Posted on by Jo Gent · 2 Comments

Movie Pan

Now for a review of the worst movie I have ever seen, Gone With the Wind. GWTW is not the worst movie in terms of production quality; that would probably be Plan 9 From Outer Space, in which strings are clearly visible supporting the attacking alien spacecraft, and the “plot” and “writing” are LOL terrible. It’s also not the worst movie in terms of bad writing/acting/directing, yes, a trifecta of failure, aka Racing Stripes, a movie which proves that adults can suffer lifelong trauma from watching extremely awful content created for children; I did. I do.

GWTW may not even be the worst movie in its category, which I might dub Propaganda for Satan. I don’t watch those movies, and can’t even come up with the name of an example, so as a virgin in this category I was easily shocked.

Nothing in this movie is accurate. Yes, it’s a fictional story based on a novel, so why should it be accurate? Well, because it’s historical fiction, includes many real persons and events, and is clearly fabricated to convince its audience of things that are False. Other works in this genre might include Tales From the Flat Earth: What Are Stars, Really? and Childhood Corporal Punishment: The Key to Lifelong Mental Health.

From the first chords of the theme through the hysteria of the ending, I was aghast, agape, gobsmacked. Actually, that was only true while I was watching it, which took three days. It’s a lot to swallow even in smaller chunks, and from the relative safety of the 21st century Bay Area.

Here are a few of the low-hanging fruit examples, because the list of misleading items would be almost as long as the book:

  • Plantation owners were bereft of basic skills, unable to feed, dress, or clean themselves or their stuff or their domiciles; ignorant of any understanding of agriculture; the opposite of intellectuals; disorganized; and completely unaware of the customs and religions of any other part of the world or the country, other than to disparage those without basis. Successful working people of the region–who are rarely depicted– must have had some knowledge, but slaveowners were haughtily dismissive of anything outside their idiotic world of duels and debutantes, proud men and degraded women.
  • Enslaved persons were threatened, beaten, raped, separated from family, deprived of education and freedom, impoverished, and imprisoned. They did not on any level enjoy this, just as humans today do not like being controlled by others, even in minor ways.
  • Homo sapiens are all the same. “Race” is an imposed construct that can’t be recreated from DNA, which is 99% the same in all humans, with more genetic variation with one “race” than between any two.

To be fair, the first point above is actually made by GWTW. A lot of what the slaveholder class do therein sparks the reaction, Wow, they are so <shallow trivial stupid clueless>. Choose your own answer; I sort of rotated among those. The contrast between their expectations of the experience of Civil War (quick victory) and what actually transpired (definitive defeat after long conflict) is starkly drawn though not a major component.

I was re-shocked to learn that in a 2014 Harris poll, the movie was still America’s favorite while the book was second only to the Bible. Presumably a poll using landlines? Still a bit of a hangover after outrage.

Or is it? Data dive reveals GWTW was the favorite movie of women but not men, republicans and independents but not democrats, boomers and matures but not any other generation. GWTW was the 2nd choice for dems; for men and younger generations it did not make the top three. So perhaps not complete dominance of the cultural landscape, just another misleading poll. That’s a sign of our times.

Posted on by Jo Gent

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived

This is the title of the second documentary I promised I would review. David Holmes was the main stunt double for Daniel Radcliffe, who portrayed the title character in the Harry Potter film series. Holmes was gravely injured in a stunt accident during the penultimate film, and is now paralyzed from the waist down.

I was drawn to this by an Atlantic article about Radcliffe, who wanted to direct this documentary himself originally but decided he was too close to Holmes to do it properly. Ratcliffe seems to be a very centered person, which may owe something to his parents, who were careful to maintain reality for their small family during those years of filming frenzy. I would contrast this with the family of Sam Bankman-Fried, who were avid to join him in the la-la land of living high on pyramid scheme money, so much so that they bear some culpability for his having to spend much of his life in prison. Not that I would wish that fate on any parent.

I really enjoyed the first part of the film, seeing Holmes as a stuntman in the making from quite a young age, then as a professional plying his trade, and in-between as a physically gifted youth with like-enabled friends, all literally leaping from lamp post to fence top while walking through London streets. Radcliffe and Holmes were 11 and 16 when they met on the set, and hit it off right away. What kid wouldn’t enjoy hanging out with kids who casually backflip while walking down the hall, or fall off walls on demand, apparently effortlessly?

Sometimes I wonder if I would have had a different career I’d been exposed to unconventional options. In retrospect, I think my dream job might have been as music librarian for a major orchestra. I did see plenty of performances though, so clearly I wasn’t compelled to find out, say, how the music for all those different instruments gets sorted and placed.

Some *are* called, though, and Holmes was always a fearless child ready to climb anything, then leap off or slide down it. His parents recognized his strength and enrolled him in competitive gymnastics training, which is not just a world of wannabe Olympians; a lot of those kids target stunt performer careers from the start.

After the accident, the movie changes quite a bit, just as Holmes’ life did. He will never regain use of his lower limbs, and he struggles daily to maintain a functioning level of muscle mass. I learned that paraplegia is a deteriorating disease that can ultimately claim many unexpected functions, including the ability to talk, one of his greatest fears.

The key component for ensuring a movie about such a setback is uplifting rather than depressing is a victim who not only shows real courage and resilience, but also is surrounded by a group of supportive friends, and Holmes is that guy. One of his former work colleagues has become his personal caregiver. Most of his peer group from the movies, as well as Radcliffe, stayed beside him from the start, and their camaraderie and playfulness and positive life force are fully on display.

Posted on by Jo Gent

American Symphony: Review

I’m trying to get back into blogging…no, that’s not right. I’m occasionally thinking I should get back into blogging and then not doing it. Partly that’s because all the things that are on my mind at the moment are either quotidian–life is fine, family is fine, weather is fine–or terribly depressing, topics I don’t really want to dwell on and readers probably prefer to avoid as well. Also, I have well and truly conquered my previously-bemoaned inability to waste time, so completely that wasting time is most of what I do. Unlike during my pre-retirement life, I find doing nothing of importance for most of a day delightful; No Regrets.

My first day of time-wasting followed my last day of band class, May 21, so the thrill may wane as more wasteful days pour on, and of course I still have some volunteer obligations and many regular items on my social calendar. Today I am trying some light blogging, namely a review of the documentary American Symphony, which I loved.

This is one of those follow-someone-with-a-camera-then-edit documentaries, or rather follow two people married to each other, namely Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad. He’s a well-known, Grammy-winning musician, and she’s a slightly less famous but very accomplished author, musician, and artist. The film captures a critical point in their lives: He is composing his first symphony and preparing for its premier in Carnegie Hall, while her work is interrupted by the shocking return of leukemia at the age of 32, after ten years of remission.

The first thing he does when he finds out her disease is back it to ask her to marry him. Their intimate wedding is only one high point in a film with lots of extreme moments that never drags. These people are creative and thoughtful, a loving couple with a lot of genuine human connections as well as personal struggles, all of which they share honestly in front of the camera.

A couple of vignettes: During the actual symphony premier, the electricity fails unexpectedly, a problem for a work with multimedia components. Jon improvises an amazing piano interlude sounding like a storm on the ocean, after which power is restored; the audience suspects nothing.

The morning after the 2022 Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, at which Jon won five of the eleven awards for which he was nominated, including best album, we find him in the airport, where the documentary camera caught all sorts of folks politely congratulating him, two female tweens sneaking in a selfie while he gets his shoes shined, and the older Slavic shoe-shiner asking, Are you famous?, to which Jon replied, No, I’m just hanging out with this friend, but he happens to be a cameraman. That may sound patronizing but it was the opposite; it was Jon breaking down any walls that might separate him from a genuine encounter, however brief.

Later he spoke seriously about fame, how it gets in the way of your relationships and your work unless you carve it out and set it aside. So many famous people in our world could benefit from this approach, starting with all the Silicon Valley billionaire bros seeking to add Autocrat to their resumes.

The film includes many affecting scenes, such as one in which the young couple play a form of Simon Says while together wheeling Suleika’s infusion cart through hospital corridors. Their version is wordless and graceful, really a dance, filled with touches and joy. This is not a downer disease movie, not least because these are the last two people who will ever give in to a disease. We also see Suleika in her element, playing orchestral bass, writing, and exhibiting her paintings.

I was inspired to watch this documentary after reading an article about Suleika in The Atlantic. That same magazine also profiled Daniel Radcliffe, leading to another documentary watching event, which I will review tomorrow, if I manage two days of accomplishment in a row.