Wknd Box Office: Zoolander 2, Deadpool, How to Be Single, Where to Invade Next, 45 Years, Son of Saul
By Debbie Schlussel
When the best new movie among six of them debuting in theaters this
weekend–is a sillier sequel of a silly movie from 15 years ago–well, Houston, we
have a problem. These are posted late in the weekend because I had a lot to say
about a lot of the crap that I endured for you.
* “Zoolander 2” – Rated PG-13: Even though this is really dumb and only mildly funny, it’s the best of the bunch this week. Again, this is really stupid. And I laughed fewer than 10 times, which shouldn’t be the case, especially since it’s about gauche, over-the-top, intellectually-challenged male supermodels who save the world. Still, the movie has some funny, politically-incorrect moments, and I gotta give it credit for that.
The best part of the movie is at the very beginning, when the real-life Justin Bieber (playing himself) is brutally murdered. Half the audience clapped for this at the screening I attended.
Also, the movie was criticized by LGBT activists for the supermodel character played by Benedict Cumberbatch. The androgynous, gender-fluid model isn’t male, and isn’t female, but is just “all,” which is why he/she/it is named, “All.” And we’re told that, therefore, All is going to marry “hermself.” And there is other such stuff. The hotel where the two main characters stay is made from fully-recycled/repurposed, biodegradable garbage. And it looks the part. In another scene, male supermodel Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is looking for his son, of whom he lost custody years ago, and is upset to find out his son is the fat kid.
I also liked the funny tattoo sported by one of the characters: a Colonel Sanders tattoo, in which the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder is portrayed as a Jedi knight, complete with hooded robe and lightsaber and the phrase “Where’s the Beef?” (of Wendy’s ’80s Clara Peller TV ad fame).
But, still, the laughs and the story are thinner than thin. What–you expected better from Zoolander and Ben Stiller? Come on. So I viewed and review it in that vein: a movie you know going in is going to be stupid but with some laughs. (Again, there were sadly not enough laughs.) The movie leans heavily on the weak crutch of many celebrity cameos.
The story: someone is killing all of the “beautiful people” around the world (including Bieber). Supermodel Derek Zoolander has retired from modeling and gone into seclusion (he lives the life of “a hermit crab,” he tells us), when the school he founded, literally fell apart and collapsed, after he put it together with paper and book glue.
The school, “The Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too,” was shaped like a book, so he built the building only with items used to make and bind books. When it collapsed into New York’s Hudson River, many kids and Zoolander’s wife died. Sad over the tragedy, he quit modeling and disappeared. Also, he lost custody of their son.
Zoolander is tracked down by his former rival, supermodel Hansel (Owen Wilson), who lives with a group of people that make up his “orgy” (and I could’ve done without the Chassidic Jew and his wife being the orgy–wake me when it’s a Muslim and his four wives in the orgy). Hansel convinces Zoolanderd to quit being a recluse, get back his son, and help save the world. The two are joined by former-Swimsuit-model-turned-secret-agent (and real-life Israel-boycotter) Penelope Cruz. And they decide to return to modeling, this time for bizarre billionaire Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig), a parody of Donatella Versace, and her designer, Don Atari (get it? Donatella, Don Atari–so close, yet who cares?). Will Ferrell and Milla Jovovich, as Zoolander’s respective arch-enemy supermodel rivals Mugatu and Katinka, are back, too.
Like I said, dumb and not that funny. But for a Zoolander sequel, I guess it fits the bill. I’m being very generous in giving this . . .
HALF A REAGAN
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Deadpool” – Rated R: I don’t know about you, but I like my superheroes to be super. I don’t want them to be neutral or scumbags or swearing, violent, and performing sex acts. Sadly, this guy, Deadpool, is all of the things in the last sentence, except maybe the neutral part. I’ve had a zillion Millennial Deadpool fans tell me I don’t understand or that I’m too old-fashioned. Millenials are the ones who made this anti-hero the best seller of all Marvel comic books ever and fabulously popular.
Sorry, but I don’t need to see Marvel comic characters with superpowers masturbating or constantly discussing slang terms for sex acts. I don’t need to see them and a girlfriend performing every sex act imaginable including her strapping on a fake penis and anally raping him. Nope, that ain’t for me. But if you like that, you’re depraved. And, unfortunately, we’ve defined deviancy down so much that what was once–and still should be–depravity is now seen as normal by these young Bernie Sanders voters. Some of the dialogue, for which they laugh and guffaw uncontrollably, is just nasty and gross.
And the story doesn’t even make sense. Ryan Reynolds plays Wade who ultimately becomes “Deadpool.” Wade is a former Special Forces operative who becomes a mercenary. He meets the woman of his dreams, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and they engage in all of the aforementioned sexual activity. But, then, he discovers he has incurable cancer and will soon die. He tries an experiment in which a mad, evil guy puts him into what looks like an oxygen chamber. Whatever is in there cures his cancer, but makes him look ugly–his face is badly scarred. And the experiment gives him incredible powers to withstand pain and heal quickly from any injury. But, since his face and scalp look badly burned, he is embarrassed to ever return to his girlfriend and instead makes her believe he’s dead. Also, he crafts a mask and costume that look like and are inspired by the Spiderman mask.
He takes assignments and also chooses his own, in which he “rights” wrongs, badly beats up people, and exacts revenge. And he vows his own revenge on the man who put him in the chamber and made him ugly. The thing is, since his new powers make him heal all wounds and scars quickly, it makes no sense that his face and head wouldn’t heal. But that’s expecting a depraved, stupid movie to make sense. And you can’t set expectations for logic high or even at a basic level for crap like this. Oh, and by the way, in addiiton to being very lewd, the movie’s also incredibly bloody and violent.
It’s so sad that the Millennials crave disaster and suffering and anti-heroes so much and that they are so negative and yearn so much for the type of dystopian existence in this movie, but they do. And that’s why this movie will be tops at the box office, this weekend.
Bad news for America. Because now Hollywood will serve up even more.
FOUR MARXES PLUS THREE OBAMAS PLUS AN ISIS BEHEADING
Watch the trailer . . .
* “How to Be Single” – Rated R: More like, “How to Sit Through the Worst Chick Flick Ever and Lose Ten Bucks and Two Hours of Your Life.” I hate-hate-hated this movie. Sitting through it is unbearable. And, since it was screened at the same time as another movie, I paid to see this on Thursday night, so I could review it here. Ugh.
This movie is about several women–each of them mind-numbingly annoying–trying to find love and romance in New York City. They are all connected to each other in some way, mostly through work, a bartender three of them have slept with, and a sibling relationship in one case. Not that you should care. I didn’t. Each of these women is incredibly needy, way-too-forward, very plain-looking, and, by the way, single. Gee, I wonder why. Maybe there’s a correlation in there somewhere, even though the movie wants us to think these women are just normal and have bad luck in love.
Oh, and did I mention that this movie is incredibly filthy and has waaaay tooooo many shots of the morbidly obese, absolutely disgusting Rebel Wilson with her way-too-tight clothing riding up and her far-too-plentiful stomach hanging out? Eeeuuuuwww. Unsee, unsee, unsee! I also hate it when the slovenly, huge fat chick wears sequins in every scene–you know, to shine on and accentuate the heiferism. This fat chick has the same act in every movie. “I’m a fat chick who utters vulgarities and acts gross–now laugh!.” Um, not funny. She has some scintillating lines like, “Pass go and collect 200 d-cks,” and “Their d-cks probably look like cannolis.” Oh, and also a disgusting line about bad vaginal grooming: “Santa’s beard tickling your inner thigh.” Yup, that depravity is what comprises dialogue in movies, these days. You stay classy.
Of course, few movies can go without at least one anti-Semitic reference thrown in. Wilson, who works at a law firm, welcomes Dakota Johnson to her new job there as a paralegal with this line: “Welcome to a guy, another guy, and a Jewish guy. Just kidding–they’re all Jewish.”
Johnson has broken up with her boyfriend for the summer, so she can see what it’s like to be single. But, then, he meets someone else and gets engaged. And she sleeps with the aforementioned bartender on the advice of the aforementioned gross fat chick who urges her to get drunk, sleep around, and come 3.5 hours late to work. Yeah, no way you’d lose your job, right? (Not in this stupid, unrealistic movie, anyway.) She ends up with a Black dude whom I thought seemed very gay, but then I realized it’s Damon Wayans Jr.
Another woman is Johnson’s sister, Leslie Mann, who is an older, single obstetrician who’s delivered 3,000 babies but hates babies, until she doesn’t and decides to have one with a sperm donor. Just after getting pregnant, she meets a much younger guy (Jake Lacy, who plays the same way-too-nice, dumped-on-by-women, mensch of a guy in every single movie). But she’s already decided that her kid doesn’t need a man or father figure in its life. Yeah, Hollywood, tell it to all the criminals in prison who also didn’t have a father.
And then there is a third woman, who has developed an algorithm to use with online dating sites to meet the perfect straight, available guy in New York. Except that she also sleeps with the bartender. And she also doesn’t meet any perfect guys from her algorithm.
But none of this matters because the movie is mostly a predictable, slow bore and not a single lead character is likable. Not even close. We’d all be better off (and far more entertained) if they quickly died in a flood or met some other similar fate. And did I mention that this movie and everyone in it is extremely annoying! I just couldn’t take it. I would’ve walked out but for reviewing it. This is definitely Gitmo torture material. Make the few Islamic terrorists left there watch this at least twice, and it’ll make them beg you to make it stop.
FOUR MARXES PLUS THREE BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS THREE MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Where to Invade Next” – Rated R: This should really be called, “Michael Moore Asks Foreigners to Rant Against America And He Joins In.” And it should be rated–like all Michael Moore fake-umentaries (or is that docu-fakeries?)–“N” for Nonsense. It’s just absolute BS and his typical fraudulent, pipe dream crap. Oh, and it’s also VERY anti-American, and yet, Megynecologist Kelly asked Moore nothing about this when they had their little mutual verbal Lewinsky-fest, recently on her show. That’s even more disgusting than this movie. By the way, Moore admits at the beginning of this silly socialist screed of a movie that he will only “pick the flowers, not the weeds” that come with them.
When I first started watching this, I saw this disheveled, ugly lesbian fat chick, but then I realized it was Moore. Moore travels the world to other countries and lectures us on how much better than us they all are. And he cherry picks social programs that he believes the U.S. should adopt so that our country should sink further down the crapper and be just like Europe. Oh, and he lectures us about how free and democratic countries like Iran and Tunisia are. Riiight. Sure, they are. You keep tellin’ yourself that, Mike. Finally, he goes to a country where he asks the interviewees to say anti-American crap, and he lauds them. Oh, and he says women should run things, and they’ll turn out so much better. Uh-huh, Eva Braun would’ve been so much better. Hillary will be too, right? So, why is Moore ignoring his own bullcrap advice and supporting Bernie Sanders for Prez? And why isn’t there a woman running Michael Moore’s company and doing his documentaries instead of him? If memory serves me correctly, he dumped that chick and divorced her.
The movie features several icky scenes of Moore desperately fixating on sex like a guy who hasn’t had any in a really, really, really long time. Moore trolls around some couple, who tell him about how Italy gives workers a lot of paid vacation, including a two-hour lunch, a paid honeymoon, and paid maternity (something that Megynecologist Kelly–no conservative, she– was whining about recently on Steven Colbert’s mercilessly boring late night show). The very creepy Moore asks the Italian couple about their sex life and all the paid free time they are given to have sex and get pregnant. Yeah, that’s exactly what America should be worried about, right?
Then, Moore praises French high schools, which teach the students how to be good lovers and use the textbook, “Lovemaking is Fun, Vol. I.” Yup, America needs to do that, too. Right? Apparently Moore doesn’t think there’s enough teen sex and unwed teen mothers in our country.
Next, Moore shows us that French kids are treated to gourmet meals in schools. The kids’ five-course meals, served and eaten on china, are so important that the Mayor’s office has a special representative involved in overseeing the menus. Another crackpot endeavor Moore thinks America should emulate.
In Moore’s next favorite paradise, Finland, private schools are illegal unless they are free of charge. Yes, that’s what America needs: more laws limiting our freedom and making education and opportunities impossible.
Then, there’s Germany. Moore loves it because, according to him, all Germans get a paid three-week spa stay from the government. You wanna pay for Lakeisha and her seven kids with different babydaddies or Bristol Palin with her two illegit kids and mega-millions to go to a spa for three weeks? Me, neither. In Germany, all corporate boards must be 50% comprised of workers and they decide the salaries of executives, another thing Moore lauds. But he conveniently fails to point out that the German economy–because of programs and policies like these–is in the dumps. It makes business very hard and many Germans are unemployed and on welfare. Let Michael Moore pay for that. Oh, yeah, this is the same Michael Moore who made his employees work overtime and didn’t pay them for it or even minimum wage. You think he’d let his overworked and underpaid employees lower his pay and keep him from living in fancy mansions and penthouses? Think again. Same goes for Moore providing three-week spa vacations for his employees. Has never happened. Never will happen. But Michael Moore has consistently admitted he’s a hypocrite, so he gets away with it.
I was especially disgusted when Moore compared America to what the Nazis did in the Holocaust. In fact, he says America is far worse. “The United States was born in genocide and built on the backs of slaves,” he says, and then goes on to compare the Holocaust–in which Jews were exterminated and turned into lampshades–to women not having the right to vote a hundred years ago in America. Uh-huh, they are exactly the same . . . if you’re a dishonest piece of crap, which Moore is in spades. Moore claims that Germany “acknowledged the Holocaust and freed itself to be a better people, and so should” the U.S., which he claims has not freed itself from slavery.
That’s debatable, since younger Germans don’t want to hear about the Holocaust and have since welcomed legions of Jew-hating, Christian-hating, and Western-hating Muslim “refugees” to wreak a bigger, longer, and far worse Holocaust on the country. But, of course, to pretend this isn’t the case, Michael Moore shows these Muslims to be Jew-lovers, such as immigrant Sami Ahmed who is eagerly learning about the Holocaust. PUH-LEEZE. It’s well known that Muslims, in schools around the world (including in the West) forbid any discussion of the Holocaust and deny that it even happened. Muslims simultaneously claim the Holocaust didn’t happen and yet praise it for annihilating to many Jews.
Moore goes on to call for the legalization of all drugs, something he has in common with fellow egomaniacal hypocrite, Michelle Fraudkin. He claims the drug war is racism and slavery, and praises Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, who were violent (and who would have whooped that fat cracka Michael Moore’s ass). Moore says prison is slavery, too, because he says it keeps too many Black men from voting. He praises Portugal, in which prisoners vote and candidates for national office have to visit the prisons to campaign for criminals’ votes. I know, it’s ridiculous. But so it Michael Moore, and that’s why he supports such absurdities.
During Moore’s visit to Portugal, he praises that country’s universal health care program. Yeah, because doesn’t everyone who has a serious illness say, “Screw the Mayo Clinic! I want to be treated in Portugal”? Then, Moore asks Portuguese police officers to lecture America against the death penalty, which they do, telling us, “There is a lot of work to be done” in America. Hmmm . . . Portugal v. America. Um, I think I know which of these needs more work to be done. Hint: it’s not the country into which people around the world will do anything to get to.
Moore praises Norway because its prisons resemble resort hotels, where each prisoner has his own private cell complete with separate bathroom, shower, and television. Plus, the prisoners have art and painting classes and XBox video games. They can vote there, too, so, again, politicians must campaign there. The prisoners have their own record label to record rap songs, and they make “We Are the World” music videos with the guards. They have knives, and, yet, the guards have no weapons. Instead, they just talk to the prisoners to stop any violence. “That’s our weapon,” says a guard. Yeah, see how well talking does against a shiv in a U.S. prison, Michael Moore. You’ll be one very stuck pig. Norway also doesn’t arm police, and even the most brutal mass murderer can only get a maximum 21-year sentence. A father of a murdered son doesn’t want the death penalty for murderers and doesn’t want more security. Gee, and you wonder why that country so easily capitulated to the Nazis and is known for the word, “quisling.” No wonder, either, why that country is now overrun with Muslims and will soon become Norwaystan. Maybe it has just a little something to do with the fact that they’re a nation of pushover socialist morons.
But Norway’s not the only idiotic place Michael Moore loves. He praises Iran for being oh so “democratic” (the ayatollahs picking your choices is now “democratic”?!) and for being a “world leader in stem cell research.” Anyone wanna trust Iranian stem cell research when your life depends on it?
Next, there is that bastion of democracy, Tunisia. Moore says the Muslim nation has free health care for women and abortions. Again, anyone clamoring to travel to Tunisia for its healthcare? And how many women do you think are getting abortions with their husbands’ knowledge and approval in this country? Moore compares women in Tunisia to America women and says we aren’t “as good” because we don’t have an Equal Rights Amendment. How many reading this actually think women have more equality in Tunisia than in the United States?
Moore gushes over Rached Ghannouchi, an extremist Muslim member of the Conservative Islamist Party, which Moore compares to the Republican Party. But, don’t worry, Moore thinks the Conservative Islamist Party is better than the GOP. Moore tells us that Islam isn’t anti-women because, he claims, in Tunisia women have the freedom not to cover their heads. Really? Ever been to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, HAMASastan? But, in fact, there is no such freedom in Tunisia because, while Mr. Ghannouchi claims wearing a hijab is a “matter of personal choice and freedom,” he acknowledges that he forces his wife to wear one. Yup, sounds like a matter of personal choice and freedom, to me. Moore asks about gays and acts as if they, too, are free to be openly gay in Tunisia. But Tunisia doesn’t have gay marriage and try living to the end of the day there as openly gay.
Some America-hating Tunisian “journalist” bitch, named Amel Smaoui, says Americans “are ignorant.” At Moore’s request, she tells America and Americans how much she hates us. “You think you’re the best, and you know everything. It won’t work.” That’s funny coming from an apologist of the country that sheltered Islamic terrorist Yasser Arafat, while he directed the 1973 torture murders of U.S. diplomats Cleo Noel and George Curtis Moore. Moore. Noel was then the U.S. Ambassador to Sudan and Moore was the Charge D’Affaires and the then-highest-ranking Black officer in the U.S. diplomatic corps. They were tortured and beaten so badly that authorities could not tell which of them was the White man and which was the Black man (and dental records had to be used to identify them).
So, don’t you lecture me, Michael Moore’s Tunisian bitch, about who is good and who is bad.
And, finally, in this long, boring, unbearable piece of crap of a “movie,” Moore goes to Iceland and uses that nothing country to lecture us about how great things would be if America-hating women ran everything. He lies to us and tells us, because Iceland “elected the first female President” and, later, he claims, “first female leader,” that this inspired women all over the world to run for office and win and lead countries better than the men did. Reality check: Iceland did NOT elect the first female President. Argentina did, with Isabel Martínez de Perón. And I doubt nobody on this earth (outside of Iceland) has ever heard of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the Iceland President. Nobody was inspired by her to run for office. (Iceland is like an insect urinating on the sidewalk. Nobody notices.) Sorry. But they might have been inspired by Golda Meir, who led Israel as Prime Minister or UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Moore doesn’t want to mention those two, though, because he doesn’t like their politics (and hates Israel). So, he lies and just makes up s–t. That’s what Moore does in every movie. And, of course, all of these women have run the countries soooo well, like Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who worked with Iranian mass-murderers of her people to cover up the terrorist attack on the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires and conspired to murder the prosecutor looking into her. Women would neeeever do that. Never ever ever. And don’t forget the failures Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Not to mention, HAMAS supporter Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan.
Moore claims that two Iceland banks succeeded in a bad economy because they were run by women, whereas a bank run by men failed. He claims that, therefore, one can assume that Wall Street trading problems during the economic crises of 2008, are due to men and too much testosterone. Again, where are the women running Michael Moore’s company and doing his documentaries instead of him? Is this a tacit admission by Moore that he’s really a chick and/or has low testosterone?
Moore goes on to say that only bankers should go to jail and that they should go to bad jails. I guess he’s selectively abandoned the Norwegian paradise resort prisons he’s just championed. He also claims that only Muslim bankers are prosecuted in the U.S., which should be news to Angelo Mozilo, Ralph Cioffi, and Matthew Tannin, none of whom are Muslim and all of whom had criminal cases pursued against them (the Mozilo criminal probe was dropped). Kareem Sarageldin, a Muslim Credit Suisse exec, admitted he falsified records and committed wire fraud and pleaded guilty. Cioffi and Tannin fought and were acquitted of the charges against them.
Moore tells us that “women will save the world” because “they don’t want war,” which is funny since I guess he thinks all the female suicide bombers from ISIS, HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, and assorted other Islamic terrorist groups are what–hermaphrodites and male transvestites with vaginal canals? Or the chick who shot up Jews on behalf of ISIS and Al-Qaeda at the kosher supermarket in Paris or the chicks involved in killing masses in Paris at the restauirant and the concert hall? They don’t want war? Really? Stop lying, Michael Moore. But, again, that’s what he does.
Moore then encourages a number of incredibly ugly female Icelandic “leaders” to attack America. There’s a very fat chick spilling out over a bikini, a crazy old lady in pink hair, some chick with a hideous neck tattoo, and some other hags. Yeah, that’s who should run America, right? Moore encourages their unhinged, America-hating rants and tells them he agrees with them.
As I watched this movie, I kept asking myself, if America is so bad and Michael Moore hates it so much, why the heck does he still live here?
At the very end of the movie, Moore shows us scenes from the “Wizard of Oz,” which made me think of how much Moore reminded me of the scarecrow. “If I only had a brain.”
Sad thing is, Moore must have a brain. He keeps putting out this lying crap and laughs all the way to the bank.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS
Watch the trailer . . .
* “45 Years” – Rated R: Charlotte Rampling stars in this bizarre, slow, boring slog and is nominated for an Oscar for it. (She will probably not get the Oscar because she criticized the “#OscarsSoWhite” BS as what it is: racist. She then had to backtrack and apologize, like they all do in showbiz.) She and her husband, a doddering old Englishman, live in the countryside, where they are retired and have no children. They go on walks in the dreary weather and live a quiet, mundane life. They are about to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.
But, one day, the husband learns that the body of his previous girlfriend, with whom he was very much in love, has been found. She’d fallen into a Swiss glacier and died while they were on a vacation trip together. After 45 years, it seems that the husband has forgotten everything with his wife and is now, instead, obsessed with this woman whom he hasn’t heard about in over 45 years, before he met his wife. As would be expected, this greatly incenses his wife. Here she is planning a 45th anniversary party, and her husband now seems to be in love with a ghost from nearly a half-century ago. The husband waxes on and on about his European travels with the dead girlfriend, and soon announces that he wants to travel to Switzerland to identify the girlfriend’s preserved body, as he is the next of kin.
The wife is at wit’s end. She sees her husband going in to town to book a trip. And she’s wondering if her marriage is now over. She rummages through the attic and finds slides from the Swiss trip, all those years and decades ago. And she learns that the girlfriend was pregnant. At the same time, she feels she must go on with planning the anniversary party to save face. She also has sex with her husband in an attempt to reclaim her marriage and remind her husband of their relationship. It’s a TMI kind of scene I definitely could have done without. Unsee! She finally confronts her husband, without much of a response.
When they finally have their 45th anniversary party, the wife doesn’t know what to expect and is justifiably very nervous.
I found this movie to be extremely painful to watch. And ridiculous. It’s not escapist fun at the movies, and it’s not entertaining or deep. It’s just a depressing, plodding, tortuous bore.
HALF A MARX
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Son of Saul [Saul Fia]” – Rated R: This is possibly the worst Holocaust movie ever made. It celebrates Jewish weakness and death. And, frankly, amidst the long, slow trudge through this incredibly boring film, I felt it celebrated the Holocaust, while ignoring and, in fact, denigrating the many Jews who fought back, a la the Bielski partisans portrayed in “Defiance” (read my review). And this is exactly why so many mainstream movie critics (all of them liberals) love this. And why it was nominated for an Oscar and will probably win.
Saul is a member of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The Sonderkommando are Jews who are in charge of herding other Jews to the gas chambers, taking their luggage and belongings, cleaning up and disposing of the dead bodies, and other similar duties. They have special rights and privileges, including more food and, more important, the ability to live. But, since there can be no witnesses, the Sonderkommando Jews learn that they will soon be gassed, themselves, and they plan to fight back and survive.
Amidst the plot to fight back, though, is Saul. As a member of the Sonderkommando, he is seemingly numb. . . until he spots a body of a teen boy, whom he believes is his son. Or does he? The movie never really tells you, since others in the movie either say that isn’t his son or he didn’t have a son, and so on. Regardless, Saul is obsessed with hiding the body and getting it a proper Jewish burial, something that’s really impossible giving the circumstances. It’s Auschwitz, after all. He searches for a rabbi and insists the rabbi say “Kaddish” (the Jewish mourning prayer) and help him properly busy the boy.
But in all of this absurdity, Saul screws up the plot to fight back and kill the Nazis at Auschwitz. He loses the explosive powder that was smuggled to him to make bombs. And the whole plot to fight back is now in question. The other Jews tell him, “You failed the living for the dead.” That’s exactly what I think about the unelected “Jewish community leaders” who claim to speak for me. Every day, they harp on the dead of the Holocaust, while they turn their backs on living Jews in Israel and elsewhere who face anti-Semitism by Muslims.
But movies like this celebrate that. And, in the end, the few Jews who escape are all murdered by the Nazis.
Boring, a bad message, demoralizing, and a total and complete waste of time. Skip this.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO ARAFATS PLUS AN ISIS BEHEADING
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Zoolander 2” – Rated PG-13: Even though this is really dumb and only mildly funny, it’s the best of the bunch this week. Again, this is really stupid. And I laughed fewer than 10 times, which shouldn’t be the case, especially since it’s about gauche, over-the-top, intellectually-challenged male supermodels who save the world. Still, the movie has some funny, politically-incorrect moments, and I gotta give it credit for that.
The best part of the movie is at the very beginning, when the real-life Justin Bieber (playing himself) is brutally murdered. Half the audience clapped for this at the screening I attended.
Also, the movie was criticized by LGBT activists for the supermodel character played by Benedict Cumberbatch. The androgynous, gender-fluid model isn’t male, and isn’t female, but is just “all,” which is why he/she/it is named, “All.” And we’re told that, therefore, All is going to marry “hermself.” And there is other such stuff. The hotel where the two main characters stay is made from fully-recycled/repurposed, biodegradable garbage. And it looks the part. In another scene, male supermodel Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is looking for his son, of whom he lost custody years ago, and is upset to find out his son is the fat kid.
I also liked the funny tattoo sported by one of the characters: a Colonel Sanders tattoo, in which the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder is portrayed as a Jedi knight, complete with hooded robe and lightsaber and the phrase “Where’s the Beef?” (of Wendy’s ’80s Clara Peller TV ad fame).
But, still, the laughs and the story are thinner than thin. What–you expected better from Zoolander and Ben Stiller? Come on. So I viewed and review it in that vein: a movie you know going in is going to be stupid but with some laughs. (Again, there were sadly not enough laughs.) The movie leans heavily on the weak crutch of many celebrity cameos.
The story: someone is killing all of the “beautiful people” around the world (including Bieber). Supermodel Derek Zoolander has retired from modeling and gone into seclusion (he lives the life of “a hermit crab,” he tells us), when the school he founded, literally fell apart and collapsed, after he put it together with paper and book glue.
The school, “The Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too,” was shaped like a book, so he built the building only with items used to make and bind books. When it collapsed into New York’s Hudson River, many kids and Zoolander’s wife died. Sad over the tragedy, he quit modeling and disappeared. Also, he lost custody of their son.
Zoolander is tracked down by his former rival, supermodel Hansel (Owen Wilson), who lives with a group of people that make up his “orgy” (and I could’ve done without the Chassidic Jew and his wife being the orgy–wake me when it’s a Muslim and his four wives in the orgy). Hansel convinces Zoolanderd to quit being a recluse, get back his son, and help save the world. The two are joined by former-Swimsuit-model-turned-secret-agent (and real-life Israel-boycotter) Penelope Cruz. And they decide to return to modeling, this time for bizarre billionaire Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig), a parody of Donatella Versace, and her designer, Don Atari (get it? Donatella, Don Atari–so close, yet who cares?). Will Ferrell and Milla Jovovich, as Zoolander’s respective arch-enemy supermodel rivals Mugatu and Katinka, are back, too.
Like I said, dumb and not that funny. But for a Zoolander sequel, I guess it fits the bill. I’m being very generous in giving this . . .
HALF A REAGAN
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Deadpool” – Rated R: I don’t know about you, but I like my superheroes to be super. I don’t want them to be neutral or scumbags or swearing, violent, and performing sex acts. Sadly, this guy, Deadpool, is all of the things in the last sentence, except maybe the neutral part. I’ve had a zillion Millennial Deadpool fans tell me I don’t understand or that I’m too old-fashioned. Millenials are the ones who made this anti-hero the best seller of all Marvel comic books ever and fabulously popular.
Sorry, but I don’t need to see Marvel comic characters with superpowers masturbating or constantly discussing slang terms for sex acts. I don’t need to see them and a girlfriend performing every sex act imaginable including her strapping on a fake penis and anally raping him. Nope, that ain’t for me. But if you like that, you’re depraved. And, unfortunately, we’ve defined deviancy down so much that what was once–and still should be–depravity is now seen as normal by these young Bernie Sanders voters. Some of the dialogue, for which they laugh and guffaw uncontrollably, is just nasty and gross.
And the story doesn’t even make sense. Ryan Reynolds plays Wade who ultimately becomes “Deadpool.” Wade is a former Special Forces operative who becomes a mercenary. He meets the woman of his dreams, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and they engage in all of the aforementioned sexual activity. But, then, he discovers he has incurable cancer and will soon die. He tries an experiment in which a mad, evil guy puts him into what looks like an oxygen chamber. Whatever is in there cures his cancer, but makes him look ugly–his face is badly scarred. And the experiment gives him incredible powers to withstand pain and heal quickly from any injury. But, since his face and scalp look badly burned, he is embarrassed to ever return to his girlfriend and instead makes her believe he’s dead. Also, he crafts a mask and costume that look like and are inspired by the Spiderman mask.
He takes assignments and also chooses his own, in which he “rights” wrongs, badly beats up people, and exacts revenge. And he vows his own revenge on the man who put him in the chamber and made him ugly. The thing is, since his new powers make him heal all wounds and scars quickly, it makes no sense that his face and head wouldn’t heal. But that’s expecting a depraved, stupid movie to make sense. And you can’t set expectations for logic high or even at a basic level for crap like this. Oh, and by the way, in addiiton to being very lewd, the movie’s also incredibly bloody and violent.
It’s so sad that the Millennials crave disaster and suffering and anti-heroes so much and that they are so negative and yearn so much for the type of dystopian existence in this movie, but they do. And that’s why this movie will be tops at the box office, this weekend.
Bad news for America. Because now Hollywood will serve up even more.
FOUR MARXES PLUS THREE OBAMAS PLUS AN ISIS BEHEADING
Watch the trailer . . .
* “How to Be Single” – Rated R: More like, “How to Sit Through the Worst Chick Flick Ever and Lose Ten Bucks and Two Hours of Your Life.” I hate-hate-hated this movie. Sitting through it is unbearable. And, since it was screened at the same time as another movie, I paid to see this on Thursday night, so I could review it here. Ugh.
This movie is about several women–each of them mind-numbingly annoying–trying to find love and romance in New York City. They are all connected to each other in some way, mostly through work, a bartender three of them have slept with, and a sibling relationship in one case. Not that you should care. I didn’t. Each of these women is incredibly needy, way-too-forward, very plain-looking, and, by the way, single. Gee, I wonder why. Maybe there’s a correlation in there somewhere, even though the movie wants us to think these women are just normal and have bad luck in love.
Oh, and did I mention that this movie is incredibly filthy and has waaaay tooooo many shots of the morbidly obese, absolutely disgusting Rebel Wilson with her way-too-tight clothing riding up and her far-too-plentiful stomach hanging out? Eeeuuuuwww. Unsee, unsee, unsee! I also hate it when the slovenly, huge fat chick wears sequins in every scene–you know, to shine on and accentuate the heiferism. This fat chick has the same act in every movie. “I’m a fat chick who utters vulgarities and acts gross–now laugh!.” Um, not funny. She has some scintillating lines like, “Pass go and collect 200 d-cks,” and “Their d-cks probably look like cannolis.” Oh, and also a disgusting line about bad vaginal grooming: “Santa’s beard tickling your inner thigh.” Yup, that depravity is what comprises dialogue in movies, these days. You stay classy.
Of course, few movies can go without at least one anti-Semitic reference thrown in. Wilson, who works at a law firm, welcomes Dakota Johnson to her new job there as a paralegal with this line: “Welcome to a guy, another guy, and a Jewish guy. Just kidding–they’re all Jewish.”
Johnson has broken up with her boyfriend for the summer, so she can see what it’s like to be single. But, then, he meets someone else and gets engaged. And she sleeps with the aforementioned bartender on the advice of the aforementioned gross fat chick who urges her to get drunk, sleep around, and come 3.5 hours late to work. Yeah, no way you’d lose your job, right? (Not in this stupid, unrealistic movie, anyway.) She ends up with a Black dude whom I thought seemed very gay, but then I realized it’s Damon Wayans Jr.
Another woman is Johnson’s sister, Leslie Mann, who is an older, single obstetrician who’s delivered 3,000 babies but hates babies, until she doesn’t and decides to have one with a sperm donor. Just after getting pregnant, she meets a much younger guy (Jake Lacy, who plays the same way-too-nice, dumped-on-by-women, mensch of a guy in every single movie). But she’s already decided that her kid doesn’t need a man or father figure in its life. Yeah, Hollywood, tell it to all the criminals in prison who also didn’t have a father.
And then there is a third woman, who has developed an algorithm to use with online dating sites to meet the perfect straight, available guy in New York. Except that she also sleeps with the bartender. And she also doesn’t meet any perfect guys from her algorithm.
But none of this matters because the movie is mostly a predictable, slow bore and not a single lead character is likable. Not even close. We’d all be better off (and far more entertained) if they quickly died in a flood or met some other similar fate. And did I mention that this movie and everyone in it is extremely annoying! I just couldn’t take it. I would’ve walked out but for reviewing it. This is definitely Gitmo torture material. Make the few Islamic terrorists left there watch this at least twice, and it’ll make them beg you to make it stop.
FOUR MARXES PLUS THREE BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS THREE MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Where to Invade Next” – Rated R: This should really be called, “Michael Moore Asks Foreigners to Rant Against America And He Joins In.” And it should be rated–like all Michael Moore fake-umentaries (or is that docu-fakeries?)–“N” for Nonsense. It’s just absolute BS and his typical fraudulent, pipe dream crap. Oh, and it’s also VERY anti-American, and yet, Megynecologist Kelly asked Moore nothing about this when they had their little mutual verbal Lewinsky-fest, recently on her show. That’s even more disgusting than this movie. By the way, Moore admits at the beginning of this silly socialist screed of a movie that he will only “pick the flowers, not the weeds” that come with them.
When I first started watching this, I saw this disheveled, ugly lesbian fat chick, but then I realized it was Moore. Moore travels the world to other countries and lectures us on how much better than us they all are. And he cherry picks social programs that he believes the U.S. should adopt so that our country should sink further down the crapper and be just like Europe. Oh, and he lectures us about how free and democratic countries like Iran and Tunisia are. Riiight. Sure, they are. You keep tellin’ yourself that, Mike. Finally, he goes to a country where he asks the interviewees to say anti-American crap, and he lauds them. Oh, and he says women should run things, and they’ll turn out so much better. Uh-huh, Eva Braun would’ve been so much better. Hillary will be too, right? So, why is Moore ignoring his own bullcrap advice and supporting Bernie Sanders for Prez? And why isn’t there a woman running Michael Moore’s company and doing his documentaries instead of him? If memory serves me correctly, he dumped that chick and divorced her.
The movie features several icky scenes of Moore desperately fixating on sex like a guy who hasn’t had any in a really, really, really long time. Moore trolls around some couple, who tell him about how Italy gives workers a lot of paid vacation, including a two-hour lunch, a paid honeymoon, and paid maternity (something that Megynecologist Kelly–no conservative, she– was whining about recently on Steven Colbert’s mercilessly boring late night show). The very creepy Moore asks the Italian couple about their sex life and all the paid free time they are given to have sex and get pregnant. Yeah, that’s exactly what America should be worried about, right?
Then, Moore praises French high schools, which teach the students how to be good lovers and use the textbook, “Lovemaking is Fun, Vol. I.” Yup, America needs to do that, too. Right? Apparently Moore doesn’t think there’s enough teen sex and unwed teen mothers in our country.
Next, Moore shows us that French kids are treated to gourmet meals in schools. The kids’ five-course meals, served and eaten on china, are so important that the Mayor’s office has a special representative involved in overseeing the menus. Another crackpot endeavor Moore thinks America should emulate.
In Moore’s next favorite paradise, Finland, private schools are illegal unless they are free of charge. Yes, that’s what America needs: more laws limiting our freedom and making education and opportunities impossible.
Then, there’s Germany. Moore loves it because, according to him, all Germans get a paid three-week spa stay from the government. You wanna pay for Lakeisha and her seven kids with different babydaddies or Bristol Palin with her two illegit kids and mega-millions to go to a spa for three weeks? Me, neither. In Germany, all corporate boards must be 50% comprised of workers and they decide the salaries of executives, another thing Moore lauds. But he conveniently fails to point out that the German economy–because of programs and policies like these–is in the dumps. It makes business very hard and many Germans are unemployed and on welfare. Let Michael Moore pay for that. Oh, yeah, this is the same Michael Moore who made his employees work overtime and didn’t pay them for it or even minimum wage. You think he’d let his overworked and underpaid employees lower his pay and keep him from living in fancy mansions and penthouses? Think again. Same goes for Moore providing three-week spa vacations for his employees. Has never happened. Never will happen. But Michael Moore has consistently admitted he’s a hypocrite, so he gets away with it.
I was especially disgusted when Moore compared America to what the Nazis did in the Holocaust. In fact, he says America is far worse. “The United States was born in genocide and built on the backs of slaves,” he says, and then goes on to compare the Holocaust–in which Jews were exterminated and turned into lampshades–to women not having the right to vote a hundred years ago in America. Uh-huh, they are exactly the same . . . if you’re a dishonest piece of crap, which Moore is in spades. Moore claims that Germany “acknowledged the Holocaust and freed itself to be a better people, and so should” the U.S., which he claims has not freed itself from slavery.
That’s debatable, since younger Germans don’t want to hear about the Holocaust and have since welcomed legions of Jew-hating, Christian-hating, and Western-hating Muslim “refugees” to wreak a bigger, longer, and far worse Holocaust on the country. But, of course, to pretend this isn’t the case, Michael Moore shows these Muslims to be Jew-lovers, such as immigrant Sami Ahmed who is eagerly learning about the Holocaust. PUH-LEEZE. It’s well known that Muslims, in schools around the world (including in the West) forbid any discussion of the Holocaust and deny that it even happened. Muslims simultaneously claim the Holocaust didn’t happen and yet praise it for annihilating to many Jews.
Moore goes on to call for the legalization of all drugs, something he has in common with fellow egomaniacal hypocrite, Michelle Fraudkin. He claims the drug war is racism and slavery, and praises Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, who were violent (and who would have whooped that fat cracka Michael Moore’s ass). Moore says prison is slavery, too, because he says it keeps too many Black men from voting. He praises Portugal, in which prisoners vote and candidates for national office have to visit the prisons to campaign for criminals’ votes. I know, it’s ridiculous. But so it Michael Moore, and that’s why he supports such absurdities.
During Moore’s visit to Portugal, he praises that country’s universal health care program. Yeah, because doesn’t everyone who has a serious illness say, “Screw the Mayo Clinic! I want to be treated in Portugal”? Then, Moore asks Portuguese police officers to lecture America against the death penalty, which they do, telling us, “There is a lot of work to be done” in America. Hmmm . . . Portugal v. America. Um, I think I know which of these needs more work to be done. Hint: it’s not the country into which people around the world will do anything to get to.
Moore praises Norway because its prisons resemble resort hotels, where each prisoner has his own private cell complete with separate bathroom, shower, and television. Plus, the prisoners have art and painting classes and XBox video games. They can vote there, too, so, again, politicians must campaign there. The prisoners have their own record label to record rap songs, and they make “We Are the World” music videos with the guards. They have knives, and, yet, the guards have no weapons. Instead, they just talk to the prisoners to stop any violence. “That’s our weapon,” says a guard. Yeah, see how well talking does against a shiv in a U.S. prison, Michael Moore. You’ll be one very stuck pig. Norway also doesn’t arm police, and even the most brutal mass murderer can only get a maximum 21-year sentence. A father of a murdered son doesn’t want the death penalty for murderers and doesn’t want more security. Gee, and you wonder why that country so easily capitulated to the Nazis and is known for the word, “quisling.” No wonder, either, why that country is now overrun with Muslims and will soon become Norwaystan. Maybe it has just a little something to do with the fact that they’re a nation of pushover socialist morons.
But Norway’s not the only idiotic place Michael Moore loves. He praises Iran for being oh so “democratic” (the ayatollahs picking your choices is now “democratic”?!) and for being a “world leader in stem cell research.” Anyone wanna trust Iranian stem cell research when your life depends on it?
Next, there is that bastion of democracy, Tunisia. Moore says the Muslim nation has free health care for women and abortions. Again, anyone clamoring to travel to Tunisia for its healthcare? And how many women do you think are getting abortions with their husbands’ knowledge and approval in this country? Moore compares women in Tunisia to America women and says we aren’t “as good” because we don’t have an Equal Rights Amendment. How many reading this actually think women have more equality in Tunisia than in the United States?
Moore gushes over Rached Ghannouchi, an extremist Muslim member of the Conservative Islamist Party, which Moore compares to the Republican Party. But, don’t worry, Moore thinks the Conservative Islamist Party is better than the GOP. Moore tells us that Islam isn’t anti-women because, he claims, in Tunisia women have the freedom not to cover their heads. Really? Ever been to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, HAMASastan? But, in fact, there is no such freedom in Tunisia because, while Mr. Ghannouchi claims wearing a hijab is a “matter of personal choice and freedom,” he acknowledges that he forces his wife to wear one. Yup, sounds like a matter of personal choice and freedom, to me. Moore asks about gays and acts as if they, too, are free to be openly gay in Tunisia. But Tunisia doesn’t have gay marriage and try living to the end of the day there as openly gay.
Some America-hating Tunisian “journalist” bitch, named Amel Smaoui, says Americans “are ignorant.” At Moore’s request, she tells America and Americans how much she hates us. “You think you’re the best, and you know everything. It won’t work.” That’s funny coming from an apologist of the country that sheltered Islamic terrorist Yasser Arafat, while he directed the 1973 torture murders of U.S. diplomats Cleo Noel and George Curtis Moore. Moore. Noel was then the U.S. Ambassador to Sudan and Moore was the Charge D’Affaires and the then-highest-ranking Black officer in the U.S. diplomatic corps. They were tortured and beaten so badly that authorities could not tell which of them was the White man and which was the Black man (and dental records had to be used to identify them).
So, don’t you lecture me, Michael Moore’s Tunisian bitch, about who is good and who is bad.
And, finally, in this long, boring, unbearable piece of crap of a “movie,” Moore goes to Iceland and uses that nothing country to lecture us about how great things would be if America-hating women ran everything. He lies to us and tells us, because Iceland “elected the first female President” and, later, he claims, “first female leader,” that this inspired women all over the world to run for office and win and lead countries better than the men did. Reality check: Iceland did NOT elect the first female President. Argentina did, with Isabel Martínez de Perón. And I doubt nobody on this earth (outside of Iceland) has ever heard of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the Iceland President. Nobody was inspired by her to run for office. (Iceland is like an insect urinating on the sidewalk. Nobody notices.) Sorry. But they might have been inspired by Golda Meir, who led Israel as Prime Minister or UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Moore doesn’t want to mention those two, though, because he doesn’t like their politics (and hates Israel). So, he lies and just makes up s–t. That’s what Moore does in every movie. And, of course, all of these women have run the countries soooo well, like Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who worked with Iranian mass-murderers of her people to cover up the terrorist attack on the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires and conspired to murder the prosecutor looking into her. Women would neeeever do that. Never ever ever. And don’t forget the failures Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Not to mention, HAMAS supporter Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan.
Moore claims that two Iceland banks succeeded in a bad economy because they were run by women, whereas a bank run by men failed. He claims that, therefore, one can assume that Wall Street trading problems during the economic crises of 2008, are due to men and too much testosterone. Again, where are the women running Michael Moore’s company and doing his documentaries instead of him? Is this a tacit admission by Moore that he’s really a chick and/or has low testosterone?
Moore goes on to say that only bankers should go to jail and that they should go to bad jails. I guess he’s selectively abandoned the Norwegian paradise resort prisons he’s just championed. He also claims that only Muslim bankers are prosecuted in the U.S., which should be news to Angelo Mozilo, Ralph Cioffi, and Matthew Tannin, none of whom are Muslim and all of whom had criminal cases pursued against them (the Mozilo criminal probe was dropped). Kareem Sarageldin, a Muslim Credit Suisse exec, admitted he falsified records and committed wire fraud and pleaded guilty. Cioffi and Tannin fought and were acquitted of the charges against them.
Moore tells us that “women will save the world” because “they don’t want war,” which is funny since I guess he thinks all the female suicide bombers from ISIS, HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, and assorted other Islamic terrorist groups are what–hermaphrodites and male transvestites with vaginal canals? Or the chick who shot up Jews on behalf of ISIS and Al-Qaeda at the kosher supermarket in Paris or the chicks involved in killing masses in Paris at the restauirant and the concert hall? They don’t want war? Really? Stop lying, Michael Moore. But, again, that’s what he does.
Moore then encourages a number of incredibly ugly female Icelandic “leaders” to attack America. There’s a very fat chick spilling out over a bikini, a crazy old lady in pink hair, some chick with a hideous neck tattoo, and some other hags. Yeah, that’s who should run America, right? Moore encourages their unhinged, America-hating rants and tells them he agrees with them.
As I watched this movie, I kept asking myself, if America is so bad and Michael Moore hates it so much, why the heck does he still live here?
At the very end of the movie, Moore shows us scenes from the “Wizard of Oz,” which made me think of how much Moore reminded me of the scarecrow. “If I only had a brain.”
Sad thing is, Moore must have a brain. He keeps putting out this lying crap and laughs all the way to the bank.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS TWO ISIS BEHEADINGS
Watch the trailer . . .
* “45 Years” – Rated R: Charlotte Rampling stars in this bizarre, slow, boring slog and is nominated for an Oscar for it. (She will probably not get the Oscar because she criticized the “#OscarsSoWhite” BS as what it is: racist. She then had to backtrack and apologize, like they all do in showbiz.) She and her husband, a doddering old Englishman, live in the countryside, where they are retired and have no children. They go on walks in the dreary weather and live a quiet, mundane life. They are about to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.
But, one day, the husband learns that the body of his previous girlfriend, with whom he was very much in love, has been found. She’d fallen into a Swiss glacier and died while they were on a vacation trip together. After 45 years, it seems that the husband has forgotten everything with his wife and is now, instead, obsessed with this woman whom he hasn’t heard about in over 45 years, before he met his wife. As would be expected, this greatly incenses his wife. Here she is planning a 45th anniversary party, and her husband now seems to be in love with a ghost from nearly a half-century ago. The husband waxes on and on about his European travels with the dead girlfriend, and soon announces that he wants to travel to Switzerland to identify the girlfriend’s preserved body, as he is the next of kin.
The wife is at wit’s end. She sees her husband going in to town to book a trip. And she’s wondering if her marriage is now over. She rummages through the attic and finds slides from the Swiss trip, all those years and decades ago. And she learns that the girlfriend was pregnant. At the same time, she feels she must go on with planning the anniversary party to save face. She also has sex with her husband in an attempt to reclaim her marriage and remind her husband of their relationship. It’s a TMI kind of scene I definitely could have done without. Unsee! She finally confronts her husband, without much of a response.
When they finally have their 45th anniversary party, the wife doesn’t know what to expect and is justifiably very nervous.
I found this movie to be extremely painful to watch. And ridiculous. It’s not escapist fun at the movies, and it’s not entertaining or deep. It’s just a depressing, plodding, tortuous bore.
HALF A MARX
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Son of Saul [Saul Fia]” – Rated R: This is possibly the worst Holocaust movie ever made. It celebrates Jewish weakness and death. And, frankly, amidst the long, slow trudge through this incredibly boring film, I felt it celebrated the Holocaust, while ignoring and, in fact, denigrating the many Jews who fought back, a la the Bielski partisans portrayed in “Defiance” (read my review). And this is exactly why so many mainstream movie critics (all of them liberals) love this. And why it was nominated for an Oscar and will probably win.
Saul is a member of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The Sonderkommando are Jews who are in charge of herding other Jews to the gas chambers, taking their luggage and belongings, cleaning up and disposing of the dead bodies, and other similar duties. They have special rights and privileges, including more food and, more important, the ability to live. But, since there can be no witnesses, the Sonderkommando Jews learn that they will soon be gassed, themselves, and they plan to fight back and survive.
Amidst the plot to fight back, though, is Saul. As a member of the Sonderkommando, he is seemingly numb. . . until he spots a body of a teen boy, whom he believes is his son. Or does he? The movie never really tells you, since others in the movie either say that isn’t his son or he didn’t have a son, and so on. Regardless, Saul is obsessed with hiding the body and getting it a proper Jewish burial, something that’s really impossible giving the circumstances. It’s Auschwitz, after all. He searches for a rabbi and insists the rabbi say “Kaddish” (the Jewish mourning prayer) and help him properly busy the boy.
But in all of this absurdity, Saul screws up the plot to fight back and kill the Nazis at Auschwitz. He loses the explosive powder that was smuggled to him to make bombs. And the whole plot to fight back is now in question. The other Jews tell him, “You failed the living for the dead.” That’s exactly what I think about the unelected “Jewish community leaders” who claim to speak for me. Every day, they harp on the dead of the Holocaust, while they turn their backs on living Jews in Israel and elsewhere who face anti-Semitism by Muslims.
But movies like this celebrate that. And, in the end, the few Jews who escape are all murdered by the Nazis.
Boring, a bad message, demoralizing, and a total and complete waste of time. Skip this.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO ARAFATS PLUS AN ISIS BEHEADING
Watch the trailer . . .
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment