They seemed forced and excessively loud, conversations drawing in the larger audience rather than two people. The crowd at the Washington premiere had filled the theater, but laughed at the finale, a single sarcastic clap mixed with hoots of derision as the screen faded to black. Amidst the throng of jolly hipsters were small pockets of silence, eyes staring blankly, seeing something that was no longer there. It’s Lars von Trier. As Kirsten Dunst’s Justine says midway through the film, “What did you expect?”

Within the first moments of Melancholia, following a montage of striking photographs in motion, the Earth is obliterated by the eponymous rogue planet to the strains of Tristan und Isolde. After the apocalyptic prologue, Melancholia is a flashback divided into two parts. The first, “Justine,” focuses on the marriage of Dunst’s character to Alexander Skarsgard’s Michael. It begins on a light-hearted note, with a limousine trying and failing to navigate a narrow country road to the delight of bride and groom. Upon arrival at the castle, Justine’s sister Claire rips into them for their lateness, and we are thrust into a grim combination of family melodrama and comedy of manners. Over the course of the reception, Justine takes a nap, strips for a bath, steals a golf cart to urinate on the course, tells off her boss, and copulates with a random male guest. It is mostly portrayed with the utmost seriousness by Von Trier, with the comic exception of Udo Kier as a wedding planner that refuses to even look at the bride. The audience took it all as a romp, laughing aloud and leading me to wonder if I had stumbled into an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

The truth is Justine’s actions are eminently reasonable. The wedding is horrifying, rather than hilarious. The petty tyrannies of convention grind on and on unendurably. There are the fat girls stuffed into dresses, the lame jokes and forced laughter, the military-style schedule of her domineering sister, the nagging about cost, and the demands by her bourgeois employer to come up with a tagline for an advertisement. More than anything else, there are the repeated pleas by her sister, her brother-in-law, her groom, her father, and seemingly everyone around her that she “be happy.” Surrounded by dead- eyed relatives and plastic smiles, the reception is without spontaneity, without feeling, without significance, as if everyone there simply expects that spending money and wearing nice clothes can somehow create meaning. It is not a celebration, but just something you do.

The other day, I wrote that it's getting harder and harder to find fictional movie villains that don't violate political correctness and that the only real country left you are allowed to use is North Korea.  I felt a brief pang of conscience after writing that.  "I'm being unfair," I thought.  “After all, the remake of Red Dawn at least has the Chinese as the invading force.”

Once again, I underestimated the amount of stupidity in the world.  Today comes the announcement that for fear of offending foreign consumers, the enemy in Red Dawn has been changed to—wait for it—North Korea.  All of the advance marketing for the movie, which was pretty extensive, is being completely redone. The film—which was already shot—is now being digitally altered. Fictional America is at war with North Korea.  Fictional America has always been at war with North Korea.  There wasn't even any protest from Chinese-Americans or the Chinese government.  They caved unilaterally. 

Of course, this also screws up the story.  A Chinese invasion in America could at least allow movie critics to write things like "the fact that this movie is even made suggests concern within the American subconscious about being displaced as the sole superpower."  Now the movie is just stupid.

At least a Soviet invasion during the 1980’s made some kind of sense. The only explanation here will be Evil. Even more than in the original, I expect the main targets of the invading force will be schools, unoccupied vehicles, unarmed children, and other key military targets.

As an aside, I note here that John Milius, who was the screenwriter for the original Red Dawn, also wrote the backstory for the new video game Homefront.  Homefront allows you to fight in the "Second American Revolution," against the North Koreans that are occupying San Francisco for some reason.  It should be noted that the initial villain in Homefront was also the Chinese but that was changed too.

Alexander Dugin has said that North Korea must be supported because it is standing in opposition to the global American empire.  I agree it must be supported, but for a different reason.  If North Korea falls, we won't have a single actually existing country left we can use as a movie villain.

While the multiple Oscar-nominated film The King’s Speech may be called a passably entertaining period piece, it is far from being a great movie. The fact that this film has won such overwhelmingly effusive plaudits from the Academy and critical establishment does, however, raise a fascinating question: Can a filmmaker, by referencing every acceptable cinematic “meme” and dishing out all the requisite thematic “tropes,” succeed at manipulating supposedly educated and erudite people into thinking that his film is far better than it actually is?

Put differently, can a mediocre and forgettable flick come to be regarded as “excellent” if it tells the chattering class exactly what it wants to hear and shows it just what it aches to see?

Apparently, the answer is “yes,” as always, which shouldn’t overly surprise us. The chattering class, for all of their chatter, are after all just like every other group of people; they have their own pet hobbyhorses and obsessions; they delight in certain types of settings and story arcs; they enthuse over specific actors and directors; their collective heart swells, as if on cue, at the passionate oration of particularly treasured sentiments.