At 2 1/2 Hours 'Infinity War' Earns Its Title

By Steve Evans

I’ve long since outlived the core demographic for superhero films, yet when I find out such-and-such a movie is one of the most expensive ever made, I’m drawn to it like moth to flame. So I squandered more than 2 ½ hours of life watching Avengers Infinity War on Netflix. This is a movie that cost almost $400 million to make and has so far recouped more than $2 billion – with a B – worldwide. Big Business, this. So I wanted to see what $400 million looks like burning up on a screen. My screen, as it turns out, since I had no desire to drop $15 on a theater ticket when the flick came out last April. Sitting in a packed auditorium with 13-year-old boys chattering like monkeys is not my idea of fun. So what does $400 million look like on fire?

It looks like a lot of computer-generated imagery supplemented by noise, more characters with speaking parts and convoluted backstories than I care to count, planets where anyone can breathe without oxygen tank assistance and phenomenally powerful, mystical devices with names I am ill-prepared to pronounce.

No way I could summarize the plot here, beyond the observation that the antagonist looks like an oak tree covered in shit and he wants magic stones to fit in his metal glove (or "gauntlet," if you want to be particular about it) so he can obliterate half the life in the universe by snapping his fingers, which makes him marginally worse than Hitler. Or possibly Trump. When his glove is fully tricked out, this tuff guy looks like he's been accessorizing at boutiques favored by George Michael. The villain’s name is Thanos, which I do know is derived from the Greek word for “immortality,” suggesting he’ll be a tough bastard to beat when the next installment of this franchise opens in April 2019. Marvel excels at cliffhangers; keep 'em coming back for more.

You can read this film as an anti-capitalist screed, as some have, though that seems ludicrous given the amount of money these Marvel films make. You can read the film as a dire warning on totalitarianism, though I’m skeptical the world really needs such another warning, given the prevalence of mad would-be tyrants running amok these days.

Was I entertained? Marginally. I have a kickin’ surround sound system and it got quite a workout from all the booms and bangs. For my own troubles, I got a three-Aleve headache and a bunch of questions I suspect can only be answered if I watch earlier Marvel films and get caught up on who’s who and what’s what, which I am not wont to do. I also wonder how much good could be done in the world with $400 million, rather than give Robert Downey Jr. profit participation so he’ll have money to go buy another bong.

At 2 hours and nearly 40 minutes, calling the film Infinity War almost seems like truth in advertising.

Behold the churlishness of a middle-aged man, a film snob whose preferences run to black & white foreign films with beautiful women and subtitles. I should have known better.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Today in History: Bonnie, Donnie and Clyde

By Steve Evans

Let's play a game of perception v. reality.

On this day in 1934 the murderous bank robbing duo Bonnie and Clyde were machine-gunned to death in an ambush set by a posse of Louisiana and Texas law enforcement.

Arthur Penn's celebrated 1967 film that bears their names did no favors for the historical record, although accuracy was not Penn's intent. Though possessed of low cunning, the real Bonnie and Clyde could best be characterized as moronic and sleazy -- quite a departure from their charming cinematic counterparts Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

Penn's film treats the pair as folk heroes and they were embraced as such by audiences watching the film at the height of the counterculture. The paradox here is that despite the picture's many liberties with historical accuracy, Bonnie and Clyde in their heyday were indeed heroes to many victims of the Great Depression, people who were angry at the system, at the banks Bonnie and her beau enjoyed robbing.

I could draw parallels here to Trump supporters, those disaffected yahoos who root for a rebel as balm (or distraction) for their own problems. There's no doubt in my mind that the rise of Trump coming on the heels of the Great Recession is no mere coincidence. His ascension is a maneuver of pure exploitation as clever as any Hollywood rendering of historical record.

Make no mistake: Bonnie and Clyde were only out for themselves. Trump is no different, as evidenced by each new day. He's just a little more polished than Clyde, a bit more slick.

As it happened, the frivolity came to an end for Miss Bonnie and her Clyde on May 23, 1934. Penn's film, in a daring-for-its-day climax, also brings harsh reality crashing down on the antiheroes of his long frolic of a film. It's a classic example of yanking the rug out from under an audience, forcing viewers to confront, finally, the nasty truth of the characters they've been rooting for and maybe don't even understand why.

Wondering if the Donnie Trump Story can deliver a conclusion at least as exciting.



Cinema Uprising copyright © 2018 by Stephen B. Evans. All rights reserved.

Beware Dr. Mabuse

By Steve Evans

Meet criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse. (Mah-boo-zaa) Not someone you'd want to see climbing through your bedroom window at night with a knife in his teeth.

Image from the great 1933 Fritz Lang film, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse. Hitler banned the film on grounds it was an "incitement to public disorder" and the Austrian-born Lang soon after fled Germany for Paris, eventually emmigrating to America in 1935. Perhaps the greatest of the German Expressionists, Lang also directed Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), widely acknowledged as his masterpiece.

Dr. Mabuse reminds me of Trump without his teevee makeup.

Watching the world end

By Steve Evans
In cognizance of the Trump Administration's infuriatingly obvious efforts to destroy the world one idiotic move after another, today I'm starting a series of film clips that artfully illustrate what happens when arrogant, hate-filled and quite probably insane fools acquire power. You know, like Adolph. Mussolini, Hirohito and Hussein. Stalin. Dada. Pol Pot. Ceausescu and Ivan the Terrible. Ming the Merciless. Hell, Charles Manson. And Mao Zedong. History provides us with a very long list that merits a refresher. But back to the clips: Let's start big with the best one I know. You can never go wrong leading with Kubrick.

Bob Roberts in 2020

By Steve Evans

Eerily prescient, this political satire from 25 years ago.

Bob Roberts is a mockumentary starring, written and directed by Tim Robbins. It was his directing debut and history shows he has seldom surpassed that freshman effort. Only Dead Man Walking comes close.

Bob Roberts is a hard right-winger running for the US Senate with a beaming stage smile. He's wrapped in the flag, conceals a dark temper, and has a sociopath's instinct for exploiting the easily persuaded. With $5,000 Dolce & Gabanna suits and silk ties to cloak him in a veneer of success, Roberts plays acoustic guitar at his rallies, singing ersatz folk songs set to the lyrics of a fascist. His scam is performance art in pursuit of unchecked political power. A journalist for a radical publication pursues Roberts across the campaign trail, ever-so-close to linking the candidate with all manner of corruption, including connections to CIA drug runners in banana republics. (Amusing side note for my fellow film obsessives: Giancarlo Esposito plays the crusading journalist, and 20 years later he would portray the murderous drug baron Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.)

Look fast for familiar faces in small roles peppered throughout this merciless and hysterically funny film that now terrifies in light of contemporary events. Bob Roberts anticipates the rise of Donald Trump and the mainstreaming of white nationalist hatreds. What was once a satire has become a horror film.

Those Goofy Golden Globes

By Steve Evans

Let's not Monday morning quarterback last night's Golden Globes, beyond the observation that the awards remain the biggest con job in Hollywood. Most everyone knows the Hollywood Foreign Press Association controls the outcome of this lesser event (Oscar is still the gold standard, naturally). Fewer may realize that the Globes are chosen on the votes of less-than-100 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press. They are hardly arbiters of taste or quality in the cinematic and television arts. Yes, but the Globes deliver something the Oscars do not: a looser atmosphere fueled by an open bar. Through the years I've seen celebs stoned as monkeys during this show. Liz Taylor was trashed at the 2001 awards. Jack Nicholson stuck his ass out at the audience three years later during his acceptance speech for About Schmidt.

This is all a jolly lark, of course, and makes for good television (you can still check out Liz and Jack on YouTube), but the idiosyncratic nature of  the HFPA makes the Globes a lousy bellweather for the Academy Awards.

Although La La Land took a record 7 Globes last night, Moonlight will win the Oscar for Best Picture on Feb. 26. This is a political reality as certain as Meryl Streep dissing some asshole who was elected president by a bunch of -- yep -- gullible assholes.

Trump is an easy, though deserving, target. Whether Moonlight deserves to win Best Picture next month is a separate issue from the fact that it's going to win -- because Hollywood will have to deal with the banshee screaming that will result if it doesn't.

Let me be clear: I absolutely agree that Hollywood can do a better job of inclusion by employing people of all creeds, races and persuasions both in front of and behind the camera. I reject the notion that entertainment awards should have a quota system so that X number of minorities or other underrepresented groups are sure to get an Oscar. If films and talent cannot win on merit, then let's abolish awards.

And yet a boorish buffoon has won the presidency in the absence of merit, talent, appeal or even basic human decency. Is it obscene to compare silly awards to the Democratic process? Perhaps not if we drill down to a common motivation between the HFPA and the president-elect. It is this:

The Hollywood Foreign Press, ever-slick as weasel shit, manages to avoid hot-button issues of racism, sexism and quota-based awards by maintaining a ludicrous number of award categories, though especially the top two. They gave Best Drama to Moonlight and Best Comedy or Musical to La La Land. Equal, safe and predictable. Everybody goes home happy after the Globes. By eschewing controversy while allowing celebrities an open mic to blabber drunkenly about whatever comes to mind, the people behind the Globes last night not only solidified their reputation for irrelevance but managed to underline it at least three times, all for the sake of ratings and their own unquenchable thirst for self-aggrandizement. What irks me today is how they reveal themselves to be similar to the scary clown soon to take the oath of office. Whether you're the purveyor of a hokey awards show or a billionaire con artist, it's all about money and attention. Always has been. Dare I say, always will be.