Trump Films (the Best Films)

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

but also adoring him

Please tell me you're not serious there, or that you're projecting, or something. Having a strong interest in how films were going to address his disruptive, calamitous presidency is not exactly adoring him. You may as well make the same accusation of someone who writes about Night and Fog or Shoah.

You really ought to go back and read the original post for some context.

maybe not being a US citizen you can step back and see things as they really are and will be, but I can't

I guess I'm projecting, I do that often, but the even the title of this thread shoots an arrow through my heart

I just saw Night and Fog for the first time tonight! an amazing film. tried to watch Pig afterwards, but stopped and will save it for another day

maybe not being a US citizen

Oh, good, this again.

not meant to disparage, I think you have a perspective that I don't

I just don't see that that figures into it at all, and I'm not sure that you do either. The people you got after the other day on the Trump thread for "memorializing" him, pretty sure they were all American. If you want people to just stop posting about Trump--least of all on Trump threads--you're fighting a losing battle. You simply shouldn't open such threads. And seriously--the title you object to so much was clearly explained upthread a year ago, when you seemed to concede it was okay.

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.
― clemenza, Sunday, November 15, 2020 9:31 PM (one year ago)

I can see that
― Dan S, Sunday, November 15, 2020 9:47 PM (one year ago)

not sure what thread that was. I just hate reading anything about him that seems to have distance

there’s a pretty simple way around that

good to know it's not a problem for you

I like your film posts, Dan, and am often in sync with your opinions. I find you're being weirdly selective here.

not sure what thread that was.

It was this thread. Like I said in the previous post.

I just hate reading anything about him that seems to have distance

Meaning...? That my post about Red Rocket isn't about how Trump ruined my own life? In the post that started all this, I said "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.e., like Trump. That's clear, isn't it?

I apologize, I am looking forward to seeing it fwiw

I was just railing against any supposition that he might be a cozy historical figure. He is a monster, and even talking about him possibly having his own era triggers me

We're good. And honestly, I'd be shocked if there's a single ILX poster--from someone like me, who sometimes gets chastised for making light of politics, to the most ardent posters on the left--who views Trump as anything less than venal.

Looked up a couple of reviews, and--for different reasons--neither liked the Trump angle. Richard Brody didn't think the film did anything with it: "Baker makes sure to signal that the movie is set during the 2016 Presidential campaign. There’s a Trump campaign sign in the street and Trump’s foghorn hectoring on television broadcasts. Yet the characters say not a word about what they’re hearing or thinking about the politics of their moment." True--but I think it's more interesting to leave such connections to the viewer. Armond White seems to see it like me, that Mikey is meant as a Trump stand-in, but (of course!) he thinks the film fails on that count: "This follows a brief TV clip of Donald Trump saying, 'I think the election will be rigged,” obviously from 2016. Making unsubtle, faulty linkage between Orange Man arrogance and Red Rocket egotism is Baker’s real judgment.'

Both liked Simon Rex.

I watched the movie (which features sound clips from both Trump *and* Clinton) partly as a portrait of sweat-flop America that is so desperate - for success, for affirmation, for connection, for a future - that it is totally oblivious to politics, no matter how omnipresent. Like, it's just more noise drowned out by the bigger din of the daily hustle.

Driving home, I thought about Hillary being in there too: "I'm going to post about this in the Trump-movie thread, but I'll limit it to Trump." I wanted to think about what that might mean, but I didn't want to have to think too much. (You hear Cruz, too.)

I've been reading up on Simon Rex. Never got MTV up here, may have seen the first Scary Movie (can't remember), so I didn't know him at all. What a story.

Saw Caddyshack for the first time last night. The Mount Everest Rule: I saw it because it was playing.

I was hoping for Stripes, but found it not just not unremittingly unfunny (a couple of scenes were okay), but also strangely disjointed. One thing I remembered, though, was James Poniewozik giving it two pages in Audience of One, still the best Trump book I've read. He saw, obviously, Rodney Dangerfield's character as Trump, with Ted Knight as Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and all the other chamber-of-commerce-type Republicans Trump rendered obsolete.

Rereading, he has the Dangerfield character (Czervik) exactly right: "Czervik is among the rich country clubbers, but he isn't of them. His wealth doesn't give him membership in high society, just the independence not to care about its rules...He sized up as his first punching bag the Smailsian (Knight's character) Jeb Bush--well-spoken, well-mannered, from a good family--and proceeded to spray him with yacht-wake at every opportunity."

I don't know about the Knight character, though--he's as loud and bombastic as Czervik most of the time. Didn't see Jeb Bush or Mitt Romeny there.

If you're looking at this, Dan S., a reminder not to be looking at this.

The Trump stuff on Fargo, Tillman's wife going on about how the whole impeachment trial is a sham, was very literal, not especially imaginative, but it is, I think, the most explicit Trump-era thing I've yet seen in a movie or TV show.