“Dang! This always happens when we bring civilization to a Third World country!”

When Wrongs Make Right.

What makes DC’s THE SUICIDE SQUAD of 2021, different from their 2016 movie of the almost same name, SUICIDE SQUAD? Well, many more things than just THE – R-rated, deeper characterization, rapscallion director, premium swearing, delicious gore, and moral ambiguity right up the chocolate starfish. Written and directed by James Gunn, it’s better in many ways – and the same in the worst ways. It’s a soft reboot / wink-wink sequel / lazy Hollywood cashing in on a recognizable property, that finds another convict team of superhero-adjacent misfits blackmailed into service to the American government, sent to the fictional dictatorship of Corto Maltese to eliminate a threat to democracy. Let the double-crosses and high crimes and malfeasance begin, mostly perpetrated by the BIGGEST threat to democracy – the American government. Hey there Movie Maniacs, welcome to THE SUICIDE SQUAD Top 5 Bottom 5.

Let’s start with the Bottom 5 things about THE SUICIDE SQUAD, starting with number 5 and working our way up to the worst.

Michael Rooker opens the film, with long blond hair, looking sexy as hell – and immediately I thought: Are there no more actors? Rooker was already a prominent character in one of James Gunn’s other tentpoles, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. That was a Marvel property. And now, instead of letting another talented struggling actor make rent, Rooker crosses cinematic universes to appear in this >DC< film? Really, are there no more actors?

Josh Brolin was Thanos – then he was Cable in the same Marvel universe! What the fuck? And Sylvester Stallone has ENOUGH franchises – ROCKY, RAMBO, EXPENDABLES, ESCAPE PLAN – can they not give his role as the voice of King Shark to someone else? And his voice is so treated, Stallone is not even vocally recognizable, nor is he doing the mocap for the CGI creature he’s voicing – that’s Steve Agee, who also plays a staff member. It’s like wasting the salary on Vin Diesel to say “I am Groot” from the comfort of his dickcheese bathrobe. Of course, it’s their agents who have the casting company connectrions to these blockbusters – that’s why the same 12 actors get all the work. And the astronomical salaries of the stars is well worth the cost of the viewers they draw. Their names are marquee Viagra.

That’s why any productions out of Hollywood are on this upward-spiraling budget and downward-spiraling creativity – they HAVE to make back the money for hiring name actors, so they HAVE to hire name actors to make back the money. Now, we can’t begrudge anyone making money, but it’s so transparently —– venal, with everything homogenized to offend the least people and maximize the viewership. This is not like Clint Eastwood using his same trusted cast in a slew of fun 80s films for low budget efficiency and reliability – these are blockbusters that could afford to hire new actors, new writers, new directors, with new ideas – no, every tentpole, you’ll see the SAME 12 actors, the SAME 12 writers, the SAME 12 directors.

To subvert expectations, major characters die unexpectedly – on the pretense that the movie is edgy, and on that conceit that all these characters are expendable D-list DC properties… yeeeeh, but the main ROLES are played by A-LIST actors – I mean, they tried to get Will Smith back – but – other contractual obligations – so there’s the obvious Will Smith replacement – Idris Elba, basically playing exactly the same character as Will Smith, down to his daughter being his motivation. So the arbitrary deaths are basically the D-list ACTORS – stop pretending like your highest paid A-lister might die – Margot Robbie, reprising her D-character Harley Quinn. And it’s gonna be hard for A-lister Idris Elba to die also, even though you’ve probably forgotten his D-character’s name by now. But Pete Davidson? Who gives a fuck? D-actor, D-character…

Like Marvel did with GUARDIANS in the hands of Gunn, DC pulls out lesser-known properties like King Shark and Polka Dot Man and Peacemaker, in an attempt to drag diehard D-character fans out of the woodwork, while throwing in those A-listers to keep it profitable, but if you want to be venal, DC, why force untapped characters into the DCEU, instead of dusting off your established properties that made more money at the worldwide box office than SUICIDE SQUAD? I’m looking at BATMAN V SUPERMAN‘s 872 mil vs SUICIDE SQUAD’s 746 mil. (Which number is bigger? I can’t tell.) Because yeh, I wanna see Henry Cavill as Superman in MAN OF STEEL 2. Get to work, Warner Bros. dickheads.

Viola Davis is government agent, Waller, overseeing the black operation. After the last movie built her into the most ruthless, vicious, callous mercenary, who gunned down her own staff because “they didn’t have clearance,” this installment totally loses its grasp of her character, when her underlings knock her out with a golf club – and suffer ZERO retribution! Waller represents a government operation so deadly, it blows people’s heads off for insubordination – and in knocking her out, her staff has mutinied against the government they are working for. And none of them lose their lives, let alone their jobs?!! A comic reaction shot of Waller holding an ice-pak and looking at her staff like kids in a sitcom who have learned the meaning of decency.

Whereas John Cena’s character is an idiot-patriot called Peacemaker, Waller is the intelligent despicable dark side of that paradoxical statement. They show her disregard for life when she blows Michael Rooker’s skull to pieces, and her reprehensible ethics when she blackmails Bloodsport into the team by threatening his daughter’s life (Oh yeh, that’s Idris Elba’s name)…  The filmmakers forget that when her character comes to, she would simply shoot every mutineer in the fucking head. Twice. Like John Wick.

Weasel – what the fuck? Even in this comicbook universe where men shoot polka dots and a galactic starfish can communicate in English, this character doesn’t make any sense. It’s a distraction, because every time it’s onscreen, all I can think of is: it can’t communicate – how does it even know to BE here? The comicbook character was a man transformed into a weasel, so he had human cognizance and language. But this thing is just a dumb animal. How did Waller communicate the concept of shortening its sentence if it performed the mission? And why is it in prison anyway? Oh, it killed 27 children. Yeh, but it’s an animal – if a lion kills 27 children, you don’t put it in HUMAN jail.

How do they make it walk in a line for the SLOMO shot? Does it understand there’s an explosive in its head? Does it even know what side it’s on? James Gunn wanted it to look like that cartoon, Bill The Cat – okaaaay, but without the barest human cognizance, you’ve created a character with no character.

The worst, stupidest, most annoying thing about THE SUICIDE SQUAD: Exposition! It’s bad enough in a regular movie, when it jumps out at you totally divorced from the scene, like when two characters meet for the first time, “Hey sis” “Hey bro” [somebody shoot me] – and then never call each other that for the rest of the movie. Now multiply that by 20 characters, unnecessary dialogue desperately trying to shape full life histories in 5 seconds screentime – with the filmmakers trying their damndest to get away with “creative” ways to slide the OBVIOUS EXPOSITION by us unnoticed, like the office staff taking bets on which squad member will die first, while explaining to each other the member’s powers, or one of the senior staff – who should know the “guy who put Superman in the ICU” asking who that guy is. Waller, the most insufferable offender, with a monotonal seen-everything attitude that gives Jack Reacher a run for his smug. Stop telling each other what you should already know. And ESPECIALLY stop telling THE CHARACTER WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THEMSELVES!!

And now, Movie Maniacs, the Top 5 things about THE SUICIDE SQUAD.

The Harley Quinn origin movie BIRDS OF PREY had Harley shooting up a police station with non-lethal bean bags of glitter. Even though it was an R-rated movie, it seemed like a desperate PG-13 solution to side-step the gore “creatively.” Here, James Gunn ACTUALLY purveys a creative method of representing gore – with cartoon flowers. Granted, these are dictator soldiers, so they can be murdered in good Western conscience, but this tongue-in-cheek filmmaker succeeds in distracting from the heavy gore truly creatively by seeming to take us on a journey into what Harley’s deranged mind might be perceiving, instead of the same old Black Widow thigh-jitsu action sequence.

Writer-director James Gunn has done for DC what he did for Marvel: bring D-list characters into A-list infamy – and make us care about them! He does this through his unique flair for comedic timing, his countless creative shots, gutshock action, and imaginative title cards. He’s like a more tolerable Michael Bay. Director David Ayer’s 2016 SUICIDE SQUAD (which we now know is more of a studio Frankenstein than the director’s vision) lacked the charm of this entry, which explodes with color and verve and contextual humor, and grand lessons in film MAKING. Either that, or – goddamit! – we’re getting sucked into the style of these same 12 directors…

I cannot give the filmmakers enough props for bringing the very first Justice League villain to life – STARRO THE CONQUEROR [yes, imagine echo echo echo echo…] – and making him… cool. Talk about walking a tightrope between goofy and terrifying. Starro is not – as originally written – some “space parasite intent on conquest”; his backstory here is changed to one of poignant victimhood. We learn that American astronauts encountered him in space and brought him to Earth, to weaponize him. Good ole Murrica. He laments to the Squad, “I was happy… floating… staring at the stars…” Cute. Tragic. Starro.

Daniela Melchior stars as Ratcatcher 2, the hypersomniac daughter to an original Batman villain called Ratcatcher, who is played here for a few brief poignant moments by Taiki Waititi. (Wait – isn’t Taika a director on the Marvel side of the universe? Are there no more fucken actors?!) Even though Daniela’s character is written from scratch for this movie, she brings a humanity and heart to what could’ve been the most shallow of paper-thin placeholders.

Ratcatcher 2’s arc from a reluctant casual observer to the actual savior of the day is as surprising as it is touching. Combined with the finale orchestra swell, grandiose hero shots, and the turnaround of her saving the life of the man who promised HE would get HER back alive, she goes from that girl with the ratty hair that you never noticed, to the woman you want to marry for her power and beauty! Margot Robbie may be the obvious sex appeal of the movie – but little Daniela steals the show.

If THE SUICIDE SQUAD is about villains, then surely the biggest villain of all is the united states government. Not in a simple “hey, we install dictators in other countries” kind of way – which is bad enough – but in a layered, ambiguous, insidious, anti-society, anti-human manner. (Oh you mean republiKKKan?) The film illustrates how a banana republic works by showing us the handsome dictator of Corto Maltese and his ugly policies – and by the time we realize it’s an analog for the United States with brown faces, “freedom fighters” are rebelling against the fascist government by BREAKING INTO THE PRESIDENT’S HEADQUARTERS to stop the new president from being sworn in [sideways look at January 6th].

These Suicide Squad “villains” are only considered villains because they weren’t the people who made the rules on what constitutes villainy. Because, let’s face it – the hypocrisy of a government that derides dictators and then installs dictators in other countries is equal to the irony of that same country not having laws to deal with latent dictators within its own political system (see: the never-indicted dumbo donald, after 4 years of daily high crimes and misdemeanors). And THE SUICIDE SQUAD illustrates this government villainy transparently; they’re pretty much saying, “You think these brown people are villains – you think this purple starfish is the villain – nope, THIS is the villain.

A film that takes us somewhere, yet goes nowhere.

Quentin Tarantino once again brazenly rewrites history in his scintillating homage to La La Land of the 1960s, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

Hollywood 1969. Two tales intertwine – one, a tale of an actor and his stuntman, hustling for work in a business that has moved past their cowboy attitudes and advancing ages; the other, a tale of a rising young starlet going somewhere, while her throughline goes nowhere.

And that’s the small gripe I have with this meticulously made film: a little less homage, a little more story.

Writer-director Tarantino paints two fictional characters from scratch and portrays one real life character; the fictional pair are actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman bro Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, as leathery and runneled as Tommy Lee Jones), while the historical character is Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), who is connected to real life acquaintances that would scar history forever – the Manson Family (portrayed as peripheral characters, including a lookalike who could be a young Liam Neeson or, I’m guessing, Charlie Manson).

Tarantino also re-dresses Hollywood the town (either in CGI, practical effects or a combo of both) in the glitter gown it wore in the ‘60s, from the shop facades on Hollywood Boulevard, to the car models from that era, down to the street signs, bus shelters and billboards. And credit where it’s due – that effort in itself is a stunning achievement!

However, Tarantino seems to have lost his throughline in chasing his art. Firstly, only movie-philes would know or care that he has brought 1960’s Hollywood to life so fastidiously; secondly, he spends way too much time with eyes on Sharon Tate. Movie might have benefitted had Tarantino simply followed the two buddies (with their own compelling narratives), because by inserting Tate and rewriting her as a survivor of the “Tate Murders,” her appearance in the film is meaningless to any cinemagoer with no knowledge of her real history (victim to the Manson Family, that murdered five people in Roman Polanski’s Los Angeles home in 1969), and she ultimately becomes nothing but a red herring to those who do know the history. Tate happens to be Rick Dalton’s neighbor, therefore a motivating subplot for actor Dalton, who craves to make contact with Tate’s director husband, Polanski. After the film’s climax (in which Tate is not involved), she appears as a concerned neighbor, in the smallest of comedic payoffs.

That being said, allow me to commend IN HOLLYWOOD for its sudden, savage climax – one of the most satisfying payoffs in cinematic history, with Brad Pitt pulling out his big dick for the type of studied gore-ballet that Tarantino is renowned for. The crafted gutshock blunt blow to our skulls doesn’t get any better. It’s Hero Time.

Most women have to be held back when confronted with The Pitt.

Like the two films that inspired its name (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, both directed by one of Quentin’s heroes – Sergio Leone), ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD is a tale about a few connected characters set against the backdrop of a kaleidoscopic cultural sprawl. Definitely a passion project for Quentin (who admits 1969 holds a rose-colored grip on his youth), movie is a pastiche wrapped in a homage and doused liberally with roman a clef, packed with Easter eggs, classic rock, in-jokes, and parts for all his brahs.

There’s ice-cool Timothy Olyphant and ice-veined Michael Madsen as cowboys, Kurt Russell as a producer (and narrator), stuntwoman Zoe Bell as his wife; there’s even Bruce’s daughter Rumer Willis and Kevin Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn, as Manson cultists. Leo, of course, did DJANGO, and even Pitt has crossed paths with Tarantino before… remember Floyd the stoner in the Tarantino-penned TRUE ROMANCE? “Don’t conden-send me, man! Fucken kill you, man!…”

Al Pacino is producer Marvin Schwarz, who steers Dalton toward spaghetti westerns out-of-country, to build an overseas cachet and return a hero (a real life gambit that rocketed none other than Clint Eastwood to stardom); Margaret Qualley is Pussycat, a free spirit who tempts Booth to the cult; Bruce Dern is old George Spahn, who allows the Manson Family to camp at his Spahn Movie Ranch (which features in the other prime scene of the movie – Booth visiting the eerily stagnant Ranch and talking his way through the ominous female hippies to visit old George, who may be… dead? prisoner? worse?…)

Martial artist Mike Moh plays Bruce Lee (during his Kato period in THE GREEN HORNET), comparing dick size with Cliff Booth on the set of a movie. Booth ends up getting kicked off the set for beating up Lee. Now that’s just wrong. No matter how funny or artistic license the scene is – no one beats up Bruce Lee!

Rare picture of Bruce Lee at one of his Fight Club meets.

The primo performance in this movie is Leo. His Dalton looks haggard, old, he’s coughing, smoking, clearing his throat, he has a slight stutter (which is beautifully played by DiCaprio, not as a full-blown “b-b-b-but” type of impediment, but an occasional slight hesitation when he is talking to people in uncomfortable situations), his usually pretty eyes are bloodshot with lack of sleep, but also with the knowledge that every hour he rests is one less hour he is spending trying to stay on top of a profession which is leaving him in its wake. Though he’s starred in his share of TV serials, his confidence as a viable leading man is waning, because he cannot get the breaks to transition to the big screen, (like Steve McQueen and other contemporaries).

On the cusp of a new decade, Dalton feels aged and used up, realizing the movie industry is No Country for Old Men. And we are in the fibers of his being and suffering with his soul through his existential crisis. And I personally feel every bladed inch of his anxiety; that character – is ME. And I’m guessing a lot of YOU as well…

His crisis is brought to a head when he meets a precocious little girl on set (an outstanding performance by young Julia Butters, who is reading a book where the hero feels the world has moved on without him. Dalton confesses “I’m more useless every day,” and breaks down in tears in front of her.

Tarantino is transmitting directly into my darkest limbic fluids, that place where hope goes to die, my sunken place…

While Dalton is Acting The Shit out of his angst, Pitt’s Booth – also in the autumn of his career – comes across as still vital and more in touch with his previous power. He seems happy to flit from one odd job to the next, always the faithful second banana to Dalton, his stuntman skills serving him well in street fights, drifting, and taking life on the chin; in essence, DiCaprio has the meatier role, while Pitt has the meat.

“I’m having such a good time doing nothing in this movie.”

The Rolling Stones’ Out Of Time drives us into the third act, and I found myself wondering why I was not gripped around the throat yet, which is the usual modus operandi for Tarantino films at this late stage. Also, besides Dalton and Cobb starting a new life chapter, eyes are back on Tate, and no one will fault me for thinking the Stones song is a harbinger of her doom, “Baby baby baby – you’re out of time…” (hinting that her time is up soon?). Not only that, Russell’s narration describes the people who would be the real life Manson victims moving in next door with Tate – but in this movie, they do NOT meet a tragic end, and are therefore useless to this movie’s plot, yet the narration continues this red herring throughline! Looking back on it, I’m actually getting annoyed. Technicians and actors spent days, weeks on these scenes; editors, lighting, costumes, et al, only to have this thread completely dropped when the Manson Family – led by the real life character “Tex” (Austin Butler) – skulked up Cielo Drive to start the mayhem. And Tarantino cut out all Tim Roth’s scenes for that non sequitur garbage?!

Maybe Tarantino is right, when he says he only has 10 films in him. In this penultimate one, he is finding it hard to clear his own high bar; his own legacy of leaving us breathless for weeks, months, years after viewing his iconoclastic product. Besides the compelling performance from Leo and the mantastic muscle of Pitt, this film wasted more time meandering up and down the Hollywood Hills than idiot tourists searching for the Hollywood sign.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, “The 9^th Film from Quentin Tarantino,” definitely ends with a bang not a whimper, which flavors our exit libido, however, do we allow Quentin to skate on the body of the film being “merely great,” or do we insist on nothing less than gripping from film start to final frame?

We await Quentin’s 10^th, insisting on, and anticipating, the latter…

END

Illegal Money Never Sleeps.

Leonardo DiCaprio overacts his way into the heart of Wall Street, into the pants of hookers and into federal jail. He’s playing a real life character, stockbroker Jordan Belfort, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, whom I hope is at this moment dying a slow, horrible death from cancer of the knob…

The problem with millionaires like Jordan Belfort – or anyone who makes their fortunes on Wall Street – is that it’s INHERENTLY unethical. It means becoming rich on the backs of others who MUST BECOME POOR for you to benefit, while not providing any tangible product, going to your grave with imaginary money as your legacy.

We don’t begrudge rock stars their fortunes or tradespeople their livelihoods because they provide something tangible for our dollar. Yet we hate those Wall Street vultures, because their coin of the realm is duplicity. EVERYTHING is a con. Everything is unethical practices, threaded through loopholes, ass-raped by escape clauses. Laws written by Congress pertaining to Wall Street’s sleight-of-hand juggling of monies are laws influenced by and abetting Wall Street. So FUCK Wall Street. FUCK Jordan Belfort. And FUCK this movie that glamorizes that loudmouth prick who got rich by hurting others to do it.

All that being said, Martin Scorcese‘s black comedy on the rise and fall of Belfort is a gleaming Lamborghini of a film; glossy and hopped up, supercharged for a streamlined guzzle down a flying freeway. And Leo looks like he’s having the ham and cheese time of his life.

Until Belfort hits a spike strip…

Using his gift of gab, Belfort earns commissions and acolytes as a cold call genius aka master bullshitter, in a small company where no one takes their job seriously, selling “penny stocks.” He winds up training them to be sharks, taking many of them to start his own firm.

Jonah Hill is Belfort acolyte Donnie Azoff, who leads a gaggle of faceless employees who worship the ground Belfort drives his Lambos on. Matthew McConaughey is some kind of surf-dude-stockbroker. Kyle Chandler is an FBI agent who can’t arrest Belfort because the childish rules made by rich people who buy congress keep rich people out of jail. And Margot Robbie is Belfort’s trophy wife (the new Jamie Pressly).

So begins the unimaginably hedonistic tale of Jordan Belfort; whore-fucking, cocaine-snorting, money-laundering, shout-speeching and dwarf-tossing.

Scorsese directs with the same sharp-toothed verve he brings to all his gangster epics, for in covering Wall Street, he is still truly working amongst gangsters. The real life Belfort has done his time, and is now a “motivational speaker” – another non-real job that cons lonely housewives and timid businessmen into buying tickets to hear him spout platitudes for two hours.

WOLF follows the same beat as GOODFELLAS, where the hedonistic lifestyles of the criminals cannot be sustained and they are brought down in the end, in a massive fantasy raid. An event that can only happen in the movies. And only due to the Gutless MPAA (who decree that no crimes go unpunished or unredeemed). Since when have this many high-level CEOs seen the business end of a lawsuit? And even if they do, aren’t they quickly released to continue their swinish unethical sharking? Why imply that with the CEOs’ arrests, the institution of stockbroking has been brought to justice, when we know that criminality runs like a nourishing river through Wall Street? This is not like entertaining alternate history, like Tarantino’s explosive “historical” rewrites. This fantasy lands with a dull thud, as Wall Street has wasted/stolen taxpayer dollars since its inception and continues to do so.

In no way connected to 1987’s WALL STREET or that movie’s sequel, MONEY NEVER SLEEPS, the tenor of WOLF runs more along the lines of the 2011 remake of ARTHUR – trying to force-feed us a billionaire as lovable. Not after a 700 billion dollar bailout, you lowlife scum!

Casting DiCaprio makes Belfort the hero. Makes it look like such fun to be him, bent out of shape on drugs and trying to step into the door of his Lamborghini. He’s not a hero, kids. He’s a FELON who did 22 months in prison for stock-market manipulation, swindling $100 million out of investors. Investors like YOU trying to make an honest unethical buck from playing the stocks. I’m sick of seeing criminals played by movie stars to sell seats. And then we wonder why unbalanced mongos go on shooting sprees. Because even at the time of the shooting spree, some asshole Hollywood exec is plotting the First Act and making calls to A-Lister agents to see if their client will play the lead…

Turns out wealth DOES make you a better person. That’s why CEOs are treated with more respect than low-income African-American guys who are shot on sight for Being Black.

Why is “wolf” singular anyway? Like it’s only this guy? Every – single – avaricious – prick who works on Wall Street is a wolf. And why a “wolf”? I take issue with that metaphor, that simultaneously connotes “nobility” even whilst warning about the feral nature of the stockbroker prick. But it’s an insult to wolves. Wolves don’t hunt, kill or eat more than they need to survive. Wolves don’t actively sell bad stocks and then bet on those stocks to fail. Wolves are not responsible for whole swathes of their populace becoming homeless without a financial future. These people are lower than any animal metaphors, lower than snakes, pigs, amoeba; lower than pond scum, lower than single-celled animalcules with no functioning brains. We should enact artificial selection on these organisms and kill them quickly, so that they do not spread their dirty seed across the human genome.

WOLF OF WALL STREET is an entertaining movie – but I hate everything it stands for and I loathe every character in it. Maybe if I shout loud enough and my face gets red, they’ll take me as seriously as Belfort the asshat.

END