Category Archives: review

Cassius Green and Steve Lift face off

Sorry to Bother: No Oscars Given

This movie didn’t win an Oscar.  In fact, it wasn’t even nominated.  A nomination would have required a “For Your Consideration” campaign from the filmmakers, which just goes to show you how subjective the Oscars are.

In his own words, writer and director Boots Riley describes Sorry to Bother You as “an absurdist dark comedy with magical realism and science fiction inspired by the world of telemarketing.”  Riley drew from his own experience as a telemarketer and activist in Oakland to make this film.

I don’t know if I have a lot to say about this movie.  It is pretty self-explanatory.

It’s obviously the story of Cassius Green, starting from the bottom and then finally “making it.”  We follow his narrative to its logical conclusion: Cassius discovers that the cost to get to where he wanted to go wasn’t worth the price he paid to get there.

After landing a job at a telemarketing company, he by and by achieves his financial goals.  And for a while, the money does satisfy him.  But he quickly discovers that the values that brought him to the golden elevator of the power caller no longer aligns with those of his union-organizing friends.

Tech

The satire begins to take shape in the cinematography of the film.  Doug Emmett is the cinematographer who executes Riley’s vision.  Every scene is painted with such bold, saturated colors over the instability and hopelessness of poverty.  —Cassius (“Cash”) asks for 40 on 2 at the gas station and then hands the attendant 40 cents…lol.—  As the story progresses and Cash becomes more embroiled in the world of the power caller, his own world gets stripped of color.  His yellow-washed, poster-lined garage apartment is replaced by one of ultrachic, modern, stark-white Scandinavian design.

And can we just take a second to recognize the outstanding costume design by Deirdra Govan?  These highly stylized, eccentric costumes help create the exaggerated caricatures on display in the film.  They’re like something out of a comic book.  It’s not just a 3-piece paisley suit.  It’s also a bowler hat and an eye patch.  Govan makes it look effortless, but it really is an art form. Because honestly, did you notice that Danny Glover’s character wears a horse bolo tie??

Cash is Green

The tone of the film is important but it derives its brilliance from subject.  Because it’s not just a story about a man named Cash on a quest to make money.  It’s also very clearly a satire about the current state of capitalism and the dichotomous socioeconomic structure it creates.  Again, depicting the story with bright flashy surrealism draws attention to the contrast between the two worlds.  Capitalism separated the upstairs from the downstairs.  Cash’s ability to make money is what brought him the attention of Mr.____ and Steve Lift.  But Cash’s success did not bolster his comrades.  Because in a capitalist society, the success of one does not equate to the success of the many, despite what Trickle-down economists would have you believe.

And yes, this film is about race insofar as capitalism is an inherently racist system.  It is a system that benefits from a slave trade and, by extension, from encouraging companies to give as little to their employees as possible while demanding as much as possible in return.

3 Hots and a Cot

When the denizens of this film discover that the cost of simply living has exceeded what they earn from their low-wage jobs, they turn to “WorryFree,” a corporation that offers free meals and housing for lifetime labor contracts.  In other words, employees would work in WorryFree factory for no wages, but would be provided room and board in the factory.  But don’t fret, this isn’t slave labor, according to WorryFree CEO, Steve Lift.  And if there is anyone we can trust, it’s a corporate CEO.

For those of you who didn’t catch that, that was satire.  Satire is a literary device that uses irony to expose and ridicule a topic or ideology.  What Riley is satirizing here is capitalism’s solution to the conundrum of increasing productivity while limiting costs: the prison-industrial complex. Slavery by proxy.

“But Ms. Now,” I hear you saying, “such a thing couldn’t happen today.  The 13th amendment forbids it.”

And you’re absolutely right…except for this Animal Farm bull shit:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” …..The 13th Amendment, everybody.

Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation

We created space for this.  We paved a road for this. To say that prison labor is anything but slavery is factually incorrect according to the United States Constitution. This is not exaggeration or satire, and it sure as hell ain’t funny.  We are teetering on the brink of a society that is WorryFree and as if it couldn’t get any more abhorrent, the Sheriff of Sacramento literally said the following:

“The truth is if (the state) kept more people in prison and weren’t so concerned about releasing all of their inmates, which their population is now at historic lows, they would have plenty of people for fire crews. Now, they want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for new fire crews…  So, we will be replacing nearly free labor with expensive firefighters, which will offset the savings we were promised from these programs in the first place.” …..Sheriff Scott Jones, everybody.

So maybe this movie isn’t so absurd.

 

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Why Twilight is Actually Good: an uncommon opinion

The worst pictures of Bella and Edward

It’s not.

I mean of course it’s not.

From the writing to the music choices to the twisted illustration of love, this movie is wrong on so many levels.

Bare with me here…

Let’s start with what I find most egregious: Edward Cullen.  He’s emotionally detached, bordering on sociopathy.  Edward tells Bella they shouldn’t be friends, walks away mid conversation, and then stalks her and breaks into her room to watch her sleep.  It’s so unsexy; I think any normal teenager would think he was weird, not intriguing.  As Bella and his relationship grows (inexplicably), it becomes sickly codependent (“We can never be apart.”).  The relationship is nothing short of abusive, hidden under a veil of intense love and desire.  He’s aggressive with Bella, chastising her for being clumsy, handles her roughly, and even ignores her own wishes. But he’s only trying to protect her.  From herself.

Let’s not forget the fact that the film makers threatened to rape Bella in order to create a scenario for Edward to sweep in and save the day.  I don’t know if this is meant to be seductive, but it really just comes off as creepy.  Are the viewers supposed to be endeared to Edward because of this event?  Because I’m not.  I’m really just disappointed in Meyer and Hardwicke and everyone else involved, really. 

Excuse me while I go on a rant

Moreover, why do we have to hurt women to give men character? Even when a girl is the main character, she ends up being the woman in the refrigerator: a device in which a woman endures (or succumbs to) a trauma, creating a catalyst to advance a man’s storyline.  It’s a movie FOR teenage girls!  Are we really suggesting that girls be victimized so men can be the heroes? 

I’m so sick of this message!

That women exist solely to be consumed by men. 

That they are nothing more than a resource

to be sucked dry…

(Many hours later…)

A foil to Edward, in my opinion, is Mike.  Mike is also possessive of Bella, even going so far as to tell her he “doesn’t like” Bella and Edward together.  Again, are we supposed to be endeared to Mike for being “protective,” the same way we are to Edward? Or are we supposed to be enlightened to how unappealing teenage boys are?  #kind of all teenage boys. 

But not exactly all teenage boys, because there will always be Jacob Black.  Friend of old, he’s the only guy who doesn’t make my skin crawl.  There’s an effortless believability in their friendship, and I’m not sure what to attribute it to.  It’s sure as hell ain’t the writing.

This dog shit movie was based on a dog shit book, so it should come as no surprise that the script is dog shit.  The writing waffles between bad and lazy.  (It’s so bad, in fact, that I can, and do, forgive the actors who have gone on to do other decent work.)  In some scenes, there isn’t even any dialogue at all.  Just shots of B&E talking with music playing over.  I can’t decide if this is because the writers couldn’t think of any more angsty bullshit the pair could say to one another, or if they knew that anything two teenagers trying to be romantic with each other could say wouldn’t be worth hearing.

But here is what I really appreciate about Twilight

Some of these awkward scenes are so genuine that it’s actually brilliant.  To be able to make these scenes feel organic despite the piss poor script, the actors approach their roles with a level of sincerity that, while often falling victim to this just being a bad story, occasionally hits the mark.  And I’m not talking about those cringy scenes that are trying to be edgy; when Edward reveals his true nature to Bella; when the two of them end up having a dinner date in La Push; and definitely not when Edward calls Bella spider monkey.

I mean the scenes when she and Jacob are talking on the beach; when she is comforting Charlie after his friend is found dead, when Bella and Edward talk about Clair de Lune right before he calls her a fucking spider monkey. 

Not to mention all the clumsy moments Bella has.  Slipping on the driveway, hitting Jacob with the door of her truck, making dumb jokes during PE.  These moments are not played up; they are simply allowed to be.  She’s clumsy (like every teenage girl), inarticulate (like every teenage girl), and clueless (like every teenage girl).  Because she’s a teenage girl.  Kristen Stewart was 18 when Twilight was released.  Taylor Lautner was 16.  In a sea of movies about teenagers portrayed by 20-year-olds, it’s kind of refreshing to see such young actors.  

I think this is why there is a certain charm in their scenes.  These are the moments that make this 30-something wax nostalgic.  I remember when it was actually like this.  When I just didn’t know what to say and I felt dumb and that mixture between a scoff and a chuckle was as much response as I could muster.

In conclusion, I lied

So yeah, I might have stretched the truth a little when I said this movie was good, because it’s not.  There are better movies to watch if you are feeling nostalgic. 

But if it hit you the same way it hit me, cool.