Trump Films (the Best Films)

Hmm - more explanation needed.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-baron-trump-adventures#/

I can't even pretend to have anything that goes deeper than the picture above.

Since I recently signed up for Netflix, I guess I can finally watch this show, huh?

Didn't prioritize it, as interest in it seemed to have peaked a few years ago--I don't know when the second season landed, but I don't remember it generating nearly as much discussion as the first--but currency is rarely ever a worry of mine.

Don't inflate your expectations too much, and it's worth your time. To use a cliche, its heart is in the right place.

I watched Putney Swope the other day - it's all about a guy who is unexpectedly voted in to the top job and then goes around telling people they're fired.

Back To The Future Part II surely still the definitive Trump movie

I'll go with the obvious--A Face in the Crowd--with Heath Ledger's Joker close behind. (Putney Swope, definitely.)

Which, again, was not Hoberman's method--he was interested only in films released during someone's term of office.

Sorry, clemenza, forgot the opening paragraph of the thread by the time I got to the bottom.

Not directed at you at all--that was Hoberman's way of looking at it, and it's what made the book so fascinating (that every president creates a body of films that mirrors him)--but as you can see from my own post, I'm really interested in films that might anticipate somebody too.

From the Us thread:

The ending is illogical.

Agree--in the context of the film's universe, it makes no sense. Worse, the last 15-20 minutes seem eight times as long.

this movie will disappoint those who want A Message About Our Times from Peele

Maybe. But if you believe Robin Wood's contention that most every good horror film is about the return of the repressed, shadow-mom's "We're Americans" points to a very obvious reading. I'm not saying it's the correct reading, but it is there, plain as day.

I can't really bring myself to recommend it--if you know anything about the subject, that doesn't need any explanation--but The El Duce Tapes, reassembled footage chronicling the Mentors' sad saga, did inspire (?) 45 minutes of stand-up conversation after the film, and twice it very explicitly casts itself as a Trump film. I've known about the Mentors for 30+ years, but the film was the first time I ever actually heard them. So don't shoot the messenger. (Just about the smallest audience I've ever experienced for a Hot Docs screening--less than half full.)

it came out before the election, but i'd like to submit rob zombie's 31 as a trump film

most trump films came out before the election imo

The El Duce Tapes is technically new, but it's all assembled from interviews done 25-30 years ago. So you get El Duce ranting about Mexican immigration and building a wall in 1991. (Pretty sure this was one of the incentives for the filmmakers to get the film made and out there.)

I'll say more on the Nixon-films thread, but it doesn't take much to earmark Charles Ferguson's Watergate documentary for this one: it ends with the Santayana quote about history, and the subtitle is Or, How We Learned to Stop an Out-of-Control President.

For those who are thinking of skipping The Dead Don't Die (I won't judge you): The name Trump is never uttered, but his Secretary of Energy is effectively responsible for this movie's zombie apocalypse.

Ladybird had a subtext of nostalgia for the Bush era, if not Bush, which I think worked better now that that time seems in some sense a “simpler time,” which it might not have in 2013

― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, August 14, 2018 10:11 AM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what?

I'll take this over the Bush years any day

the idea that Trump has even approached Bush yet is insane

As you can pretty much guess going in, Mike Wallace Is Here--for obvious reasons, and there's also a Trump interview clip. Okay, not great--a few clips stand out, but kind of meandering.

Where's My Roy Cohn?, six ways to Sunday.

Is Joker one of these? Did the Incels exist as a thing as such pre-Trump?

This stuff about Metropolitan being set in the 60s has blown my mind.

Elliott Rogers killings were in 2014, so yeah

Joker is not an incel movie

does Tiger King count?

I mentioned Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America on the political thread. Almost finished--really, it's great.

I've never seen Caddyshack--depending upon why you watch movies, that's probably like saying you've never seen Citizen Kane for some people--but James Poniewozik spends a couple of pages on the Rodney Dangerfield character as being a definitive Trump antecedent.

A related interview:

http://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/16/20868497/caddyshack-rodney-dangerfield-trump-james-poniewozki-recode-media-peter-kafka

We drunkenly group-watched Body Rock, the first and worst Breakin' knock off, last week, and we were wondering if the 'Donald' character might be the first Trump figure in cinema?

He owns the club that the Paul Reiser figure runs, which Lorenzo Lamas convinces them to let his gang of poppers/lockers/rappers/DJs provide the entertainment for. He turns up with beautiful women, and turns out to be the money behind everything including LL's recording career. And then he takes LL to a gay bar as an after party and tries to kiss him.

CNN's National Enquirer documentary, who'd have thunk? There's a bit of interesting history at the beginning, not much after that, and the implication towards the end--that Trump's hands-on involvement with the publication tainted its stellar history--is laughable on the face of it. I'd even say that CNN--which produced a few pretty good documentaries early on, when they started producing them--wouldn't have wasted time with this one if the anti-Trump angle weren't there.

Three Trump references in Mrs. America's final episode ("Reagan"). Two are obvious; I'm also counting a press release from Schlafly's side where they just make up numbers about a big rally they had.

I honestly feel like Trump has ruined my life.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, August 13, 2018 5:06 PM (one year ago)

Nothing more, really, to add to this.

Retrospectively, I would count Death Race 2000 (the original of course), in which "Mr President" is snug with China (as DJT is at least half the time) and declares

"our great enemy... the French..."

there is also a Resistance led by one Thomasina Paine, who seems as potentially corrupt when she gets her hands on power.

I honestly feel like America has ruined my life.

The Grifter is the biggest symptom, not the disease.

You should watch Death Race 2050 this week and see if you can pick up any subtle allusions.

The Day After
Threads

Donald Trump I've given you all and now I'm nothing.

Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man feels somewhat Trumpian for reasons that are hard to get into without spoilers. I'm thinking of the titular bogey, of course, but also the way that the subplot with the brother plays out. I'm sure anyone who wanted to could draw even broader parallels as well.

Anyway, very good film. Between this and Upgrade, Whannell has a solid claim on being the best genre filmmaker currently working.

Interesting. I saw The Invisible Man days before the first COVID lockdown--don't think anything occurred to me.

Trump didn't want anymore Trump films to be made, so he killed the film industry.

films are fake

I posted about White Riot on the separating-the-art-from-the-artist thread. I've encountered this a few times: you know it's a Trump film as you're watching, but that's never made explicit--until the very end, in this case the final end-note.

If there's one great filmmaker whose work I'd be fairly certain Trump has seen--at least the gangster films--it would be Scorsese. My guess would be that Goodfellas is somewhat for him what Patton was for Nixon. No surprise yesterday to get confirmation that he's basically Johnny Boy with regards to debt:

You know somethin', Mikey? You make me laugh, you know that? I borrow money all over this neighborhood, left and right, from everybody, and I never pay 'em back. So I can't borrow no money from nobody no more, right? Who does that leave me to borrow money from but you? I borrow money from you because you're the only jerk off around that I could borrow money from without payin' back, right? 'Cause that's what you are, that's what I think of you--a jerk-off.

The Social Dilemma (in part) and, more so, The New Corporation, a follow-up to 2003's The Corporation.

More Trump films will undoubtedly appear in the next few years, and probably at least one or two great ones, but feel free to lock this thread. Maybe lock all Trump threads as of January 20 except whatever one predated 2015.

A great era for art sadly comes to an end

the more I think about it the more Observe and Report really is the ultimate MAGA chud movie, several years in advance. Jody Hill has the pulse

If I had to choose one film during his term as being definitive--which is not to say I loved it--it'd be Jordan Peele's Us.

Thought Us was really good. I liked Peele's explanation that one of the central themes in Us is that we do a good job of ignoring the ramifications of privilege, that what we feel like we deserve comes at the expense of others' freedom or joy.

wasn't thinking I would post here because I really hate this thread title and the very idea of 'Trump films', I'm just responding to your post about Us

If you read the original post, I explained that "Trump films" came out of J. Hoberman's excellent book The Dream Life, which more or less argued that every president leaves behind a body of films that responds in some way to his presidency--overtly, symbolically, accidentally, and every way in between. The idea isn't that Trump is anything special.

but why title it 'the best films'

seems like a gentlemen's clink of a glass to Trump