Trump Films (the Best Films)

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

It's a joke on Trump's way of referring to everything he's involved in as "the best"--not great, by any means, but I thought the reference was fairly obvious.

I can see that

Peerhaps BlackkKlansman might have been made w/o Trump as president, but it would not have been quite the same film it was. I'm thinking of the Charlottesville coda specifically, but also many other moments in the film.

I said something similar above, but BlackkKlansman was representative of so many of the films I mentioned in this thread: not really in the moment, the way Nixon films were, but then right at the very end Trump would be front and center, whether named or not, and the filmmakers seemed to say "And this is where that leads, this is the logical end point." (Us was one of the few that felt 100% in the moment.)

I thought the reference was fairly obvious.

https://i.imgur.com/OB4YK6E.jpg

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gremlins/images/d/d6/DanielClamp.png/revision/latest?cb=20120308094656

Weird. That should be Daniel Clamp from Gremlins 2:

https://www.dailyhindnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1604020640_Gremlins-2-on-TF1-Series-Films-Donald-Trump-inspired-the-1200x900.jpg

With the exception that he's revealed to be a basically OK dude in the end.

I have no inclination to watch and see if the plot is relevant, but The Boss Baby

Vic Berger, in long-form:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZKkUyrklpc

Jason Schwartzman in Fargo, explaining to some incarcerated men from Chris Rock's rival crime syndicate how they're on opposite sides of a divide:

See, this country loves a man who takes what he wants. Unless...unless that man looks like you. Capisce? See, Johnny Society looks at me, they see a fella that's using crime to get ahead. But you? All they see is crime. And that's why you're gonna lose. 'Cause I can take all the money and pussy I want and still run for president. But you? It's always gonna be the rope.

Some, maybe most, will find the Trump backdrop of Red Rocket clumsy or worse. I don't think it's any less valid than what Hal Ashby did in Shampoo. I thought at first, even though his life was clearly tawdry enough for Trump, that Mikey might be some kind of Horatio Alger/(young) Tom Cruise corrective to Trump, a grifter and on the make, but basically with good intentions and a sweet temperament. Nope--he's tawdry and he ruins lives. I found his comeuppance a little noisily out of step with the rest of the film, but it sets up the ending well, which is nicely open-ended and ambiguous. I probably would have placed this as the highest non-documentary on my ILX ballot if I'd seen it two weeks ago.

sorry clemenza but I hate this thread and especially its title, and think a lot of these posts are gross, and am wondering why you keep bringing it forward

👍🏻 🚀

lol xp

I knew someone would post that Dan S., maybe even you--you did the same thing on the a different thread the other day.

I'm really intrigued by anyone who's a) sickened by Trump to the point of needing to scold people about it, but b) opening up a Trump thread to see what someone's posted.

I've no interest in rugby. I never open up rugby threads.

Art interacts with real life, and the aspects of society that facilitated Trump’s rise have not vanished or changed. It’s possible to watch Red Rocket without even noticing it’s set during the campaign, let alone thinking about any likeness between Mikey and the campaigner. Clem specifically notes here how it’s effective in the same way as Shampoo, if the viewer happens to be attuned to it (Ashby does make more of the campaign than Baker, but his lead is oblivious - that’s especially for the viewer.)

If it upsets you to read clemenza’s posts itt, then either don’t click, or try articulating your objection to the content? Wishing that nobody else thinks about politics isn’t going to be effective - it’s just Tinkerbell thinking again.

You could definitely enjoy or hate or feel anything between about Red Rocket without giving a second's thought to Trump--you could probably even love All the President's Men as just a great detective story, and not think about Nixon as anything more than a plot device in the film. But from the very first billboard to the convention and news snippets, I don't think you can say that Sean Baker doesn't have him somewhere in mind. I mean, it's not accidental.

I hate this thread and especially its title

dan when you read "trump films (the best films)" do you think the thread starter believes films about trump / trumpism / trump-like beliefs and figures are objectively the best films or perhaps is just evoking a phrasing commonly used by trump himself as a form of mocking him (it is the latter btw)

yes it is mocking him but also adoring him

I will like Red Rocket I'm pretty sure, and once I see it will be happy to discuss it in another thread

my objection to the content here is that this thread memorializes and valorizes Trump through films even while it disparages him