Iran: The Next American Forever War

Things just escalated between the U.S. and our old pals Iran. Secretary of State Pompeo stated that there is overwhelming proof that Iran is behind the recent tanker attacks. Iran of course denies it was them and the footage is grainy but I can't say either way as I am not a professional when it comes to stuff like this. In turn, President Trump rejected Iran's denials and accusation of claims on economic terrorism by the U.S. The owner of the Japanese ship contradicts the U.S. stance and our European allies are skeptical of of both the U.S. and Iran. So who knows.

The U.S./Iran relationship has been a biot rocky since 1953 but we don't need to go back that far (another time perhaps as it's a doozy). We only need to back to May of 2018 when President Trump decided to pull the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action despite Iran's compliance and against what the American people and our allies wanted. Why? Well racism is the answer. The JCPOA was a President Obama initiative and since President Obama is black, Republicans and Trump hated it. Was it the best possible deal? Probably not but it was a deal that kept Iran's nuclear ambitions in check. Trump and a lot of other racist Republicans have been trying to erase President Obama from history. Republicans didn't try to eliminate President Clinton from history despite their hatred for him but a black man? Well to them, he's got to be erased. Also, Trump has boasted that he could have gotten a better deal but has not bothered to try and make good on it.

Make no mistake, Trump and the Iran hawks are goading Iran into a war. As I mentioned earlier, Iran was compliant with the JCPOA. But to Trump and the hawks, it didn't matter. Trump doesn't like forever wars but he has said that the U.S. should taken Iraq's oil, so why not Iran's.

Trump also mentioned that in a war with Iran, he doesn't need an exit strategy.

Anyway, things have been heating even more up even more since Iran shot down a U.S. drone and Trump has enacted new sanctions on Iran. Trump should be commended for not responding  with military action to the drone situation but he put the U.S. into this situation in the first place. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton has been calling for an Iranian regime change for years. Bolton and Secretary of State Pompeo want war with Iran and they want it bad. Iran is a bad actor in the Middle East and they are a threat to Israel. If things go bad, it's on Trump, Bolton and Pompeo. Trump even went so far as to claim Iran has ties to Al-Qadea. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

2018 Films: #29. The Favourite

December in Chicago. Director Yorgos Lanthimos tells the tale of 18th century English monarch Queen Anne and her court. Queen Anne, Olivia Colman, is in poor health and seems to have little interest in running the country. Anne's adviser and subsequent lover Lady Sarah Churchill, Rachel Weisz is pretty much running the country, rather effectively, due to her influence over the queen.

Then along comes Abigail Hill, Emma Stone, the broke and disgraced cousin on Lady Sarah looking for work, he father gambled her away. Lady Sarah gets her a gig as a low end maid. Abigail toils away at a dead end job until she gets in the good graces of the queen by helping her gout, earning her a promotion to lady of the bedchamber, it was a real job back then.

As Lady Sarah's duties keep her away from Queen Anne, Abigail uses her new position to gain influence over the queen and eventually into a sexual relationship with her. Abigail has now replaced Lady Sarah as the queen's confidante and she's able to score a marriage that reinstates her noble standing. When Lady Sarah comes back to court she's pretty upset by this and it starts a back and forth with Abigail.

Lanthimos admitted that the film is far from factually accurate but if you're looking for a film to be factually accurate, you're looking in the wrong place. As John Ford once said, "print the legend." The film was well written and put together nicely. Strong performances from Colman and Weisz as expected and even Emma Stone wasn't too bad with her accent and she did a fine job in the role. The film received a 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating and grossed $96 million against a $15 million budget. I also received 5 Golden Globe and 10 Oscar Nominations with Colman winning the Oscar for Best Actress.

Lanthimos is a talented director and is worth watching. However, his films are an acquired taste and may not be for everyone. His films do not normally get a wide release and are very arthousey. So you have to look for them but they're worth it. 

2018 Films: #32. Ant-Man and the Wasp

An OnDemand viewing on February 22 in Chicago.

Since Avengers: Endgame is coming out, I figured I should watch this picture in case I needed some extra exposition since time travel and the quantum realm were going to play a part in saving the Earth from Thanos. Since I am late getting around on this review, I will let my pals over at CinemaSins cover the problems with the film. They're much wittier than I am. Plus it's a video.

This film takes place just before the events of Endgame. Our protagonist is wrapping up his house arrest after the events of
Captain America: Civil War. Just as the house arrest is set to end, Scott gets kidnapped by Hope and Hank to help free Janet from the quantum realm that she's been trapped in for 30 years. I mean it's only been 30 years and they couldn't wait a few more days? I guess they needed that extra tension.

Anyway, the quest to get Janet back takes some cartoon like twists and turns that eventually lead to a match-up with the Marvel standardly evenly matched villain, Ghost, who's not really evil but needs help with a condition brought on by Pym technology. The main villain is Sonny Burch, a black market tech seller who needs the same technology that Hope and Hank need to get Janet and that Ghost needs for her condition. Eventually, everything works out for the best. Janet is rescued from the quantum realm looking no worse for wear; Janet, Hank and Hope agree to help Ghost and Burch meets justice. All wrapped up nice and neat like an episode of Scooby-Doo.

Peyton Reed returned to direct along with the most of the cast and crew from the first film. Ant-Man represents the light hearted side of the MCU. Lots of laughs. Sometimes the goofiness goes a bit too far but it's hardly worth getting bent out of shape over. This was a fun film to watch. The picture received an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating which is high in my opinion. It probably plays an integral part in the MCU because of the quantum realm technology needed to change the results of the Thanos finger snap.

2018 Films: #31. The Kindergarten Teacher

A Netflix viewing on February 16th in Chicago. This one caught my wife's eye since she herself taught kindergarten.

The film is directed by Sara Colangelo and stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as the aforementioned kindergarten teacher, Lisa Spinelli. Lisa teaches kindergarten on Staten Island and does not appear to be all that happy with her life. She and her husband love each other but the fire has gone out. Her teenage children are distant and quite frankly a bit ungrateful, probably like most teenagers. Lisa is taking a poetry course at night but she's really not that good a poet.

One day at school, she hears one of her students, Jimmy Roy (Parker Sevak), starts blurting out verse and it catches Lisa's ear. A six year old randomly spouting poetry? To say she becomes obsessed with Jimmy is a bit of an overstatement. She begins investigating Jimmy's family to find out where it comes from. Eventually Jimmy tells her that it just comes out. She even takes Jimmy to a Manhattan poetry open mic night to recite his poetry. She believes Jimmy to be a prodigy that no one will understand or care about because it's poetry. Suffice to say Lisa makes a series of bad decisions that won't end well for her. Or Jimmy for that matter.

This is a really underrated film. It received a well deserved 91% Roteen Tomatoes rating. Strong performances all around, Colangelo does a nice job of keeping your attention with good pacing a tension build ups. If you have Netflix, then this is a film worth seeing. It has a 96 minute run time and moves well. It has a sad ending so be warned,

2017 Films: #30. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

A Netflix viewing on January 11, 2019 in Chicago. Since this film is written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, it needed to be viewed. Now the title and the trailer can be a little misleading. This is an anthology film with six different stories about the American West.

The stories are very different. The opening segment, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is kind of an homage to the singing cowboy films of the 30's. It's the best of the six. It has the most humor and ridiculous violence.

The next segment, "Near Algodones," deals with a bank robbery gone bad and the series of ironic twists that the protagonist endures. The third segment, "Meal Ticket," deals with a man with a traveling show with the main attraction being a limbless man who theatrically recites bible stories, Shakespeare and the Gettysburg address. As they go from small town the small town, they collect less and less money and after a particular bad night, the caretaker buys a chicken that performs math tricks. The much lower overhead seals the fate of the young performer.

The fourth segment, "All Gold Canyon," deals with a grizzled prospector finding a river in a beautiful valley and searching for gold. You see him go through the process of deciphering where the gold vein can be and overcoming a potential thief. Segment five, "The Gal Who Got Rattled," is about a brother and sister's journey to Oregon that is beset by a series of unfortunate events. The brother dies just after the depart and he's buried with all the money they have. One of the wagon train's leaders, Billy Knapp, takes pity on poor Alice and offers to help her. But Alice breaks away from the wagon train and is found by the wagon train leader, Mr Arthur. As they begin to make their way back to the wagon train, they're spotted by a war party. The final segment, "The Mortal Remains," is about a group traveling by stagecoach. They swap stories, giving a little bit of exposition about each other. It gets a little weird but that's about it.

The film has a great cast with really strong performances all around. The cinematography is beautiful and the Coen Brothers do a nice job of recreating the time, for keeping things gritty and authentic as well, or as authentic as it could be. The opening segment is the best and each additional story drops off some from the previous. The film has a 133 minute runtime with each segment having it's own pacing and tension. Which made the final segment almost forgettable to me. It wasn't bad but five segments would have been better.

The film received a 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating and that seems a bit high to me. It's an interesting direction the Coen's took and is worth seeing if you're a follower of their work. The Coen's can tell a good story and the technical aspects are great but it just ran a bit long for me.

Making America Great Again: Burning Black Churches

From March 26th to April 4th 2019 three black churches in Louisiana were torched by "MAGA brownshirt" Holden Matthews. Matthews apparently decided he would be Making America Great Again by going for the white southern tradition of burning black churches.

It would seem that burning black churches isn't confined to the KKK's reign of terror during the civil rights era. It predates the civil war. Which is worse than I would have thought but I can't say that I am surprised by any stretch. It wasn't relegated to the south either, between 1825-1850 six black churches were repeatedly attacked in Philadelphia. Then there were the Cincinnati Race Riots of 1829.

Vice President Pence drew the short straw and went to Louisiana to visit the community but it was a little too late. Pence is a conservative fundamentalist christian so he's not a big fan of black people. That must have stung when he had to go out there. Matthews is being charged with hate crimes, though there are no domestic terrorism charges as of now and make no mistake Matthews is a domestic terrorist, with trial set for September. I hope he goes away for a long time.

Alabama Mayor Calls for "killing" Minorities!

Recently, Carbon Hill, Alabama mayor Mark Chambers called for killing gays and other minorities. A real shocker coming from a probably self proclaimed pious christian and elected official from Alabama of all places.

Now this was a response to a comment that someone put on his FB page bu Mr. Chambers made the choice to respond in such a manner. First he denied he wrote the comment then said he was taken out of context, Then used the "I thought it was a private message excuse." Followed by I “never said anything about killing out gays or anything like that.” He said his comment was specifically referring to what would happen “in a revolution.” Thanks for the clarification.

Of course other pious types came to his defense, including Reverend Colbert of the city council who called Chambers "a good man." I'm sure the men who fired bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church were pillars of their community. It's not like they were terrorists or anything (wait, they were).

Does Mr. Chambers have a right to say these things? He sure does but that also means you have to deal with the consequences. Chambers should step down as mayor so they can get another racist jerk in there but I doubt Chambers will do the right thing and go away. These pious christian types always find a away to get themselves up on the cross in some hope for martyrdom. Just like Iowa's favorite racist politician Steve King.

Apparently, Carbon Hill has produced previous gems as mayor.

2018 Films: #28 Tyrel

OnDemand viewing in Chicago on December 8th. This film was discussed on a podcast I listened to and it made it seem like this was going to be something similar to Get Out. I was a bit intrigued and gave it a shot.

Suffice to say that this film has very little in common with Get Out. It's not a horror film. It's a fish out of water tale and that's ok. The film is written and directed by Sebastián Silva. Tyler (Jason Mitchell) and Johnny (Christopher Abbott) are best pals that are going off to a weekend birthday party in a remote area. Tyler is going to be the only black guy there. If this was a horror movie then Tyler would be in a bad spot. Even though it's not a horror film he's still in a bad spot because he's trapped with people he doesn't know, who seem to be mildly racist and who can't get his name right (they call him Tyrel not Tyler, hence the title). Tyler makes attempts to try and fit in but it doesn't go very well as he's not accustomed to hanging out with a bunch of caucasian bros (first night requires getting wasted, day 2 is more chill but drinking is still mandatory).

Even though I was lured into this film under false pretenses, it was enjoyable. a 65% Rotten Tomatoes rating which makes this a decent watch. Good story and solid acting all around. You feel for Tyler as the unfortunate outcast. It's not a film for everyone for sure but it's a nice film. 

2018 Films: #27. Bohemian Rhapsody

November 24th in Chicago. This was the second picture in the doubleheader.

Directed by Bryan Singer, the film tells the tale of the rise of Freddie Mercury and Queen through their performance at Live Aid in 1985. Let me start out by saying that Rami Malek was about as spot on as you can get as Mercury. In fact, the actors who portrayed the rest of the band, were dead ringers.

The story starts out with Farrokh Bulsara living with is family in London, working as a baggage handler at Heathrow and dreaming of better things. Freddie sees a band called Smile, consisting of Roger Taylor and Brian May, and decides to join the band after their lead singer quits. May and Taylor say sure why not and enlist John Deacon as the new bass player. The band takes off from there. Nice and easy.

This was an interesting take on the band but I always questioned why it needed to be made almost 20 years after Mercury's death. There are some factual inconsistencies for sure...

Which is too bad really because the facts are interesting enough where maybe so much poetic licensing wasn't needed. One of the main things that musical biopics have in common is that talent doesn't really matter. Attitude is all it takes. Attitude is all Freddie needed to convince May and Taylor to let him join the band. It was attitude that convinced the record company to get behind the "Bohemian Rhapsody" single.

Sure there's a montage of A Night at the Opera recording but no one wants to see the slow process of lyric writing and musical arrangements. The magic just happens.

The film received a 61% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Which seems about right to me. This was far from a great film but a good one.

2018 Films: #26. Widows

November 24th in Chicago. First part of a double header. Widows piqued my interest when I saw it was a heist film. I did a little research and found that Steve McQueen not only directed the film but wrote the screenplay along with Gillian Flynn. So yes, I was in.

The picture is based on a 1983 BBC series of the same name. Set in modern day Chicago, we have Harry Rawlings, Liam Nesson, and his wife Veronica, Viola Davis. They live the good life with a sweet apartment on Lakeshore with a fantastic view, a driver, the whole nine yards.

Harry has a Neil McCauley occupation. He and his crew take down scores. Harry's crew consists of Florek (Jon Bernthal, who seems to be cast in this type of role a lot but I guess it's better than taking the road Gerard Butler of doing screwball rom-coms), Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Jimmy (Coburn Goss). Things go bad, really bad, during their last score and the whole crew gets killed after the police arrive at their hideout. After the husbands die, the widows; Veronica, Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Alice (Ayesha, leader of the Sovereign Race who just happened to be hanging out on Earth) and Amanda (Carrie Coon) all realize that their husbands didn't plan for the future too well. Veronica is broke, Linda gets her store repossessed, Alice is left with nothing and Amanda is pregnant and left with nothing. Their husbands worked for years taking down high end scores but have nothing to show for it. At least McCauley's crew set themselves up, except for Chris Shiherlis. He would have fit in fine with Harry's crew.

So not only is Veronica broke, but local crime lord Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) informs Veronica that the money Harry died stealing and subsequently went up in flames was his and he wants his $2,000,000 back. Jamal needed the money to run for alderman against Jack Mulligan, Collin Farrell. The Mulligan's are led by the patriarch Tom, Robert Duvall, and have had a stranglehold on this south side alderman seat for decades. They don't want to give it up.
Manning gives Veronica a deadline she can't possibly keep and tells her if she doesn't get the money then his brother/top enforcer, Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) is going to kill her. Given.

After "finding" her husband's crime journal, Veronica decides to pull of Harry's next heist he had planned. A $5,000,000 score. She reaches out to Linda and Alice and they're in. She decides to leave Amanda out of it. But eventually they need a driver after the Manning's kill Veronica's. In comes Linda's babysitter, Belle (Cynthia Ervio) to fill in the spot.

The heist does not quite go as planned but there's a lot tension as things wind down with a very interesting twist ending, there's foreshadowing but not too much. This is a really good film. It got a 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating that is well deserving. There are a few issues though. Does Veronica really not know how Harry made his money? Or why they don't have a retirement account? I understand the death of their son, a nice social commentary, put a strain on their marriage but she's a smart woman and she had to know something. There's also the fact that as tough and smart as this group of women may be, this is still their first foray into crime and their first job is a high stakes $5,000,000 score.

Excellent acting. Lots of tension. Very gritty. Perhaps not McQueen's best work, but a very good film. Now I happen to hold Heat as the gold standard of heist films (I need to see more) and Widows got a better rating than Heat and I do not agree. The film made a list of great recent films that have may not have been seen and I agree. This is a film worth watching but it's not as good as Heat. Watch both films and judge for yourself.

2017 Films: #32. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

It's taken me a long time to come to terms with this picture. The first time was December 19, 2017 in Charles, MO then again on December 25th in Chicago and then twice on Netflix. Now it's 2019 and I am finally getting around to finishing my thoughts on the film.

The Star Wars franchise has played a role in my life and values but I don't want to be the standard old white guy who hates change. Change is good and you can't stay stuck in the past, unless you're a Republican. I understand that Disney may not be interested in making a great Star Wars film, they want to make money off the film but maybe more importantly for them, merchandise. That's the way the film industry is going and George Lucas played a HUGE role in that.

Anyway, I tried to judge this film on it's own merit within the Star Wars Universe. Rian Johnson wrote and directed the film and took it to places that really didn't make a lot of sense within its universe. If you to see what's wrong with the film, then check out the CinemaSins review of which I agree with. It's also good for a few laughs.

One of the big problems I had was predictability. The film opens with Poe taking on the First Order Dreadnaught, a ship he refers to as a "fleet killer," but has no problem with destroying the tiny amount of surface cannons the ship has. Much like the Empire, the First Order just can't wrap its head around a small one man fighter being a threat. Nothing changes. Then surprise! A group of Republic bombers (?) show up to bomb the dreadnaught! In space mind you! At no point during the fight, good SFX and an enjoyable scene, did I get the sense that the dreadnaught wasn't going to be destroyed. Even when Johnson tried to get some tension in the scene, it didn't work. Rey goes to train with Luke, he gives here the old, "I can't train you" speech but eventually trains her. Finn and Rose go off an an impossible mission to find a needle in a stack of needles and succeed relatively quickly.

I would like to touch briefly on the fuel issue that is now a thing after 40 plus years. I do not appreciate the insertion of this new plot device that never mattered but there was a scene in Episode III where Obi-Wan asks a system to refuel his ship. It's a throw away scene but it's there.

The acting is good. There's a rapport between the main characters; Poe, Rey and Finn that the Episodes I-III did not have in any way, shape or form. The SFX are cool, given. But the story lacks a lot in my opinion. There's also a few other things I can go into; Leia's force powers (but the CinemaSins review touches on that), Yoda's increased Jedi ghost powers and the galaxy stretching arms dealer conspiracy. I also felt that there could have been a moment where Leia passes the baton to Vice Admiral Hodo but Johnson went in a different direction and I don't feel it worked.

I will see the next installment because I need to see how it ends. If you've put 40 years into this franchise, then see the film.