Exposing political and moral agendas in movies
Howard M. Riell 
Widows, released in 2018, and The Kitchen, coming this September – that also make it abundantly clear that those from the XY chromosome side of the street have somehow been short-sheeted by Mother Nature.
Girl is a 2018 Belgian film in which Victor Polster plays a 15-year-old trans girl (translation: a boy) named Lara who aspires to be a ballerina.
There are several worrisome agendas at play in this sequel to beloved children’s classic Mary Poppins, each in its own oh-so-special way toxic and demoralizing for youngsters and grownups alike.
Before we even get to the agendas, let’s dispense with the movie itself. We’ve got our main character, Lisbeth Salander (“…the righter of wrongs… the girl who hurts men who hurt women”), electrifyingly portrayed by Mara Rooney in 2011’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Only now she’s played by Claire Foy, which is fine, but now she’s……. single-handedly beating up a battalion of burly commandos…. and has an evil sister she hasn’t seen since dramatically fleeing their maniacal father as a child……… who just happens to have grown up to be the genius head of a powerful criminal gang…….. that just might be about to unleash a nuclear apocalypse
Fahrenheit 11/9 is a brainless political documentary released earlier this year by filmmaker Moore (of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine fame) about the 2016 United States presidential election and the subsequent presidency of Donald Trump.
The film presents us with a Palestinian Muslim woman and an Israeli man from Jerusalem who fall in love (sigh). The intolerant parents disapprove, but (lingering sigh) they elope anyway. Landau is an elderly rabbi who has lost his faith (like seemingly every Jew in Hollywood, where this mess was perpetrated) and agrees to perform the forbidden marriage because hey, after all, c’mon, kids in love (really long, lingering… sigh).
The movie series has generated so-so critical reception, and grossed more than $420 million in worldwide box office against a bargain-basement combined budget of just $35 million.
The Happytime Murders stars Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale, Elizabeth Banks and, as you may have guessed, the Muppets. Released on August 24 by STXfilms it has received mostly unfavorable reviews from critics who felt, as one put it, that it “waste[d] its intriguingly transgressive premise.”
If you watch TV shows, commercials or movies at all, you’ve seen this stock character a freaking bazillion times: the inept, doofy white male husband or dad looking clueless and pathetic in front of…. well hell, take your pick:
a) A woman
b) A person of color
c) A child
d) His family
e) A gay man or woman
f) Bemused onlookers
g) Just about anyone else the Hillary-loving Brentwood snowflakes can dredge up
Ghostbusters had a strong cast: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. Here’s the déjà vu-esque plot: Paranormal researcher Abby Yates and physicist Erin Gilbert want, for some reason, to prove the existence of ghosts. Bizarre apparitions materialize over Manhattan. They tap engineer Jillian Holtzmann to help, adding Patty Tolan, a streetwise New Yorker, for good measure. On go the proton packs and supernatural battle ensues.
Ocean’s 8 boasted an all-star cast, headed by Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter and pop singer Rihanna.