62 posts categorized "Agitprop"

July 28, 2024

HITMAN

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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ColeSmithey.comRichard Linklater and co-screenwriter/actor Glen Powell craft an enticingly funny and sexy social satire inspired by an unlikely true situation.

Leave it to Texas to hire a nerdy math and philosophy college professor to pretend to be a real-life hitman in order to catch those seeking unsavory assistance in the dispatching of an enemy.

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That was back in the '80s and '90s, before texts, emails, social media posts, and search engine requests provided most of the background evidence in such cases.

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Although the narration categorically informs us that hitmen don't really exist; that little bit of exposition is, well, absolutely untrue; it's just that everyday civilians don't usually have access to such skullduggery.

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Rather than Houston, where the actual events took place, Richard Linklater sets the action in New Orleans. It reminds us of what a cool location New Orleans is for movies to be filmed. If there's one city in America that is palpably sexual, it's The Big Easy.

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Glen Powell makes a splash as Gary Johnson, a mild mannered math teacher who finds his true calling, and a main squeeze (played by Adria Arjona), when he goes undercover to participate in sting operations against those wishing to purchase the services of a cold blooded killer, namely one poorly disguised Gary Johnson.

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"Hitman's" overriding themeline is put both succinctly and indirectly during Gary Johnson's teaching efforts with his classroom students.

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How well do we know ourselves?

What is our facility for changing our behaviors?

Gary tells his students to seize the identity that they want for themselves.

ColeSmithey.com

These burning questions catch fire as we are introduced to archetypal characters in search for illicit relief from personal problems further clouded by misinformation and America's twisted social norms.

ColeSmithey.com

While it may not be a perfect movie, "Hitman" is a perfectly nuanced satire.

"Hitman" comes at right time.

ColeSmithey.com

If only we could have such movies without the presence of guns. I suppose that's a big part if this movie's premise.

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Richard Linlater's resume just keeps getting better, and better, and better.

Rated R. 115 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

July 01, 2024

THE OLD OAK — CANNES 2023

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ColeSmithey.com

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

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ColeSmithey.com

 

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ColeSmithey.comCurrently at age 88, Ken Loach is a senior statesman of Socialist Cinema. It's questionable as to whether or not "The Old Oak" will be his final film.

As such, "The Old Oak" arrives with a palpable sense of import.

Working with his longtime screenwriter Paul Laverty, Ken Loach gives us a great litmus test of a movie to guide minds toward communal understanding and mutual support.

ColeSmithey.com

Still, "The Old Oak" will not do much for the tourism trade in North East England's County Durham.

Bitter and nasty right-wingers openly attack Syrian refugees brought by social workers into their neighborhood.

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Scripted with Paul Laverty's reliable ear for accurate dialogue, "The Old Oak" is special film that fits well beside other Ken Loach/Paul Laverty masterpieces as "Carla's Song," "Ae Fond Kiss," and "The Wind That Shakes The Barley."

Communities are only as good as their infrastructure.

ColeSmithey.com

Socialism is everywhere you look.

Paved streets, street lights, sidewalks, bridges, plumbing and running water, are all socialist constructs.

Getting your head out of your ass is just the first step toward a better world.

"The Old Oak" is a fine place to start.

Not Rated. 113 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

June 27, 2024

PRIDE

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.ColeSmithey.comThis ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

 

Undone by Broad Strokes
Historic LGBT Battle in the UK Goes Soft

By Cole Smithey


Screen Shot 2024-08-05 at 12.24.26 AMAll attempts fail at forcing a by-the-numbers narrative template on a fact-based story about unlikely bedfellows uniting against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's mid '80s reign of anti-union and anti-gay rhetoric and public policies.

Newbie screenwriter Stephen Beresford plays a game of hide-the-protagonist that further distracts from a diluted "feel-good" movie that should have by all rights been a slam-dunk.

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London, circa June 1984, is the site of a Gay Pride march where 20-year-old Joe (George MacKay) is inadvertently lured into joining the parade in spite of his meek efforts to avoid holding a sign that reads "Queers — Better Blatant Than Latent."

Still insecure about his own gayness, shy Joe comes out of his shell after being welcomed into the fold of a local gay rights group, home-based in a cozy neighborhood bookstore called Gay's the Word. Sidelining his culinary studies to be a pastry chef seems a fair exchange for Joe's sudden decision to follow his other passions.

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Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) is the charismatic gay rights firebrand whose impromptu mid-parade decision to represent a group of striking miners, as equally despised as the gays by Thatcher's vindictive regime, sounds a clarion call that eventually rings through in the UK's corridors of power. Mark rebrands the group from "Gay Liberation Front" to "Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners" (LGSM).

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After taking up sidewalk collections, Mark transports his small but passionate alliance to the South Wales coal-mining town of Onllwyn to donate the monies to the miners' poorly articulated cause. Running with the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, LGSM recruits the help of Onllwyn's able-bodied community club spokesperson Dai (Paddy Considine) to introduce them to the miners. Although the town's National Union of Mineworkers take seething umbrage at receiving support from such a group of "perverts," they don't turn down the money.

The film's neglect of the cause and nature of the miner's strike is a glaring oversight that also weakens its potential as serious work of agitprop cinema.

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Rocks thrown, rather than the personalities of the bullies throwing them, express the era's cultural reality of intolerance. The film's broad comic tone undermines the seriousness of the sometimes-violent drama at hand. A perky musical score and colorful set designs that border on the garish exist at odds with the vital nature of the story. At times the movie feels like an Ealing comedy on steroids. Nevertheless, its use of Billy Bragg's version of "There is Power in a Union" plays all the right chords when it finally arrives. ColeSmithey.com

Four too many subplots splinter the film as Mark's motley group of gays shuttle between London and Onllwyn's Dulias Valley town while drumming up more financial aid for the miners. Confusion arises about which character the filmmakers intend the audience to invest most of its interest in. Strong supporting performances from Dominic West, playing the first UK victim of the AIDS virus, and Bill Nighy, as Cliff, a retired miner who happens to be a closeted gay, help keep the film entertaining even if the movie doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. Even Imelda Staunton's feisty portrayal of Hefina, a community organizer in Onllwyn, gets lost in the shuffle.

ColeSmithey.com

However chuckle-inducing its use of broad comedy might be — witness a gaggle of little old Welsh ladies pouring over gay porn and admiring an oversized dildo — the movie puts too much weight on the comic side of the scales to achieve its ostensible purpose, namely putting the audience squarely inside an essential chapter of the LGBTQ movement's battle for cultural equality in the UK.

Rated R. 120 mins.

2 Stars

Cozy Cole

ColeSmithey.com

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