Thighs Wide Shut

BlacKkKlansman
Spike-d Punch
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 135 min

A black cop and Jewish cop go undercover as a single white minority-hating male to infiltrate a Colorado chapter of the Klu Klux Klan – and even trick former Grand Wizard and still current a$$hole David Duke into thinking they’re believers.  What a story!  And a true one, as told in entertaining fashion as BlacKkKlansman by the once relevant, then once kinda irrelevant, and now with this movie very relevant Spike Lee!

Ron Stallworth was a real black cop, who really duped the Klan, but a lot of what the movie presents is fiction to pulp up the storytelling.  The activist girlfriend and explosive racial throwdown towards the end?  Made up.  The Jewish guy who played the physical manifestation (who appeared to do most of the actual leg work) of the mouthpiece that Stallworth first presented to the Klan on the phone?  He may not even been Jewish in reality, but I see where Spike is going here with all the embellishment – doubling down on the ‘all power to all people’ to brush back against those seeking only bigotry thry white power – yesterday, today and forever.  But did he have to hammer the message so hard?

We spend about 2 hours enjoying the lighthearted and fun (that’s how it truly felt) tale of Stallworth (John David Washington, who doesn’t really give the character any depth beyond the giant prop afro) and his Jewish partner (Adam Driver, who is not Jewish) + Steve Buscemi’s brother Michael getting cozy with a bunch of actors who are allowed free reign to say a lot of nasty nasty NASTY things about blacks and Jews onscreen (Jasper Pääkkönen – whose performance stands above everyone else’s, and whose umlauts know no bounds + Paul Walter Hauser, who after this and I, Tonya, should just be cast in every movie).  They thwarted and embarrassed the Klan, and everyone in the police department (and the audience) had a good laugh about it in the end!

And then?  Spike Lee was probably upset that no one saw Bamboozled and didn’t get the message of how awful our country is on race, and so he had to tack on baiting footage at the end of white nationalists (with David Duke included) wrecking horrible havoc last year in Charlottesville.  Yes, it’s relevant to the movie that proceeded it, but its tone, its message and delivery all feel sloppy and completely unnecessary.  Come to think of it, the beginning of the film, with a clip of Gone With The Wind, followed by some racist nonsense spewed by Alec Baldwin (as a made up character with the very made up name of ‘Kennebrew Beauregard’) is out of place too.  These bookends may seek to bring focus to the bigger picture, both onscreen and off it, but it ends up muddling the movie, and the message

When the end credits started to roll, a gentlemen in the audience yelled – ‘fcuk America!’  And then when I went to the bathroom, a gentleman who obviously saw the same movie was mouthing to himself – ‘fcuking crackers!’, and I knew he wasn’t talking about Saltines

Yes, it’s OK to be upset and enraged, and we all should be, because the KKK suck and no one should spending so much of their time and energy hating other people, but I feel Spike did more harm than good by being so blatant and provocative.  The same message would have come across if the movie stuck to the fun and lighthearted delivery.  It will all only be worth it if the outrage is matched by something more important – getting people to vote to make actual change

Verdictgo: as entertainment - Jeepers Worth A Peepers | as a political statment – Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Klansmane burns crosses and bridges theater near jews and white nationalists 

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

who wore it best?

Topher Grace as David Duke?

or

Garrick Hagon as Biggs Darklighter

I, Tonya
Blades of Teal
Official Site | Trailers & Mo
R | 121 min

When you catch certain glimpses of Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding in the movie I, Tonya (like the image above), you go, my gosh – she, Tonya!!!!  And then when you sit thru all the other parts of the movie, you keep thinking, this storytelling is a little too slick, and everything is laid on A LOT too thick.  It’s like a wannabe paranoid part of Goodfellas, that also feels like the wannabe Goodfellas – American Hustle mixed with the stupidity of the stupid people of Masterminds

But faults aside (like too much of a soundtrack – like for realz, every scene doesn’t need a top 40 hit in it), I liked that they made a movie that sympathizes with Tonya Harding.  But I also liked the 30 for 30: The Price of Gold doc MUCH more, and I suggest you see it over the movie cause the true events themselves were so highly sensationalized to begin with, that a movie sensationalizing the sensation ends up being too much for the senses.  Stick to the facts, and the real deals, with the real players, and the real player haters

Although the acting in the film IS fantastic and worth seeing – especially Allison Janney as Tonya’s ice cold bitch of a mom, and Sebastian Stan as dumb Ned Flanders/Jeff Gilooly‘s mustache, and Paul Walter Hauser eating his way thru whatever he is incredibly doing as Shawn Eckhardt.  Sure, Robbie and Janney are GREAT – but give the Oscar and the buzz to the fat guy!

Go fat guys!!

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badgers

she Tonya today in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…