Films that begin with "M"
You wake up every morning to more horrific news. You think, "How do I write about culture when all this shit is happening?" Then you watch the trailer for Brett Ratner's new documentary, Melania.
And by "you," of course, I don't mean actual you. I gave 60 seconds of my attention to it so you don't have to. You could just call your congressperson and tell them to abolish the DHS instead. It will take the same amount of time.
Anyway, as of this moment, no one seems to be buying out entire screenings of Melania. I checked the AMC site. A ticket trickle.
It opens in a week or so, and I've been anticipating the same sort of papering-the-house antics that accompanied the weirdo-bait, trafficking-sploitation movie Sound of Freedom. If you were happily unaware of that one and its box office success, a lot of it was because entire screenings were selling out – like on a Monday morning at 10am – and no one was actually in the place watching the shitty movie. Phantom benefactors building PR for a project starring Jim Caviezel.
I go back and forth with my curiosity about this forthcoming piece of propaganda. I hear it's about the three weeks leading up to the 2025 inauguration. And how will M spend her time in this film? Barely speaking? Being anti-charming? Glaring at people and objects? The trailer offers little to suggest otherwise.
I'm not obligated to see it. No one's assigning it to me. No one who listens to Linoleum Knife is begging for our assessment. I could use my AMC Stubs card to book a ticket to a different film and then just walk into Melania and see how long I can stomach it. Walk out when I've had enough. Get a chocolate croissant at the Farmer's Market. Think about the Beckham feud. That one seems to have some legs.
I will not be doing any of that. It's a grift for all involved and the faster it sinks into a hole the better off cinema will be.
Meanwhile, do go see Magellan. It's playing at an arthouse near you. It's the latest from the great Filipino auteur Lav Diaz, and it's a deep-focus, formalist portrait of the Portuguese historical figure starring Gael Garcia Bernal. As the conqueror who got his comeuppance when, after claiming several other territories for Portugal and Spain, he tried to convert people on the island of Cebu to Catholicism, only to meet the sharp end of several spears, Garcia Bernal's Magellan is no hero, just part of the scenery that eventually swallows him whole.
It's a compositional stunner of a film, quietly laying open what history means to colonizers and the colonized, and what should happen to the powerful when their hunger for more is never satisfied.
