7 Lives of Lea

The 7 Lives of Lea  

- a Genenda (sic)

TVMA - 2022 - Netflix

 

By now everyone knows that TVMA doesn't mean anything when it comes to the actuality of who sees what.  It's rated this way because of content that is in the "MA" class, but that doesn't make it mature.  It is obviously aimed, [yes I can use that word because I am a free agent and write whatever I want to on this blog.  I am not in a union, or conscripted by a company, or a slave to a cultural bias or ideal that is corrupted by political power or money.  Ah hem...so...] ...aimed at the youth culture that are it's main cast, most of which are in high school, which is that period where gender, sex, relationships, and figuring out our place in this world are the driving forces behind our actions at that age.  So why not influence, right?

 

It IS mature if you're the producer, meaning that as a producer, the world of Netflix is not immune to onslaught of the gender agenda.  Gendenda?  That's a good new word.  Might as well adopt it, make it part of the lexicon of actual English words, just like so many other revisionists have done.  Like "gay" for instance.

 

I don't care what you think of me as a reviewer.  It's more important to tell the truth...call the spade black and the flower yellow, whatever...honest dialogue is lost now in any case, because we've left the solidity of common moral belief, and are chasing after our own "dream", whatever that is.  Ok, I'm not part of that.

 

But the producers of this show are definitely sold out on the idea that crossing genders is a "normal" part of life, and to hide such things is a bad idea all around.  

 

Let me phrase this as if I were the producer of this show, or in a conversation with one of the writers: 

 

 "Listen, to have stability, to have peace, to bring maturity, kids need to make decisions early about who they are.  If they have feelings for the same sex, it's better for them to get it out now, to say it.  I want this show to be all about that, so set it up that the parental figures in the story have actually LIED about who they are, and it brings about ruin in the end.  The main character, she sees through that.  And oh, make sure her best friend is definitely gay, and show her in a normal relationship with a girlfriend, yet she can also have a straight friend as well and it's all good, right?"

 

Look, the world is full of ideas.  But one idea that is simply intellectually, morally, historically, and psychologically insufferable, is that people in high school can make good decisions about their choice of gender attraction.  EVERY kid on the block has at one point or another "thought" about the same sex, and we know for a fact have explored those thoughts and feelings in real life.  That does NOT determine sexual preference.  A kid playing Doctor with the same sex kid next door does not "make" them homosexual.  Nope, most likely it is the presence of a pushy, deterministic, decidedly ultra-liberal, biased piece of MEDIA that pushes our children to believe that their feelings in this way "mean", or are conclusory, that they are homosexual, and therefore might as well "come out with it".  

 

Ok, so...Netflix, why don't YOU come out with all of the notes from your internal meetings between writers and producers, and....oh yeah, the people who pay the bills in general at your house, so we can read them for ourselves?  Mel B?  Shawn and Dan L?  Noah B?  Jerry S? ...a host of others?

 

Like that's going to happen.

 

And why do I get the sneaking suspicion that if I keep writing like this, my blog will mysteriously disappear one day? Well, only if it gets noticed.  Like it ever has.  Only 11K views.  That's not enough weight to throw a glass of water on a volcano.  BUT...I'd bet there are not just a few of us out here with glasses of water like mine to toss.

- Agitatus

Warrior Nun

Warrior Nun   2022              

2 Seasons

2 simple terms:

 

Radical Feminism

 

Lesbians 

 

Easiest review I've ever written.


 

 

- Agitatus

Don't Look Up  

2021 

R - 2 hr 18 min 

 

There could not be a better painting, photograph, article, poem, or song that describes the current state of our culture at large than the film “Don’t Look Up”.

 

But of course, it’s really much bigger than that.  The last 5 minutes of the film sum it up quite well at the dinner table.  Thank you Timoth’ee Chalamet.

 

While a completely fictional comedic farce, the internal contents of Don’t Look Up underscore the nature or our media, leadership, prurient idolatry, and collective narcissism, and in essence, our humanity,.  And not to be outdone…our place in time.  As large as a comet, the juxtaposition of banal false hope and real love could not be more distant than east…is to west.

This is a must-see for all those who are addicted to having their tongues firmly planted in one or the other cheek in any given moment.  But concurrently, the effect can be as devastating to our conscience as a look into a mirror while illuminated at 5400K bright daylight.  

Brilliant.  As well written, executed. and as devastating as any Ben Hur, Citizen Kane, or Apocalypse Now could have been.  At this film’s cornucopia of images, convergence of politics with reality, and poignant paraleipsis, irony is at it’s finest, and even Shakespeare would have been envious.

Enjoy Responsibly.

 

- Agitatus

Mosquito Coast 2021

TV-MA Season 1 -  7 Episodes

I remember very well the details of the Peter Weir film of the same name, with Harrison Ford, 1986.  Every actor in that film was an icon, or became one.  Hellen Mirren, River Phoenix, Martha Plimpton, all the members of the family.  

 

The same genius myopic vision of the progenitor of the Paul Theroux novel is now a direct descendant, the nephew, of the author, Justin Theroux.

 

It would seem that the casting here could not have been more fitting, as it was self-applied by the actor himself, and the director, and the producer.  Yep, all the same.  And I say fitting, because the character he plays, for all practical purposes, may very well be him in real life.  He is noted as saying that he has no ambition...ok...no "street" ambition as the character in the AppleTV series might also say he does not.  But Justin certainly fits the profile of the lone genius and multipod, as he's had his hand in every position except possibly script girl.  

 

The Series, well, it's a different animal than the earlier film, that's for sure.  The same theme of anti-societal, or anti-oligarchical innovation and system disruption is in the main character, yes, but the sum of the plot parts could not be any more different, and definitely caught up with the 2K world.  

 

I'll have to say that this series takes many of it's cues after Breaking Bad, as so many TV series since then have.  The gritty reality, the brutal characters, the hair-raising tension/suspense, but mostly...the main character, Allie Fox...all point in the same dangerous direction as Breaking Bad.  There are many moments when I swear it's Bryan Cranston on the screen and not Theroux.  The way he puffs his chest out, and calmly, dismissively hands out his decisive and ultimately persuasive directions to his family, of course in this case the whole operation up front from the start and not a coverup.  Walter White had us all strung along for some time with his "case" of underdog, and his heroism in the face of cancer and "the man", until you couldn't help but get sick of all of the people he used and killed.  Here, we have a much more elevated hero/anti-hero it seems, that while guilty of activities that have led to people being hurt, we might be much more persuaded to align ourselves with because of his seemingly absolute affection for the family, and his hatred of all things hypocritical and wasteful. His empathy for the disenfranchised could not have been more poignantly stated than when he labels all of those indigent souls running around under the city concrete as being "simply no longer able to consume...non-consumers...so that's their crime...they can..." no longer participate in the great capitalist engine, my words for what he said.  Yeah, that was a very clear moment that encapsulated the "insight" of his character, and the "cover" for his drive to action.  

 

However, we know that all great altruistic utopians had as much ego as anyone else, and many a justification for their excesses in obtaining their goals, including such subtle subterfuge even as playing the heartstrings of their family members.  Yet most characters of this nature it is believed, have historically had some genuine love for the end result being prosperity and the comfort of their own.  This is of course the very same trait that also leads these cavalier souls to be blinded by their programs of change, or their rendition of human revolution.  

 

The thing that struck me most about this season 1 was the effect that Allie Fox's drive and behavior had upon his family, specifically his son, near the end of the season.  We see his teen-aged son come to grips with and experience a few things that even those of a later age, 21 to 30 yo maybe, have not had to deal with.  A devastatingly tough and quick way to grow old before your time.  

 

Well, it's a thriller, well produced, directed, acted, lensed...ok, most of it is Justin's doing, yes, but if something is good and gripping as this story is, you can't help but get drawn in and begin to take sides.  

- Agitatus

  Inventing Anna  

    2022 TV-MA Limited Series

Captivating.  That's what this one is.  Innescapable, once you're in the grip of the drama.  So if the first episode doesn't hit you as your kind of material, you should turn it off before it's too late.

 

The journey we take with this young lady is not really about her at all.  Ok, wait...although that's true, it also sounds like the show's "disclaimer" really, wherein every episode has a giant and unmistakable text near the start that reads, "This whole story is completely true.  Except for the parts that are totally made up".

Ok, but really...it's not about Anna Delvey/Sorokin, as fascinating as she is.  It is indeed about our indulgent and glittery self-serving culture that could even conceivably spawn something like Anna.  It IS based on the completely true story of Anna Sorokin, aka Delvey, and that, if you're not in the know about, you'll just have to research for yourself to find out the dissimilarities, if you like, but there are few.  

 

I could over-write this and make much of the cultural implications, but honestly, I found this piece of cinematic "journalism" enlightening, entertaining, engrossing, and revealing.  It's revealing mostly if we look at ourselves through this lens, IF we happen to be one of the personality types present and accounted for in the lineup of victims and perps.  Anna is both, it seems, victim and perpetrator, although in the end I don't think (warning, authorial opinionated position here) that we still know exactly what created Anna, other than possibly a hole in childhood that was left wide open to the overwhelming nature of pop society at large, and most specifically that of the $ and fashion worlds, the "Center of the world" as Anna puts it.  She wanted to be there, in the center of it.  

It DOES tell us a great deal about our current culture's obsessions, and their failings, and is in high contrast with the relationships that surround her, and the strain that those obsessions may bring to bear on us.

 

So, for an enlightening and emotional trip I'd say was worth the undertaking, Inventing Anna is worth the indulgence, pardon my persistent puns.


- Agitatus

The Last Duel

 

The Last Duel 2021 -  2.5 hrs R

There is nothing that Ridley Scott and Scott Free Productions cannot do, it would seem any more, with all of the groundbreaking cinema successes that he’s had.  And as far as cinematography is concerned, this is another film that could easily define what that term means.  Most likely an Oscar for the Photography.

My immediate surface takeaway is that “truth triumphs over love”.  So, that means that one of those must suffer.  It seems in this story’s presentation by Sir Ridley that one cannot have love and the truth, or truth together with love.  

The last image we have of the conflicting part of the story, “the wrap” as it were, is of the bloody, truthful, knight riding through the wide gate into the open, and facing only the unfinished cathedral in the 1300s.  So the knight crosses himself, subservient to God, the Church, and the “holy alliance” of church and state, with obvious approval by all.  All except of course we, the audience, the Lady, and the primacy of whatever it is we ultimately choose to believe in this “case” which…incidentally has been tried not by God, not by jury, and not by church judgement, or settled privately, but…by Ridley Scott.

Who would we choose to believe?  It would seem, hands down if a poll is taken, that the Lady will be believed.  Her perspective is not only the last we see of the 3 main participants that the plot is built around, but also the one that we can gain the most sympathy with as we progress through the story.  We quite naturally do not side with our “supposedly noble night”, although he certainly puts up a good case of the Charlie Browns.  And we cannot morally support the handsome squire played by Adam Driver, as his position is corrupted by the gain of property, maidens (same thing here), licentiousness, male-domination, and class power.  The way that the “illegal entry” of said Knight is framed, no matter which view is taken, IS technically rape.  Therefore, logic alone would suffice to state that the Lady is innocent, her cause just.  We are left then to the cruel happenstance of the laws of this time, coupled with a child king whose emotions make him giggle at the idea of anyone dying.  This leaves us, the audience, helpless in the director’s choice, which “seems” to lean in the direction of the Knight whose desires are more “inherently sincere” (our dark knight who has a great love of Latin, sincerity of Love by declaration, and whose viewpoint allows that the woman really wanted him, really deep down desired to be “free of” her base designation of chattel, living in denigration, etc...and of course the perspective that allows that she "took" off her shoes at the bottom of the staircase, rather than tripping over them in her haste to flee).

So Ridley, not to be politically incorrect, decides in our new era-of-the-day known as the era of “the Woman”, coupled with that of Post-Christianity (as a religion per se), to behead men, truth, and the Church all at once in a brilliant stroke of cinematic and rhetorical near-genius (nod to Ben Affleck, co-writer and scene-stealer), and in favor of…Love.  In this case it is equated in our minds upon this viewing as the Truth.  Well, Love and Truth are supposed to be the same, are they not?

I mean…weren’t we supposed to side with the noble knight embodied in Matt Damon?  Why didn’t we?  Was he really pathetic?  Yeah, why is he pathetic?  Is it the scars on his face, maybe that ghastly hairdo? Why did the film, the story…end with him riding triumphantly through the streets of a dark age of France and into the open before the symbol of an age of organized religion, giving complete acquiescence by crossing himself, and we still suspiciously feel inwardly distrustful of that ending?  Why is he not a true hero?  Why did his blessing on a child’s head with his bloodied hand inside of an iron glove almost seem a mockery?  Untrue…unjust even?

We have no room for either male contender in our conclusion.  They are both wrong, both adjudicated as guilty in one way or another.  One is guilty of chivalry which leaves one dry and wanting for genuine relationships, and freedom for the female to be who she truly must be, on equal grounds, having only a myopic vision of marriage, women, love, sex in general, a lonely and isolated viewpoint, as per this version of history presented to us, which is highly accurate, historically in any case.  And the other…debauchery, usury, and a continual claim over women that is not in any way perceived to be “better” than that of the noble knight.   Also highly accurate. They are on opposite, but equal grounds.

So in the end, we’re left with the triumph of the woman, who sits in a field of flowers with her child, smiling at the little one, and we learn that our noble knight dies in a war, and she inherits in perpetuity the ownership of said estate and a lifelong existence without any man at all (and we most rightly conclude that this particular woman, in any case, had good reason to abstain from the male form).

Bravo Ridley, great job.  You have cut off the head of said dragons and skewered manhood once and for all.  Thank you so much for clearing that up for us.  

There are no heroes, and nothing to believe in.  Absolutely nothing.  Everyone sucks, religion is dead, and we’re all better off giggling our way forward much like the teenage king here, which reminds me very much of a number of "adolescent adults" that I’ve observed as they sit in front of a game console with more, and never-exhausted weapons at their disposal with which to kill and giggle at their opponents.  Sorry Gamers, I love games and playing as well at times, so this is only an analogy, not a slam against all gamers, ok?

You’ll say, “ok, well that’s what it was like then”.  And I say that dramatic films are never about “then”, they’re always about Now. Just like there is no such thing as a real documentary either, IMNSHO.

- agitatus