No.
Reilly: An outline of the plot?
Cohen: What's a plot?
Ferrell: Oh, dear.
Cohen: You guys are great at improvisation, right? Just do your thing.
Ferrell: Well, here's the thing Ethan...
Cohen: Etan
Ferrell: ...we usually have a structure and a base and a script with which to improvise from.
Reilly: Yeah, it's much easier to improvise when we know these characters and their motivations.
Cohen: You're Sherlock Holmes. And you're Watson. Go!
Ferrell: See, that's not exactly what we mean.
Cohen: (Pulls out gun): I... said... go.
Review HERE 


1. Slender Man

  









A cohesive list of things that are more enjoyable to experience than watching Slender Man:
-changing an adult's diaper
-spending a week in line at the DMV
-arguing with a complete stranger about lawn mowers
-stepping on a nail - barefoot
-watching Holmes & Watson 
-changing an elderly person's diaper
-scrubbing your face pores with sandpaper
-eating crab legs... not the meat inside... the actual legs
-listening to a Time Share pitch, giving them your life savings, and getting three days out of the year to vacation at your new Time Share in Stockton, California.
-holding a ladder for someone
-Gone With the Wind in a different language without subtitles
-letting a homeless person spit in your mouth
-snorting wasabi
-hanging out with Randy Quaid (now)
-playing hackysack barefoot with a billiard ball
-discussing trickle-down economics with a slightly broken drive-thru speaker
-doing a word search with a blind person
-viewing an art gallery featuring different works depicting cottage cheese
-massaging Rush Limbaugh's inner thighs
Review HERE

If Beale Street Could Talk: A Follow-Up To Moonlight That Doesn't Disappoint

A sophomore effort after your first movie is released to critical and audience success is always going to be difficult. When you've already set the bar so high for yourself, your next movie's anticipation is always going to be much higher than you're probably going to be able to deliver. We were all stunned when Jordan Peele gave us the phenomenal Get Out - and the dude won an Oscar for it. His next horror movie, coming out in March, is inevitably, in some way or another, going to let everyone down because no matter how good the movie is (and it will be great), it won't be as good as Get Out. Similarly, Barry Jenkins had an uphill climb with his second effort. After winning for Best Picture with the extraordinary Moonlight, his follow-up movie, while very good, doesn't really touch the heights that Moonlight reached. However, If Beale Street Could Talk is a near-perfect adaptation of James Baldwin's novel, and it shows us that even though he started so high, Barry Jenkins is here and he's making/made a name for himself among the Hollywood giants. 

If Beale Street Could Talk tells the tale of two lovers who have been friends since they were kids. Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) and their newfound love/relationship. They'd always been friends, but now Tish at 19 and Fonny at 22, have discovered each other. Their relationship blossoms and they fall madly in love. They look for a place to buy together. They look to get married and start a family. However, all of this is told to us throughout the movie in flashbacks. This is because in the present day - Tish is pregnant and Fonny is in prison. Fonny is behind bars for a crime he didn't commit and Tish, her family, and Fonny's family are working to get Fonny out. But, it's not cheap. As the movie points out - it's really easy for a white cop to arrest and accuse an innocent black man, but in order to prove innocence, the system expects them to pay for everything. They have to hire a lawyer, investigators, etc. The money piles up, even with both families working to pay for Fonny's lawyer's services. Meanwhile, Tish, who isn't even 20, is struggling with revealing her pregnancy to the family. Her family is much more accepting than Fonny's, whose mother is devoutly and hellaciously religious. It's beautiful and painful what Barry Jenkins has done with the movie - show us this remarkable relationship grow between two very lovely people, while showing us how, for people of color, it can be ripped away from them in an instant and the system is rigged for "escape" to be impossible. 

Tish narrates her pain throughout the movie as innocent a soul as the character she is. She's still naive and full of hope, but her hope is stifled by her environment. She explains why it's rare for the people of Harlem to get any leg up in the world and why this sort of thing happens all the time and even though it's agonizing for her and her family to go through - it's not surprising. There's a scene in the film that's difficult to swallow where Tish is in the grocery store and is being harrassed by a white man. As she ignores him and tries to get away, Fonny shows up and runs the guy out of the store - in front of a white cop. Fonny immediately pumps the brakes as the cop steps to him and asks what happened. When they explain the situation to him, the cop immediately tries to throw Fonny in handcuffs for assault. It's only when the store owner backs up their story as the truth that the cop, very hesitantly, lets Fonny go. The cop threatens to see them again - and wouldn't you know it, has some direct involvement with Fonny's arrest later that lands him in prison for something he didn't do. It's hard watching realities that we, ourselves (especially me, a privileged white male) have never experienced, but are very real and occur often to so many people. When Tish and Fonny's fathers turn to petty crime in order to pay for the legal fees - we get it. Tish even tells us in her narration that most of the men in Harlem end up turning to crime because when society constantly tells them they're nothing and can't ever achieve success - they start to believe it. These are the harsh truths Jenkins exposes in the film. 

The thing that Jenkins does well - and he did it in Moonlight also - is he's able to make his writing sound unique. The movie feels like a novel. It doesn't feel like an adaptation of a novel to the screen - it feels like a novel. There's long, slow conversations. There's lingering on Tish and Fonny for steady periods without a word uttered. The dialogue isn't natural, but literary (yet, feels authentic for these characters). Jenkins is able to bring to the screen the images of the book you see in your mind when you read. That is no easy feat. He's also not there to make his audience comfortable. He doesn't want to ease your own anxiety when something in the film gets "too real" or too uncomfortable. Jenkins lingers on a shot longer that most would in order for the viewer to get squirmy and shifty. Because this isn't a comfortable story to tell. And he doesn't want you to feel safe either. He wants that pit in your stomach to feel worse and worse and never really dissipate, even when the movie is over. 

The cast of the film is brilliant. Layne and James are perfectly cast and are marked with instant chemistry. They're supposed to have known each other since they were kids, and it feels like that right away. They're supposed to be more in love than any two people have ever been in love... and it feels like that right away. James carries with him an anger, one that's easily set off, but is able to quickly calm and resolve it just by seeing Tish's innocent face. Layne plays Tish with a calm and sincere naivete that breaks your heart with every look she makes. Regina King plays Tish's mother. She's magnificent. She should be in all the movies and win all the awards forever. She brings such a fierceness to the role with a underlying vulnerability that it only amplifies the heartbreak of the film. She's already won a Golden Globe for the role, and it wouldn't be surprising to see her take home a long-overdue Oscar. If Beale Street Could Talk may not have as deeply piercing an effect as Moonlight did, but Barry Jenkins still brings it with his follow-up movie. And like Moonlight, it's not an easy or a comfortable watch, but it's a necessary watch. Because Jenkins has a way of flinging harsh truth in a beautiful and touching way that not many directors before him have been able to. 

B+

Bumblebee: A Harmless Jaunt That Became A Delightful Romp

The Transformers franchise is five movies deep and littered with stupidity. How these films still have a fanbase is actually quite bewildering. While no one actually expected anything out of the first film, it did show that it had enough behind it to tell an entertaining story (albeit a story littered with misogyny and toxic masculinity). The charm of Shia LeBouf and then newcomer Megan Fox was enough to give the fans something to cheer for. However, (I assume) self-proclaimed alpha male Michael Bay kept churning out movies that proved to be more garbage piled on more sticky, sludge-covered garbage. As the movies got worse, Bay amped up the sexism, the absurdity, the loud in-your-face CGI, and even managed to slip in some not-so-subtle racial stereotyping in the mix. Finally, after three movies, he decided to revamp - with other not-as-alpha-male-as-Michael-Bay-but-kinda-also-pretty-close-alpha-male Mark Whalberg to the mix. These movies, while not as all-phobic as the previous entries, were pretty high on the nonsense factor. Until finally, even they wore out their welcome (while still making truckloads of money). So, instead of putting the franchise to rest (which is what it should've done years ago, but Hollywood never does), they decided to go with a spinoff/prequel involving the beloved Transformer Bumblebee. However, what they DID do correctly, was take the reigns away from I-shit-in-your-pie-alpha-dawg Michael Bay, and gave the film to a skilled *cough* FEMALE *cough* writer and a *cough* COMPETENT *cough* director in order to give us something we haven't seen before - a Transformers film that's actually pretty decent.

Trust me, I had no desire to see Bumblebee when I first heard about it. Even after seeing the trailer, I still had no intention on seeing the film. But, as I've done before - when I was plumb-shocked after seeing the Rotten Tomatoes score of 93% (the same critics who've been given sub-20% ratings to the other entries), my curiosity got the better of me. Set in 1987, Bumblebee tells the tale of, well, the Transformer Bumblebee who comes to our planet after his own planet, Cybertron, has fallen to the Decepticons. He's there to scope out the planet and make sure it's safe for the rest of the Transformers to come hide out after Optimus Prime has wrangled all the survivors together. The movie begins like your typical Transformers movie, with the loud CGI-riddled fights, and it appears to be another stale entry into the franchise. But then we move over to our human character - Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), an 18-year-old who has lost her father and is working a shitty job on the boardwalk in order to afford a car. She finds Bumblebee (disguised as an old VW bug) in her Uncle's scrap yard and he gives her the car as a birthday gift. She soon finds out her car - ain't exactly a car. The two of them form a bond - a bond she hasn't had with anyone since her dad passed, and together they must stop a couple of rogue Decepticons out to kill Bee and destroy Earth, as well as some soldiers led by John Cena out to kill Bee as well.

While it may sound like your run-of-the-mill Transformers flick, this movie actually has what the others don't - layers. Layers to the story. Layers to the characters. Things organically happen. Relationships are forged deep within the characters, other than surface-level ones that happen because the script says they should. There is deep care spent by writer Christina Hodson in her characters to make them three-dimensional and human. While the other *cough* white male *cough* writers of the series are trying to cram as many boom-boom explosions into the script as well as shots of asses in very short shorts - Hodson wants us to get to love the characters. And we do. Charlie is dealing with some very real demons. She's become hostile toward her family, closed-off in her personal life, stopped taking risks and seeking dreams because her life was shattered with her father's death and her grief hasn't subsided as quickly as the rest of her family's - especially her mother's, who has already started dating again. With Bee she starts to let down her guard and start to live again and see the excitement of life she once had. The movie plays out less like a sci-fi action film and more like The Iron Giant and E.T. There's a serious Amblin-Spielberg feel to this movie, which is a welcome return to form as many movies have lost that heart they once had.

After directing the very wonderful Kubo and the Two Strings and being an animator on The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman, and Coraline, Travis Knight's storytelling pairs well with Hodson's in knowing it's about the story and the characters that drive a good movie - not one that will make money on name and starpower alone (something all the previous Transformers never bothered to take into consideration). And while the movie does still have it's jumpy, loud, action-y scenes... they fit better into the movie because they're organic, and less frequent. The cast has a great chemistry, and even John Cena who hams it up to John Cena levels, isn't taking himself very seriously. It's more of a coming-of-age movie than it is an action movie. It has action. It has sci-fi elements. But that's not what makes the movie good. Hollywood doesn't understand that it doesn't take much to have that little extra effort put into character and story, but when it all comes together like this - you can have your big tentpole movie that people actually walk out of the theater having enjoyed. Sure, the movie has its flaws - some of the dialogue is on the hokey side and there's a few eye-rolling moments of cheese, but compared to the rest of the franchise, it's Citizen freakin' Kane.

Whether you're a Transformers fan or not (I can't imagine they were many left), there is something here. Bumblebee is actually a really good movie to bring the family to. The kids will enjoy it as much as the parents, but probably for different reasons. It's fun, it's funny, it's got heart and warmth and it's pretty much the antithesis of every Transformers movie before it. Michael Bay says he doesn't think he's actually done with the franchise, but decided to step back for this one. If the reviews for Bumblebee are any indication to the studios, they shouldn't just persuade him to back out for good, they should forcibly push him out. Because if Bumblebee is a preview of the quality of movie this franchise can achieve and go from here, then there may still be life out there for these shitty robots after all.

B-

Aquaman: Khal Me By Your Name

--Written as a Facebook rant allowed to be posted as a review by Guest Reviewer Jason Booth

So check it my people.

My wife and I snuck away to a movie theater and decided for some unfathomable reason to see Aquaman, and these are all the reasons that it was one of the dumbest movies I have ever seen.

First of all, let me just say that we considered a lot of other movies. Vice and Mary Poppins Returns and The Favourite and a couple of other solid choices streamed across our conversational reasoning earlier that afternoon.

Aquaman. 64% on RottenTomatoes. NPR says it's very dumb, but apparently that Game of Thrones' swashbuckler Jason Momoa has a lot of fun in the lead role or something. Sounds like a fun way to relax for a couple of hours, eh fellow new parent? Thor: Ragnarok was fun, right? We enjoyed that one, yes? The Little Mermaid as a live action movie where Ariel just kicks a lot more ass? Eh? Ehhh???

And so, after the hip new restaurant with the Mezcal Cocktails featuring an overwhelmingly confident use of the color mauve in the color scheme, we find ourselves firmly planted in the middle of the XD theater in our carefully pre-selected seats. The theater is only a fifth full, although the bag of sour candy that we've brought with us is bursting at the seams. All these years later and, while the security has improved somewhat, I could still sneak a fucking Shetland Pony into most major American movie houses and those teenage employees wouldn't even cock an under-tweezed brow.

The movie starts out with a skosh of promise. Khal Drogo is fighting some underwater submarine pirates, or, something like that. He doesn't know he's Water Boy yet... or like, he does, but he's pissed at underwater people because they killed his CGI mom, Nicole Kidman, who looks like she's 22 because I dunno. Who cares? It's an action flick! Anyway, it's not the worst thing ever yet. But then very quickly, Water Boy is brought back down to the surface because the water people have decided to wage war on the topsiders (that's us), and they do this by throwing all of our boats back onto our shores and beaches.

TSUNAMI ATTACK! Or... INTENSE LITTERING AND POLLUTION!

But STUPID! JOKES ON YOU SEA PEOPLE! Do they have any idea how many ships we'd lost in the ocean and you just gave it all back to us? Thanks for all the lost treasure you idiots.

Anyway, that was an aside. The movie just keeps getting worse. There is a giant Tron showdown where AquaFellow battles his younger pureblood brother and, don't worry, there is DEFINITELY a humongous Octopus drummer that plays at the battle because it's like a sporting event. You know, like in Ragnarok, but way less interesting and with no Jeff Goldblum to make things quirky-fun. Okay, so, underwater sea people can swim at the speed of fifteen Phelps, and yet, for some reason, they drive around in sea cars and ride on giant sharks and seahorses who literally can't swim faster than they can. There is this one scene where Wet Dude and his new sea princess girlfriend (Amber Heard), Discount Black Widow, are about to crash into a crater of underwater lava as they're escaping the Lost City, and, at the last second, they eject from their sea car (because duh, it's the LX and the LX totally comes with underwater ejection feature, thanks Subaru), and then, just as the car crashes into the lava, they just swim away. Because, oh yeah, they were able to swim this entire time and like, way faster than the car they were just in. This happens over and over again in this film. There are constant ledges and lava pits and things people can fall into, even though, as they show us time and time again, they can all just, ya know, swim away and stuff.

Patrick Wilson is the bad fish guy, which is weird because I thought he was Nite Owl, and Willem Dafoe is also there, and he's like, a secret mentor/good fish guy, but that's also strange because I thought he was the Green Goblin. So basically this is the movie where heroes from slightly better movies trade sides--which I believe is also a perfect example of just how complicated Maritime Law actually can be. Amber Heard is a crappy, red-headed ninja princess. Dolph Lundgren is in the movie and he just looks so tired. It doesn't matter how many Just For Men Red Beard Dye boxes they use on him--he is withering away under that ocean and I really think he should just go back into retirement now. Most of the movie is spent meeting relatively shitty looking Mer-people and various underwater creatures, as if George Lucas was just left alone for a summer to make the fourth prequel that he was never allowed to make, and then they just stole all the characters from some even shittier Gungan island colony that we never asked him to envision.

In the end, do you know why Aquaman wins? Well, it isn't JUST that marvelous hair that flows through the water like a never-ending L'Oreal commercial. You see, he goes on a quest to find a magical Trident--the most powerful trident because it was forged by, I dunno, someone important. Once again, we're talking discount Thor and 99 Cents Store Mjolnir here. Most of the storytelling felt lazier than my inability to look up how to insert an umlaut over that previous spelling of 'Mjolnir'.
Oceanic Hombre eventually finds his Disney spear and now Ursula Nite Owl better watch out! Big random war at the end between the bad mer-people and the good mer-people to decide if they'll go to war with the surface people and in the meantime, all these people on the surface are just standing around like, "What the hell happened to all of our boats? What is going on exactly?" Because no one ever went back to tell them that there was an underwater rager that would eventually decide the fate of humanity going down.

Whatevs.

 The Goodfish Golden Triton Boy beats evil Hard Candy Nite Owl Patrick Wilson on a big surface just out of the water (because he's weaker there or something). Oh also, there was a scene earlier in the film where they met Good Green Goblin to talk and he gave them a treasure chest and they all spoke in an air bubble because some mer-people wouldn't be able to visit a space like that without special suits--OH SHIT HERE ARE SOME ATLANTIC NAVY SEALS WITH SPECIAL SUITS!
That type of stuff fills a good amount of the movie. Water physics that don't quite work. Mer-people and regular people that seem to basically be able to go everywhere. Don't worry what your lungs do--there is a suit to fit your needs, I promise.

But don't worry, Water Dude still talks to whales with his forehead. That still happens.

CGI Nicole Kidman gets to go back to her New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Captain of a lighthouse keeper husband, who never gave up hope that his supernatural underwater wife would return to the broken home she left behind to visit her alcoholic, wharf-dive-bar of a child. And now Khal Drogo finally has his own khalasar, all these years later. Awwwwwwquaman.

Sea Minus

Welcome To Marwen: A Disjointed Affair

Robert Zemeckis is a director who always pushes boundaries. Whether it be technology or what we're used to seeing in film, he's always pushing to show his audiences something they've never seen before. He's responsible for the Delorean time machine in Back to the Future. He's responsible for pairing a 1930s detective up with a cartoon rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He blew a giant hole through Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her. He got Tom Hanks two acting noms with Forrest Gump and Castaway. He blew us all away with what he did with motion capture for Beowulf, The Polar Express, and A Christmas Carol. So it makes sense that he would be drawn to a story where a man's inner emotional pain is expressed and presented through the lives of an art instillation of dolls from WWII. Welcome to Marwen is based off the 2010 documentary Marwencol and I can definitely see what Zemeckis was TRYING to do with the film, the end result winds up being a near colossal miss. 

Steve Carell (who is making his dramatic rounds this year) plays Mark Hogencamp, a man who was beaten within an inch of his life for exposing the fact that he likes to wear women's shoes to five redneck/neo-nazis at a bar. They beat him so badly he can't write his own name or remember much of who he was before the attack. Who he was, was an artist. A pretty good one. So, because he can't draw anymore, Mark has turned to pictures. He's built a small replica of a WWII Belgian town, which he's named "Marwen". There, he's created a doll of himself as an American fighter pilot named Hoagie. The rest of the city is populated by women - all based off women in his life. They're under constant attack by the same five Nazis, defeating them every time. The film mostly sticks with the actions of the dolls, but when we're out of the imaginationland of Marwen, we're with Mark and his new neighbor Nicol (Leslie Mann) and their budding relationship. All the while the sentencing of Mark's attackers is a few days away and Mark is trying to decide whether or not he'll show up to face them.

The movie is a weird series of disjointed events that never really seem to connect with one another on a logial (or even symbolic) level. We realize immediately that Marwen and the dolls are Mark's coping mechanism. The five Nazis in Marwen represent the five men who beat Mark nearly to death. He's able to exact his bloody revenge on them over and over and over again in order to make himself feel better for a brief moment after these men have basically taken away everything Mark ever was. He's afraid of everything in the real world and never wants to face any sort of conflict, so the women represent his strength. They're the ones who are strong. They're the ones who help Hoagie defeat the Nazis every time. They keep Mark strong in the face of any adversity. Finally, there's the Belgian witch of Marwen who, with a magical glove, decides the fate of Hoagie and the women - this represents Mark's addiction to painkillers and his loneliness. See, the witch won't let Hoagie fall in love with any woman. Every time a woman gets close, the witch vanquishes her, therefore Hoagie/Mark must constantly be alone. These moments are intercut with Mark's life, but never really say much more than that on repeat. After the first two or three Marwen scenes, we understand the metaphor, but it doesn't give us much else. In fact, it stays in Marwen so long, repeating the same information so much... we lose sight of the story we're there to see - the story of Mark.

I think it was a lot of fun watching Mark's dolls enact his plots of revenge and get to see Mark's inner child/wild side come out - but I was more interested in Mark as a person. I wanted to see his recovery and how he pushed himself back up from near death (something that's only shown in a brief 20-second flashback). I want to know where he got the idea for Marwen, who the first doll Wendy was (Marwen is a combination of Mark and Wendy and we only get brief, cryptic hints of her existence), how Mark wound up addicted to pain pills, how Mark beat his addiction (something the movie shows us through the characters of Marwen, but never bothers to tell us how he REALLY did it), what the sentencing was of his attackers, etc. Yes, I realize that there is a documentary that answers all these questions, but Zemeckis treats Welcome to Marwen like we've all seen the documentary. Before writing this, I went and read about Mark Hogencamp, and I'll tell you that this man is far more interesting than what we're given in this film. If you're going to make a feature film based off a documentary, yes please take some artistic license, but don't forget who and what it is you're there to tell us about. Welcome to Marwen gets so bogged down in its CGI world, it forgets to tell us about the man entirely. The only thing it did was make me want to track down the doc.

The women of Marwen are fascinating and it's wonderful to see how Mark was essentially saved by the women in his life, but what the film does (again, because it spends too much time away from reality) is forget to show us these women in real life and the real impact they have on Mark's ACTUAL life. One of the dolls is based off a woman who brings him his medicine once a month. The only thing we learn about her is that she has a Russian accent. Janelle Monae pops up in a flashback as his physical therapist. She has about a twenty second scene and is severely underutilized for the rest of the movie. There's Carlala (Eiza Gonzalez) who works with Mark at the bar, Roberta (Merritt Wever) a kind woman who works at the hobby shop, Suzette who is based off of Mark's favorite porn star, and they all feel underdeveloped. This, again, is only because Zemeckis is more interested in showing us the extended metaphor of the dolls in action, rather than spend time with them in the real world. The only one who gets the bulk of the screen time is Nicol. However, Mark, who often finds delusion in Marwen, and confuses the characters in his artwork with the people in his life, almost makes the relationship between him and Nicol uncomfortable. A few of their scenes are almost cringe-worthy - yes, it's intentional, but it doesn't give me more insight into Nicol. However, everyone in it is exceptional for the limited screen time they're given. Steve Carell is a fantastic actor, I just wish he'd been given more to do than act out his fantasy scenarios every time a little bit of conflict arises for Mark.

The movie has been thrashed by critics and, while I understand their complaints, the film isn't nearly as bad as they say it is. It's also severely underperformed at the box office, so far making only 5 million of its 40 million dollar budget, leading to it being one of the biggest busts of the year. The film was destined to fail, however. It's one of these movies released during the holiday season that looks like it's full of hope, but no one really wants to watch a story about a man who was severely beaten for their Christmas movie. When the critics panned the film, which would've been the movie's only saving grace, it was DOA. It may find a little life when it comes out On Demand, just because Carell still has the starpower to reel in viewers. But honestly, I'd say the movie is nothing more than artistic fluff that doesn't do the story of the man real justice. It's entertaining to watch, but it raises more questions about Mark than it answers. If you want to know the real story, my recommendation is to check out the documentary because it sounds a lot more fascinating than the story presented in Welcome to Marwen.

C

Vice: Cheyn Of Ghouls

--Written by Guest Reviewer Kyle Delaney

It's September 11th, 2001. The scene is the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, an apocalypse-proof bunker untold stories beneath the White House. Alarm sirens are blaring. The confused cross-talk is maddeningly cacophonous. Televisions are cycling through horrific scenes. The second plane has already slammed into the South Tower. No, now the South Tower has fallen. The room is full of ice chewing psychopaths in their own right who've figuratively, or perhaps literally, stabbed colleagues and friends to reach the heights of power they now occupy. One-by-one they're losing their shit over something called the Rules of Engagement before ultimately, inevitably, gladly turning toward and conceding their authority to a stoic sixty-year-old with the physical appearance of the Penguin and the gravelly snarl of Christian Bale's Batman who resolutely, almost pleasantly, decides it's chill to shoot down passenger jets full of innocent people in American airspace. This is the bloodless demeanor of a man who is doing 9/11 and knows he's doing 9/11 well.

It's also your formal introduction to the titular protagonist of Adam McKay's Vice, then-Vice President Dick Cheney (Christian Bale, who is looking cut and sexy as hell throughout the film). Over the next two-plus hours, as we navigate his multi-decade ascent from Midwestern chud hell-bent on setting the world record for DUIs accrued over one human lifespan into his more recognizable form as supreme architect and prime mover of disastrous policies during the worst presidency in American history, we become accustomed to watching him bowl over careerist bureaucrats for whom cabinet appointments, advisory gigs or elected office are but the natural culmination of a life's hard work and dedicated service. Each of them are eventually hamstrung in their quest for influence by some limitation or another: fear of responsibility, fear of failure, fear of being remembered by history as a war criminal. This is the vacuum into which Dick Cheney steps time and time again in a pursuit of power so classic and timeless it'd almost be charming were it not for the horrors it ultimately precipitates, images of which flash across the screen in a timely manner like fits of shared PTSD from our repressed national memory.

With Vice, McKay has essentially conjured Shakespeare's Macbeth, calibrated for a society that thinks reading Shakespeare is lame as shit (an acknowledgement that's made explicit when Dick and Lynne Cheney share a steamy Elizabethan dialogue during one of the many comedic breaks McKay employs to shake the narrative from the moldy spell of the modern biopic). The film is largely successful as political critique because it sticks to established fact and eschews the customary, rote partisan rhetoric of our cursed time in favor of grander themes, thus operating on a frequency many Americans will perceive as apolitical. McKay plays the hits, to be sure, but he doesn't take any cheap shots and, if anything, is unnecessarily gracious in his retelling of events. The players, known and notorious as they may be, are fairly rendered here. Sam Rockwell's portrayal of George W. Bush, especially, strays from popular convention, depicting not so much the big-eared hopeless buffoon of our popular imagination (or the film's trailer), but rather a failson fuckup whose daddy issues are leveraged against his judgement by a more bloodthirsty and profit-hungry inner circle. In the film's most impactful moment, he addresses the American people as Baghdad is carpet bombed. His leg shakes beneath his desk, presumably grasping the godlike capacity of his office and, unlike his Vice, shying from its implications.

For his part, Cheney arrives at his political awakening not by reading books or position papers, but instead by identifying with what can only be considered a 1970s variant strain of big dick energy exuded by then congressional representative Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell, who by film's end is truly unrecognizable beneath some stellar makeup work). In a subsequent scene deliberating the ethics of vaporizing poor brown rice farmers half a world away, he asks his mentor, "What, exactly, do we believe?" Rumsfeld responds by laughing in his damn face. The message is clear: the power is the point, who dies or why shall remain to be determined. The most telling scene in the film comes shortly thereafter when Cheney is upgraded to a windowless office in the bowels of Nixon's West Wing and is overcome by emotion immediately recognizable as the same one exhibited by every guy who ever clawed his way to a GED and then washed out of society before being issued a badge and a gun by his local municipal government at age thirty. It's his first taste of pride, and power, and authority. And all at once. A single sip is just not gonna suffice. The career trajectory of the 21st century's own Dr. Strangelove is henceforth cast.

Vice is McKay's second crack at litigating the weighty hellscape of the aughts, following on the heels of 2016's The Big Short - a solid and enjoyable flick about how some Wall Street dipshits deserve to profit off the immiseration of regular schumcks like you and I, while others do not. His latest effort to make a dishwater-ass-looking motherfucker like Dick Cheney a compelling figure features many of the same bells and whistles he employed to make default swaps and derivatives intelligible to people with 620 credit scores. Clever narrative techniques, tangential and oft-comical asides serving to 'splain the more technical plot points or character motivations. It's all here, and the results are pretty decidedly mixed. Where The Big Short introduced a steady stream of soliloquies and celebrity cameos intended to demystify complex financial instruments, the devices employed in Vice are less frequent, conducted more haphazardly, and are absent of any common motif. For every successful gag - such as the fake credits that roll before the fateful third act - there are one or two mini-lectures on some element of unitary executive theory that come across as unfocused and flat. Given how much simpler comedic undertakings - repeatedly trolling the liberal audience by having Cheney suffer something like 20 heart attacks over the movie's runtime, for instance - achieve the same disarming effect, it's difficult to say whether the hits are worth the misses in this regard.

Despite the unnecessary gimmicks, the at times overly expository narration, and the frenetic pacing that manages to muddle what should be a simple and direct extrapolation from the Bush and Cheney years to our cruel and unusual present, the writing is ultimately too good and the cast too talented not to win over the viewer. All reservations are eventually diffused, if only through attrition. And that's right when McKay yanks the lure. Feeling warm and fuzzy watching Cheney console his daughter after she confides to her parents that's she's gay? Think at his core the old bastard's actually an alright guy for sticking by her even as Bush pushed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage? Cool, because after that you get to watch him sell her out for maybe the most inconsequential gain in American electoral politics: a fucking WYOMING HOUSE SEAT! You then watch as Iraq unravels and descends into sectarian bloodshed and pointless violence. Cheney covers his ass by shitcanning his sensei as he cowers on the phone in an unmarked Pentagon storage closet. He almost dies from yet another heart scare. At his lowest point, he's lustily booed by a stadium full of Nationals fans. He's collecting L's at a breakneck pace and you've turned on him even before he confirms to Martha Radditz that yes, the wanton violence and torture and kidnapping and chaos unleashed on an undeserving and innocent people was worth it. You're booing him, yourself. You're throwing your popcorn. Fuck, this guy really sucks!!

Cheney then turns left from the interview chair, breaks the fourth wall, and in a style that's too Frank Underwood not to notice or be creeped out by, implicates the viewer for what has, until this, the closing moments of the film, indeed felt conspicuously absent: their complicity. Almost nothing in Vice conveys the kind of gnashing vitriol and desire for blind, broad-scale vengeance that was ubiquitous in the wake of September 11th. We've been allowed to forget, to convince ourselves it never happened or, even if it did, at least it wasn't us. That is until Cheney, in an invigorated growl that lands like a clean right hand on our outstretched chins, reminds us of the painful truth that we chose him (twice, actually!) It's jarring and terrifying. Yet, when he continues on about how easy it is to judge him now, how the evil people who want to do us harm are still out there, and how he doesn't regret for one second taking every step necessary to keep American families safe, you kind of start to lose him. The words, and even by this point, the conviction with which they're recited are as familiar as any psalm you've heard a hundred times or more. But you also know the score. And you wonder whether killing another million women and children will finally make us safe?

George HW Bush once said that 9/11 made Dick Cheney crazy, just pushed him off the deep end. And maybe it did. It would certainly be the most relatable and humanizing thing about him. For his many faults, Cheney is at least on the record, which is more than can be said for you or I or our uncles who, in 2005, definitely said we should just nuke Fallujah and Mosul, but denies it now. To borrow a phrase: Dick Cheney didn't change, the times did. We did. By electing in 2008 the one candidate who was too young to have been able to vote for the Iraq War, and 8 years later Cheney's conflict had definitely not expanded into Libya, and Syria, and Yemen. Vice reminds us what Americans are capable of when we come together as one nation, portraying something deeper and more damning than we expect at the box office window.

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