Weiner

Weiner (dir. Josh Kreigman & Elizabeth Steinberg) follows former congressman Anthony Weiner through his 2013 campaign for the mayor of New York City, an an attempt at redemption after resigning from congress due to a twitter sex scandal. The the film is just as much a profile of Weiner himself as of his 2013 mayoral campaign, but his wife, Huma Abedin, is just as interesting to watch. She may not be the main focus, but with the former congressman’s reputation marred by a sex scandal, she’s in the spotlight just as much as him. There are really two ways to look at Weiner:

1. The Humiliation of the Saint Huma Abedin by the Campaign of Anthony Weiner

“First Lady” gets a surprising about of scrutiny for a completely non-political position, and while Huma Abedin works in politics as Hilary Clinton’s right hand man, her prescence and image is what’s on trial. Weiner introduces footage of Weiner and Abedin at home, both when on campaign and mundanely, getting their baby ready, comparing tomato sauces. At first it’s a look at the reality of their domestic life as opposed to the idyllic one in Weiner’s early ads, but as the campaign goes on, we’re seeing the stress not just on their marriage, but on Huma as she becomes less of an person and ally and more of a symbol for Weiner’s campaign and the press.

After all, she’s not the one running for mayor, and though she’s involved in the logistics of his campaign, her role is The Wife. She has to be on point even more than him, but her body language shows her real feelings. She’s rarely interviewed in the film, but almost always on screen with him, showing the uncertainty and simmering anger that she’s not allowed to display. There’s regular debate as to whether Weiner’s behavior disqualifies him for public office, but Weiner never lets us forget that his actions are not victimless. And while the campaign uses her to prove that Weiner’s an upstanding dude who’s truly a better person, the press jumps on her as the symbol of Weiner’s sins. “Why does she stay,” a deeply personal question, is asked repeatedly, with answers ranging from “love is blind” to “emotional abuse” from people who have never met her. All she’s actually got to express herself is her body language, and even that is carefully analyzed when she’s in public. She suffers the fallout twice - as a wife, and as a Wife of Politician; doubly objectified. Even with all her political clout she’s still trapped in societal gender expectations.

2. Anthony Weiner - all passion, no impulse control

The film starts off introducing Wiener as a brash, sometimes abrasive congressman who’s powered by a genuine passion for policy that helps people. He makes C-SPAN a spectacle, which draws people to him; his passion for what’s right is the type of fire we want in someone representing our rights. And then he makes himself into the spectacle when his boner shot is accidentally posted on twitter and tries to deny it in the most ineffective way possible. He’s got a fast talking charm that gets him over with the people, obviously a fantastic asset for a politician. But what’s quite obvious is that he’s got no filter for it; he uses that same charm to hit on followers. The passion devolves into picking fights, shouting at pundits, and being defensive. He views himself as a victim, refusing to drop out of the mayoral race because it would feel like letting his “bullies” win.

The film doesn’t delve too far into making Weiner self-ruminate; the filmmakers are willing to let his difficulty with introspection speak for itself. At one point en route to a community meeting, when asked why he has trouble talking about his feelings, he asks the cameraman if there’s a word for the “fly on the wall” style where the fly talks to you. A the end of the film, as Weiner watches the disastrous final moments of his campaign on the news, he’s asked why he’s let all of this be filmed, and all he can do is shrug. The closest he gets to genuine introspection is a moment musing over whether politics can warp expectations and understanding of relationships. If the question for Huma is “Why do you stay,” the one for Weiner is “Why do you do this?” That question could refer to the politics, the yelling, the cheating, or the sexting, or all of the above. Is this pathological, an example of narcissism or sex addiction? Is it a fatal character flaw, a lack of control or inability to understand consequences? And the last question, which goes for all politicians: is there any altruism involved, or is it all about power and influence?

Of course, in both views, the press is a major player in; they’re the ones who document and analyze the couple’s behavior, promoting the endless scrutiny. Would things be radically different without the existence of social media? Did the same technology that made him popular with the general public lead to his downfall? And are the mainstream press reporting news, or just latching on to a salacious story involving a man with an unfortunate last name? Are the actual issues being lost in favor of prying into personal lives of politicians? Do they treat politicians like celebrities to the detriment of actual government?

Weiner brings up a lot of questions about politics, the press, and about people. Why does someone become a politician? Why are non-political scandals important? Why is “first X” an important figure? Why do people sext/cheat? Is sexting really cheating? What is the press meant for? Why do people stay with cheaters? The film has all the content, but it’s up to us to interpret it.

Swiss Army Man

Swiss Army Man’s been getting buzz since its premiere at Sundance in January; know as the “Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie,” it ended up with positive reviews, despite the initial walkouts. It’s almost entirely a two man show; Paul Dano is Hank, who is stuck on a desert island, ready to commit suicide. He’s stopped by the appearance of Manny (Radcliffe), the aforementioned farting corpse, and together they bond while trying to find their way home. The premise would actually make a pretty cool video game: teach your dead friend about life (and its joys) to unlock various abilities which are then used in puzzles to progress toward home. But the film is more than just an epic fart joke; it’s about why we bother to try at all, with a darkly comic lens. Life (and your body) is super gross, but there’s no reason to be ashamed of that, and there really is stuff worth sticking around for. Connections with other (gross) people make life worth it.

Frustratingly, it chooses to represent isolation in the weakest way possible: unrequited love. “Love” isn’t even applicable -- it’s infatuation to a creepy point. The Girl is the symbol of meaningful connection, and romance is apparently the backbone of life. While Hank eventually figures out that friendship is just as meaningful through his journey with Manny, a large majority of time is spent focusing on The Girl as the reason to be. The Girl that Hank’s pretty much stalking, considering he’s only seen her on the bus and yet knows her full name, regularly checks her instagram and has a creepshot of her as his phone home screen. It’s past time we stopped portraying petty male infatuatiomn as love; Paulette and the UPS guy from Legally Blonde had more interaction than Hank and Sarah, and Paulette could barely string two words together around him. Swiss Army Man eventually does acknowledge that Hank is being really creepy, but it’s sort of offhand, more of a funny background event. Hank’s entire view of life is based off of her. Exploring how his upbringing helped make him so insular would have been much more interesting; the snippets we get are heartbreaking and grossly funny. But instead ‘tfw no gf’ is used as shorthand for the most terrible loneliness.

Personally, I think that shorthand contributes to the Nice Guy dynamic; infatuation and making romance The Holy Goal is so normalized that without it, you must be Lonely and Miserable and Incomplete, so why can’t Girls understand that you need to be complete? You don’t have to know her or care about how she feels, because nobody deserves to feel Incomplete, and only a total jerk would actively deny happiness to someone else. Therefore, a Girl who won’t even go out with you once is being a total asshole to you!

It’s also disappointing because the directors (who also wrote the script) do seem to get the crushing isolation that causes (and is caused by) depression. Hank’s detachment from his father shows how a gap can become an impassible crevasse, and even the anecdote about his mother is the sort of small bullshit that somehow makes itself really meaningful in your life. We also assume that he has no friends (although it’s never explicitly stated) and that has a ton of impact on you, both growing up and as an adult. Hank’s issues that have lead him to suicide are about initiating relationships and opening up, and there’s so much more to that than romance. Hank was on a desert island before he ran away, and “deserted” doesn’t just mean The Girl isn’t there.

I suppose I wouldn’t be so sensitive if the suicidal state of mind weren’t portrayed so accurately (and with the appropriate amount of humor.) What stops Hank from hanging himself? Some random guy washes up on shore that he can at least talk to. Except when Hank goes to approach him, he forgets about the noose and almost dies anyway. The realization that the person who stopped him was actually a farting corpse? Back to plan S with a stronger noose. But wait -- the farts are useful! Farts saving his life is lowbrow as hell, but the dumbest things can get you out of that mindset. All the scatological humor fits perfectly with the absurdities of life, presented in a less morbid fashion. Just as the dumbest thing can develop into a hangup years later, the silliest thing may lift you up just enough to keep going on.

Trailers and the political hook: how a horror franchise did it better than a Hollywood thriller

When I saw Green Room a few months back, the trailers attached to it were mostly were generic slasher shit, but two stood out: the trailers for Jodie Foster’s "Money Monster", and "The Purge: Election Year". Both intend to comment on The State of America; Election Year’s main character is a senator running for president who wants to end the titular purge, and Money Monster is about a Jim Cramer analogue who is taken hostage on live television by a man whose life was ruined by faux-Cramer’s faulty stock tips. Watching them back to back, it seemed like The Purge: EY’s trailer did a much better job of selling its film, even though it’s part of a franchise, and Money Monster completely fell flat. Of course, with Money Monster released a month and a half ago and The Purge:EY on its second week, the actual films are available to judge, but let's look at these trailers anyway; whether we want to admit it or not, trailers have their own significance.

Rewatching them, it’s clear that while both trailers intend to use current events as a hook, The Purge: EY’s trailer shows a better understanding of allegory and the current zeitgeist than Money Monster’s. Both trailers are pretty damn heavy handed, with The Purge: EY cross cutting “Keep America Great” with violence while “America the Beautiful” plays, but while The Purge at least uses imagery to get its point across, Money Monster shows its antagonist spouting anti-Wall Street rhetoric (“I might be the one with the gun here, but I’m not the criminal; it’s people like [faux-Cramer]”) or a protagonist giving us exposition about his motivation.

The basic idea behind the Purge is that, for one night, all crime is legal to let off steam and get the base urges of humans out for the rest of the year. The senator’s opposition, besides the barbarism, is that we, as Americans, should be better than that, should be on moral standing with the global community. American exceptionalism runs deep on both political parties, but the senator’s use (“The soul of America is at stake”, “It is a night that is defining our country. The Purge has to come to an end.”) is reminiscent of liberals using more socialist countries (usually in western Europe), to implore for empathy and change. The supporters of the purge are associated with the evangelical religious; a pastor delivers a sermon exalting America and the purge, leading his disciples in a chant to “Purge and Purify!”.

 "Keep America Great" is reminiscent of the slogan for Trump’s campaign, which has focused entirely on hyperbolic vitriol, painting immigrants as rapists and advocating internment camps and jailing women for having abortions. In essence he wants to “make America great” by cleansing it, pointing to minorities, immigrants, and women as scapegoats. The Purge doesn’t target anyone in particular, but the senator argues it targets the poor, her supporters shown are all black, and the name suggests the forceful ejection of dead weight while giving the purgers visceral satisfaction,. That juxtaposes the Purge with the evangelical right, which has become a significant force in the Republican Party (though not necessarily to Trump), and the senator with minorities and the poor, both whom liberals claim to champion (and believe the GOP explicitly excludes.) I doubt The Purge: EY is intending to be Democrat or liberal, but it is clearly associating the Purge with the extremist views within the GOP and especially Trump and his followers; Trump has actively championed violence against protesters. The argument for the Purge are that it’s an American Tradition, and that it mitigates the inherent aggression in humans, which assumes that violence is normal and unavoidable. With Trump clinching the Republican nomination (barring some legal masterstroke from the GOP), it strikes a very current chord in the social and political zeitgeist.

Money Monster’s subject, the financial crisis, while still relevant, is a well tread road; it’s been almost five years since the Occupy movement began with Occupy Wall Street, so there’s an expectation that Money Monster will do something new with the material, especially with films like Margin Call and The Big Short preceding it. Money Monster racks up the stakes with the hostage situation premise, but the dialogue follows very easy beats, material that at this point can be distilled into Advice Dog/Scumbag Steve-type memes.

 That doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to say about the crisis (there’s always a way to put a new spin on something), but the trailer doesn’t hint at anything particularly unconventional. Of course, since these are just trailers, none of this may apply to the actual films. Trailers can be misleading, and a good trailer interests the viewer without giving much away. But they are an integral part of movie marketing, and how people decide what to see, so what a trailer chooses to show sends a message about what the film wants to be.