When I started hearing that ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was bad, I did not know how to react. J.D. Vance, the author of its source book, is a big Trump supporter and there’s a part of me that wants to sock it to him. but I also feel for the cast, most of whom I really like, especially Glenn Close and Amy Adams, two actors who have both been ignored by The Academy. But I know I still wanted to see the film and gather my own thoughts about it. I think Netflix is the perfect avenue for this film, too, as it will reach a much wider audience than it probably would have.
Well, the film isn’t the worst thing in the world, to be honest. But it also isn’t good. I have not read the book, but from what I gather, it spews out a lot of Republican talking points. The screenplay by Vanessa Taylor has no time for the politics so she whittled the story down to a family drama, and I can’t say I blame here. What we get is prime melodrama about a family and its struggled with drug addiction, poverty, infidelity – you know, the usual. Close and Adams do sometimes chew the scenery, but what else are they going to do here? Close fares just a tad better especially when you see how successfully they transformed her to Mamaw, the family matriarch. Sure, I got caught in a bit of the story, but then at the same time, I forgot the film as soon as I finished watching it.
‘Vice’ had all the elements of a movie I would like – it’s liberal hate bait, it stars Christian Bale, probably the best actor of his generation, and it is directed by Adam McKay, whose previous movie I liked. But ‘Vice’ felt very exhausting for me. It pummels the idea that DIck Cheney is a bad person and is manipulative, and is shrewd. And anyone with any intelligence really knows that – so what. You want to ask, “and then.’ And he does provide the answers – we invade Iraq because of 9/11 when we shouldn’t have – but after a while I just did not want to be in the company of these people. I mean, I can barely stand these people sound-biting on the news, now I will spend two hours with them? Bale does give a performance of near perfection – he does the Cheney smile/sneer cannily – but that was not enough to keep my interest. And looking back, these issues have been done and dealt with. and we have much bigger problems in politics right now. I thought it was kind of sweet that Cheney loved his daughter a lot that he was almost for marriage equality. until we get to this calculations in the end while his daughter was campaigning when they just throw their lesbian daughter under the bus. Amy Adams is fine as well as the slimy Lynn Cheney, sure, but still all in all, I just didn’t really like any of these people and I wanted to leave the theater pronto.
I have fond admiration for a lot of Tom Ford’s work: his designs in fashion aren’t a;ways for me, but there’s no doubt they are all beautiful. His perfumes, aesthetic-wise, all match mine, or what I aspire for, since I cannot afford all of them. And he’s a fellow Virgo, so in my head we are kindred spirits. I of course have been wanting to see ‘Nocturnal Animals,’ his latest directorial effort after ‘A Single Man’ from 2009.
Luha Thoughts 