7 Comments

You should remarkable restraint not calling them the Powers that Bee

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You see how upset I was? I completely missed that one!

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I blurt laughed when they revealed that Jemma Redgrave was the President.

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Kate Stewart of UNIT, undercover as Hillary Rodham Clinton? SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE!

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::Another commonality between Hunter Biden and Derek Danforth is, oh, I dunno, they’re both the bad seed progeny of THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. ::

Because of COURSE he is—fucking Republicans. He couldn't be still-using cokehead Donald Trump, Jr., who can't do shit without Daddy's narcissistic approval, including telling lies about his father's connections to a wealthy pedophile so transparent he got ratio'd fifteen minutes after making them, could he?

Action films are an inherently Fascistic (Word of the Year, I guess) medium because, try as you might, they don't really work unless your hero has a moral code while your villains are irredeemable, legally-untouchable scum. The late Pauline Kael pointed this out in her negative review of the first DIRTY HARRY movie, and how perfectly Clint Eastwood slotted into the Right-Wing fantasy of a righteous avenger—tall, lean, icily-focused, but with "his face occasionally breaking into a Shirley McLaine smile".

If the President's son was shown to be acting out thanks to the death of his brother, or (Gods forbid!) somebody who has turned his life around and is being persecuted by a bunch of ravening Trump Nazi halfwits, then you question the hero's morality and thus can't enjoy him enacting excessive terminal vengeance on the Wealthy and Powerful. We can't have that, now!

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I feel like I've heard that assessment of action films before, particularly of the Clint Eastwood variety (or Bronson, or any other hard-nosed cop/vigilante character). I can't say that I dislike them because of that, but I do enjoy when it's flipped too - although it would derided as "woke" in today's society. White House Down springs to mind immediately, along with The Purge: Election Year (among others in that series). One that's just mindless fun and another that has some heavy-handed allegory, but makes a point nonetheless.

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Having seen THE BEEKEEPER over the weekend, I think Nabin's reading of the coked-up young punk as Hunter Biden was more of his slipping into his Raight-Wuing MURIKAN! MAGA pose he is so perversely fond of. This kid was such a stereotype of an obnoxious entitled little pill that even Donald Trump, Jr. would look at him and go "Dude...." ::shakes head sadly::

While I also really had fun with this movie, I couldn't help but notice that both the U.S. President and ex-CIA Director-turned-fixer were both played by Brits—Jemma Redgrave and Jeremy Irons, respectively. Though they were both doing good American accents (Irons's was more Midlantic Aristocrat, but it works), the President's beach house had a Felliniesque bacchanal with clowns, jugglers and acrobats for no reason I could ascertain going on, and one I doubt seriously any American President would have. Remember the shit Republicans gave the Bidens for the multicultural Jazz and Tap take on THE NUTCRACKER?:

https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/1735074586721468855

This made that look like The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing The Hallelujah Chorus!

Still, crazy but fun movie, with Statham killing lots of people who deserve it, and not-killing lots more because they're Just Doing Their Jobs (Feds, Cops, SWAT Teams), though he really takes advantage of their wearing body armor....

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