Thanks, Roy. Scorsese is my favorite director so of course I’ll be seeing this soon.
I love Goodfellas, it’s in my top five films, and one of the most frightening scenes is the one you mention, where DeNiro’s character solicitously, almost paternally, directs Karen Hill down the street into the shop where she would be murdered or at least abducted to put pressure on Henry. Just the casualness of DeNiro’s duplicity makes it terrifying. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with Hale.
I don't know if any of you follow Jeet Heer on twitter, but he just made a great point: DeNiro can still be magnificent, but these days he seems to only bother to put in the work for Marty. Everything else he does is like "Farting Grandpa III" and he phones it in for the paycheck, lol.
An old old fart theory: back when fPOTUS was starting up his Make America Great Again, I thought the early 1920s was what he had in mind: post-Palmer raids, post-racial riots, prohibition workarounds, the rise and legitimization of the KKK, the development of Jim Crow, and this: not just stealing Indian lands “gifted” to the conquered by the conquerors but this time trying to steal the resources under the land by any and all means.
And here’s your mistake: “what he had in mind.” Like he had a plan. Or knew anything about history. Self aggrandizement and greed, let the suckers take the fall, if there is one. If it dovetails with actual history, what a coincidence!
About MAGA nostalgia: I've been ruminating about something I'm calling "the theft of ignorance", which is like when doctors in the 40's and 50's first reported that smoking causes cancer, and after that you could be defiant: "No Goddam doctor is gonna tell me what to do!" but you could no longer enjoy a cigarette in total ignorance of its ill effects, as your grandfather could. Doctors, scientists, activists, we're doing this all the time, stealing your ignorance of many things, from workplace sexual harassment to climate change, leaving you with a choice to either Get With The Program or become some kind of sad, performative-defiant creep (I just want to enjoy a nice steak in total ignorance of saturated fats, I don't want to become Jordan Peterson.)
Not saying there isn't also real nostalgia for the days of Jim Crow, but this loss of ignorance, experienced as an actual theft, is felt keenly, and drives much of right-wing nostalgia today.
This "theft of ignorance" idea may be more powerful than you know, SteveB. It's at the heart of the right-wing tendency to whine "Now we're not allowed to..." As in, e.g., "We're not allowed to say 'fag.'"Acquiring new knowledge (smoking is dangerous; homophobia is bad) makes THEM the victim. They have to marshal some internal defense against the knowledge, so as to not have to change. Why their selves are so fragile is another topic. But they end up with the attitude that education itself is oppressive. It limits their "freedom." So it's un-American.
Yeah, I'm always wondering what they're so mad about, but as they say, ignorance is bliss, and if someone can take your ignorance from you, they've stolen your bliss. Also, the performative-defiant stuff is SO unsatisfying compared with the genuine, carefree ignorance your forefathers enjoyed.
Reminds me of those Facebook posts about when we were kids, we played stick ball in the street until the streetlights came on and rode our bikes without helmets and a candy bar cost a nickel and neighbors looked out for each other and no one locked their doors and respected our elders and we hardly ever murdered anyone.
We played with Lawn Jarts! And hardly anybody died!
I think I mentioned before I read a book by a Berkely Professor who went to rural Louisiana to understand the phenomenon that is Primitive Republican Man, and someone actually said this about the Lawn Jarts. At the time, it didn't make any sense to me, why get worked up about something like that, but now I think I understand it better: It's a stand-in for many, many ways in which ignorance has been taken from them without their consent, the poor darlings.
You have surely noticed conscious efforts by white people to make each other more aware of whose land we live on — and perhaps have said to yourself, "So?" Acknowledging a debt, or a theft, is one thing: it's just lip-service if there's no follow-through.
I'm not giving back my two wooded, inaccessible, hillside acres that once were Cayuga Nation hunting ground, but I will continue to make modest but tangible efforts toward reparations. I urge others to do the same.
To "Cayuga", I thought "Gesundheit!" was the traditional response? Or what one guy in Twelve Angry Men said, "OK, we know your horn works, now try your lights."
Someone in their '80s at the top of their game? Inconceivable!
I watched "A Place in the Sun" sometime last spring. That picture is glorious. I started reading the Drieser-it didn't hit for me at all. That movie though, yikes. Talk about a guy
committed to telling big stories in a common medium. I haven't seen Giant in years. It always made me think about a middle-aged James Dean and what that would have been like. I suspect we really missed out.
I look at Rotten Tomatoes and drill down to reviews that look interesting. I seldom find a good review on there, even among the professionals. I come to REBID and I read the film reviews here. I've never read a bad one here.
I worked for a giant nursery that had locations in Michigan, Tennessee and Oklahoma. All of them depended on migrant labor, usually Mexican. Tennessee and Michigan treated their migrants like shit. This was reflected in the quality of the product. The Oklahoma staff treated the migrants like equals. The product looked great. There was a real feeling of the united cause and brotherhood among the Mexicans and Anglos. Oh Lord,Kumbaya.
As I got to know them I realized one fundamental fact. The Mexicans the Anglos all hated the fuck out of native Americans with an fervent undying hatred.
Ain't that America?
Great review. Is this a must see at the theater, or do you think we can screen it on a decent TV at home?
Why wait? Looks good on a big screen. And I don't know about you but I appreciate the enforced attentiveness of a public viewing -- at home you may be tempted to break it up.
You know, it's not often that you can say, "Donald Trump has the solution to this problem." He's really more of a problem-creator than a problem-solver.
Great review, much appreciated. The setting in the photo up top is fascinating. Everything outside the giant windows looks like it might have been CGI, or if not, then Scorsese had some budget.
Oklahoma is beautiful, and they had enough aesthetic appreciation to make the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher the state bird (it's on the quarter).
I'll never forget marveling at an entire leafless tree filled with Painted Buntings (the original "choose a color already" bird) while artillery practice from Fort Sill boomed in the background.
Who do I believe, Roy or the Daily Mail? Because the DM is saying KFM is getting roundly panned everywhere, on account of wokeness. Of course if you click thru, the article acknowledges far more raves and mixed reviews than pans, and those being from obscure publications. Nevertheless, when the water cooler chat turns to Scorsese’s latest, you have your talking point, even if you were never going to see it anyway.
I saw a screenshot from some dorky "culture wars" douchebag aggravating about how "Snowflake high school students now feel sorry for Frankenstein's monster."
Um, bruh -- that's literally what the novel's about...
Once you let this empathy stuff out of the bag, there's no telling where it will get to. It's like an... um... monster. Yeah, that's it, a monster running out of the control of its creators.
Did you read the Armand White thing? Pure babbling anti-"Woke" incoherence. I didn't realize the position "murdering women to steal their property is bad" was so controversial.
"A murderous, indeed genocidal, plot that is enacted more or less in broad daylight because no one, in early-20th-Century America, has the political philosophy to comprehend or language to see and describe what is happening."
Not to preach to the choir, but that's why dopes like DeSantis are working on -they figure that if they hide "wokeness" they can go back to the days of unrestrained white supremacy with no resistance.
I don't see it as hiding wokeness, more like demonizing empathy as mind control propaganda. And to prove EAIAC, wokeness is mind control propaganda, as explained by its architect Chris Rufo. But that's all it is. Like the concept of MAGA, it will work on those desperate to believe it, and the others will go along with it as a joke because it offends the right people.
Something bad happens to people somewhere, and normal, emotionally healthy people see it and say, "Gosh, we should do something to help" (OK, maybe not the "Gosh" part). And this is a grave threat that must be destroyed before it spreads.
Yeah. It seems like the things I was taught growing up, all of the axiomatic expressions of what we purportedly value, are now suspect of being woke, communist, or worse. So "live and let live," or "do unto others as you would have them do to you," or "love thy neighbor as thyself," or even "honesty is the best policy" -- many the teachings of Jesus himself -- are rejected as insufficiently aggressive principles embraced by losers, pacifists, socialists, and other undesirables. It seems like what is most quintessentially American right now is to be a noxious prick.
Sounds like a movie I have to see. Hasn’t opened here in the desert but since it’s been 100+ every afternoon, we’ve been in the theater: Eras, Expend4bles, Oppenheimer. It was those or Halloween horrorshows. Having a wide-ranging taste, from schlock to art, is good, right? Right? Anyway, the options won’t be any better back home next month, but maybe Killers will be available as we drive through Oklahoma, if they don’t ban it for making whipipo uncomfortable.
Dick Cheney will probably watch this with a tear in his eye, nostalgic for the days when murdering the darker-skinned for their oil was still in its infancy.
Interesting take. Of course I miss a lot, my mind goes off on tangents about the craft, particularly the colors. Teal is the color key for that movie. Everything else plays off of it. And the acting. I am more inclined to like films in which I don't notice the acting. I'm not saying I didn't like the movie at this point, but the acting was very, very noticeable, in a very, very heavy way. DiCaprio makes some weighty faces, very weighty. De Niro too. I've done some study of the Osage and have been out there a few times working on a project in which they play a part. There's a section about them in "The Dawn of Everything" as well, which follows them way back in prehistory. They are much more interesting than they are portrayed in the movie. But that's ok. The film is not really all that much about them, though it gives many a respectful nod, and I trust it's pretty accurate for the small slice of time portrayed in the story. But no, it's an oft told tale of petty criminals doing bad things and getting caught, made by some of the most highly skilled professionals in the field. It's always interesting to see how the prestige filmmakers approach the artistic challenges presented by the story.
Thanks Roy, for the incisive summary. Though, "Leonardo DiCaprio has the guts and skill" is an understatement. Leo's thespian range and his ability to adopt an impenetrable, completely foreign persona are astounding.
I'm confused. Uncle Earnest is whose uncle? Just kidding! I'll be a monkey's and more fun than a barrel of 'em! I'm surprised you didn't comment on the fine threads in this flick. You describe what folks are wearing in detail in your own pieces. I think the costumes in this movie help create the vibe, although I have only seen the ads and the trailer as yet.
Thanks, Roy. Scorsese is my favorite director so of course I’ll be seeing this soon.
I love Goodfellas, it’s in my top five films, and one of the most frightening scenes is the one you mention, where DeNiro’s character solicitously, almost paternally, directs Karen Hill down the street into the shop where she would be murdered or at least abducted to put pressure on Henry. Just the casualness of DeNiro’s duplicity makes it terrifying. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with Hale.
I don't know if any of you follow Jeet Heer on twitter, but he just made a great point: DeNiro can still be magnificent, but these days he seems to only bother to put in the work for Marty. Everything else he does is like "Farting Grandpa III" and he phones it in for the paycheck, lol.
His portrayal of Robert Mueller for SNL is sad on so many levels.
Our exceptional heritage...
An old old fart theory: back when fPOTUS was starting up his Make America Great Again, I thought the early 1920s was what he had in mind: post-Palmer raids, post-racial riots, prohibition workarounds, the rise and legitimization of the KKK, the development of Jim Crow, and this: not just stealing Indian lands “gifted” to the conquered by the conquerors but this time trying to steal the resources under the land by any and all means.
And here’s your mistake: “what he had in mind.” Like he had a plan. Or knew anything about history. Self aggrandizement and greed, let the suckers take the fall, if there is one. If it dovetails with actual history, what a coincidence!
About MAGA nostalgia: I've been ruminating about something I'm calling "the theft of ignorance", which is like when doctors in the 40's and 50's first reported that smoking causes cancer, and after that you could be defiant: "No Goddam doctor is gonna tell me what to do!" but you could no longer enjoy a cigarette in total ignorance of its ill effects, as your grandfather could. Doctors, scientists, activists, we're doing this all the time, stealing your ignorance of many things, from workplace sexual harassment to climate change, leaving you with a choice to either Get With The Program or become some kind of sad, performative-defiant creep (I just want to enjoy a nice steak in total ignorance of saturated fats, I don't want to become Jordan Peterson.)
Not saying there isn't also real nostalgia for the days of Jim Crow, but this loss of ignorance, experienced as an actual theft, is felt keenly, and drives much of right-wing nostalgia today.
This "theft of ignorance" idea may be more powerful than you know, SteveB. It's at the heart of the right-wing tendency to whine "Now we're not allowed to..." As in, e.g., "We're not allowed to say 'fag.'"Acquiring new knowledge (smoking is dangerous; homophobia is bad) makes THEM the victim. They have to marshal some internal defense against the knowledge, so as to not have to change. Why their selves are so fragile is another topic. But they end up with the attitude that education itself is oppressive. It limits their "freedom." So it's un-American.
Yeah, I'm always wondering what they're so mad about, but as they say, ignorance is bliss, and if someone can take your ignorance from you, they've stolen your bliss. Also, the performative-defiant stuff is SO unsatisfying compared with the genuine, carefree ignorance your forefathers enjoyed.
Reminds me of those Facebook posts about when we were kids, we played stick ball in the street until the streetlights came on and rode our bikes without helmets and a candy bar cost a nickel and neighbors looked out for each other and no one locked their doors and respected our elders and we hardly ever murdered anyone.
We played with Lawn Jarts! And hardly anybody died!
I think I mentioned before I read a book by a Berkely Professor who went to rural Louisiana to understand the phenomenon that is Primitive Republican Man, and someone actually said this about the Lawn Jarts. At the time, it didn't make any sense to me, why get worked up about something like that, but now I think I understand it better: It's a stand-in for many, many ways in which ignorance has been taken from them without their consent, the poor darlings.
You have surely noticed conscious efforts by white people to make each other more aware of whose land we live on — and perhaps have said to yourself, "So?" Acknowledging a debt, or a theft, is one thing: it's just lip-service if there's no follow-through.
I'm not giving back my two wooded, inaccessible, hillside acres that once were Cayuga Nation hunting ground, but I will continue to make modest but tangible efforts toward reparations. I urge others to do the same.
Cayuga? Howdy neighbor!
To "Cayuga", I thought "Gesundheit!" was the traditional response? Or what one guy in Twelve Angry Men said, "OK, we know your horn works, now try your lights."
The traditional response is "Onondaga."
Oof.
But carry on, carry on.
Oh, yeah, forgot: and a change to zoning law so I can run my dozer in there and put in a proper road. Inaccessible, my ass!
Someone in their '80s at the top of their game? Inconceivable!
I watched "A Place in the Sun" sometime last spring. That picture is glorious. I started reading the Drieser-it didn't hit for me at all. That movie though, yikes. Talk about a guy
committed to telling big stories in a common medium. I haven't seen Giant in years. It always made me think about a middle-aged James Dean and what that would have been like. I suspect we really missed out.
I look at Rotten Tomatoes and drill down to reviews that look interesting. I seldom find a good review on there, even among the professionals. I come to REBID and I read the film reviews here. I've never read a bad one here.
I worked for a giant nursery that had locations in Michigan, Tennessee and Oklahoma. All of them depended on migrant labor, usually Mexican. Tennessee and Michigan treated their migrants like shit. This was reflected in the quality of the product. The Oklahoma staff treated the migrants like equals. The product looked great. There was a real feeling of the united cause and brotherhood among the Mexicans and Anglos. Oh Lord,Kumbaya.
As I got to know them I realized one fundamental fact. The Mexicans the Anglos all hated the fuck out of native Americans with an fervent undying hatred.
Ain't that America?
Great review. Is this a must see at the theater, or do you think we can screen it on a decent TV at home?
Why wait? Looks good on a big screen. And I don't know about you but I appreciate the enforced attentiveness of a public viewing -- at home you may be tempted to break it up.
Let me do the math - age 66 /movie length 3.5 hours tim
s .... That's at least three bathroom trips, five if I drink coffee for dinner, six or seven if I drink beer.
If only I could pause the movie at a theater.
Yeah, Mrs. ssdd wants to see this but it’s a nonstarter because it means three and a half hours without a cigarette…
I well remember the sinking of the Titanic two hours in: the water rushing and guys jumping up in response to their prostates.
I think Donald Trump already shared the solution to this particular problem in an earlier REBID.
You know, it's not often that you can say, "Donald Trump has the solution to this problem." He's really more of a problem-creator than a problem-solver.
All his solutions either be labeled "The Formula" or they be final.
Ah, McLuhan! Hot v cold.
Great review, much appreciated. The setting in the photo up top is fascinating. Everything outside the giant windows looks like it might have been CGI, or if not, then Scorsese had some budget.
I read he took over the whole failing town.
I spent a summer working in Oklahoma, it has a wide selection of failing towns just waiting to be taken over.
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri...I could go on.
Oklahoma is beautiful, and they had enough aesthetic appreciation to make the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher the state bird (it's on the quarter).
I'll never forget marveling at an entire leafless tree filled with Painted Buntings (the original "choose a color already" bird) while artillery practice from Fort Sill boomed in the background.
Who do I believe, Roy or the Daily Mail? Because the DM is saying KFM is getting roundly panned everywhere, on account of wokeness. Of course if you click thru, the article acknowledges far more raves and mixed reviews than pans, and those being from obscure publications. Nevertheless, when the water cooler chat turns to Scorsese’s latest, you have your talking point, even if you were never going to see it anyway.
Ah, so "Don't murder people" becomes "woke" if the people in question are Native American. Got it.
The Godfather would have been woke if Luca Brasi was Black.
He sleeps with BLM.
2 marks!
I saw a screenshot from some dorky "culture wars" douchebag aggravating about how "Snowflake high school students now feel sorry for Frankenstein's monster."
Um, bruh -- that's literally what the novel's about...
Once you let this empathy stuff out of the bag, there's no telling where it will get to. It's like an... um... monster. Yeah, that's it, a monster running out of the control of its creators.
(scratching chin emoji)
I know, right? Tricky...
Updating my wokeclopedia! Thanks for the tip!
Feel free to murder as many White people as you want, apparently that's not Woke, so it's OK.
Hearted for the...uhmmm...
Did you read the Armand White thing? Pure babbling anti-"Woke" incoherence. I didn't realize the position "murdering women to steal their property is bad" was so controversial.
White children might see this and then feel bad about their white skin, which is why it will be banned in the state of Florida.
"A murderous, indeed genocidal, plot that is enacted more or less in broad daylight because no one, in early-20th-Century America, has the political philosophy to comprehend or language to see and describe what is happening."
Not to preach to the choir, but that's why dopes like DeSantis are working on -they figure that if they hide "wokeness" they can go back to the days of unrestrained white supremacy with no resistance.
I don't see it as hiding wokeness, more like demonizing empathy as mind control propaganda. And to prove EAIAC, wokeness is mind control propaganda, as explained by its architect Chris Rufo. But that's all it is. Like the concept of MAGA, it will work on those desperate to believe it, and the others will go along with it as a joke because it offends the right people.
Something bad happens to people somewhere, and normal, emotionally healthy people see it and say, "Gosh, we should do something to help" (OK, maybe not the "Gosh" part). And this is a grave threat that must be destroyed before it spreads.
I'm piling on here to say
"banned in the state of Florida"
would be a very cool Florida band name.
Yeah. It seems like the things I was taught growing up, all of the axiomatic expressions of what we purportedly value, are now suspect of being woke, communist, or worse. So "live and let live," or "do unto others as you would have them do to you," or "love thy neighbor as thyself," or even "honesty is the best policy" -- many the teachings of Jesus himself -- are rejected as insufficiently aggressive principles embraced by losers, pacifists, socialists, and other undesirables. It seems like what is most quintessentially American right now is to be a noxious prick.
"Murdering non-Whites and taking their stuff is something all good White Americans should aspire to (see also Tulsa, 1921 as a contemporary example)".
I caught his act long ago. Life's too short. https://alicublog.blogspot.com/2014/05/around-horn_30.html
Sounds like a movie I have to see. Hasn’t opened here in the desert but since it’s been 100+ every afternoon, we’ve been in the theater: Eras, Expend4bles, Oppenheimer. It was those or Halloween horrorshows. Having a wide-ranging taste, from schlock to art, is good, right? Right? Anyway, the options won’t be any better back home next month, but maybe Killers will be available as we drive through Oklahoma, if they don’t ban it for making whipipo uncomfortable.
Oklahoma will be safe from Scorsese by the simple expedient that all the movie theaters closed years ago.
Bonus points for "whipipo."
Whip 'em good!
(Periodic reminder that the other oil-related scandal, Teapot Dome, was happening at the same time.)
Dick Cheney will probably watch this with a tear in his eye, nostalgic for the days when murdering the darker-skinned for their oil was still in its infancy.
To be fair, Biggus Dickus didn't care about the oil pre se. All he cared about was the price. Crashing Iraq did wonders for the price.
I am so hungry to see this film, but it will have to wait for another couple of weeks. Thanks for ramping up my anticipation!
Read the first graf, but the rest'll have to wait till after I see the movie. I like to go in as much of a clean slate as possible.
Interesting take. Of course I miss a lot, my mind goes off on tangents about the craft, particularly the colors. Teal is the color key for that movie. Everything else plays off of it. And the acting. I am more inclined to like films in which I don't notice the acting. I'm not saying I didn't like the movie at this point, but the acting was very, very noticeable, in a very, very heavy way. DiCaprio makes some weighty faces, very weighty. De Niro too. I've done some study of the Osage and have been out there a few times working on a project in which they play a part. There's a section about them in "The Dawn of Everything" as well, which follows them way back in prehistory. They are much more interesting than they are portrayed in the movie. But that's ok. The film is not really all that much about them, though it gives many a respectful nod, and I trust it's pretty accurate for the small slice of time portrayed in the story. But no, it's an oft told tale of petty criminals doing bad things and getting caught, made by some of the most highly skilled professionals in the field. It's always interesting to see how the prestige filmmakers approach the artistic challenges presented by the story.
Thanks Roy, for the incisive summary. Though, "Leonardo DiCaprio has the guts and skill" is an understatement. Leo's thespian range and his ability to adopt an impenetrable, completely foreign persona are astounding.
Ohs-cah !
I'm confused. Uncle Earnest is whose uncle? Just kidding! I'll be a monkey's and more fun than a barrel of 'em! I'm surprised you didn't comment on the fine threads in this flick. You describe what folks are wearing in detail in your own pieces. I think the costumes in this movie help create the vibe, although I have only seen the ads and the trailer as yet.