The Final Entry THE TOP TEN films of 2018!

Here we are! I won't pontificate as I usually do before an entry like this since the suspense is killing you. So here they are.

10) "Ms. Hyde" - Serge Bozon

Wow, the study of the duality of the human mind can be so...Damn, I'm actually making myself yawn. Most of the additions into the whole Jeckle and Hyde concept are insipid and obvious, aren't they? Tripe. But "Ms. Hyde" bursts out of the model and shoves its revolutionary ideas on the story right down your throat. The rare film of this series of stories that has just a bit of profundity.

9) "Disobedience" - Sebastian Lelio

Sebastian Lelio's follow-up to 2017's Oscar-winning "A Fantastic Woman" is every inch as good as its predecessor, maybe even better. When her father dies, Ronit (Rachel Weisz) is called back to her Orthodox Jewish home. She gets there only to be confronted by Esti (Rachel McAdams,) the love of her youth. With their affair reignited, they are once again faced with the question of how to respond to their conservative community. The real drama is between the two women and Esti's husband Dovid (Alessandro Nivola.) What pulls your heartstrings most in this film is the contrast between Esti and Ronit's joyous homecoming and watching this good man's heartbreak in real time as he slowly realizes what's going on.

8) "Beautiful Boy" - Felix van Groeningen

"Beautiful Boy" follows David (Steve Carell,) a father desperately trying to save his son Jasper (Timothée Chamalet) who is struggling with an addiction to crystal-meth. We follow the duo in the present and back to when Jasper was young, juxtaposing the effed-up junkie with the adorable, loving son David raised. In the end, "Beautiful Boy" is a film about the intimate and heart-rending between father and son. When a boy suffers, the father feels the pain. He matches his son's pain, blow for blow and hurt for hurt. Groningen, director of 2012's "The Broken Circle Breakdown," a film about a man struggling with finding a way to break through the grief of losing his daughter, is no rookie when it comes to telling stories of heartbreak and fatherhood. So just a warning, if you are a father this film will make you cry.

7) "The Favourite" - Yorgos Lanthimos

"The Favourite" demonstrates plainly that sexual politics are the most efficient to manipulate. They're also the most malicious. I don't know what I enjoyed watching more, the two vindictive-to-the-point-of-sadistic women vying for power and the queen's affections or just how delighted Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman) seems to watch it all play out in front of her. It's a very dark comedy that gleefully celebrates what it really means to be cruel.

6) "Hereditary" - Ari Aster

Oh my God, did this movie throw the template for horror films into a bonfire! "Hereditary" has no rules. Every character is vulnerable and the evil has no restraints and that's what makes it so horrifying. The film is so terrifying that you want to turn away but feels forced to face it just to see where the hell it goes.

5) "Hotel Artemis" - Drew Pearce

Bizarre for the sake of itself can be entertaining, but in the end, it's not a solid foundation for a film. Lucky "Hotel Artemis" earns the right, through strong stories and well-written characters, to be bizarre as it wants to be. A healer known as "the Nurse" (Jodie Foster) runs an underground makeshift hospital at a former hotel. The characters who come to her are desperate, naturally. But there are strict rules for anybody needing to be stitched-up. Writer/director Drew Pearce takes us on a ridiculously fun ride through a single night at the Armetis when the rules are for shit.

4) "Cold War" Pawel Pawlikowski

If you disagree with me that "Cold War" is one of the best films of the year, you have to concede that it's certainly the most beautiful. Director Pawel Pawlikowski and Cinematographer Lukasz Zal were nominated for Oscars for their work on this film. But good looks can only get you so far if you don't have a good story with solid characters. "Cold War" has both. We follow Zula (Joanna Kulig) and Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) chasing each other through the fifties both behind the Iron Curtain and on this one. They're first separated in a self-sabotaged escape from occupied Poland. After that, they come across each other every once in a while, longing to be reunited. "Cold War" is more than a celebration of impossible love though. There's the simple joy of life in every frame.

3) "Border" - Ali Abbasi

Most years, "Border" would easily take the top spot as the best film of the year. The fact that it's only number three is just a testament to how brilliant Boots Riley's and Anne Ramsay's offerings were. Tina (Eva Melander) is a Swedish customs officer with an aptitude for sniffing out all sorts of smugglers and criminals. She also has a physical deformity that makes her feel less than human. Then Vore ( Eero Milonof,) someone with the same deformity but incomparably high confidence comes along, questioning everything Tina had come to assume over her life. The film is really about monsters and how they are defined. We learn along with Tina that a deformity does not define a devil.

2) "You Were Never Really Here" - Anne Ramsay

If "We Need to Talk About Kevin" was Ramsay's "Reservoir Dogs" then "You Were Never Really Here" is her "Pulp Fiction." Lynne Ramsay's follow up to her disturbing 2011 masterpiece "We Need to Talk About Kevin" became iconic instantly when the film was released. She attempts to study and submit the psyche of a self-loathing, violent revenge-seeker and she nails it to the wall. She understands that the source of Joe's (Joaquin Phoenix) compulsion to rescue innocents and murder wrong-doers is an underlying sense of helplessness he's had beaten into him since he was a child. "YouWere Never Really Here" is basically a celebration of righteous violence and boy, is it glorious!

And here we are – the greatest film of 2018!

1) "Sorry to Bother You" - Boots Riley

With "Sorry to Bother You," Boots Riley delivers what is most likely the greatest dark comedy so far this century. Aside from the morbidity that glues the whole thing together, we're also looking at rare, biting and important satires you'll ever see. Desperate for money and employment, Cassius Green, a.k.a Cash (LaKieth Stanfield,) takes a job as a telemarketer. He quickly learns that the key to doing the job well, to pull down those fat commission checks, is to put on his white voice. His numbers skyrocket and get the attention of corporate. After that, Cash slowly sells off his soul, piece by piece as he repeatedly compromises his sense of ethics. In the end, Cash finds himself essentially, a slave trader. Finally, the powderkeg explodes as we see the truly sadistic underside of corporate America, our citizens' lackadaisical response to true evil and just how far a grassroots revolution can go.

Suburbicon - George Clooney (2017)

You can easily laugh through some dark comedies. George Clooney's "Suburbicon," (based on a screenplay by the Coen Brothers, Clooney, and Grant Heslov) is a comedy in which, the fun and humor are juxtaposed with a backdrop of suffering that isn't funny at all.

Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) is an ordinary man, as far as we can see, whose luck spirals downward to an alarming level of rot. Damon is the box office draw, but the Protagonist, the leading man if you will, is actually Nicky (Noah Jupe), Gardner's son.

Nicky is the single innocent in this story. He's the only character who's not an amoral wretch. At the start of the film, the kid is put through a traumatic experience. The sequence is excessively grim, the kind of content that even the darkest of most dark comedies wouldn't touch.

The boy is woken in the middle of the night and dragged down to the dining room. He is tied down by a couple of brutes. He sees his mother Rose, and aunt Margaret (both played by Julianne Moore) are tied down as well.

After a few minutes of intimidating threats, the brutes chloroform all of them.

When Nicky wakes up, he learns that his mother did not survive the attack. His father and aunt are fairly blasé about the incident.

Aunt Margaret moves in to help Nicky and Gardner get used to living without Rose. There may be something sinister behind that.

Rose's death starts a chain of unfortunate events that could very well toss the family right on its head. Nicky and Gardner are threatened throughout the film by nosey cops, gangsters and a corrupt insurance investigator looking to take the Lodges for everything they've got.

Watching Gardner and his sister-in-law Margaret's lives fall apart is hilarious. "Suburbicon" creates so many characters whose demise we gladly cheer for.

There is a secondary plot is focused on a black family, the Mayers, who move into the neighborhood. Nicky strikes up a friendship with Andy Mayer, the new black kid in town.

But the neighborhood doesn't just object to the family's arrival, it rages. As the Lodge family's safety is on the decline, the Mayers face a hostility from the town that simmers through the story and explodes at just the worst time.

It's wonderful how Clooney manages to slowly transform the normal people we were introduced to at the beginning into the sociopaths they really are. "Suburbicon" mirrors the place where the center of the morality of our country is right now, without sounding too self-righteous.

"Suburbicon" is about "Some very fine people," and how they devolve into monsters most wouldn't have recognized before.

The film is screamingly funny all the way through until the end, but it is decidedly disturbing at the same time. You've been warned.

Short but Powerful: William Holden in "The Wild Bunch"

"If they move, kill 'em."

William Holden as Pike Bishop in Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch."

I love that line. Simple and straight to the point. This both terrifies us and makes feel secure seeing a man this confident in the driver's seat.

Quote of the Day: A History of Violence - Loved From Birth

Richie Cusack: "You always were a problem for me, Joey. When mom brought you home from the hospital, I tried to strangle you in your crib. I guess all kids try to do that."

Go ahead, search throughout the annals in the history of crime cinema. Take a look at the villains. Some terrifying, some brilliant, some puzzling, some so wicked you are sharply reminded that Satan does exist.

And then there are the crazy ones. The wretches who have simply lost all concept of reality. Richie Cusack from David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" is one of those scoundrels who has simply just lost their minds.

Quote of the Day - Let's Go Mid-Nineties Insane

Don't you love the power of positive thinking? That was David Fincher's gospel in the nineties.

Dr. Beardsley: "He's experienced about as much pain and suffering as anyone I've encountered, give or take, and he still has Hell to look forward to."

 

Quote of the Day - The Butcher, The Butcher, The Damned The Butcher

(Cutting a hanging pig.)

Butcher: "This is the liver. The kidneys. The heart. This is a wound.The stomach will bleed and bleed. This is a kill! This is a kill! The main artery. This is a kill.

(Butcher gives blade to Amsterdam.)

Butcher: "You try. Go ahead. The lung, good. Don't foul the blade on the rib. Very good, main artery. Bleed him slow, let him think about it for a while. Slow Death. Good."

Mudbound - Dee Rees (2017)

Sometimes, a film comes around, reaching for epic status. A great many of these are enthusiastic, but embarrassingly bad. Some actually do reach epic status.

Dee Rees' "Mudbound" is an ambitious film. It wants to be everything: a war story, a drama, but most of all, an acceleration of hatred between man against man, family against family, white against humanity.

When Ronsel Jackson (Jackson Mitchell) a black servicemen, comes home a hero from World War II, his family is ecstatic. His dad, Hap (Rob Morgan), is overjoyed when Ronsel tells him he intends to stay with his family, in Mississippi and work on the family's farm.

Of course, this is problematic to say the least. The Jackson family are tenants of the McAllen's, led by an inhuman patriarch, Pappy (Jonathan Banks). He doesn't miss an opportunity to make it clear to Ronsel that he doesn't care what respect or rights he had during the war. Ronsel is back here in Mississippi.

In fact, the whole McAllan family together represents a familiar "racism with a smile." They demand absolute servitude from the Jacksons, even as the head of their family, Hap is incapacitated by a broken leg, and expected to be working.

Meanwhile, Ronsel starts a strange kind of friendship with Jamie, (Garrett Hedlund), one the McAllan boys coming back from the war as well. They bond over their partying, fighting, close calls, womanizing, the toll killing people can take on one's soul, and their shared shell-shock.

At one point, there's a rare scenario when the McAllans are in a position to humble themselves and ask a desperate service from the mother of the Jackson family, Florence (Mary J. Blige). The McAllan children have gotten sick and they can't reach a doctor. Laura, (Carey Mulligan) understands Florence knows how to care for them. Knowing that her family won't get any kind of thanks, that the McAllan family will continue to demand servitude, Florence agrees to help. Yes, the McAllans are monsters, but you can't take that out innocent children. Of course, when the danger is passed, things continue as they were.

Ronsel and Jamie continue their friendship, getting closer as they spend more time with each other. But there's a dark shadow lurking over them: Pappy McAllan. The man's cold, deliberate malice is deadly. More-so than Jonathan had ever dreamed.

When the story reaches its boiling point, every single character is hurt. And what's truly sad is that these tragedies have no moral. They're empty and meaningless. None of it was necessary. In the end, there's just loss and grief.

But this film is bigger than the violence. With the backdrop of Belgium and other WWII stages, "Mudbound" covers decades in these families' lives. It covers a love triangle, the increasing boldness of the Ku Klux Klan, the sparks of the Civil Rights movement, a story of vengeance, of fathers and sons and  it nails each of these smaller story contained within.

The film reaches for epic status and touches it.

And Jonathan Banks deserves recognition for his work as he brings white hatred and quiet savagery to the screen personified on his very face. I'm still frightened by the thought of him.





 

The Beguiled - Sofia Coppola (2017)

Remember earlier last year, right around Cannes time, when Sophia Coppola's "The Beguiled" was all anybody could talk about? We were all so sure the film would be renowned and celebrated come award season?

Surprisingly, Coppola's newest masterpiece, based on the novel by Thomas Cullinan, and the screenplay for the picture of the same name from 1971, has been overlooked, forgotten in just a few short months. 

Who knows why, but it's clearly a mistake most in the film community are making. They have a penchant for tunnel vision and short memories.

At any rate, we'll move on, knowing we're smarter than they are.

The plot of Coppola's latest offering looks, on its face, to be a pretty typical period romance. And it is. For the first hour, "Beguiled" paints us an emotional and typical love triangle. You can almost see the cover of the cheap romance novel with Colin Ferrell flashing his muscles under a white shirt that, for some reason, is torn open. 

Coppola starts the film out as a parable about showing simple kindness to all mankind, even one's enemies. 

A girl finds a wounded soldier Corporal John McBurney, (Colin Farrell), in the woods one day and brings him to a small school for girls. The girls are reticent about allowing a Yankee to recuperate in their proper southern school.

They reluctantly agree to let him stay with them because it's "the Christian thing to do." Soon, there's a spark, a small one at first, of romance between the Corporal and the school's Headmistress, Miss Martha, (Nicole Kidman in an chilling, muting, intense performance).

Then, Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) decides she'd like the Corporal for herself. 

Next, as we are just realizing another girl, Alicia, (Elle Fanning in turns a performance from pure into a vapid temptress), squeezes herself into the love triangle, Coppola takes a dark turn at the start of the third act. It's surreal watching the story unravel the true hostility that had been boiling under their skins all this time. 

The Corporal changes from a possible love interest to a villain on a dime. Coppola manages to make the change subtle and disruptive at the same time. Farrell gives the performance of the film as the third act makes the whole story the embodiment of what Southern Gothic really is.

Every character, each of the girls at the school, loses some innocence. The girls' virtue turns violent and that is the tragedy behind "The Beguiled." 

That is what  makes this film so dark.

That is what makes this film so lovely.

Three Billboards Outside Belling, Missouri - Martin McDonagh

From my vantage point, Martin McDonagh's film, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," was unexpected. It had popped into the movie theaters around the start of December, without a lot of promotion. Or else I haven't been paying attention as carefully as I should.

Well, it has all eyes on it now, and rightly so.

Seven years after her daughter is raped and murdered, Mildred (Francis McDormand), has lost her patience with the police and their ineffective investigation.

Rather than repeatedly going to the cops, Mildred decides to take matters into her own hands. She takes out advertising space on three billboards which together, spell out, "Raped while dying" "And still no arrests?" "How come, Chief Willoughby?"

To say this causes a stir would be a silly understatement. The entire town comes rushing to defend Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson).

Sadly, in their minds, Mildred turns from a sympathetic mourning mom to a shrew throwing blame on who the towns considers to be a good man.

One the cops under Willoughby's wing, Dixon (Sam Rockwell), takes the situation very personally. To Dixon, Willoughby is the ultimate father figure, cop, and man, and how dare Mildred say anything bad about the man?

Things get ugly very quickly. It starts with just a small tit-for-tat between Mildred and Dixon then whirls up to the exercising of true hatred and then the story explodes.

"Billboards" is a cautionary tale about vengeance. The films demonstrates what can happen when even the most ordinary people allow rage and hatred to burn hotter and hotter.

I do understand why everybody is making such a big deal out of this film. Firstly, the performances by Frances McDonald and Sam Rockwell are a marvel.

And Woody Harrelson excels as he plays the world-weary Chief Willoughby.

As far as the story goes, it's a beautiful, escalating screenplay. In many films structured like this, the acceleration is sloppy and the movie loses its way. But McDonaugh takes us through what someone is capable of in their grief and holds it all together. That's why the film more than the ordinary eye-for-an-eye movies.

"Three Billboards Outside Belling, Missouri" may look like a run of the mill film of  escalating one-upsmanship, but it's so much more than that. The performances are close to perfect. Pair that with an incredibly subtle but intensely emotional screenplay as its foundation, and you have a small masterpiece.

So yes, "Billboards" lives up to the hype. It actually is among the best pictures of the year.

The Girl With All the Gifts - Colm McCarthy (2017) Some Say Children Are Our Future. I Say They Are Bloody Disgusting

I have not watched a zombie movie in a couple of years now. Face it. The universe has been saturated with zombies everywhere, in TV, movies and video games. We can't even read Jane Austen without bloody zombies being crammed down our throats. I, for one, am burned out.

Still, I have wished for a zombie flick that could peak my interest and rekindle that fire I used to have for those brain-eaters. So I watched "The Girl With all the Gifts" in the hope of the genre hadn't been ruined forever for me. I was drawn in by several hooks in this ambitious zombie flick.

Right at the start of "The Girl with all the Gifts," we know that we are in a dark universe. We're met with children who are treated poorly. Their heads are strapped down tight in wheelchairs, pushed around by soldiers who, mostly, won't speak with them or acknowledge them. The soldiers just refer to the children as "abortions".

It's obvious that these children are capable of the most wondrous kinds of art and intelligence. Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is one of these children. She just might be the brightest among them. Melanie's teacher, Helen, (Jemma Erterton), is willing to risk her life to nurture these kids.

Still, it's curious how government goes to great efforts to educate these little bastards, or abortions, as the soldiers like to call them. And why do all the grown-ups seem so terrified?

Every zombie movie has an "oh crap" moment when we see the military or doctors or whoever's in charge make a stupid mistake allowing the zombies take over in a matter of minutes. If it's a good movie, these moments are chilling.

Then here comes the "oh crap" moment.

We watch the moment from Melanie's POV in an operating room, knowing the true chaos, bloody and deadly is right outside their door, just in our periphery.

Normally films like these are about protecting weak children from the monsters. This film flips that coin. "The Girl With all the Gifts" is about child zombies. At least some of them can reason and the story is told from a zombie's point of view.


Somehow, through all the carnage, Melanie manages to escape with Helen, a soldier, (Paddy Considine) and the woman in charge of the medical experiments, Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close).

Helen and Melanie escape together, each helping the other through the genocidal battle.

Melanie, is more than an infected zombie. She actually might be their salvation. Melanie protects the group from zombie attacks. Monster or no, Helen nurtures some maternal feelings toward Melanie.

"Neonates" is the term for babies born zombies. Babies of infected mothers who ate themselves out of the womb. Melanie is one of these children. 

"The Girl With all the Gifts" is about the value of life. Why do some people deserve to live, violent scavengers or not, while others can be cast aside because of the way they're born? It's hyperbolic and an extreme example used to prove a point, but that point is a good one. With all of man's ambition, this need for power comes with a very real danger that could literally end everything.

The telling point lies in a question Melanie asks Helen. Why should the humans be the ones allowed to keep their place on their planet? She argues that since zombies are now sentient creatures, they have as much right as humans to dominate the world. 

Now, I don't want to be the guy who's rooting for the zombies, but I had to stop and think. Why should human life as a species take precedence over a world run by zombies? As a human, of course I want us to remain dominant. But as I address the point of view of a sentient zombie like Melanie, I can't think of a good argument to retort.

Then I remembered, they're zombies. They eat brains. Go humans.

mother! - Darren Aronofsky (2017)

Most of my friends, who know much about film anyway, are disciples of Darren Aronofsky. I did not care for his work. In fact, "Requiem for a Dream" remains one of my least favorite films ever.

Then a magical thing happened. He surprised the hell out of me with "Black Swan." It's nothing less than a work of elegant magic.

Since then, my interest in Aronofsky as artist was piqued. I watched his other films, I even gave "Requiem for a Dream" another shot. This has led to repeated disappointment.

So every time I see he has a film coming out, I'm wary, even about a film that looks as compelling as "mother!", I'm curious to see if he has made his second great film.

I'll try not to be heavy on the allegorical language, but that's easier said than done. I'll do my best.

"mother!" is a very old story. The oldest. In the beginning, was Him (Javier Bardem.) He discovers a beautiful crystal and He is in a beautiful home with a woman in his bed known to us as Mother (Jennifer Lawrence).

He and Mother live in an intimate dream. They are clearly so deeply in love that neither of them needs anyone else. The crystal He discovered seems to be the only thing they truly need. He keeps it in a special, somewhat restricted room.

He is a writer. The film is vague on what kind of writer or His status. We only know that His work is significant.

Mother's role in the dream is constructing the house that He had lost in a cataclysmic fire. She does a wonderful job, building the building's structure back and taking care of the decorations inside. Her attention to detail is impressive. There is even beauty in the way she blends earth tones. Such delicacy just with browns.

It's a paradise until Man (Ed Harris) shows up at their door. While Mother is wary, He welcomes Man as if he were a long lost friend. The term "mi casa, su casa" is more than just an expression to Him.

When Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up, she is accepted as well. After all, she is Man's wife. Despite Mother's objections, He insists they put the two up because they have nowhere else to go.

Things change when Man and Woman wander into His personal room to get a better look at His crystal. The two of them break it to shards, leaving Him beside Himself. He scoops up the pieces, clutching them so tight, blood runs out of his fists. He orders them out of the room, but does not make them leave the house because again, they have nowhere to go.

He closes off the segregated room, and life goes on. But the crystal is irrevocably gone. Of course that means unbearable wickedness awaits.

Man and Woman's sons show up, running for their parents, already in a shouting match about some kind of financial grudge. The Oldest Son and Younger Brother fight until Oldest Son beats Younger Brother to death.

Of course, friends and family of Man and Woman come to the house to comfort them. To Mother's horrified disbelief, He welcomes them all to celebrate, mourn and stay. Even His publisher (Kristen Wiig) contributes to the riot as a monstrous herald.

This leads to chaos and the rest of the film plays out the dangers of His love for people even as they destroy everything He and Mother have. The third act of "mother!" has haunted (I know, strong word, but apt) me more than practically anything I've seen in cinema, period.

And as gorgeous as this allegory is, there's something you should bear in mind before you watch it. "mother!" is a horror film. Be careful.

I saw the film twice and waited to write about it because I've been quite obsessed and I wanted to get some distance before I tried to make sense of it to put my thoughts and feelings into words.

The allegory is fairly obvious, but what isn't is how it's going to work into one's world view.

For me, "mother!" is a private film, as it meditates on my faith.

I don't know exactly what Aronofsky believes, but I found the movie both reverent and troubling. He's absolutely right about how human nature has been slowly destroying mother nature from the beginning. And we're not only talking about the ruins our physical world is in right now. Aronofsky also submits that humans are also responsible for every kind of evil. And he's right that we are responsible for original sin.

Here's where I can not agree with Aronofsky. He has characters to signify everyone and everything in our faith except for Satan. A lot of you may laugh at me when I say I believe in Satan, but I do.

How could anybody in their right mind look back on the last century and maintain that he doesn't exist?

The concept that Earth is a phoenix is an intriguing one that I still haven't formed an opinion about. There's a fascinating discussion to be had about that prospect.

I was deeply touched by His love for the adoring, riotous and destructive people. He loves them more than his creation. More than mother. Even more than his only Son.

Like I said, "mother!" is intensely personal, so you'll have to watch it and put it together yourself. But do go and see the film. It wasn't nearly as beautiful as "Black Swan", but how many movies are?

There are so many pretentious adjective words I could throw around to impress you, but I'll just say this. There are good movies and there are bad movies and we spend a lot of time criticizing and adoring them. "mother!" is so much more than that. The dialogues the film is sure to open up revisions of exactly what we believe about God.

You can't really say that about many films. But this one is that important.

I've heard this film referred to as heretical, but that's just not so. It's not only worth watching, it's worth reflection.

So go.

Happy Birthday to Pulp Fiction!

Isn't this a special week? In the first week in October 1994, my life changed twice. On Wednesday, my firstborn son was born.

Then my mother-in-law came to town to help my wife learn about taking care of an infant. On Friday, October 7,1994 she said she would watch the baby and that my wife should get some sleep. Then she told me I should go relax for a couple of hours and just go to the movies.

My choice was obvious. Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" had been released just two years before, and had quickly became one of my favorite movies. So I went to see "Pulp Fiction."

You all know what that means because you all have seen the movie. It changed everything. Not just how films are made, but how the public consciousness receives films.

So happy birthday, "Pulp Fiction" and thank you Quentin for your gift to the world.

Split - M. Night Shyamalan (2017)

I approached M. Night Shyamalan's "Split" with mixed feelings. I had heard the film was the best work Shyamalan had done since his 2000 masterpiece, "Unbreakable."

But I had a problem with the film's concept. Until now, I had refused to watch the film because it looked like an excuse to exploit the mentally ill for plot twists, backstories and any other cheap tricks one could think of.

The story centers around three teenage girls (Anna Taylor-Jo, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula) who have been kidnapped by Kevin, (James McAvoy) a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID.) DID is better known as the term for MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder.) Kevin has twenty-three personalities and they all wait for a twenty-fourth personality known as "The Beast." We're meant to think there is something Messianic transpiring in his head.

The personality in charge at the time when he snatched the girls was violent and deliberate in the act. He was not frightened. Every movement was bold.


Then, as the man continues to interact with the girls, other personalities, kinder ones, have taken over.

As an actor, McAvoy deftly takes all alters, benign and malicious, and balances them like a pro.

And so goes the movie. They try to get help from some of Kevin's alters while trying not to get caught by some of the others. Before the story is wrapped up tight there are twists and turns we do not see coming.


All of the events thus far, all that we see of the other personalities, Kevin does out of fear for the oncoming twenty-fourth personality, known as "The Beast."

I will concede that "Split" is Shyamalan's best work since "Unbreakable."

It is a perfect psychological horror film.

Also, "Split" is the single most offensive movie I have ever seen.

Why is the concept of DID so frightening? Is it just morbid fascination? I have to admit Shyamalan has crafted an incredibly tense film wrapped around the phenomenon.

I think the idea of multiple personalities opens up a world of possible scenarios, especially to those who have no concept of what mental illness is. We don't even know who the villain is here. He or she hides in plain sight. The situation could blow up anytime because the villain is right there and can jump out at any scene.

Shyamalan uses his own presumptions of people with DID and crafts them into an accomplished film.

Not only does Shyamalan reveal himself as somebody who knows nothing about mental illness, he exploits DID and other disorders for entertainment. It  villainizes those who struggle with mental illness.

Shyamalan sees patients of this type of illness as sources of potential violence. He uses them to frighten us, just as our world is trying to get rid of the stigma of mental illness.

People with mental illness are not killers nor are they "Beasts." The name he gave the villain, Beast, identifies all people with DID or mental illness as potential monsters of whom we all should be afraid.

Kevin talks of all his personalities siting in one place together in a room with chairs. Shyamalan would have us believe that one with DID can switch from one personality to another at will. Medically and psychologically this is incorrect, as it is not particularly typical for DID patients to have that much control over their alters. Not only that, but this mindset is dangerous and irresponsible.

And not for nothing, but Shyamalan does not limit his prejudices to the mentally ill. "Split" is also unbelievably misogynistic, homophobic and most of all, trans-phobic.

And just as an aside, I don't usually address matters like this, because of my love for hardcore material, but as a father, I have to tell you that "Split" should been rated 'R.' I would never take a thirteen-year-old to see it.

And despite how clever of a thriller "Split" is, I can not, in good conscience, recommend this movie.

But I must admit, I am damn excited about the prospect of revisiting the "Unbreakable" universe in the near future.

David Dunn is an unsung hero.