This is supposed to be an article about my two least favourite films of the year (PAST LIVES and OPPENHEIMER), but in order to talk about those movies I first have to discuss myself and where I’m at in my life, and Ari Aster’s short film THE STRANGE THING ABOUT THE JOHNSONS, so you have a clearer understanding of what I’m trying to convey here. So this will all be very tangential at first and then I’ll get back to the “movie review” aspect of this when it makes sense.
First of all, if you haven’t been paying much attention to the news lately (and I don’t particularly blame you), this Israel/Palestine shit has been very overwhelming and intense. It has changed something in me, and I am not the only person to say that. I have always been pretty outspoken about not wasting money on stuff I don’t want to support, but these days it has become so vulgarly clear just how much Zionist influence is in the world that I’ve doubled down on never supporting that sort of stuff ever again to the best of my abilities. It’s Starbucks, Chapters, Sabra hummus, and several of your favourite people in the entertainment industry probably. Whereas in the past I’d probably cut down on Starbucks because of the CEO’s support for Israel, these days I am making a conscious effort to cut all of that out of my life, and to actually look up the people involved with something I’m not sure of. In fact, even if I’m not 100% confident someone is not a Zionist, I will probably not support them anyway just to be sure. In other words, as a result of this ongoing Palestinian genocide we’re witnessing, I have become more cynical and political minded as a consumer.
That leads me to the Ari Aster film. If you’ve never seen it before or have only heard about it, I will quickly describe the relevant details of it: it’s a horror film about an incestuous black family that was released in 2011. It went “viral” at the time of its release, and has been fairly well-received. At the time it came out, I saw it and don’t remember thinking anything serious about it other than, “Wow, that’s messed up,” and then I quickly moved on. I’ve only thought about it over the years whenever Ari Aster’s name has come up because he’s fairly successful and his career keeps growing, and the movie gets discussed all over again. Now, however, as discussed above, like most things I have become pretty cynical and politicized about it.
Ari Aster is Jewish, which doesn’t really matter, but at the same time…if we’re being honest here, if you’re making a movie depicting another race in such an extreme way….it absolutely does matter. It’s tough to say whether or not this film can really just be written about as a mere work of “art” or if there’s a serious case to be made about how it’s destructive. These days I lean toward the latter, and I have seen the growing opinion online that I’m not alone: the idea of showing a black family in a film for the worst reason possible, is incredibly suspect. Ari Aster has apparently said (according to Wikipedia), "The color of the family isn't important. We certainly assumed that casting black actors in a film that tackles such transgressive themes would create something of a stir, and it would be a lie to say that we weren't hesitant, especially as many people were advising us against the decision." To me, with my ever-increasing conspiratorial mindset, this reeks of bullshit. And it also begs the question: if the colour of the family wasn’t important, if you wanted to make a stir, why did you not use your own people? Why not make a film about a family of Jews who are fucking and sucking each other off for half an hour straight? Wouldn’t that be just as controversial?
There is no single right or wrong answer to any of that probably, the answer is up to the individual and how you personally feel. For me, I think if I were to make a movie about a family of Jewish people doing grotesque things to one another, I would very quickly be labelled an antisemite, and no one would ever want to work with me ever again. I’ll tell you what would not happen: I would certainly not go on to have a flourishing career working with A24 (which is owned by Jews, by the way). Everyone would see me as some kind of sick freak who made this film with some kind of ulterior motive. But for some reason, Ari Aster got away with it. Now, again: I’m not saying he’s a bad person, or that he was purposely doing something harmful. All I’m saying is, I view these things with far more skepticism than I once did. If you think he’s cool and you want to support his work with your money, I don’t fault anyone for that, it’s your choice, and none of my business.
If you asked me as a 19 year old dude in 2011 watching the film for the first time, I’d probably think nothing of it beyond, “it’s art.” Now, as a 31 year old man I can’t help but think that Ari Aster was irresponsible, and I don’t really want to support his work financially in any way moving forward. To me, a film like this is way more egregious than something like Django Unchained, where slavery is used in a subversive manner in order to create a sort of “superhero.” In Johnsons there’s nothing uplifting about it, it feels like it’s entirely for exploitation purposes. It would’ve made more sense to me if Spike Lee were to have gotten upset with Ari Aster instead of Tarantino, to be honest with you.
And by the way, I’m not saying Aster is a bad person or untalented. I downloaded Beau is Afraid, watched it for free, and enjoyed it. All I’m saying here is I think people like him should have less of a platform, and I don’t wish to support that type of thing any further. It feels like the whole world is designed to give guys like that a platform, and guys like me nothing. It’s also interesting to me that Aster says he came up with the idea for Johnsons with the black actor who plays the son in the film, Brandon Greenhouse. Aster’s career has taken off, and when I checked IMDb Greenhouse has only one other credit from 2017. I don’t mean to be a conspiracy theory sounding guy, but the world seems to lean that way sometimes. And that’s sort of my main point here: I can’t help but feel complicit in all this in some way, and I feel like withdrawing my attention and financial support for people that probably do not have the best intentions. Sometimes I have an internal debate with myself about whether or not there is really such a thing as “just art,” or if something is sus, and what my role in all of that is as a consumer (and a creator, obviously). It’s a side of my brain I wish I could turn off, but once you start to see it more in the world it becomes impossible.
That all leads me, finally, to the “movie review” portion of this. My least favourite movies of the year were PAST LIVES and OPPENHEIMER. The reasons for both are different, but similar, so I’ll try to distill it. Everything I said above about The Johnsons is applicable here to both films: they both feel like straight up propaganda, and the furthering of some kind of agenda. I know that right away when I use that word “agenda” I come across as some kind of nut, but there’s just no other way to explain it.
Past Lives has been marketed as a sort of semi-autobiographical, feminist, romantic drama. It’s Celine Song’s directorial debut, and has been (incorrectly, I feel) compared to Linklater’s Before trilogy (Linklater’s film trilogy felt like an organic film about two people falling in and out of love with each other, and was a shared collaboration with himself and the people starring in the movie. Celine Song’s movie feels like a masturbatory exercise for herself). It’s beautifully shot on film (so is Oppenheimer), which is not what I take issue with. The thing about this film that bugs me is how the lead character (the stand-in for Celine Song) makes poor choices that seem to be celebrated. She’s a selfish “hustle culture” type person who makes the choice to string the Korean guy who likes her along, and marry a Jewish guy in America (again, I hate to do this to you here, but I have to remind you that A24 put this movie out and they’re owned by Jews — you really have to wonder what the point of having this movie being out there is). As an audience we’re supposed to interpret all of this as her being a smart go-getter who made the right choice because the Korean dude from her past was handsome and all, but he just wasn’t upwardly mobile enough and didn’t serve her lifestyle. The Celine Song character is not really a great person, but we’re meant to believe it couldn’t have been any other way: her choosing to leave to America and find the first white guy she met was supposed to happen apparently. The whole movie is basically an argument for her behaviour.
It might sound like I’m being too cynical here, but just imagine if I were to make a movie like this. Imagine if I made a movie where a short cute brown girl from my past I really got along with, in the mean streets of Toronto, Ontario (lmao) looked me up and tracked me down years later as an adult. And because it’s my movie and it’s my fantasy of what happened, in this fictional world I’m living in Amsterdam as a famous writer and filmmaker. So the girl tracks me down there and we agree to meet up near a canal somewhere. We catch up and talk, and later on I invite her to dinner with my trophy wife I have zero in common with. Some woman with big 1990s fake tits, blue eyes, and blonde hair. And then I made them both sit together for no reason…it’s sick, twisted, satanic, self-serving stuff. But for some reason, maybe because the director is a woman, we’re supposed to buy into this whole “in-yun/Past Lives” idea of something just not working out. I see this less as a romantic movie and more as a narcissistic display of boring propaganda that tries to make an argument for abandoning who you are, where you come from, letting white society dominate you, and things of that nature. That’s only one way to look at it obviously, but I don’t think it’s right or wrong. I’m just saying that’s just how I see it more these days; the whole movie feels like a justification.
Now, to discuss Oppenheimer, before I start I have to tell you that I am not an idiot. A lot of people have agreed with me on the Past Lives stuff, but with Christopher Nolan there’s a tendency to praise all his work as the mark of some kind of film genius and so forth. I completely understand why someone would like this film. And to be honest with you, I get why they’d like Past Lives as well. My issue with both of these films has nothing to do with their aesthetics, because they are both beautifully shot on film and they’re both very artfully done, etc. It’s more about the mere existence of a film like Oppenheimer. All of this just boils down to the title: politics, cynicism, and conspiracy/agenda. I personally wouldn’t want to make a film like this because I feel like it doesn’t need to exist. In my opinion, it’s not really a story that needs to be told. I know that might sound stupid, but it’s not an educational or informative film really (if someone wanted that, they could just watch a documentary about Oppenheimer, which would be way better). It just feels like propaganda and the upholding of some kind of supremacy. He made the bomb, but don’t worry: he lowkey felt bad about it, frfr on god, I swear bro, he was a conflicted individual. That’s why it has to be 3 hours. Let’s give our sympathy to white dudes from the past who don’t need it at all. Let’s throw all our money at this white dude in the present to make a movie about a white dude in the past. Make sure you make him look cool as hell when you do it!
The other thing I don’t like about this movie is that I found it to be mostly pretty boring overall. There are many ways you could do this movie, and it felt like Nolan chose the most boring way possible. 3 hours of people sitting around tables and talking. Basically nothing about the Japanese people involved, because well, shit, that’s not important. We need to see this guy with this cool ass hat smoke cigarettes and feel conflicted and bang women cowgirl style. That’s what it’s all about. She gave him the ole Shloppenheimer, we don’t need to see Japan. Why don’t you like this movie? Are you dumb? Do you hate cinema? You’re just being negative because you’re dumb and you don’t get what he was trying to do bro!
And finally, the main thing I didn’t like about Oppenheimer is that people keep saying it’s great because it’s an “original” film. At the time of their releases, I kept hearing this statement about both Oppenheimer and Barbie. This really pissed me off because there is pretty much nothing original about either film. Oppenheimer is a movie that tells the story about a real guy in history (while cutting out the most relevant aspects of that history and sugarcoating what he did), and Barbie is a corporate-owned product. Nothing about either of these films are original. It’s not like some kid living in the middle of nowhere wrote a script and was discovered, it’s literally just corporate garbage that was marketed in a rapelike manner to make you feel like you had to see both films to be part of a cultural conversation. This summer I could not not see Oppenheimer’s face or the image of Margot smiling in the car: the studios put their full weight behind these movies, and nothing about their success was accidental. They marketed this film by assaulting the senses, and sort of psyopping the masses into making them feel like they simply had to.
But anyway, I got off-track there a little and I should end with something that makes sense. I think the problem I have with a lot of movies these days is not so much about the movies themselves being bad — like I said, shooting on film is good and pleasing to the eye etc — but it’s with the messaging in movies, and why certain things are being made at all. To me, it’s more interesting to make art that is attempting to be a positive force in the world overall, and a lot of stuff feels like it’s being made for the wrong reasons. I think if people in the film industry are going to do stuff that is a certain way, then it’s important to be conscious with how you choose to support them and spend your money. I would much rather give my money to a family-owned Shawarma place, for example, than some company like A24 whose founders I’m not sure of. This isn’t something as simple as just spending money to cheer yourself up, this is a life or death thing: you are supporting businesses that could very well be killing people. I’m not writing any of this to convince anyone of anything, I’m just articulating how I personally feel on the matter.
