Reviews

Harlan (who represents the Anglo-American Elite) is getting ready to die (no empire lasts forever) and Harlan's children (who have ridden on Harlan's coattails their whole lives) are expecting to inherit his wealth. Harlan's daughter Linda expects the property, Walt expects to control the corporations, and they all expect to receive millions in cash. However, Harlan has been spending time with Marta (an immigrant), and he admires her spirit. He decides that his spoiled, entitled children (who represent the Boomers) don't deserve a "red dime" and cuts them off, giving everything to Marta. Wanetta (Harlan's mother, who represents the Victorian Elite) approves (perhaps she has money of her own, she is not competing for the goods).

The political nature of the movie is not lost on most people. Indeed, the Anglo-American Empire has committed suicide. Indeed, the class of wealthy Europeans who grew up and profited under the Anglo-American Empire are being bequeathed nothing but their own debts. Indeed, immigrants are being given pride of place in the post-imperial splinters of what used to be the Anglo-American Empire. The repeated references to the game of Go is the strongest indication of where the elites are headed next (Japan/China). The end of the movie hammers the point home: the children of empire are looking up at the new master of their "ancestral" home, and Marta is drinking from Harlan's coffee cup (My House, My Rules, My Coffee).

The political point is this: Anglo-American Elite made their money with their own talent and grit. In fact, they made the money itself. The nation prospered under their rule, and they owe the nation nothing. They built it up, they can destroy it or give it away and we have nothing to say about it. Now, this is little more than a conceit. The fact is, the Victorian Elites arrived in New York with tons of ill-gotten gold, stolen from every corner of the planet. Their grit revolved around stealing and then marketing the works of geniuses. Their talents were limited to financing networks of agents who have woven a rich tapestry of fake history for us. From Dinosaurs to Moon Landings, the world we grew up in was built on nothing but hot air. We never had a chance.

ASTEROID CITY is a play about a fake news project. At the start of the movie, we are introduced to the actors and their roles. "The character of Augie Steenbeck in the imaginary tale of our production was to become famously and indelibly connected to the actor who created the role, a former carpenter discovered in a bit part by the play's director, Schubert Green (born Shylock Grzworvszowski)." The crisis of the play pivots on an alien visitation. The military attempts a lockdown, which is soon circumvented by the kids, who whistle-blow and attract a media circus. Thus we have all the essential roles of fake news: hired actors, the military, and the fake news event. Sometimes it's a pandemic, sometimes it's a riot, sometimes it's an alien, sometimes it's Guadalcanal.

All the characters (Augie, Midge, Grandfather, Parents and Stargazers) are professional actors who have actual lives outside the play. Some are bused in for the fake news event, some are pre-placed, like the Mechanic. Twins and triplets are often used in celebrity roles because they can be in more than one place at a time. Hickenlooper represents Consensus Science ("the math doesn't work") and the General represents the military (giving out awards and seizing inventions, including a DEW). The Playwright, Director and Acting Teacher never enter the play itself. The Host plays the talking head role, not in the play but pushing the narrative. The only people not working for the production are the ordinary folks who are alerted by the media ("everything's already in the newspapers").

Fake news events are scripted and directed by people behind the scenes, like the Playwright, Director and Acting Teacher. Fake news events are role-played by professional actors like Augie and Midge. Fake news events are always guided by media personalities like the Host, who provides us with the information we need to make sense of the staged drama (and utterly failing). With all this professional Crisis Acting, the fake news event itself hardly matters. In the background are the usual fake news events run by the locals (represented by the car chases) and the military-industrial complex (represented by the nukes). The targets of the fake news are the ordinary people who show up for the media circus.

While modeling the essential elements of a fake news project for us, the play also takes the opportunity to role-play a sample alien encounter (depicted as partly CGI, partly Jeff Goldblum). The military is on hand, of course, on one pretext or another, and so are the actors. The alien arrives, a professional photographer snaps an iconic photo and then it leaves without a trace. Whistleblowers manage to ignite a media circus in spite of a total military lockdown, and--at the peak of the public furor--the alien mysteriously returns the asteroid, indelibly stamped with alien writing. We have all the elements of a psyop: the ordinary folks, the cover-up, the whistleblower and the undeniable proof.

On a metaphorical level, the asteroid represents the moon, specifically the moon landing grift, which has gone so stale that even India is faking it. The asteroid is stored in a little jail cell, which represents the sixty years of transparent fakery that is strangling NASA and all the other space agencies. The alien frees the asteroid, and then returns it, forever stamped it with proof of alien life. A riot is staged by the actors, the lockdown is released, the media circus evaporates, the playwright fakes his death ("Death of a Narcissist") and the actors bow out. This is how history is made. The final result is a re-characterization of the moon landing and a general loss of faith in God ("I hope you're still Episcopalian").

Why does Augie burn his hand? He doesn't. It was the old "hot burner" trick. Midge had a different script than Augie, so she didn't see it coming. Augie and his family, arriving on the scene earlier than the other actors, had their own script they were following. Augie's Crisis Actor family was artificially created with child actors. The mother's role was cut, which naturally confuses the children who are too young to understand, but no one else actually grieves. As photographer, he has special access to Midge, the Playwright and the Director. When Crisis Actors have different scripts, even the actors can get freaked out and provide an authentic performance. Note that his hand being bandaged was part of the script ("They're bandaging the understudy's hand right now.")

"You can't wake up if you don't fall asleep" is a catch-phrase, meant to catch you. It's meaningless until someone invests it with meaning. It starts off controversial ("What?" "That's not true." "Who cares?" "Why should you?" "Maybe not.") but with repetition everyone begins to parrot the phrase. Meanwhile the catch-phrase is accompanied by traumatic images which work upon our collective unconscious. The zombies yelling and staggering around mindlessly. The alien carrying the moon towards us. This scene models an MK-Ultra class ("shared experience of a bewildering and bedazzling celestial mystery") that imparts a narrative through repetition and trauma. In this case, the moon landing spell is being replaced by the alien asteroid spell.

Jewish guy gets lost in the woods, he is later found weak but uninjured. That's the plot. That's the spoiler. That's all there is to the movie. There's some trippy cinematography and a lot of dream sequences. It's boring as hell. Literally nothing happens in this movie. The most exciting part was the river scenes and they always ended with an anticlimax.

Saving Private Ryan is awash with wildly exaggerated scenes of carnage. Seems like every member of the GRRREATEST Generation wants to be remembered for the kind of over-the-top violence that has graced Vietnam War films. "Oh yeah, that's just how it was!" Right. Looks like Omaha Beach lost every other guy. Nope. One in ten.

We have pictures of the Normandy Landing. Look at them. Does the beach look anything like Spielberg's beach? Spielberg's beach looks like a video game. Bullets streaking through the water and killing the soldiers as they swim up from the bottom of sea. This is how history gets rewritten.

Suppose there was one landing boat that landed right in front of a pill box (good thinking) and got hell shot out of it. Why is Spielberg showing that one unfortunate boat? Feel manipulated? Get used to it. This whole soap opera is chock full of Bridges-of-Madison-County drawn- out boring melodramatic scenes designed to pluck at your heart strings.

Oliver Stone complains that Spielberg is playing into the "Good War" mantra that is currently being used to finance the War on Terror. I saw no signs of that. I saw US soldiers shooting down unarmed POWs and beating prisoners. A touch of Vietnam to thrill our taste for revenge? Or is it just part of the arms race between chicken-hawk war directors trying to stimulate our jaded tastes?

The acting is atrocious. It's hard to blame the actors, really, since we don't get to know them at all. They are simply red-shirts waiting their turn to get shot down or get into hissy fits. Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks (as always). There's no tension. We know what's going to happen, we're just waiting for it. And it all unfolds so slowly. It's boring. The scenes that could contain some excitement are spent in a quick and confused blur. It's a mess. There's no more artistry in this movie than is contained in your typical music video. Halftracks and Rangers pop up out of nowhere as our heroes cross an open field. Endless streams of machine gun fire pour out from nowhere in particular. It's just ludicrous.

There are few scenes in Saving Private Ryan that aren't replete with unnaturally sentimental dialog, unrealistic dissension in the ranks, haunted stares, tears, and Hollywood's rendition of jaunty, chummy talk. They might as well have been a bunch of teenage girls. One Star, for the CGI.