Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: September 2018

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Fahrenheit 11/9

Stupid Politician Tricks

Review by Ken Burke

Fahrenheit 11/9 (Michael Moore)

In my last posting (9/20/2018) I noted I might not be able to get a review online this week because my marvelous wife, Nina, and I would be occupied last weekend with other events (including her 50^th high-school-reunion, most enjoyable for both of us; she has a lot of friendly, personable classmates, even though we all know that who we were 50 years ago isn’t necessarily what we’ve evolved into today), but as things worked out we did have time to see one film so we choose Moore’s latest attack on the milieu of Trump, especially within our context of the ongoing controversies over the evolving situation about the Supreme Court confirmation process of Judge Brett Kavanaugh (someday we may see a Moore film about this as well [we'll soon know more about how the Judge's evolved over the years])—along with the laughable (for the wrong reasons) speech to the U.N. by “Agent Orange” (as Spike Lee calls the Prez)—rather than taking a break from this daily trauma (although cocktails with dinner did help soften it all a bit); in truth, something escapist we’d have really been interested in (none we haven’t seen, though, with A Simple Favor [Paul Feig; our review in that September 20, 2018 posting] highly recommended) or the likely-appealing-content of another documentary, Love, Gilda (Lisa Dapolito [hope to see, review it soon]) about the talented, funny Gilda Radner’s life and career (cut short by cancer) would have been a nice break from all-Trump-all-the-time in our news viewing/reading, but logistics offered … 11/9 as our best choice (also useful to watch, given the manner of how the disparate aspects of this film interact with each other, even if not fully successfully), so back in the old “Tunnel of Hate” we went.

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): Given this is a documentary based on political situations of the past couple of years there’s not much I could give away so I’ll see what I might need to hold back on that could be considered spoilers. Moore’s focus this time around is on the cluster of reasons Donald Trump was able to shockingly win the Presidency in 2016 (thus, the title refers to the sense of hangover-aftermath of voting day, although it’s also intended to evoke Moore’s biggest success so far, Fahrenheit 9/11, which deals with the vicious terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001, leading to extensive American military action in the Mideast which Moore argued were ultimately useless, destructive responses—spurred by the Bush family’s financial connections with the Saudi Arabian government—especially the invasion of Iraq*), which backtracks through the campaign cycle including constant media coverage of Trump, simultaneously providing widespread free exposure for him, rising ratings for news networks. Moore then seques into the terrible situation in his hometown of Flint, MI where a new source of drinking water contained dangerous levels of lead, yet state officials refused to admit/fix the situation until news coverage of this crisis forced some action. Moore continues throughout his film to shift between harsh criticism of Trump and ongoing response to the problems in Flint, offering some blasts at Democratic mainstreamers—including President Obama—as well, before closing on episodes of hope including the rise of progressive candidates for the upcoming 2018 elections and the surge of young voices into the national dialogue, especially students impacted by killings at their campus in Parkland, FL. Normally, when I explore docs (what this film is, given its intended partisan point of view, which docs have always been, despite misconceptions they’re supposed to be objective news reports) I abandon my usual review structure (What Happens, etc.) because it’s often difficult to force the wide-ranging-points-of-view comprising these cinematic structures into chronological wrap-ups of the content and impact; however, … 11/9’s linear enough in its presentation of events of recent years that I think my usual approach might work this time so I’ll give it a try. Any comments (in the reply box at the very end of this posting), supportive or not, on that decision will be most welcome.

*Both of Moore's documentary titles are inspired by Ray Bradbury’s book, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)—adapted to a (dismissed then, now seen as) successful 1966 film (François Truffaut), a not-so-successful 2018 one (Ramin Bahrani)—a Big Brother-type futuristic sci-fi fiction where a repressive government burns books (the title referring to the degree of heat it take for paper to ignite) where members of the rebellious opposition keep the books’ content alive by memorizing/reciting them.

Here’s the trailer: (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this:

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

(Sorry about the quality of this image but it's apparently shot off of a broadcast recording.)

What Happens: Michael Moore’s known for packing his documentary films with facts, opinions, relevant images, satirical images, graphics, and whatever else may come to mind so even if you’re not always in agreement with his specific positions or unimpressed by what you see at one moment there’ll be plenty more coming soon that might (unless you despise him) be more embraceable (like the old Laugh-In [NBC 1967-1973] or Hee Haw [CBS 1669-1971, syndication 1971-1993, TNN 1996-1997] TV series throwing jokes at viewers at a rapid pace so you wouldn’t have time to fuss over something not working too well). With that in mind, forgive me if I miss anything significant in this synopsis, but if you don’t see something in the review that would get you riled up when watching the film (even if it’s total opposition to what’s presented) just flip the cable channels among FOX, CNN, and MSNBC: you’re sure to find something like what’s going on here to disgust you from one side of our political spectrum to the other. We start with Moore’s provocative question (he provides a lot of voiceover-narration) about the results of the 2016 Presidential election where the polls predicted a Hilary Clinton victory but, despite losing the popular vote, Donald Trump triumphed in the Electoral College (an outcome Moore had warned was poised to happen earlier in 2016): “How the fuck did this happen?” Moore contends Trump never intended to be President, he just decided to run in 2015 because NBC was paying Gwen Stefani more to be on The Voice than him on The Apprentice, so this was all just a ploy to raise his public profile, then increase his salary (I guess some billionaires never truly have enough). Despite Trump’s crude remarks at campaign rallies and candidates’ debates, his notorious “birther” challenges to President Obama’s status as a legitimate American, questionable photos and comments about his attraction to daughter Ivanka, his infamous Access Hollywood audio about celebrities such as himself being able to grope women, his obvious admiration for foreign dictators, surprisingly his popularity continued to grow—as Moore charges—through constant mainstream media coverage resulting in a win-win because of the concurrent rise in their ratings points and advertising dollars. Moore even holds himself culpable during this time for appearing with Trump on a Roseanne Barr talk show (shown above), going easy on him in deference to his friendship with the host, as well as another appearance with Steve Bannon where he again chose to tread lightly talking with someone he completely despised.

Despite my claim above that … 11/9 is basically chronologically-linear, thus easy to follow in summary, I need to modify that by noting there are essentially 2 timelines here which are intended to reinforce each other but largely concern separate events (some disagree), with the second set taking us back to 2014 Flint, MI (Moore’s hometown) where the majority Black population became burdened with dangerous levels of lead-contamination in their drinking water because Gov. Rick Snyder approved a deal to construct a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron to Flint (even though an existing pipeline already accomplished this) but during construction water would have to come from the Flint River which resulted in deadly levels of metal in the water supply from ancient pipes (a problem still not fully resolved, with Flint residents continuing to be counseled to use bottled or filtered water until at least 2020). Despite active protests from Flint citizens the only change Snyder allowed by 2014 for a cleaner water source was for a GM plant because the contaminated water was causing damage to the cars being produced there. From here Moore shifts back to Trump and his victory, noting how various polls show a general liberal acceptance of social issues in the U.S. although Republican control of states’ voting precincts can often result in a GOP triumph in the Electoral College, especially—in Moore’s opinion—because Democrats, starting with President Bill Clinton, have compromised too much with D.C. Republicans even as the Democratic establishment in 2016 kept favoring Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders (Moore cites as an example how Sanders won the Democrats’ primaries in all but 1 of West Virginia’s counties yet Clinton got the state’s votes at the national convention because of the commanding impact of Super Delegates [party honchos, elected officials, etc.], a situation repeated in other states), as even the supposedly-liberal New York Times cast doubt on the viability of Bernie’s campaign, with attitudes of not bothering to choose the “lesser of 2 evils” in 2016 leading to about 100 million eligible voters skipping the election, further helping Trump in the process as many desperate people in Rust-Belt states felt mainstream Democrats and Republicans had become too beholden to huge corporate donors with diminishing interest in the working class, along with the parallel diminishing-labor-union-impact, so these voters turned instead to Trump’s boasts about economic turnaround.

Back to the Flint water crisis, Moore tries a couple of attention-getting tactics—he brings a tanker truck full of Flint water to spray into the gated driveway of the Governor’s mansion, attempts to march into the state capitol for a citizen’s arrest of Snyder—but neither of these actions accomplish much except for looking dramatic on camera. By 2016 enough news coverage of the atrocious situation in Flint (including deaths linked to waterborne Legionnaires’ disease) finally brings action, including a visit from President Obama who surprises everyone at a couple of events by drinking a glass of the local water, seemingly undercutting the general concern about its safety.* ⇒Then, according to Moore, on June 25 of that year Obama ordered some Army war games in Flint, with little awareness by the local population, so abandoned buildings were blown up, creating a huge disturbance in a city already swamped with adversity. Trump later visited Flint, noting in response to the “storm” brewing in U.S. society, “I am the storm!” Moore “trumps” Trump on such a statement by using Trump’s voice from a speech with footage of Adolf Hitler speaking to the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg from the famous German (equally-blatant-propaganda) documentary, Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935), a seemingly-outrageous anti-Trump ploy but somewhat defended by a couple of professors (one from Yale) who note, along with Moore’s statements, disturbing parallels between Trump ideology, attitudes, and actions (with support from his loyalists, both in Congress and around the country) and those of the Nazis in their rise, then possession of power in Europe during the 1930s-‘40s era (more Triumph … footage accompanies what’s being said here). Moore shifts to hope for the future, both in the upcoming elections and beyond with some focus on progressive candidates such as young Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Bronx as well as outspoken students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, active advocates for gun control after the horrible shootings on their campus in February, 2018. Just to make sure we don’t feel too placidly optimistic, though, Moore also includes toward the end of his film footage from the mistaken missile alert in Hawaii in January, 2018 when tensions were running high about a North Korean nuclear attack (there was even a notice about this on the door into our theater, assuring patrons the extended dark screen and sirens are part of the film, not a current crisis interrupting it). Moore clearly feels President Trump is an ongoing danger to this country (probably the rest of the world as well), actively hoping the content of his film will encourage a large voter turnout this November leading to “turning out” many current officeholders supportive of Trump's ongoing takeover of politics, news cycles, national dialogue.⇐

*If you want to explore a lot more about the water situation in Flint, I'll suggest this massive information source, extensively documented, even if normally you're a bit wary of Wikipedia posts.

So What? As noted in cited articles connected to the first paragraph of the section just below, Michael Moore’s become regularly accused of “preaching to the choir” since the huge success (his biggest so far) of Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004 ($222 million worldwide, highest-grossing-doc of all time) so his revenues have continued to fall far short of such enormous success over a decade ago with a sense he doesn’t care enough about finding strategies to reach out to potential audiences who’d normally not even consider seeing one of this cinematic editorials. Certainly, if you’re a Trump supporter (if so, I congratulate you for reading this far into this review; just so you know for future reference, though, I generally agree with Moore’s politics so don’t be surprised—offended’s OK, just don’t be surprised also—with the kind of leftist commentary you’ll find suffused throughout my contributions to Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark) you’d see lots to be angered by in Fahrenheit 11/9, probably the ultimate being the direct connotations about Trump and Hitler. (It’s not an original idea with Moore, though, either in political commentary or cinematic appearance: regarding politics you can find some support for the parallels along with warnings not to get too invested in such comparisons; in the world of film one obvious use of such a tactic is in Crimes and Misdemeanors [Woody Allen, 1989] where Allen’s character Clifford Stern, a struggling documentarian, is hired by his egotistical-yet-successful-TV-producer/brother-in-law, Lester [Alan Alda], to make a biography of him so Cliff “enhances” Lester’s voice with images of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini—of course, this context is one of humorous fiction* rather than serious commentary on the U.S. President.) As noted above, however, Democrats don’t get off easy in this doc-diatribe either, with the establishment Dems behind Hilary in 2016 seen as thugs probably pushing a good many Sanders supporters either toward Green Party nominee Jill Stein or non-voting (which roughly amounted to about the same result, as Stein received only about 1% of the national turnout) while Obama’s water-drinking-episodes in Flint seemed to horrify his local supporters (and Moore) by implying the stuff was safe even if he intended this as a statement of shared suffering (how Nina interprets his actions, although I tend to agree with Moore it too easily reads as repudiating what the Flint protesters were struggling to overcome with their state officials).

*Allen’s magnificent film (easily worth 5 stars) contains its own serious side in a parallel story of infidelity, murder, moral consequences with characters played by Martin Landau, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, and Sam Waterston. There’s also a stirring subplot involving a suicidal rabbi, whose wise philosophical advice brings some grace to the darker proceedings of this entangled narrative.

Much as I agree with Moore’s far-left-politics, I find I must also agree with those who criticize this film for being too scattershot in its targets, too unwieldy in its structure if the ultimate goal is to encourage activism at the ballot box this November, chasing as many of the Trump-eters out of office as possible. He’s certainly blatant enough in his condemnation of all that Trump stands for (while laying some groundwork for other anti-Trumpers to better understand why there was such significant support for this unlikely winner in 2016, with enough of those factors lingering today to prevent any easy policy reversals—exemplified this week by the continued GOP drumbeat for getting Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court as quickly as possible, concomitantly ridiculing the growing sexual accusations against him as if a [White, conservative, Christian] man’s denial is all there is to the situation [just like Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 elections—oddly not noted by Moore, but maybe he just ran out of time given all his focus on the Flint water debacle] no matter what these “confused” women are attempting with their “smears”), but for me the occasional shifts to Flint (along with footage of teacher strikes and other issues demonstrating the current crumbling of how we’re not making “America Great Again”) become more distracting than reinforcing of a central thesis. Nina disagrees with me, finding this film to be coherently-consistent in its condemnation of corruption among elected officials, showing disorderly-conduct at both the state and national levels, all part of a rotten picture of a society in turmoil. I can understand that interpretation, but especially for the benefit of those fence-sitters Moore’s trying to convince, then activate I think there could be more blatant-narration-connections among these various segments, the kind of commentary Moore’s easily ready to provide as he lays out points of information within his different storylines but seems to not feel are as necessary for an audience to weave all this together. Ultimately, among those of us who accept the purposes—along with many of the elements—of this doc, I’d say Nina’s more in line with the solid support offered by those at Rotten Tomatoes while I’m a bit more with the somewhat-reserved-responses at Metacritic (specifics on both just below; more details on both in the Related Links section of this posting much farther down). Either way, we agree Moore offers a lot of provocative, compelling, ultimately useful factual commentary in this film, which deserves a much larger audience than it’s likely to get.

Michael Moore on his way to (unsuccessfully) perform a citizen's arrest on Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

Bottom Line Final Comments: If you wanted to release a movie destined to pack in audiences last weekend your choice should have been The House with a Clock in Its Walls (Eli Roth), a toned-down-horror-thriller (PG) which raked in a solid $35.7 million worldwide ($26.8 million domestically [U.S.-Canada]—almost covering its $42 million budget in less than a week—playing in an abundant 3,592 domestic theaters) rather than Fahrenheit 11/9 which, while it came in at #8 for northern North America box-office-receipts still just barely scared up $3 million in sales despite being available in 1,719 venues, so Michael Moore’s intended impact with this election-season-dismissal of everything President Trump stands for/identifies with hasn’t caught fire with audiences yet (here’s an article exploring reasons for that, focused on audience-Trump-fatigue, especially when this type of attack is so available on cable news—or countered by the pro-Trump-cheerleading at Fox News; here’s another article suggesting ways in which Moore could change his approach to more effectively get his messages across in the future), although critics have been notably more supportive, even the ones who find his structure here to be too diffuse, his intentions too familiar to past Moore complaints about fundamental problems in capitalist society (those surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes are 78% positive with their reviews, although the usually-less-embracing folks at Metacritic offer a notably lower 69% average score). I realize there normally aren’t a lot of people who want to spend their entertainment money on highly-politicized-content just as I know some of Moore’s tactics (especially the Hitler references) won’t be acceptable at all to those opposed to his ideology, but, despite my reservations about how well all of this ties together in the current film, I do think Moore’s offered a lot of valid arguments here about how self-serving-politicians can do great harm to their constituents—especially those who’ll doggedly-continue to trust their elected-favorites no matter how poorly promises turn into reality—which I wish those who don’t normally agree with Moore would put aside their automatic dismissals to at least be exposed to objective survey info that might likely surprise them. (Although I’ll admit such open-mindedness isn’t easy when your own cherished beliefs are challenged; Nina’s much better at sampling how Fox News is covering whatever’s going on just to try to understand their perspective; I try too but about 10 min. is all I can take, whereas Trump supporters would have to pay for, then watch almost 2 hrs. of … 11/9 to find the few tidbits they might consider rethinking, so I agree Moore’s always going to have a difficult time broadening his audience in our current hostile clash of demographics unless he can come up with something so irrefutable in basic content almost everyone’s compelled to listen.)

Given (just as with choosing to watch Michael Moore's films or not) you aren't compelled to read everything (anything?) I write (although I appreciate everyone who does, even if you disagree with my evaluations), I won’t drag this out any further because by now I think you’re pretty clear on what Michael Moore’s about in Fahrenheit 11/9, what I find acceptable or questionable about it, and what interest it may have for you. Therefore, I’ll move toward an extended closure here with my usual-wrap-up-tactic of a Musical Metaphor to finalize my perspective on what’s just been reviewed but from the insights offered from an example of the insightful aural arts. In this case, I’d say Moore’s attempts to challenge authority figures in our fragmented 20-teens society (that’s about centuries, not adolescents, you know) with fierce tactics is just too reminiscent of what Bob Dylan was doing during his 1960s protest days for me to choose anything else but “Ballad of a Thin Man” (from his 1965 Highway 61 Revisited album) which you can find put into an intriguing visual context at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT323XJubBA&frags=pl%2Cwn, a powerful clip* from I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007) where Dylan-avatar Jude Quinn (Cate Blanchett) goes after muckraking journalist Keenan Jones (Bruce Greenwood), challenging this self-assured-tastemaker “Because something is happening here But you don’t know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?” just as Moore ideally wants his audience (especially those hardest to convince) to not “be like a camel and then you frown You put your eyes in your pocket And your nose on the ground,” in order to not be among those characterized by “There ought to be a law Against you comin’ around You should be made to wear earphones [to understand “what’s happening here,” to be found in song lyrics and screen images].” Of course, because the song in this movie scene’s lip-synched by Blanchett but sung by Stephen Maikmus and the Million Dollar Bashers, you might prefer a live performance by Dylan from 1966 (atrocious video quality but the audio’s fine [just a little muted for my preference]).

*As an example of how little control I have over elements of these reviews (try as I might to massage them into shape), this clip replaces another one that's already been blocked less than 3 days after I posted it; however, this version has the additional enhancement of Spanish subtitles so you can continue working on your bilingually while watching (at least until this one disappears too).

Further, in that I’m giving you just one review this week (instead of my usual attempt at 2 or more) I’m going to enhance the Musical Metaphor offerings with a couple of others—stretching the point as they may be, but that’s in keeping with Moore’s tactics—by giving you a couple of marvelous-montage-scenes from 2 of my favorite films, The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) and The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) that also relate to the allusional-tactics of Fahrenheit 11/9. Admittedly, the only true music in this first clip is the church organ in the baptismal segment of this interaction between the sacrament being administered to Michael Corleone’s nephew, Michael Rizzi (the baby’s actually Sofia Coppola), and the assassination of the other Five Families Mafia heads (along with Las Vegas kingpin Moe Greene), but we’re dealing with metaphors here so bear with me as I offer this as a mediation (punctuated by the “music” of gunfire) on a collision-montage of heavenly vs. earthly ideals with temporal power winning out over spiritual intentions in this case, reminiscent of how Moore shows us democratic ideals being undercut by crass political objectives. In my second clip we’re back to pointed, fully-musical commentary as the Simon and Garfunkel songs “The Sound of Silence” and “April Come She Will” (from The Graduate soundtrack but first released on the 1966 Sounds of Silence album) join the social warnings and melancholy personal interactions of the songs to images of recent-college-grad Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) pursuing his emotionally-empty-affair with Mrs. Robinson (Ann Bancroft), intercut with his isolation either in the nearby clandestine hotel room or the family swimming pool, just as Moore presents us with repeated scenarios of failures for American citizens, both those asking for immediate relief (in Flint) and those unaware of how what they’ve been promised is leading to even more potential disaster (like the false alarm in Hawaii about an incoming nuclear missile attack from North Korea).

Just as I noted otherwise at the beginning of these comments, also in that aforementioned note at the conclusion of my previous posting I said Nina and I would be in San Francisco for part of last weekend with a cluster of lectures from the One Day University organization (presenting these programs of one-hour-talks in 61 cities across many regions of the U.S.) where we found inspiration along with information in our morning session (“Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” Dr. Catherine Sanderson, Amherst College; “Three Musical Masterpieces That Changed America” [including Paul Simon’s 1986 Graceland album, supported by the concert tour in 1987 where Nina and I met—therefore, an excellent choice!], Dr. Anna Celenza, Georgetown U.; “How the 1960s Shaped American Politics Today,” Dr. Leonard Steinhorn, American U.), then were treated to 10 award-winning short films in the afternoon. Audience vote afterward chose the top 2 from the screenings as Asad (Bryan Buckley, 2012), about a Somali boy who aspires to be a pirate but finds another fate awaiting him (a finalist for Oscar’s Best Live Action Short Film; the 17:07 version available to you here carries the Jilaa.com logo but transparently so it’s not much of a distraction from what transpires) and The Gunfighter (Eric Kissack, 2014), an 8:49 marvelously-creative (if a bit raunchy) parody of western-movie-saloon-gunfights, narrated by Nick Offerman with unexpected reactions from the characters to his voiceover comments. All shorts on the program were a pleasure to watch (especially because most were comedies, helping us forget for awhile the depressing realities of ongoing U.S. politics, put so well into fact-packed-historical/current-perspective by Prof. Steinhorn), but I’ll note 2 others you might especially enjoy: Bridget (David Eisenberg, Kaela Wohl; 2013), a quite brief (2:13) yet hilarious exploration of online dating difficulties (also gets raunchy at the very end) and Drawcard (Antonio Oreña-Barlin, 2016; 7:05), definitely the raunchiest of all (possibly the funniest as well), about an office prank gone unexpectedly wrong. A very touching short drama is A Poet Long Ago (Bob Gerald, 2013) about 2 kids who meet up later in life, which I call to your attention if you ever get a chance to see it someplace because all I can offer is the trailer for a general idea. So, if you’re not in the mood for Michael Moore’s polemical lecture reviewed above, hopefully any or all of these short films will be acceptable for your pleasure.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

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Here’s more information about Fahrenheit 11/9:

https://fahrenheit119.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ciHDPmADA&frags=pl%2Cwn (38:56 commentary by Michael Moore from Facebook Live—although it doesn’t kick in until about 3:35, for no reason I can explain, so you might want to just fast-forward to that point—about his latest film [audio’s a bit low at times] expressing [admittedly, completely partisan] concerns Trump’s political cronies will continue in power after the 2018 elections, therefore advocating actively voting them out)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fahrenheit_119/

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/fahrenheit-119

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By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker. But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"

—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.

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Thursday, September 20, 2018

A Simple Favor and Short Takes on White Boy Rick

Dangerous Intertwinings

Reviews by Ken Burke

A Simple Favor (Paul Feig)

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): A middle-class (at best) perky-on-the-outside, more-troubled-on-the-inside suburban single mother raising a young son while running a sparsely-watched (I can relate to that) cooking video blog for other moms suddenly becomes close friends with a highly-sophisticated PR director for a large design firm who's married to a college professor/not-yet-consistently-successful novelist, living in a huge house beyond their means while being loving-if-situationally-distant parents of their own young son. However, the women’s early-afternoon martini sessions are suddenly cut short with the disappearance of the “rich” friend, resulting in the increasingly-assertive poorer one doing some investigative work resulting in the tragic location of her new confidant, drowned in a Michigan lake. While that would seem to be the end of this story (along with increasing connections between the formerly-mousy-mom and the handsome widower, as they bond over mutual child care) halfway through its running time, it’s merely a narrative pause for the audience as there’s a lot more to unfold here as this movie propels us through a series of constant revelations, shifts of tone, and realigning-allegiances, although to say more here violates my no spoilers pledge. So, unless you’re ready to delve into the no-holds-barred-review below right now, I encourage you to seek out A Simple Favor for yourself (easy to do, as it’s readily available in thousands of theaters; although, you may find, like I did, a certain sense of unintentional déjà vu because the husband noted above’s played by Henry Golding, also the male lead of Crazy Rich Asians [John M. Chu; review in our August 30, 2018 posting], while the plot involves a missing female coupled with a car being pulled out of a lake as in Searching [Aneesh Chaganty; review in our September 12, 2018 posting]). Beyond those minor quirks, though, you’ll find A Simple Favor features a marvelous blend, where excellent acting offers us a constant stream of wonderfully-offbeat humor then taken to a higher level of interest by the consistently-more-complicated plot delivering a thriller with a minimum of bloodshed, making for terrific entertainment.

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: (I’ve had to put about half of this summary into spoiler-alert-mode because of great twists and turns here you should see for yourself if you’re interested.) Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) at one level is a happy-enough-Target-shopping-housewife/single-mom (more just below on why she’s a widow) with a very young son, Miles (Joshua Satine), and a video blog (vlog, in Millennial-speak) on cooking tips for women like her but also an update-site for concern about the disappearance a few days ago of her new (already best?) friend, Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), the sophisticated, snappy-dressing, vulgar, self-absorbed (she tells Stephanie never to say “I’m sorry”) mother of Miles’ friend, Nicky (Ian Ho), who, upon meeting Stephanie immediately invites her over for mid-afternoon-martinis. Emily’s the PR director of a top-notch-designer-firm, is married to Sean (Henry Golding)—a once-successful-author who hasn’t been able to follow up his hit first novel—admits to Stephanie that despite the luxurious Nelson home her family’s bordering on bankruptcy, and appears to be passionately-connected to Sean when he comes home (even though later we get reports from neighbors they fought all the time). Soon these 2 women are seeing each other frequently, their sons also spend a lot of time together, Stephanie easily loosens up over gin about her past life (married but shared sex with a recently-discovered half-brother from her father’s affair [Emily starts calling Stephanie a “brother-fucker”], leading to her husband willingly slamming his car into a freeway concrete barrier, killing both himself and the half-brother) but is surprised when she attempts to take a photo of Emily, only to have her companion angrily insist it be immediately deleted (at least we’re not back in the days of The Godfather [Francis Ford Coppola, 1972] where unwanted photos at Mafia events result in ripped-out-negatives or smashed cameras). After a couple of weeks of this new-found-bonding, Emily calls Stephanie to ask “a simple favor” (just as with the film reviewed below, the title’s easily worked into the dialogue) of picking up Nicky from school, keeping him for a bit while Sean’s in London with his sick mother, Emily’s off to a business meeting in Miami, but when Emily doesn’t return Sean’s thrown into a panic (even though Emily already told Stephanie about her college-English-teacher-husband’s involvement with his teaching assistant). Records of Emily’s rental car plus a tip to Stephanie’s vlog lead the hunt to Michigan (another connection to the review below) where the car’s found in a lake with Emily’s distressed, dead body inside, putting some questions in our minds due to Stephanie sneaking into Emily’s office where she finds a not-so-attractive-photo of Emily, inscribed with “Gotta Have Faith.”

As a result of frequent contact through mutual care of their sons, Stephanie and Sean draw closer (even though she spies on him at his campus, seeing him kiss the T.A.), despite the concern of a local police officer, Detective Summerville (Bashir Salahuddin), about why Sean recently took out a $4 million life-insurance-policy on his wife. To allay Stephanie’s likewise-suspicions, Sean explains he and Emily did this to protect Nicky (given their publically-unknown-but-valid-financial-borderline-situation, brought on by extravagant spending well beyond their means) inspired by how Stephanie’s basically living on the hefty insurance payout she got when her husband died (I have to assume the investigators somehow didn’t rule it as a suicide). Stephanie’s passion with Sean grows to the point of her moving in with him, but then weird things happen: Nicky says he’s recently seen Mom, Stephanie’s attempt to remove the huge collection of Emily’s clothes from her closet mysteriously results in all of them suddenly reappearing. ⇒Unnerved by all this, Stephanie tracks down the artist who painted a provocative nude portrait of Emily, finding out some vague information about her friend’s background as a kid at a Michigan summer camp, so she travels there, does some research, finds mention of twin sisters Faith and Hope McLanden (both played by Lively as adults), tracks down their mother, Margaret (Jean Smart), who tells Stephanie how her long-ago-teenage-daughters set fire to part of the huge family house, killing their father, then disappeared. Using her vlog to request a meeting with Emily, Stephanie hosts the supposed dead woman at her gravesite to share martinis, Emily explaining how she really is Hope McLanden, her sister Faith was a heroin junkie (another inadvertent connection to the review below), their triplet Charity died in childbirth, their abusive “Christian” father beat Faith (not the first time, surely) after the girls ran off to a lakeside-beach-party with Faith’s boyfriend and other pals, whereupon the arson/murder led to the twins leaving home with promises to keep in touch but Faith drops out of sight until the present time when she contacts Hope/Emily demanding money or else she’ll tell the cops about their sordid past. Emily first concocts her own disappearance as a means of gaining the insurance money (without Sean’s knowledge), but then one day while swimming in the lake she kills her sister, then sinks her in the rental car where for all practical purposes she’s mistaken for Emily. (Further,, Sean’s warned Stephanie Emily’s a pathological liar; we see proof of that as she tells Stephanie the drowning was accidental while we see the flashback, showing it was murder.)⇐

From this point on, there are constant twists and deceptions, great fun to watch as they play out, but you shouldn’t learn anything about them if you want to first enjoy this movie in a theater during its current successful run. ⇒Complications abound until the plot’s conclusion, beginning with the insurance company’s reluctance to pay off given Stephanie’s discovery of the twin sister. Then, Stephanie’s mad at Sean because he obviously still has interest in his T.A., so she and Emily plot to have him arrested for insurance fraud, with Emily faking an injury, suddenly reappearing to accuse Sean of abuse, forcing her to fake her death, leading to his arrest (not great for his academic career), then release on bail. However, Stephanie switches teams, conspires with Sean against Emily by placing microphones in her home, then faking a shooting of Sean followed by Emily confessing her murder of Faith (because she’s aware of the ruse, had already disabled the mics), but her intention’s now to kill them both, making it look like a murder/suicide beginning with a pistol shot to Sean’s shoulder; Stephanie counters with how a button-looking-camera on her blouse has live-streamed all this, prompting Emily to run away until she’s clipped by a car driven by another parent from the school, leading to her arrest. Encountering this story like the docudrama reviewed below, we get pre-final-credits-intertitles telling us Stephanie sold her now-hugely-popular-vlog for a large profit (Two Guys should be so lucky) then went on to another career solving cold-case-crimes, Sean finally wrote a second novel (a big success, although panned by some critics as being preposterous—yet based on the events of this movie) leading to him and Miles moving to CA where he’s now head of the English Lit program at UC Berkeley (chock full of TA’s, I’m sure), Emily’s in prison for 20 years (a mild sentence, in my opinion, for 2 murders and her other crimes, especially when compared to the 30+ years for “White Boy Rick” noted in the review below, just for dealing large amounts of cocaine) but she's happy enough there, enforcing her will on other prisoners.⇐ *

*If you’d like to explore a 6:52 video summary of ... Favor, also filled with spoilers, I invite you to do so because this site—as with Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark—is partially intended for those who just want to know what happens in a given movie without investing their time/money to actually watch it (not ideal for the industry, I admit, but supportive of viewers with restricted funds).

So What? After stories such as this one and the intensely-serious (magnificent, 5-star-worthy) Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008), you’d probably want to think twice about living in the anxiety-ridden/death-haunted suburbs of NYC (even if you could afford it)—this one’s set in Warfield, CT where Stephanie was at home with the mundane aspects of (what for her is) middle-class-life until she discovered much more action and attraction (dangerous as it may be) in a different part of her neighborhood ⇒(although we get no clue in those closing intertitles about why nothing further developed between her and Sean, only that she’s now dating someone from “the city” while he’s gone off to the Left Coast). Still, Stephanie and Sean manage to survive their traumas, even as they put us through the wringer in the process (ultimately, Frank Wheeler—Leonardo DiCaprio—does too, in … Road, after enduring equal duress).⇐ It’s amazing a movie with actual death, attempted murder, and other unsavory aspects could also be so funny, but this one succeeds at both comic and thriller levels, thanks to the marvelously naïve responses of Stephanie to much of what’s around her—at least until she gets wise to Emily’s tricks, then matches her blow for blow until the end—and the caustic remarks of Emily, generally showing little regard for anyone else on the planet except for her little son. The constant shift in tone between our laugh-out-loud-reactions to what’s being said on screen vs. the effective mystery plot Stephanie slowly uncovers allows us to understand—if not fully accept—the past/present events shaping Emily, with their dangerous aspects for all 3 of the major characters, never allowing us to easily predict whose alliance with whom is genuine (at least for the time being), punctuated with the confrontation scene of Emily and Stephanie casually meeting in a cemetery, sharing martinis served from the top of a gravestone. There’s nothing substantial here in terms of themes buried beneath the surface nor implications of commentary about current sociopolitical events; it’s all just an intriguing, well-written, well-crafted diversion for pure entertainment’s sake, yet done so well it leaves you feeling you’ve stumbled onto one of the best cinematic experiences of 2018, easily worth the same number of stars I often assign only to more substantial explorations into the complex cinematic wilderness.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Many film critics, including me obviously, would agree if you might decide A Simple Favor is one of the best of this current year (although not truly of standard Oscar-caliber across most categories, despite the marvelous experience of watching it, even though there’s little of lasting value besides the initial marvel of how unexpectedly-satisfying the dialogue, plot twists, and resolution are—helping us appreciate the value of well-developed-diversionary-entertainment [even if the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has decided to scrap their proposal for an Oscar competition for Best Popular Film, so I doubt A Simple Favor will get much Oscar attention, except maybe in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, taken from Darcey Bell’s 2017 novel of the same name]), with those surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes offering an 83% cluster of positive responses while the folks at Metacritic come up with a 68% average score (seemingly not much to brag too loudly about but still a relatively-supportive-reaction from those tallied at this often-stingier-critics-amalgamation-site). Audiences were even a bit more in favor, with this whimsical-yet-unpredictable-movie coming in at #3 for domestic (U.S.-Canada [no tariffs were implemented—yet—in the collection of these ticket sales]) box-office-revenue on … Favor’s opening weekend, giving it a total of $17.3 million (plus another $3.6 million from international markets), setting it on a solid course to potentially keeping expanding from its current coverage of 3,102 domestic theaters. Given all the bitter news emanating from the U.S. Eastern seaboard lately with devastation and death tolls from Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas, consternation a bit further north in Washington, D.C. with rape accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the cultural-silliness-cut-with-Hitchcockian-levels-of-suspense in … Favor make it a useful escapist experience with no rhetorical undertones, just a marvelous thrill ride (with humor through to the end, even in those delightful pre-credits-“wrap-ups” of the main characters’ post-current-narrative-lives).

I’ll bring these comments to their own closure with my suggestion for a Musical Metaphor—my preferred strategy for transitioning out of how I've offered a review’s meanderings—using song to offer a final perspective on what’s come before, even if I have to stretch the concept of “metaphor” to the breaking point at times. With this movie, nothing obvious came to me (I’m open to suggestions in the Comments section at the very end of this posting) beyond how the filmmakers began their own work, so I’ll copy now they accompanied the opening credits, using a French-language-version of “Music to Watch Girls By” (here called “Ça C’est Arrangé” [roughly translated as “It’s all worked out” or “It’s not a problem anymore,” as best I understand it, although the sites I’ve consulted offer huge options of somewhat-similar-interpretations of this phrase, ambiguous as it may be to the English original]) by Jean Paul Keller (from this movie’s soundtrack album, also on the 1967 Pop À Paris Vol. 5 album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4gDf44nAiw&frags=pl %2Cwn, but if you’re as monolingual as I am you might prefer the Andy Williams vocal version (from his 1967 Born Free album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7iXpTJk15s&frags=pl%2Cwn, accompanied in this video by clips from a number of 1960s movies where ogling the female form (as long as it didn’t go any further than that, Judge K.) was considered a relatively harmless pastime (although some feminists [including male allies] then and now might disagree, as only the female body was being sexualized), encouraged by more outgoing women (at least as presented in popular media imagery) for the benefit (probably also the manipulation, given the scant options of power open to women of that era) of willing males—which I present to you with a certain level of trepidation, not wanting to undermine in any way the serious issues raised by the #MeToo movement against any form of sexual harassment but also acknowledging how the frequent use of French songs in this movie’s soundtrack are intended to whimsically imply/parody the stereotypical allusions to France regarding romance, affairs, cavalier attitudes toward sex (by everyone of any gender identity), as well as imply how we’re watching the forged-from-fire callousness and power-plays of Emily as she’s challenged, ultimately tested by an emerging-from-service-to-others-attitude (always the first to volunteer for her son’s school activities, usually willing to do several jobs) from Stephanie who grows into a much more self-assured-presence, even as she has to get ruthless for awhile to accomplish it, in a society that can still rarely accept success achieved without assertion.

(a bit long for) SHORT TAKES (but there’s crucial ground to cover)

(please note that spoilers also appear here)

White Boy Rick (Yann Demange)

Based in history, this story starts in 1984 Detroit where a father struggling to provide for his 2 teenage kids makes a living selling guns in his crime-ridden neighborhood when his son’s recruited by FBI agents as an informant on a local drug gang, leading to a lot of double-crosses I’ll try to be vague about even as you can easily get the facts online.

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

Discounting documentaries (Three Identical Strangers [Tim Wardle; review in our August 16, 2018 posting]) I haven’t run into as many “Based on a True Story”-films lately as I did earlier this year so here’s one beginning in 1984 Detroit (appropriately grim with lots of snowy winter scenes or rain in other seasons, desaturated colors in the visuals, run-down-neighborhoods, immediacy through handheld-camera) where Richard (Rick) Wershe Sr. (Matthew McConaughey) attempts to support his 2 teenage kids (Mom divorced him a few years ago), Dawn (Bel Powley) and Richard Jr. (also Rick, hereafter noted as RJ [not to be confused with longtime-Two Guys in the Dark-contributor rj, of central Texas, nothing like the protagonist in this film—I can only hope], played by novice actor Richie Merritt), by buying guns at bargain prices (often over the state line in Ohio), then selling them for a tidy profit back in the ‘hood, not necessarily legally, certainly with little regard for how they’ll be used. Rick Sr.’s under surveillance by FBI agents Alex Snyder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Frank Byrd (Rory Cochrane) who pressure RJ into working with them as an informant on a powerful drug gang run by Johnny “Lil Man” Curry (Jonathan Majors), along with brother Leo “Big Man” Curry (YG), first by purchasing, then selling cocaine as part of Johnny’s operation, which RJ’s surprisingly good at given he’s a 14-year-old with no prior experience (except what he knows about junkie-Dawn). Rick Sr.’s initially not OK with this (guns are fine—“a Constitutional right”—but not drugs, unnoted in that revered document) yet has little say given the pressure from the FBI agents along with local cop Mel “Roach” Jackson (Brian Tyree Henry). There’s humor here occasionally, mostly resulting from RJ’s increasing swagger (including a diner scene where he’s secretly taken Grandpa’s car for the night, watches it being stolen, then he and Dawn rush into the parking lot firing their [illegal] pistols to no avail as if this is a normal reaction anyone would have to such a situation), although the ongoing attitude is ragged, with tensions between Rick Sr. and Dawn (she moves in with her zonked-out-boyfriend until Dad and RJ finally show some semblance of human concern, dragging her out of her drug den, forcing her to go cold turkey at home); Rick Sr. and his father, Ray “Roman” Wershe (Bruce Dern), always yelling at each other; anger in various members of Johnny’s gang, either internally or at local rivals—although RJ’s grandmother, Verna Wershe (Piper Laurie), shows compassion for whatever fury’s boiling over around her, including RJ getting shot in the stomach in 1985 by a supposed friend—he barely survives in the hospital—under the assumption RJ’s an informant (though, oddly enough, nothing further comes of this, no follow-up or retaliation attacks).

Rick Sr.’s a reasonably-successful (if sleazy) businessman, showing his manipulation skills at the opening scene’s gun show, browbeating the seller of fake AK-47s by threatening to have him shut down for not realizing he’s been talking sales with underage-RJ, then instructing his son on the skills of “upselling” to convince Johnny he needs to sweeten the price of these weapons by adding silencers, all the while dreaming of going legit (also becoming more successful) by opening a video store (which he finally does, but we get nothing further on how that works out). RJ’s the true hustler in this family, though, becoming a successful dealer in Johnny’s outfit, having an affair with Johnny’s wife, Cathy Volsan-Curry (Taylour Paige)—also Mayor Coleman Young’s niece, another reason the law wanted to see how far Johnny’s criminal empire extended—even as RJ’s now fathered a baby girl by Brenda Moore (Kyanna Simone Simpson), then emerging as a successful dealer on his own after his clandestine-data-gathering’s put most of Johnny’s crew behind bars (along with Young’s brother-in-law plus some corrupt cops) as the FBI agents no longer need his services nor provide him with the hefty cash-cuts of his previous deals. ⇒All this goes sour fast, though, in 1987 when RJ’s arrested, gets no help from Snyder and Byrd with the trial judge (she claims they tried, Rick Sr.’s not convinced), is sent away at age 18 under harsh Michigan law for life without the possibility of parole, which finally gets us to the point of why we’re supposed to care about him (maybe the rest of his family, too). Pre-final-credits-graphics note RJ was instrumental in bringing down a large number of drug crooks, even as he remained incarcerated long after those he helped send to prison were released (Rick Sr. and his grandparents died in the meantime, but his daughter visited him in jail, now has children of her own—not clear on her name, maybe Kenisha, but can only find verification of a son, Richard Williams, so I’m somewhat sloppy on this aspect of the story; sorry for any mistakes), although when Michigan law was changed RJ was finally granted parole in 2017. (What those intertitles don’t tell you is he was immediately sent to a Florida prison for his involvement in a car-theft-ring while in the MI jail—although apparently he confessed to save his mother and sister from prosecution—where he’s still locked up, due for another parole on Christmas Day 2020; yet, I admit acknowledging this Florida-legal-wrinkle would undercut the intended feel-good-impact of what we get in this current film's final updates.)⇐ If you want to know more of RJ’s story—a man called “White Boy Rick” since the mid-‘80s because of his unique presence in an otherwise-all-Black gang—you can get a short statement from him (3:06), along with an extensive news report (39:41) about Rick, plus a comparison of history vs. Hollywood.

What might matter most to you, though ⇒(depending on how you feel about the competing scenarios of RJ serving the longest sentence in MI history for a non-violent-crime, especially when he was forcefully recruited into the drug-milieu by law-enforcement-officers vs. the parallel-reality he was already involved with criminal acts prior to his FBI-dictated-actions due to the influence of his father while RJ voluntarily continued his law-breaking-ways after his informant days until he was arrested, largely because he’d become intoxicated with the wealth provided by drug dealing [none of which the real Wershe Jr. denies; he just feels he’s served enough time for his mistakes, especially given the extensive aid he provided in the prosecution of much-more-professional-underworld-characters than he’d ever intended to become]),⇐ about this film is how compelling it is to watch, given it’s another one of those many cinematic situations of recent years where you can learn all you need to know about the story from the Internet or other sources without ever watching any of White Boy Rick. Critics as a whole haven’t been overly impressed (RT 60% positive reviews, a rare tie with MC's 60% average score), although many praise McConaughey’s usual solid presence in this mostly-unattractive-role while even more seem to be quite taken with Merritt’s debut. I’ll agree about McConaughey (who can be impactful falling backward into a swimming pool in a car commercial), although you’ve seen him in this mode many times before, yet I’m not as overwhelmed by Merritt’s screen presence (especially because this plot demands he be in practically every scene). There’s raw talent there for sure, but his lack of nuanced-delivery (expressions, vocal range never seem to change) forces me to think of Sofia Coppola attempting to be Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) where at times she feels right for what’s written as a naïve, limited character yet at others she just seems like the director’s daughter, brought in a last-minute-replacement for ailing Wynona Ryder, out of place among the amazing talent surrounding her. Merritt comes off better than that, although he too at times feels like an actual person from a documentary on the subject spliced into a dramatic narrative. My movie-loving-wife, Nina (a huge McConaughey fan—as am I) started quietly apologizing to me halfway through White Boy Rick for advocating our attendance because even for her normal-audience-responses the dialogue sounded silly at times, the delivery—even from the pros—felt forced, even the editing seemed choppy, but (while I agreed) I was interested enough to see where it all went (having not yet read any bio info about Wershe Jr.), although an even-shorter-version than the current 116 min. would have been welcomed, so I bear Nina no ill-will (ever, not just on … Rick).

There’s also a documentary on this topic (available at iTunes; otherwise I know nothing about it) called White Boy (Christopher Shawn Rech, 2017) which may or may not be more worth your interest than this current feature, although audience response to Demange’s version was restrained at best for its premiere last weekend, taking in only about $8.9 million domestically despite playing in 2,504 theaters, barely making a run so far at recovering its $29 million budget (of course, except for A Simple Favor just about all other income then was limited by the combined haul of The Predator [Shane Black; “(2018)” often noted with the title to distinguish it from the earlier Predator {John McTiernan, 1987}] at $24.6 million [international markets added $30 million more] and The Nun [Corin Hardy] at $18.2 million [now up to $86.4 million domestically, $231.2 worldwide], neither of which I have the slightest interest in seeing, so White Boy Rick wasn’t such a bad choice after all [agreement with Nina this clunky film does get better the farther it goes, even though it takes a bit of audience endurance to accept the journey], given there’s almost nothing else out there I haven’t seen already enticing my attention otherwise, especially Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again [Ol Parker], despite its current global gross of about $383.7 million, following on Abba’s long-awaited [?] return to recording [I just hope they don’t have enough sales success to spawn another Momma Mia! …; I’d love to see the Greek islands someday but through some other experience, please]). OK, that’s enough about White Boy Rick, so let’s cut to the Musical Metaphor which, for me at least, has to be Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” (from the 1976 Wild Cherry album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFiv9M577a4&frags=pl%2Cwn (a video from 1976 TV’s The Midnight Special) in that it fits RJ’s situation with Johnny’s gang (despite the twist of Wild Cherry being—to my eyes—primarily a White band with just a couple of Blacks on backup sax and stage moves), especially as he saw himself in his later teenage years as easily accepted by the Detroit Black underground just as this song’s vocalist brings boogie and funk to rock ‘n’ roll in the disco era when it was such a huge hit, along with White Boy Rick’s post-drug-life—because he “Lay[ed] down the boogie [of living large on his cocaine profits]—leading to the aftermath of “that funky music [being his fate] ‘til you die [had parole laws not changed during his long years inside prison].”

This is a much more upbeat song than the overall mood of the film, but it speaks to the income-high RJ experienced during his brief-triumphant-years, especially as he saw himself fitting so easily into a culture which on the surface seemed to have little use for him had he not provided an intro for himself when he sold Rick Sr.’s guns to them, proving he could “Play that funky music right, yeah.”

This image has nothing to do with the reviews posted here but instead represents other visual interests of mine
with the recent pictorial additions to our living room where we now celebrate reproductions of Pollock, Picasso,
Rothko, Rauschenberg, Monet, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, along with many masks Nina's collected
over the years plus one of my paintings, 2 of her photos, the album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band, and, to cap it all off, a metal grilling tray full of artificial flowers (plus some Oakland Athletics bobbleheads in front of the TV screen and many travel-acquired-items on the mantlepiece). All of which represents our long-term project, brought to conclusion with the great help of our friend, Jim Graham, and his necessary 8' ladder.

That’s it for me this time, with a notice you may not see anything new of Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark next week because Nina and I have plans that will keep us busy all weekend (another session of the marvelously-informative One Day University in San Francisco [I’ve forgotten what the lectures will be, making—hopefully–for a cluster of pleasant surprises]), followed by her 50^th high-school-reunion (a momentous event in anyone’s life, especially because I didn’t make it to Texas for mine back in 2016), so unless I get to one of the potentially-interesting-upcoming-weekend-cinema-openings very early next week in order to provide you with commentary as September wraps up, I may just have to encourage you to refresh yourself with any of the several hundred reviews in the Two Guys archive until I maybe come your way again in early October (which may also be out of sync a bit, given I usually do my posting on Wednesdays but Oct. 3 is her birthday so keep your eyes on this site because I promise I'll return, hopefully sooner than later).*

*Also, I need time to meditate on my genetic heritage because Ancestry.com’s just informed me that while my DNA hasn’t changed their analytical methodology’s been improved so now my percentage from Great Britain gone up from 11% to 71% while my Irish is reduced from 32% to 21%, Scandinavia’s down from 22% to 4%, Western Europe’s reduced from 9% to 2% while Spain/Portugal (formerly 13%), Italy/Greece (7%), and Eastern Europe (4%) have all been totally eliminated (fortunately, my 2% from Finland/Northwest Russia remains intact). Of course, this doesn’t help much in reconciling results from 2 other tests, one of which says my minority inclusions are 15% South Asian, 11% Middle Eastern, 9% Native American, 8% Southeast European, the other one retaining my Scandinavian heritage at 39% and Italy/Greece at 10%, but with additional honors being Ashkenazi Jewish at .8%, Indigenous Amazonian also at .8%. Anyway you slice this I seem to be largely Northern European which fits well with how I look, how I was raised (although Texas may well be a genetic group all to its own, similar to the Unknown Region readers Google’s been recently reporting in my monthly Two Guys traffic). Being adopted with little knowledge of my birth parents, these DNA tests at best provide me with some clarity, some amusement, some dismissal, but I do have “evidence” I can use to claim just about any heritage I wish short of Sub-Saharan African or East Asian, greatly increasing my holiday celebration options.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about A Simple Favor:

https://www.asimplefavor.movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6gJa3iSPEo&frags=pl%2Cwn (13:13 interview with actors Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick, Henry Golden and director Paul Feig)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_simple_favor

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/a-simple-favor

Here’s more information about White Boy Rick:

https://www.whiteboyrick.movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huu96TlWvpU&frags=pl%2Cwn (8:55 interview with actors Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey, Bel Powley, Jonathan Majors and director Yann Demange

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/white_boy_rick

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/white-boy-rick

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 4,236 (as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week: