Katherine Royer
Little Old Lady
Professor Emeritus
Physician
and occasional wiseass
Pissed Off Patients, Docs Behaving Badly, and Some Snowflakes in White Coats... Life in the ER Gets Real in The Pitt ...
April 2025
I don’t think I’ve seen that much perineum...
Since I rotated through OB in med school...
And then there was the guy who whipped out his penis in full view...
To pee all over the fourth-year med student...
So I think the point was...
We’re on HBO...
So The Pitt is going to be gritty... and real...
And in some ways it is...
Because you are going to get an eyeful...
As this series goes beyond previous film iterations of life in a big city ER...
And I did end up binge watching it...
Because I am kind of a junkie for shows where they do things...
Like run a guidewire up through a cric and out the mouth..
In order to use it to thread the ET tube into place...
Was that really necessary?
I don’t know....
But it was a cool to watch...
Of course, the docs in this ER never put on a mask when they cut open a patient
And a lot of what they did would give a hospital infection control nurse a heart attack...
So the realism in The Pitt only extends so far...
And frankly, if I had just finished a brutal shift...
The last thing I would want to do is listen to some rah rah speech by my chief...
But... whatever...
What makes this series interesting is the frustration of the patients...
And the how and why they feel that way...
And no... Luigi Mangione does not show up...
But The Pitt is no Grey’s Anatomy...
Which is an uber-sanitized version of healthcare in America
Where everything is clean...
The patients are mostly grateful...
And the docs excellent at what they do...
Now both shows traffic in storylines that make a progressive’s heart beat large...
Access to abortion...
Mass casualty gun violence...
Racism in medicine...
Nice white kids who die of fentanyl overdoses..
Domestic abuse...
Sex trafficking...
And the refusal to vaccinate your children...
But The Pitt tackled all of these in its first season...
So I did wonder what stories they have left to tell in Season Two...
But I do have to admire the showrunner...
For figuring out how to get all these storylines into a single day’s shift...
But in reality, most days in an ER are filled with a boring litany of little stuff ...
Like lacerations, nosebleeds and broken bones...
Punctuated by the occasional MVA or GSW...
With some OD’s thrown into the mix...
But what The Pitt gets right...
Is the sorry state of health care in America...
The 12-hour waits to see a doc..
The pissed off patients...
And how the nurses... as well as the docs...
Have to put up with the smells and detritus of a life lived on the streets
And the crazies...
And everyone has to be constantly on alert...
For what a patient... or a family member is about to do to you
So this series shows a packed waiting room...
The frustrations of the patients who have been there for hours...
And how they take that frustration out on the staff...
Including a man who slugs the head nurse...
And hats off to The Pitt for giving credit to the role the ancillary staff play in these places...
But, of course, it’s the docs who are the focus...
And since this is 2025...
One is neurodivergent...
Another is wearing an ankle monitor...
The most competent chief resident is stealing drugs...
And one is basically a child who went to college at age 13...
So we have The Good Doctor, Nurse Jackie, and Doogie Howser....
All rolled into one show...
And, of course, there must be some rule that every hospital administrator on TV has to be a black woman...
But what is striking...
Is how so many of these docs let their personal issues...
With domestic violence, grief over the death of a colleague, race, etc....
Bleed into how they handle patients...
And not in a good way...
Because they allow the things that happened to them in the past...
Which... BTW...
Are what make a great med school application essay these days...
That helps you get in...
But that’s a story for another day...
Cloud their clinical judgment...
In a way no decent doc should ever do...
Now... there are also plenty of stereotypes in play in The Pitt...
So we have to have a medical student from Nebraska...
Who must, of course, be a clueless hayseed...
And, as expected, the women docs are portrayed as more caring than the men...
Which puts them in conflict with the hospital system that is trying to figure out how to handle the load in the waiting room...
While these women are spending time bonding with patients over life’s injustices...
Getting all up in their business...
And maybe trading a few recipes when no one is looking...
While the people who have been sitting and waiting to be seen...
For hours....
Wonder why they don’t matter more...
But then there is what we used to call “The Gunner”...
The self-confident know-it-all all intern ...
Who breaks the rules to do things she really shouldn’t be doing...
On her FIRST DAY in the ER...
Plus, she insults pretty much everyone below her in the ER food chain...
But more importantly... she sells out everyone ...
Most notably... her superiors...
And tries to get people fired...
But it’s made clear they intend in Season Two to show this hard ass has a heart of gold...
But I’m not buying it...
Nor the storyline that lets an intern disrupt the politics of an ER in such a malign way....
After being there for FIVE MINUTES...
Although they do hint she is cut some slack because a senior surgeon wants to sleep with her...
So I guess there is a hint of Grey’s Anatomy in The Pitt
And it does seem that every doc in this particular ER is picking a favorite among the newbies.....
But what I found most off-putting in this series...
Was how emotionally fragile all these docs were...
Really?
If you can’t handle death... and the downside of humanity
What are you doing in ER medicine?
But that criticism aside...
I do have a suggestion for Season Two...
To help keep this show real ...
And... no... it’s not bringing in a Luigi Mangione character...
If Noah Wylie really wants to continue The Pitt’s raw take on the current state of health care in America...
He should have a Private Equity Group take over the ER next season...
Because if you think the patients were unhappy Season One....
Just wait...
Kaos: Donald Trump’s Decorator, Elvis’s Tailor, and Hesiod Walk Into A Room
October 2024
Ok.. we’ve got Jeff Goldblum as Zeus...
Wearing a tracksuit that looks like it came out of Elvis’s closet...
Dionysus sporting frosted tips...
While wearing a lime green sports jacket
And petting a black kitten ...
Mt Olympus looks like a set that was borrowed from a Disney Princess Movie
But with interiors done by Donald Trump’s decorator
Plus, there are drawers filled with severed tongues... that talk
Poseidon lives on a yacht...
Eddie Izzard as Lachesis, one of the Three Fates
Is dressed like a CEO’s elderly female executive assistant
And Cassandra ...
Played by Billie Piper
Looks like a drugged-out hooker wandering the streets in search of her next hit...
Plus, we have Amazons, some Trojan women, a Minotaur...
And the Underworld with all its myriad characters
Is portrayed in black and white
In contrast to the princess pastels of Mt Olympus...
Then add to all this an amazing cast of actors I had never noticed before
Stephan Dillane chained to a rock as Prometheus, who is weirdly sexy...
Stanley Townsend as Minos the Mob boss...
Cliff Curtis as Poseidon who has the hots for Hera
And Ramon Tikaron as Charon
And the women...
Who are a bit more familiar...
Are also impressive...
Janet McTeer as Hera
Debi Mazar as Medusa
Leila Farza as Ari... and watch out for her...
With Aurora Perrineau, who plays Eurydice with a quiet but captivating calm
The only casting mistake was Killian Scott as Orpheus
Who is just sort of ... meh
And that matters because the central plot line involves
Orpheus trying to bring Eurydice back from the dead
And we all know how that turned out...
Or maybe we don’t...
Because Kaos assumes a knowledge of Greek mythology...
I’m not sure the average Netflix viewer possesses
So it is often confusing...
Even though the story is a reimagined Greek myth..
Which is also a melting pot of tales that do not always follow plot lines familiar to those in the audience who have read Edith Hamilton...
But it’s campy...
Funny at times...
And thoughtful in others...
So why did it sink like a stone and get canceled by Netflix before the season was finished...
And Nobody Wants This...
(Which I will have something to say at some point)
A generic romcom
Lived on to see another season...
Well.. Kaos couldn’t quite hit the right balance between a send-up and serious...
When Jeff Goldblum was in a scene it was over the top...
But the other actors turned in more nuanced performances
That fit the more serious topics...
Such as the tension between:
Belief and Nonbelief
Life and Death....
Fate and Agency...
Cruelty and Pathos...
So like the Minotaur...
Kaos was half one thing and half another...
But it wasn’t scary...
Nor did it draw you in ...
But...
I was impressed with its cleverness...
The imaginative production design...
Especially loved how you exited the underworld through a dumpster...
And the superb acting..
So Kaos engaged me intellectually...
But not emotionally...
Which was probably what mattered most to the folks at Netflix
And why they greenlit Nobody Wants This for another year...
And let Kaos whither soon after it was born...
So..
Just a thought....
Maybe they should have hired Adam Brody to be Orpheus...
Which might sound cryptic...
But once I post my review of Nobody Wants This...
You will understand...
From Yellowstone to 1923: Is Taylor Sheridan a Feminist?
April 2025
In the beginning there was Yellowstone...
Where men were men...
Worked with their hands...
Broke horses, herded cattle, mended fences...
And wore clothes from Carhartt...
They worked jobs that were hard... and sometimes dangerous
Considered environmentalists a threat to their livelihood... and sometimes their lives...
Had no truck for what they considered woke bs...
And drove Dodge Ram trucks unironically...
And half the country said...
This is good....
These are our people...
And so the Western was revived...
But at first, only for a niche audience...
Of viewers who had been ignored by Hollywood...
And as Taylor Sheridan looked out on what he had created...
He said I must write more improbable storylines..
Set in a land where the right folks can get away with murder...
From the Dutton family to the Native Americans who stole the Dutton cattle and murdered a Dutton son...
But in his infinite wisdom...
The Creator also knew that the time was ripe...
To present both sides of the story of the battle to control the land.....
And so the interests of the ranchers and the Native Americans were each treated with an even hand...
And they would occasionally join forces against their common enemy...
The Great Satan...the Private Equity predators coming from afar ..
Intent on taking everyone’s land....
And this was good...
And then Sheridan created Beth Dutton...
Love or hate her...
You cannot forget her...
A woman who can verbally gut you like a fish
But who can also take a punch...
And wears her physical scars proudly...
But as in the Bible...
People got greedy..
And the Dutton Father, Kevin Costner..
The only real star in Yellowstone...
Was either cast out or decided on his own to leave...
What had become a rating’s winner Garden of Eden
But by then, the rest of the country had discovered the Dutton story...
And Montana...
And so the Creator said...
I shall do a prequel...
So 1883 became the story of the Dutton family trek to Montana
But the Creator did not forget “his people”
So he cast two country music stars in the lead roles..
And brought in the now old, but still popular, war horse of all things western... Sam Elliot...
Who at age 77 could still sit a horse...
And who had nothing good to say about The Power of the Dog...
Which was a selling point for the original Yellowstone audience...
And of course, it has been written...
That in every wagon train story...
Someone must be killed by a rattlesnake ...
Others by Native Americans...
And some by drowning as they crossed rivers...
But in 1883 no one on the trail dies as the result of smallpox..
Because the Creator wrote a storyline about how to keep it away from people as they journeyed West...
And he did so in the middle of the Covid pandemic...
Because he is a wise man...
Who can read a room...
But the Creator could still not help himself...
And included an implausible storyline about a young woman running off and marrying a Native American...
Who became smitten when he saw her ride a horse...
But it is Elsa who carries this series...
As she recounts through her narration
The tale of this Dutton journey West...
So this story is not told through the eyes of men...
But that of a young girl...
Who is tough and fearless...
And so we see once again..
That when the Creator creates a female character..
They are the equal of any man...
And then he rested once more...
And wrote 1923...
The finest of the Dutton stories...
But now the Creator is famous...
And everyone wants to work with him...
Including Timothy Dalton...
Who is brought into the 1923 story...
As a rapacious land developer with some seriously sadistic sexual proclivities..
But it is Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren who are the real stars of 1923..
As an aged couple trying to keep the ranch together...
As they face murderous sheepherders and scheming developers...
And these two seasoned performers do not disappoint...
And lend this story a gravitas missing in the other chapters of the Dutton saga
But the Creator continued to indulge his weakness for unrealistic gun battles ...
In which all the major characters miraculously survive...
And the two exceptionally attractive new cast members...
Played by Brandon Sklenar and Julia Schlaepfer.. .
Spend most of their time in Africa...
Encountering things that would kill lesser mortals...
And the Creator introduced the side story of a Native American girl...
Who will be the ancestor of the tribal leader in Yellowstone...
And who, like Job, will suffer mightily...
As Sheridan tells the story of the depredations faced by Native Americans at this time...
But the real enemy in 1923...
Is winter in Montana...
And what it brings...
Rabid wolves, frostbite... and death
But once again, it is the women who rule this story...
Helen Mirren as the crusty Clara Dutton
Who can shoot as well as any man...
And is happy to do so...
While keeping a cool head in a crisis
And Alex, the fearless wife of Spenser Dutton
Who despite her aristocratic English upbringing
Is up for any adventure...
And when the going gets tough..
Taps into reserves that are impressive...
So once again, Sheridan has written great parts for women...
And in the three Sheridan series...
Which seem to be steeped in an unrepentant celebration of masculinity...
All the best lines go to the girls...
Now...
Be honest...
Did you see that coming?
Somebody Somewhere: Some Thoughts On Fat Women in Film and Why This Series Is Not What’s A Matter With Kansas
April 2025
Hey girl...
Who did you think your audience was going to be for a series set in Manhattan Kansas?
And don’t tell me you thought it would be the crowd hanging out in a coffee shop in Seattle...
So seriously...did you think none of us who grew up around there...
Would notice...
That you didn’t film Somebody Somewhere anywhere near Manhattan...
And no... those occasional shots of Poyntz Avenue don’t count....
Because we could tell...
Bridget... you’re from Manhattan...
And I’m not buying the excuse that you needed to film near Chicago
So you could get quality actors for your series...
It’s not like you got Tracy Letts to be in Somebody Somewhere...
Plus, I get the sense you haven’t been home much lately...
Because otherwise you would know that it’s now the Colbert Hills Country Club that has the money crowd...
Not the Manhattan Country Club...
So I’m a little disappointed you didn’t give your hometown a little more love
And actually film your series there...
But that said... Somebody Somewhere does capture the Kansas vibe
In a way that someone from somewhere else would not be able to do...
And although this series is populated with quirky characters...
It is loving in their portrayal...
My favorite is Fred the eternally cheerful K-State professor...
I couldn’t decide if Fred was trans...
But didn’t care...
Because he is just so much fun...
All decked out in purple...
A walking billboard of the kind of Wildcat pride...
That overtook Manhattan...
After K-State finally discovered how to have a winning football team...
Just drive around... and you will see what I mean...
And check out all the mansions with big stones in the front yard emblazoned with the Wildcat logo...
Fred is definitely different...and not what you would imagine as a prof at an Ag school in Kansas...
And he is part of a group of friends who initially bond over music...
And food that is really bad for you...
They are all, in one way or another, marginalized
Because of who they are...
But Fred doesn’t seem to notice...
Or care...
But it’s a credit to this series...
That what makes his friends feel like they are “the other” is not tied to where they live...
So Somebody Somewhere is not a slam on Kansas...
And Bridget Everett has not made a film version of What’s A Matter With Kansas
Even though everyone’s demeanor and ... wardrobe is definitely Kansan
So there is a lot of Kansas nice...
Plenty of church going...
Something called “St Louis Sushi”...
And oversized t-shirts and jeans...
Khakis and polyester shirts...
Because if we are going to honest here...
And I do love you, Kansas...
You are a state where fashion goes to die...
But what defines Somebody Somewhere is that almost all the major characters... Except Fred...
Are sad...
But they hide their pain with jokes and camaraderie...
As they love and support each other...
And it’s striking how kind they are to each other...
As are most of the people they deal with on a daily basis...
But that is not always enough...
Their pain comes from different places...
The gay dad who was denied access to his children...
His partner who is trying to come to terms with never being a father...
While carrying the lingering scars of being bullied when he was young...
A sister whose divorce from a philandering husband coincided with her only child leaving home...
And then there is Sam... who is played by Bridget Everett
A larger than life, clever, overweight, schleppy forty-year-old...
Who is grieving the death of her sister...
But more importantly, seems paralyzed...
And unable to do anything about her economically precarious situation...
And low self-esteem...
And so self-sabotages at every opportunity...
Food is Sam’s love language...
But that is a problem...
Because it’s how Sam looks that plays a key role in her self-loathing ...
So Somebody Somewhere got me thinking about how fat women are portrayed in film...
There are the Big Girl Stars... Kathy Bates, Conchata Ferrell, Melissa McCarthy, Rebel Wilson...
Women you can’t take your eyes off of when they are in a scene
Who dominate whatever film they’re in...
Often giving memorable performances...
They are self-confident, powerful... and intimidating...
And when one of them slims down, as did Kathy Bates...
You realize something is lost...
That their power comes in part from their size...
Then there are what I call the Lizzo Crowd...
Of which Gabourey Sidibe is an example ...
These women are mostly notable for their morbid obesity... it defines who they are...
They are often so large that everything else about them recedes into the background...
So they are almost a grotesque...
Much like Brendan Fraser in The Whale...
Then there are the “It Doesn’t Matter” crowd...
This includes many black actresses such as Queen Latifah, Uzo Aduba, Natasha Rothwell
These women don’t dominate the screen as much as someone like Melissa McCarthy...
But their weight is just not an issue... it’s neither a source of strength nor a detriment...
It’s sort of just there... like having brown eyes instead of blue...
And finally, there are The Self-Loathers...for whom it does matter
And is a source of great pain...
Bridget Everett in Somebody Somewhere falls into this category...
As did Chrissy Metz in This Is Us...
And in the scene where Sam is in the doctor’s office...
Wearing a gown that doesn’t even begin to cover her...
You can feel her shame...
But then she goes out and orders donuts...
So although Somebody Somewhere has a real Kansas feel...
Sam’s character is universal...
Because there is nothing uniquely Kansan about what drives her sadness...
And there are women like her.... everywhere...
They are pumping gas next to you, at the Dollar Store, or standing in line at the DMV...
They are the “Somebody Somewhere”...
So Everett couldn’t have picked a more appropriate title...
And her portrayal of Sam will stay with you...
Long after you have forgotten what’s in St. Louis Sushi...
Because her pain is so real...
And all too common...
A One Word Review of Warfare....Wow
April 2025
I probably have about as much business reviewing war movies...
As my husband does weighing in on what is on trend this year at Fashion Week...
And although I have seen a few war films... The Hurt Locker, Saving Private Ryan, Stalingrad, and Fury...
To name a few...
I missed Zero Dark Thirty and Lone Survivor...
And I never saw the classics... Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket
Because war movies have just not been my thing...
In part because there tends to be a sameness to many of them...
Soldiers run behind a wall
Shoot...
Then run behind another wall...
And shoot some more...
There are usually some grenades...
A stoic leader who keeps everyone on track...
A newbie who wets his pants...
And a clueless CO who put the soldiers in danger in the first place...
Now, I know, these kind of films can explore various aspects of life in combat zones...
The adrenaline junkie in The Hurt Locker...
Who would have been free-climbing El Capitan in an ice storm if he hadn’t been in Iraq...
Why no one should ever have wanted to be in the tank corps in WWII...
And the carnage at Omaha Beach, of which most of us were unaware until Steven Spielberg put it in our face...
But the trailer for Warfare...
Didn’t make it look like anything out of the ordinary...
In fact, it kind of looked like a Peter Berg movie
So why did I go?
Well... because I was curious why the New Yorker would be reviewing what looked like a generic war film based on a true, but minor event...
That isn’t usually their thing... unless the film has some heavy political message
With which they agree...
And it didn’t look in the trailer that Warfare was going to go there...
But I walked out of the theater thinking...
WOW... THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST WAR MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN...
Even if there is a lot of running behind walls and shooting...
My first thought when I saw these soldiers in action...
Was these guys are really tough...
And impressively professional...
But then... that led me to wonder...
Do we still have men like this in our military nineteen years later?
Or is our Post 9/11 army a thing of the past?
Which, at this particular moment, seems not an unreasonable question to ask...
I did think the opening scene of the soldiers hooting and hollering at a video of thong-clad young women bending over in an exercise class...
Was such a testosterone moment...
That I wondered if those execs in Hollywood who have been making all those movies about the evils of toxic masculinity...
Had seen this scene before it came out...
But if you look carefully, you see not every soldier is reacting in the same way to the video...
It’s subtle... but foreshadows how Warfare probes the ways in which each soldier responds differently to what is happening around him...
But this film is not a character study...
Even though there are some fine performances by Cosmo Jarvis and Joseph Quinn
As the two severely injured soldiers ...
There are no backstories, the soldiers rarely speak about anything other than what they are doing...
And there are no archetypes...
It’s clear all but one of the soldiers are hardened combat vets...
And some of them are obviously in their 30s...
So there is not a baptism by fire story at play here...
And although this is the proverbial band of brothers...
It’s also made clear that not everyone likes each other
But that is conveyed in looks... and not words
Obviously, Warfare doesn’t traffic in all the familiar war movie tropes...
So what made this film so compelling?
Well, this is a gritty movie about a real battle that took place in Iraq in 2006...
Told from the perspective of the men who were in it...
And I suspect that Ray Mendoza, who was a Navy Seal in Iraq and co-directed this film along with Alex Garland ...
Probably deserves a lot of credit for how real this film feels...
And Alex Garland has already demonstrated...
That he has a knack for filming urban warfare...
For that was the best part of what was otherwise a muddled mess of a movie - Civil War...
But it’s the little things that make this film what it is...
One of the first things you see is the soldier’s blood type printed on his bulletproof vest...
Not his name... his blood type
Another soldier struggles to stay awake behind his sniper rifle...
And then needs to get up because he has gotten so stiff holding one position...
And as everyone waits in the beginning before things go south...
When they’re not yet sure they will...
You can feel the tension in the room...
But no one speaks... so the space is filled with deadly quiet...
Which feels like it lasts forever...
So it’s how Garland uses time...
That sets this film apart...
Once men are blown up and the other soldiers struggle to keep them alive...
Time slows down again... like it does if you have ever been in a car accident
So at first the soldiers don’t seem to hear or see anything...
And are incapable of processing what is going on around them...
And then as their fellow soldiers scream in pain...
As limbs are filleted, with blood everywhere...
They struggle to do simple things...
Like put on a tourniquet... or give someone a shot of morphine
And their leader realizes he has become paralyzed with the shock of what has happened...
And cannot formulate what they need to do next...
And keep in mind... these are highly trained battle-hardened Navy Seals
Yet these are things can happen to anyone in a crisis...
In those first moments of shock...
Until you get your bearings...
And these soldiers do...
And figure out how to get around a series of problems...
And this is where you see the asymmetry of the weapons used in this conflict...
The deafening power of air support...
The genius of the Bradley in urban warfare...
But then there is the final scene...
After the US soldiers have left...
When you see the Iraqi soldiers coming out of their houses and walking casually around the street where the battle has just taken place...
Which makes you wonder...
In the end did any of those impressive weapons of war matter...
So this is just one of the many reasons why a film with few words...
Ended up being so powerful...
Freaky Tales: A Good Cast In a Small Movie About a Dysfunctional City
April 2025
Is there a tape of Pedro Pascal from his days at NYU…
That he doesn’t want to get out….
Because how else to explain how Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden got Pascal…
Who is currently the hot item on every director’s call list…
To show up…
In a little movie… about Oakland California
Set in 1987…
That clocks in at 72% on the Rotten Tomato Score
And that would be of little interest to anyone but those of us who live in proximity to this fine city…
And yes… I am being facetious…
I mean… really… facetious…
Because Oakland was just as unlovely then…
As it is now…
But in the 80s the city did have the Raiders, the A’s…and the Warriors
The last of which figure prominently in this story…
But they are all gone now…
Because Oakland can’t seem to keep anything good…
But the Rapper Too Short...
Who stars in this film...
Is still around…
And was recently seen entertaining the crowd at an Oakland Roots Soccer game…
Which is the only sports team left that plays in the Brutalist Oakland Coliseum
The former home of the Raiders and the A’s…
A venue so poorly managed by the city…
Which BTW is trying to sell it so they can meet payroll…
That I couldn’t even find someone to sell me a soda the last time I was there…
Ah… but that’s Oakland…
And Freaky Tales does pick up the Oakland vibe…
So we get shots of the Grand Lake Theater, Giant Burger and what is now known as the New Parish, which is called Sweet Jimmie’s in the movie…
And Fleck and Boden populated the film with actors from Oakland
Including … amazingly… Tom Hanks
And the now deceased Angus Cloud
Who was last seen in Euphoria
As Rue’s drug dealer…
Starring another Oakland alum…Zendaya
But like Fleck…they have all left…
And if you have been to Oakland recently…you know why
But the city still has an inordinate degree of self-regard
When it comes to what it considers its edgy culture…
Of rappers, street art, and underground clubs…
That fill this film…
Now Oakland has always thought of itself…
As the hipper younger sibling of “The City” across the Bay
The more stodgy San Francisco… which has all the money…
The high brow arts scene…
And… more importantly… a government that can actually pay its bills
So Oaklanders have long considered their town the underdog…
And that sense of having to prove itself runs through Freaky Tales
But at the same time…
Oaklanders also look down on the parts of California outside the Bay Area...
As a mass of strip malls and dusty Central Valley towns...
Which are... in their opinion…
A foreign country full of hopelessly clueless folk…
And this is summed up in the scene in Freaky Tales where the white boy…
Who is smitten with the hip Asian girl tricked out in nose rings and punk regalia…
Asks her to excuse his ignorance…
Because….
After all…he is from Fresno…
So Oakland’s image of itself as on the cutting edge of a more raw culture...
Than the rest of California...
Dominates the first story in this movie…
And Freaky Tales is Altmanesque in its structure…
As it is made up of four interlocking stories
That are then narrated in a Wes Anderson way by the rapper Too Short…
So we get corrupt Oakland cops…
Who, of course, are all white…and predictably racist
A bunch of punk rockers…of various ethnicities
Which is where Fleck and Boden bring in the Oakland Asians…
A couple of black female rappers…
Some mobsters… who are also all white..
And a Warrior point guard with some serious ninja skills…
And an impressive collection of Asian weaponry…
Who is named after a real star who made Warrior history in 1987…
For taking it to the Lakers…
And whose prowess with a sword allows Freaky Tales to have some Pulp Fiction moments …
Then there are the “Nazis”…
And it does seem that everyone is talking about “Nazis” these days…
But now that term is being applied quite broadly ...
But in 1987 these characters wouldn’t have been called Nazis…
Skinheads were how they were referred to at the time…
And no one was talking about ‘mindfulness” in the 80s…
That’s a more recent Oprah-associated obsession…
So these are the small details that make the film seem less like a study of Oakland 38 years ago…
And more a movie reflective of the current moment…
But if anything, Freaky Tales is a gold mine for film aficionados…
But they have to be of a certain age…
Which means old enough to remember Ishtar…
Or pick up on the High Fidelity reference in the bit in the video store with Tom Hanks…
And why Lost Boys might have been a precursor to our current vampire obsession…
So, if you like unpacking clues like these…
Then Freaky Tales might be your cup of tea…
But for everyone else…
It’s just a story about a city that can never seem to get its act together…
But thinks it’s rad nonetheless…
Even if it looks more like a favela these days...
But at least if you live in Oakland today...
You can brag...
That your city doesn't have a "poop map" like San Francisco
The White Lotus Season 3: There’s a Trump Voter, a Couple of Kinky Characters, But Not Nearly Enough Suspense
April 2025
Now that was a surprise...
And I don’t mean who killed whom...
No... The White Lotus Season Three...
Has a character who admits to being a Trump voter...
And she is... NORMAL
In fact... Kate is the most together character on the show...
And yes... her girlfriends were shocked into silence at her admission...
As I imagine many fans of the show were...
Because how could Hollywood normalize one of those people...
But they did...
And even though there are hints that Kate is kind of a Stepford wife...
She came across as congenial, definitely well turned out, and absent all the issues that were plaguing her friends...
Who were pretty miserable BTW...
While Kate is not...
But.... if we are going to be honest here...
One of the refreshing things about Mike White’s series...
Is that he does like to sprinkle his shows with some happy capitalists....
Who concern themselves not a wit about social justice...
While their friends are conflicted about having money...
But watching Season Three of The White Lotus was like...
Seeing a balloon slowly deflate...
Because you didn’t tie the knot well enough...
And yes.. that is a metaphor...
But I guess doing a Season Three is hard ...
Especially since White keeps going back to same well...
So we have the family with issues...
The younger son who wants to escape...
The grifter...
A real criminal...
The privileged child who wants to give it all away...
Bitchy girlfriends...
A dysfunctional couple...
A character with lots of money...
A hot head...
And the hotel staff who get swept up in all the privileged guests’ issues
So White just seems to re-circulate similar characters through every season
Changing only the location...
So it was always the mystery that held your interest...
But there is so much foreshadowing in Season Three of The White Lotus...
That you could see what was going to happen a mile away...
So...
Spoiler alert ...
Jim is going to turn out to be Rick’s dad....
Like we didn’t see that one coming...
So everything became so predictable ...
That by the end I’d lost interest in who was going to be killed...
Because by that time I already had a pretty good idea of who it would be...
Although I was wrong about the Russians...
But some additional thoughts about this series...
Thailand should sue White...
That opening art work...
Was a disturbing mélange of scenes of murder and mayhem, sea monsters and half-eaten sailors...
Which did not make me want to go to Thailand...ever
And portraying all Thai men as weak betas...
Is not likely to endear White to the people of Thailand
But the hotel was beautiful...
Better than the ones in Seasons One and Two
But everyone was sweating and looked slightly miserable in the hot and humid tropical climate...
And the rumor is the cast became increasingly irritable as the shoot went on...
Add to that...Mike White has now supposedly severed ties with his composer...
So it looks like everyone became slightly peevish while they were hanging out in this “tropical paradise”...
But...
Patrick Schwarzenegger is hot...
Yet he’s 31...
So where has he been hiding?
Because he can actually act...
And my take is that he is going to be the Sidney Sweeney of this season of The White Lotus...
As was Leo Woodhall of Season Two...
Because this series gets enough eyeballs to raise your profile...
Greg’s house was off the charts...
I mean we are talking some serious house porn here...
That waterfall coming off the roof into the pool was pretty cool...
Seeing Scott Glen looking like he could croak at any minute
Made me feel very old...
Mostly because I knew who he was...
And are there no orthodontists in the UK?
Because Aimee Lou Wood is lovely...
But those teeth...
Yet it was the Sam Rockwell character that really took this White Lotus
In an unexpected direction...
But maybe if you are going to normalize a Trump voter
I guess you need to spread the wealth...
And give time to a very confused sex addict...
Who can’t decide if he wants to be a boy or a girl...
So there are definitely shades of the Mike White who wrote The Power of the Dog
In The White Lotus Season Three...
And it wasn’t just Rockwell’s Frank who is kind of kinky...
The two brothers get into some weird stuff with each other as well
So this version of The White Lotus does go places the other two seasons had not gone before...
But it was Belinda who left me wishing I had done my taxes instead...
And this is no rap on Natasha Rothwell...
Who was enjoyable to watch in Insecure...
No... it’s how White has written this character...
Who from the get-go in Season One was an obsequious grifter...
But for some reason White wants her to be the real winner
And become the new Tanya...
So her character arc is intended to link the three seasons
And have Belinda be the one who comes out on top...
But there was something that did not sit right about that...
And not because the Season Three ending was a bit too clever by half...
But because...
Although it’s clear that it’s the pill-popping entitled Parker Posey’s Victoria we are supposed to hate...
She does own who she is...
And can be wise at times...
Whereas, it’s Belinda who is the real snake in the grass...
And the one you should watch out for...
So to have her be the real winner...
Just seemed a bit off...
But then again....
I guess we should remember...
How Mike White ended The Power of the Dog...
Pain Hustlers...Or How the Feds Set the Stage For Another Big Pharma Grift
August 2024
I’m not sure they knew it at the time...
But the producers behind Pain Hustlers...
Stumbled onto a story...
That was about way more than just the opioid crisis...
And even though I have long known about this particular grift...
I was thrown off by the title of this film...
And so didn’t suspect that they were going to go there...
Which almost kept me from watching this movie...
But one of life’s unexpected streaming pleasures...
Is when a small movie...
Scores because of a great cast...
Now Pain Hustlers had escaped my attention when it first came out...
Because I had already seen Dopesick...
And felt like my tolerance for films about the opioid crisis had been reached
After all.. what more could be said?
Well....
Put Emily Blunt and Katherine O’Hara together...
As a mother and daughter duo...
Of quirky con women...
Who find their way into an opioid hustle
And the fun begins...
I do feel a little sorry for Chris Evans...
Who was seriously upstaged by these two actresses...
Then you sprinkle a little Andy Garcia as the pharma CEO
And Jay Duplass as a hapless corporate pencil pusher who’s on to Blunt’s con
And you have a story that centers on a part of a hustle
That has been a feature of the pharma ecosystem
For decades...
And which began having nothing to do with opioids...
But you would never know that from this movie...
But which started as a workaround after the Feds came out with rules outlawing gifts given to doctors and their staff by drug companies...
Which subsequently led to a practice that has been little talked about...
The tactic of pharmaceutical companies paying local doctors to give talks
In an implied, but never explicit, exchange for favorable prescribing practices
Something that long predated the opioid crisis...
And involved a whole host of drugs...
Most of which were not painkillers...
So Pain Hustlers does plough new ground
By drawing attention to something ...
That I suspect only those in the healthcare industry knew about...
And which was done not just by sleaze bag doctors...
But by many of the local docs you played golf with... or met at back-to-school night...
And who would never have thought they would ever be part of a scam...
And didn’t think they were...
When they headed off to give those talks.....
But as they say...
When you see all your buddies doing it.
As well as most of the docs in academic medicine...
It must be ok...
So it turned out Pain Hustlers did have something new to say...
And hat’s off to a terrific cast...
Who made a story about a little-known Big Pharma hustle...
So much fun to watch...
That I’ll forgive the generic redemption plotline for Blunt’s character...
And the fact that they wanted to make this story only about opioid prescribing...
When this hustle has a long history that has extended far beyond any one class of drugs...
But I suspect the producers didn’t know that...
So let me suggest some other topics...
I think it’s about time for something about Pharmacy Benefit Managers
Or the real story behind why insulin has become so expensive...
Which has lots of twists and turns... and doesn’t fit that neatly
Into the Big Pharma Is Always the Bad Guy narrative...
So Hollywood.. it’s time to move on from opioids...
There’s a gold mine of stories out there...
Just waiting to be told...
So give me a call....
Death of a Unicorn: A Queer Icon Becomes a Killer and NGOs Get Sent Up as Hollywood Decides That Maybe Not All Their Villains Should Be Republicans
March 2025
Maybe bludgeoning a baby unicorn
With a tire iron...
Is not a great way to start a movie...
Especially when you are Paul Rudd...
Who is the Tom Hanks of the Midwest...
And you are supposed to be the good guy...
Who loses his way, albeit temporarily, in the pursuit of money
But is saved by the Wise Child...
Of course...
But, Paul, you had already run over the poor unicorn with your car...
And it was moaning pitifully as it lay injured on the road...
And you decided to bash its head in?
In front of your daughter?
That’s when I knew The Death of a Unicorn was in trouble...
And this is despite a great cast...Rudd, Richard Grant, Tea Leoni, and Will Poulter
Terrific looking unicorns that are the size of a house...
And some fun sendups of the current culture...
But this is a film that keeps stepping on itself...
Now it starts off kind of campy...
With the now requisite villain... the Big Pharma exec...
Who wants to use the dead unicorn’s blood to cure cancer
And who doesn’t hate Big Pharma these days...
So that makes him an equal-opportunity bad guy...
Because he can be hated by both the Left and Right...
But I do think the memo has gone out...
After Snow White crashed and burned at the box office...
That maybe Hollywood should stop ignoring the half of the country that doesn’t vote Democrat...
And come up with some villains who aren’t evangelical Christians, dumb as rocks Southerners, or evil racist Republicans who hate poor people...
So it was refreshing to see Tea Leoni as the wife of the mogul...
Camp it up as a performative philanthropist...
A favored activity of rich wives on Left end of the political spectrum...
Who run and/or fund NGOs...
And seem to really believe they are saving the world...
With their husband’s...
But mostly... other people’s money
Including... as we have recently found out... some of our tax dollars as well...
But as a caricature, we have not often seen that before...
Nor the NGO universe satirized quite so explicitly
And of course, the Pharma king...
Has bought land to create a nature preserve...
To “give back to nature...and society”
Or maybe just harvest lots of tax credits...
But it is well known that this is what really rich men on the Left do...
Perhaps to assuage their conscience for riding on all those private jets...
A sort of philanthropic indulgence...
Or maybe the game is really to harvest some ESG credits for their businesses...
But either way...
It’s made clear what the political leanings of the bad guys are in this movie...
Because the rich on the Right prefer to fund museums and things that they can put their names on...
And they don’t buy land to save the planet...
And the son is LARPing as a VC bro ..
Looking for the next big thing...
A sort of Sam Bankman-Fried but without the brains...
Or any affectation toward Effective Altruism...
And all these characters are funny...
But then Mommy and Daddy unicorn show up...
As evil grey creatures with bad teeth...
And they kick, bite, stomp and stab almost everyone...
And since they are the size of a small house...
They are pretty formidable...
And definitely not the” joyous symbol of diversity” that made unicorns a queer icon...
So at that point The Death of Unicorn slides into its horror movie stage...
But with bad CGI...
And with the problem....
That there are only so many ways a big horse with a horn can kill you...
So this film goes from camp to horror...
And then shifts gears again...
When...
In keeping with what is currently on trend in Silicon Valley these days...
It leans heavily into the spiritual at the end....
With hints at some kind of resurrection...
So as a film The Death of Unicorn is a miss...
Because it doesn’t stay focused...
But as a reflection ...
Of which way the cultural winds are blowing right now...
It seems right on target...
In a way few films have yet to embrace...
But I sense will soon...
Because the times they are a’changing...
I mean, after all...
Bill Maher is going to the White House