Ian Thomas Malone

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Sunday

31

December 2023

62

COMMENTS

The Dreamer is a pathetic mess from a man who simply doesn’t care anymore

Written by , Posted in Blog, Pop Culture, TV Reviews

The worst kinds of people to watch sports with are the ones who blame the officiating every single time their team gets blown out. The discourse surrounding the past few Dave Chappelle specials has essentially shifted from the comedic value of his work into a broader cultural discussion into the boundaries of the genre itself. Plenty of far-right publications took the non-sequitur route in their praise of Chappelle’s broadsides against the transgender community, lauding the bravery of his so-called “free speech” while casting aside any exploration of the merit of his humor.

The Dreamer is a lazy victory lap from a man with nothing else of value to offer the world beyond self-congratulatory musings on his own legacy, a lethargic effort aimed solely at fueling the far-right grievance industrial complex for another week. The Closer was a mostly humorless treatise centered around the backlash to his prior special Sticks and Stones. While Chappelle claims early on in The Dreamer that the controversy wasn’t worth the trouble, it’s kind of clear that it was, if only for one fairly sad reason. Trans jokes are pretty much all he’s got left.

After an opening bit where he compares trans people to Jim Carrey’s much-lampooned method acting work as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon, Chappelle mostly stays away from the trans community, though not without a clunk segue via some cheap jokes aimed at disabled people. There are some tasteless jokes aimed at the broader LGBTQ community, and a joke about identifying as a woman if he was sent to prison that falls in line with his previous special’s fascination with early 2000s style edgelord humor, but you can tell that Chappelle knows that his audience is growing tired of his obsession with gay people. A recurring theme throughout the special is Chappelle’s apparent level of self-awareness toward his reputation as a “lazy comedian.”

The most telling point of The Dreamer occurs halfway through when Chappelle starts on a bit about the Titan submersible. Chappelle admits that this joke never plays well on venues on his tour, but does it anyway, a joke that falls flat yet again at the Lincoln Theater in Washington DC. Longtime Chappelle director Stan Lathan does his subject no favors with constant cutaways to an audience that perpetually looks apathetic as joke after joke fails to land. It would be ridiculous to say that Chappelle doesn’t care what people think. His last two specials were entirely consumed with the reception of his work, at great expense to the comedic value of the material itself.

The DC location was ostensibly selected to draw parallels to Chappelle’s first special Killing Them Softly, also filmed at the Lincoln Theater, that propelled him to international stardom. The two decades that have passed since his debut have been kind to him in many ways, but an uncomfortable reality surfaces time and time again. He’s lost his edge.

Predictably, Chappelle spends a lot of time on the Will Smith slap endured by his friend Chris Rock at the Oscars, and on the spectator who attacked him at the Hollywood Bowl back in May. Chappelle squanders his unique perspective on the situation in favor of lazy jokes that lack the sharp timing that once defined his work. More and more, Chappelle just looks like a bored old rich guy out of touch with the industry he so radically helped define.

Comedy is not as kind to its aging stars as performers in other trades. The Rolling Stones can take the stage for two hours playing material that’s fifty years old. Chappelle can’t spend the night repeating bits from Killing Them Softly, even as his disengaged audience might wish that he would. There’s something fundamentally sad about watching Chappelle reflect on how hungry he used to be, while he tries to fill time in a special that often forgets that it’s supposed to be funny.

At times, Chappelle returns to his favorite punching bag, sprinkling a few trans jokes here and there, even as he pretends to claim that he gives people respect no matter what. He’s certainly resentful of the idea that people think he needs trans jokes to stay relevant, but not enough to do anything about it. There are enough shots at the trans community to ensure that the media will cover his new special, but the pickings are pretty thin otherwise.

The discourse that surrounded his last few specials will undoubtedly continue. People will spend the next few weeks playing armchair referee over the perceived boundaries of comedy. None of that matters.

The simple reality that Dave Chappelle’s newfound champions of the political right so conveniently ignore amidst the hornets’ nests that he loves to kick up is that the man has lost a step. The Dreamer isn’t particularly edgy. Instead, the special is something much sadder for a man who once sat at the top of the world. The Dreamer is boring.

Wednesday

20

December 2023

0

COMMENTS

Classic Film: Roadblock

Written by , Posted in Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

The American Dream has never really been able to shake its problematic relationship to the never-ending wheels of capitalism. A happy, content life, is never enough. The accumulation of wealth, flashy goods, and above all else, status, is the ugly reality of our nation’s most treasured ideals.

The 1951 film Roadblock examines a previously content life shaken off the straight and narrow path. Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) is a skilled insurance detective, working in tandem with his partner Harry Miller (Louis Jean Haydt) to track the loot stolen from a bank robbery. On his way home to Los Angeles, Peters makes the acquaintance of Diane (Joan Dixon), who pretends to be his wife in order to secure a discounted rate on her plane ticket.

Peters and Diane have an innate chemistry fueled by the former’s insecurities toward his middle-class life, and the latter’s unabashed gold-digging. Diane enjoys the finer things society has to offer, and doesn’t care what shady men she associates with on the path to riches. Peters’ monthly $350 income simply can’t sustain the life she’s accustomed to, throwing him off the straight-and-narrow path. Peters makes a deal with known criminal Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore) to rob a mail train, his share of the potential haul being more than enough to keep Diane happy for the rest of their lives.

Director Harold Daniels assembles all the pieces of a rich noir thriller, but Roadblock never really builds on its compelling deconstruction of American capitalism. The mechanics of the plot eat up much of the film’s brisk 73-minute runtime, leaving little space to explore the film’s interesting themes. The transformation of Diane from status-obsessed to a voice of reason within Peters’ life is handled far too haphazardly to be believable.

McGraw is a serviceable lead, but most of Roadblock’s best scenes feature Peters acting as a foil to the supporting cast. Dixon and Gilmore put forth performances that far exceed the stock nature of their characters. Haydt in particular is easily the most underutilized, bringing an edge to Miller that is never adequately explored. Too much of Daniels works feels paint-by-numbers, an unfortunate state of affairs for the substantive core of the narrative.

The film features an interesting chase scene along the LA River toward the end, perhaps the best encapsulation of the narrative’s wasted potential. B-movies don’t necessarily need to shoot for the moon, but it’s hard to forgive Roadblock’s many shortcomings when a talented cast and compelling themes are so terribly wasted in service to nothing at all.

Wednesday

13

December 2023

0

COMMENTS

Godzilla Minus One is one of the best films of the year

Written by , Posted in Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

There’s a certain formula to most genre films, especially monster movies like those belonging to the Godzilla franchise where the kaiju is the real star of the film. Human characters are essentially along for the ride, able to soak up large chunks of the runtime while serving as useful cannon fodder for the carnage the audience is there to witness. Few filmmakers working in the space dare to treat their human characters as people, cutting corners toward an inevitable destination amongst an ocean of forgettable, watchable B-movies.

Godzilla Minus One, the 37th live-action release in the franchise and 33rd produced by Toho Studios in Japan, a company that owes practically its entire success to the titular sea monster, understands its place as the titan of the kaiju genre. The original 1954 Godzilla still holds tremendous power for its social commentary on a country still reeling from the fallout of nuclear war. There will always be a certain novelty in watching a stunt double in a rubber suit kicking down prop buildings, but the underpinning of this franchise’s success is how bleakly raw its messaging can be when the series takes itself seriously.

Minus One takes the series back to its World War II roots, centering its narrative on Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who abandoned his duties, instead faking plane difficulties to land on Odo Island in the Pacific toward the end of the war. Shikishima bears witness to Godzilla ravaging the island, horrors only matched by the carnage left on the mainland after the atomic bomb was dropped. Returning home bearing the mark of a coward, Shikishima starts to rebuild his life by taking in a woman Noriko (Minami Hamabe) into his home, along with a small baby she found abandoned in a landscape with few survivors.

Shikishima finds work as a minesweeper, bonding with his crewmates while learning to live with his guilt. A few years later, the military starts to prepare for Godzilla’s inevitable return, keeping the broader public in the dark even under the bleak outlook. Director Takashi Yamazaki peppers the narrative with vital social commentary about the failures of the Japanese government to adequately relay information in the tumultuous 1940s, largely leaving citizens on their own to survive in an environment still reeling from some of the worst cruelties mankind has ever wrought upon itself.

Minus One succeeds through its courage to earnestly invest in exploring the rich complexities of humanity, a gamble few blockbusters dare to make. If that wasn’t enough, Yamazaki also delivers elite practical effects. This is a film that deeply respects the people who came to spend time in its playground. It seems almost foolish to sing such high praises for attributes such as a good script, superb acting, and top-tier visuals, but such elements are often missing from cinema in the year 2023.

Beyond just the sheer caliber of the bread and butter filmmaking, Minus One is a richly optimistic narrative. Too many modern blockbusters rest their laurels on larger-than-life heroes with no grounding in human struggles. Yamazaki puts his film’s entire stock in people, everyday humans with flaws who ultimately stare unimaginable odds dead in the face and fight on anyway. 2023 has been a bleak year amidst a broader sea of hopelessness across our modern landscape.

It really does often feel like it sucks to be alive in this modern era. Cinema isn’t just supposed to provide mindless escapism. The beauty of the big screen lies in its power to transform the mindsets of the people who paid a bit of money to take a seat for a journey to a world with fresh perspectives and new ideas. The beauty of art is to remind us that even if the shining city on a hill is going to be an uphill climb, it is our narrative arc as humanity to break our baser instincts and fight on for a world worth living in.

Though its 125-minute runtime could have used a scene or two shaved off its somewhat bloated third act, Yamazaki has produced one of the best films of the year. We’re living in a precarious time for the industry as so many other mediums vie for consumer’s attention. Godzilla Minus One is a breathtaking tour-de-force for the power of cinema itself, a much-needed reminder of how good it feels to sit in a movie theater when studios actually invest in work that respects the humanity of its audience.

Wednesday

6

December 2023

0

COMMENTS

The Little Drummer Boy Book II

Written by , Posted in Podcast

Did The Little Drummer Boy need a sequel? Absolutely not. Is Book II worth watching? Ian unpacks the short film’s surprisingly strong anti-capitalist message. For a special that’s running on fumes, Aaron’s second act is one of the better lesser-tier Rankin/Bass specials. 

 

EI’s coverage of the original Little Drummer Boy: https://ianthomasmalone.podbean.com/e/the-little-drummer-boy-1639166205/

 

EI’s full holiday slate: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2023/12/holiday-podcast-rankin-bass-muppets/

 

Tuesday

5

December 2023

0

COMMENTS

The Small One

Written by , Posted in Podcast

We are continuing our holiday coverage with the 1978 Disney special The Small One, a quietly powerful short little film. A favorite of Ian’s from an early age, she gets a little emotional talking about the narrative toward the end of the episode. For all the fun we have joking about all the cringe that often goes into holiday specials, The Small One is among the genre’s finest offerings.

The Small One is streaming on Disney Plus

 

Our full holiday slate: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2023/12/holiday-podcast-rankin-bass-muppets/ 

Monday

4

December 2023

0

COMMENTS

Holiday Podcast Coverage featuring Rankin/Bass and the Muppets

Written by , Posted in Blog, Podcast, Pop Culture

What’s Christmas without a bunch of cringe stop-motion specials from the 70s? We at Estradiol Illusions love to spend too much time over-analyzing popular culture. The holiday season is one of our favorite times to take a pause and unpack this bizarre genre of filmmaking.

We’ve organized a collection of our holiday episodes for your easy listening pleasure. Estradiol Illusions is available wherever you get your podcasts including Apple, Spotify, and Google. The Sptotfy collection has been neatly organized into a playlist. The external links are for Apple. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Rankin/Bass

The Year Without a Santa Claus

Rudolph: A Transgender Perspective

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town 

Rudolph’s Shiny New Year

Pinocchio’s Christmas

The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow

Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey

Jack Frost

The Lift and Adventures of Santa Claus

The Little Drummer Boy

A Miser Brother’s Christmas (technically just inspired by Rankin/Bass as a sequel to The Year Without a Santa Claus)

The Muppets

The Muppet Christmas Carol

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie

A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa

 

The Rest

A Charlie Brown Christmas (mostly about Ian’s breakup)

Thomas’ Snowy Surprise 

Archie Kao – Christmas at the Ranch

 

Monday

4

December 2023

0

COMMENTS

’Twas the Night Before Christmas

Written by , Posted in Podcast

We’re back in the Rankin/Bass cinematic universe, covering the 1974 animated special ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Santa is really angry about an op-ed penned in the local paper by a young mouse who dared not to live his life in service to the altar of faith. The town government is pretty apathetic toward Santa, a proper sentiment for a lackluster special. 

 

EI’s full holiday coverage: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2023/12/holiday-podcast-rankin-bass-muppets/

Friday

10

November 2023

1

COMMENTS

The Marvels is a charming trainwreck

Written by , Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Many think pieces are written about the floundering state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the past few years. For a company with decades of material and thousands of characters at its disposal, there is really no fundamental reason why one of media’s biggest franchises couldn’t weather the loss of a few of its top stars. People like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Scarlett Johansson may be A-list celebrities, but Disney has all the money in the world to pay top tier talent to come play in its sandbox. The only problem is the whole company doesn’t seem to know what to do with its toys.

The Marvels is a movie without a soul. There is no plot here. Fans can sit and grumble about the idea that MCU Disney+ series such as Wandavision and Ms. Marvel are essentially homework to understand the principal leads of this film, but even the most dedicated Marvel comics readers would be confused by the narrative, anchored by a gender-swapped niche villain Da-Benn (Zawe Ashton) from the 1990s.

As a character, Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) has only held the title of Captain Marvel since 2011, previously assuming the Ms. Marvel moniker now held by Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani). Without a steady solo book of her own, Danvers mostly served as a backbencher on Avengers books. Fittingly, her most noteworthy comic arc prior to assuming the Captain moniker came when Rogue, a member of the X-Men, permanently absorbed her powers, the latter reaching levels of popularity that far exceeded the former. Captain Marvel occupies a sliver of the Marvel cosmic realm that’s been far more thoroughly explored by other heroes such as Thor, the Silver Surfer, The Guardians of the Galaxy, and her own namesake Mar-Vell. Marvels co-lead Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Paris) actually became the first female comic book character to wear the mantle of Captain Marvel back in 1982, a layer of lore that the film at least attempts to honor.

All of those facts may sound overly complicated, but not more so than anything found in the most beloved Thor or Guardians films. Danvers, Khan, and Rambeau are all fun characters with exceptional chemistry. Vellani in particular is perhaps the greatest performer of the post-Endgame era, bringing the bubbly infectious energy to Kamala that made her Ms. Marvel book such a treat throughout creator G. Willow Wilson’s run. Khan’s Jersey City is such a living, breathing character, highly reminiscence of the early days of The Amazing Spider-Man back in the 1960s.

Director Nia DeCosta does a lackluster job with a loaded deck. You can’t really blame her for how cheap The Marvels looks, paling in comparison to the two, ostensibly smaller-scale television shows that set up Rambeau and Khan. The film relies solely on a few practical sets, some that look like they literally dragged over from The Mandalorian with little more than a paint job, and the same bland StageCraft that’s sunk the last few Marvel releases and much of its Star Wars output. The camera shots in the action sequences are exceedingly frantic, wrecking most of the scenes designed to carry this wreck. Somehow, against all odds, the film’s lean 105-minute runtime feels bloated and overwrought, a paint-by-numbers embarrassment from a company that cannot seriously claim to care about art. Its penchant for humor aside, the MCU is now thoroughly a joke.

The original sin of 2019’s Captain Marvel was its relative apathy toward exploring Danvers as a person. Rambeau’s presence allows for the modest exploration of found family, a theme that feels a little hollow with everything else going on. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Khan’s family (Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, and Saagar Shaikh) provide ample comic relief that makes you wish all of them could have been deployed in service to something more grounded in Kamala’s world. Thankfully, Fury’s last appearance in the meandering slog that was Secret Invasion is largely irrelevant here, though that exposes a deeper issue. The Marvels sort of briefly tries to pretend like it cares about the Kree and the Skrulls, adding more confusion to an audience already bound to struggle with the large, empty scope of this disaster.

There are times when the pacing relaxes and the audience can have a bit of fun with the characters, but the narrative never loses the sense that something is fundamentally missing. The film never stops to establish its stakes at any point, streamlining an experience that’s hard to enjoy when you can’t stop wondering why any of this matters. The truth is, it doesn’t.

This movie has no use for its villain besides sheer obligation. It’s unclear how many members of the audience would be able to name Da-Benn five minutes after leaving the theater. This is hardly a movie, but rather content to be digested and forgotten. Everyone involved deserves better.

Many recent Marvel movies have struggled with the size of their casts, each release hellbent on throwing out tons of new characters at the expense of the existing ones. Carol may have been pegged to lead The Avengers someday, but more than a half-decade after her debut, we still know next to nothing about her. Ironically, The Marvels has a more intimate cast than many of the newer films, giving its three leads, the Khan family, and Fury plenty of time to shine. The movie’s fundamental issue is far simpler than any existential crisis facing this franchise. Charisma cannot cover up a nonexistent narrative and shoddy filmmaking.

Wednesday

8

November 2023

0

COMMENTS

Priscilla showcases Sofia Coppola’s uniquely suited talents for its subject matter

Written by , Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

There is no other figure in our country’s culture who embodies the full picture of Americana, all its beauty and its excess, quite like Elvis Presley. The towering heights achieved by the King of Rock and Roll are matched only by his conflicted humanity. Elvis managed to be larger than life and all too human simultaneously, a reality manifested in his courtship of his wife Priscilla from an unprecedented position of power as one of the most sought-after individuals on the face of the earth.

It is quite odd that Elvis, serving in the Army at age twenty-four, took a special interest in a fourteen year old girl barely starting her freshman year of high school. The film Priscilla explores the makings of Priscilla Wagner well outside the typical male gaze through which a woman like her would have been perceived back then. As the daughter of one of the most accomplished directors in the history of cinema, Sofia Coppola knows better than most how the world enjoys projecting its fantasies and shortcomings on any woman bold enough to throw herself out there.

There is a natural proclivity to assign a sort of mystique to Priscilla (played by Cailee Spaeny). Coppola and Spaeny work in tandem to never lose sight of the basic reality of the power unbalance between a young child and one of the biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. One can accept the intentions of Elvis (Jacob Elordi) as genuine and honorable, but there’s no getting around the fact that it is an extremely strange dynamic only made less weird through Presley’s ability to bend any environment to his whim, setting up Priscilla in Memphis with his father and grandmother to watch over her as she finished her studies at a local Catholic school. Trying to do things above board does not make any of this normal.

Coppola delivers a sleek narrative well-suited for her skills, a surface-level reading of a drug-addicted superstar who owes most of his success to the phalanx coddling his every move while safeguarding the means of production. Elordi and Spaeny are mesmerizing together, the former capturing all of Elvis’ charisma while never downplaying his darker tendencies. Spaeny confidently navigates that awkward space between spouse and plaything, forever at the whims of the entire orbit around her. Rarely known for subtlety, Coppola does rather cleverly deploy the Memphis Mafia as a perpetual panopticon that Priscilla is forced to grapple with as she struggles to find her place in Elvis’ life. For a film with practically zero fleshed-out supporting characters, the peanut gallery paints a vivid picture in the absence of any voice of its own.

At 112 minutes, Priscilla is among the longer entries in Coppola’s portfolio, surpassed only by Marie Antoinette, her only other attempt at hovering in the atmosphere of a biopic. It’s hard to argue that she uses the time well, meandering on the same points for most of the narrative while skipping out on the points that would have given her protagonist some agency amidst her broader objective to browbeat the audience into submission regarding the monotonies of Graceland. The third act leaves a lot to be desired, though Coppola does align her film with a broader truth about Elvis that people often forget.

For all the mystique surrounding Elvis, the man himself is not terribly complicated. Elvis possessed unparalleled charisma, but the presence of Colonel Tom Parker, who never appears in the film, took raw talent and transformed it into an industry. The man was a drug addict who spent much of his career coasting off the fame acquired in his youth, already on the downturn by the time a fourteen-year-old Priscilla came into his life. Elvis is every bit the commodity that Graceland itself became after his death. He undoubtedly loved Priscilla, while gradually using his star power to control and abuse any sense of agency she might have felt. Love is complicated. Elvis Presley is not. For all its flaws, Priscilla understood that innate truth better than most.

Wednesday

8

November 2023

0

COMMENTS

Remy & Arletta is a powerful indie portrait of young queer affection

Written by , Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

High school narratives are in many ways better suited for adults who have been through the hellish ordeal that is the American education system than the children who may be inclined to see their own present as the most pivotal point in their lives. For many, especially members of the LGBTQ community, high school is something to be survived. Any notion of thriving should come with the requisite understanding that life is not defined by anything that happens during those chaotic four years.

The film Remy & Arletta centers its narrative on a young woman juggling a particularly challenging set of circumstances. Remy (Micaela Wittman, who also penned the screenplay) is trying to make it through high school while sharing a motel room with her controlling alcoholic mother Eilene (Amy Benedict). Remy’s best friend Arletta (Riley Quinn Scott) tries to offer her some sanctuary amidst her unstable family life, but something deeper is at play. With an easy, natural chemistry between the two, Arletta develops feelings for Remy in that shaky grey territory between puppy love and codependency, two teenagers in way over their heads with little else going well in their lives but their relationship with each other.

Shot on a nano-budget, director Arthur de Larroche crafts a first-rate production that stands far above any limitations presented by the realities of filmmaking through a brisk seventy-one minute runtime. The film mostly belongs to Wittman, whose Remy is relatable and genuine, earning both the sympathies and frustrations of the audience through a few of her decisions. High schoolers often feel like they’re carrying the weight of the world under normal circumstances. Remy’s life is a mess, and yet she still perseveres, chasing her dreams while lugging around more emotional baggage than anyone that age should ever have to carry.

Remy & Arletta presents an authentic take on the unique challenges of queer high school romance while never caving to the fantasies that young people often project onto their worldviews. There’s a reason most of us look back on our high school tenures and cringe. High school is in many ways a great canvas to fling as much stuff on as possible before college and the real world whisk you away to less hormonal pastures, a privileged perspective that sadly not afforded to people in Remy’s situation.

The real triumph of the film is Wittman’s ability to remind her audience of the whimsical feelings that young queer love can bring to any of us blessed, or cursed, enough to have experienced it for ourselves. Remy & Arletta stands out for its grounded and earnest take on a highly chaotic time in American teenage life. High school shouldn’t be the defining chapter in anyone’s life, but the film makes a wonderful case for the beauty of those fleeting moments we once clung to, when we were young.