Aster's ‘Eddington' divides and disturbs
We talk a lot about movies as an escape from the stresses of the world. 'Eddington,' in which a small, fictional town in New Mexico becomes a microcosm of life in the misinformation age, and more specifically during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, is very much the opposite of that. It is an anti-escapist symphony of masking debates, conspiracy theories, YouTube influencers, TikTok trends and third-rail topics in which no side is spared. Most everyone looks insane and ridiculous by the end, from the white teenage girl (Amélie Hoeferle) telling a Black cop (Michael Ward) to join the movement, to the grammatical errors of the truthers, as the town spirals into chaos and gruesome violence. Joaquin Phoenix plays the town sheriff, a soft-spoken wife guy named Joe Cross, who we meet out in the desert one night watching YouTube videos about how to convince your wife to have a baby. He's interrupted by cops from the neighboring town, who demand he put on a mask since he's technically crossed the border. It is May 2020, and everyone is a little on edge.
Joe, frustrated by the hysterical commitment to mandates from nowhere, finds himself the unofficial spokesperson for the right to go unmasked. He pits himself against the slick local mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who is up for reelection, in the pocket of big tech and ready to exploit his single fatherhood for political gain. At home, Joe's mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell) spends all day consuming internet conspiracy theories, while his wife Louise (a criminally underused Emma Stone) works on crafts and nurses unspoken traumas.
Joe's eagerness to take on Ted isn't just about masking. Years ago, Ted dated his now-wife, a story that will be twisted into rape and grooming accusations. Caricatures and stereotypes are everywhere in 'Eddington,' but in this world it feels like the women are especially underwritten - they are kooks, victims, zealots and the ones who push fragile men to the brink. But in 'Eddington,' all the conspiracies are real and ordinary people are all susceptible to the madness. In fact, insanity is just an inevitability no matter how well-intentioned one starts out, whether that's the woke-curious teen rattled by rejection, or the loyal deputy Guy (Luke Grimes) who is suddenly more than happy to accuse a colleague of murder. Louise will also be swayed by a fl oppy-haired internet guru, a cult-like leader played with perfect swagger by Austin Butler.
The problem with an anarchic satire like 'Eddington,' in theaters Friday, is that any criticism could easily be dismissed with a 'that's the point' counterargument. And yet there is very little to be learned in this silo of provocations that, like all Aster movies, escalates until the movie is over. There are moments of humor and wit, too, as well as expertly built tension and release. 'Eddington' is not incompetently done or unwatchable (the cast and the director kind of guarantee that); it just doesn't feel a whole of anything other than a cinematic expression of broken brains. Five years after we just went through (at least a lot of) this, 'Eddington' somehow seems both too late and too soon, especially when it offers so little wisdom or insight beyond a vision of hopelessness. I wonder what world Aster thought he'd be releasing this film into.
Maybe one that was better, not cosmically worse. It's possible 'Eddington' will age well. Perhaps it's the kind of movie that future Gen Alpha cinephiles will point to as being ahead of its time, a work that was woefully misunderstood by head-in-the-sand critics who didn't see that it was 2025's answer to the prescient paranoia cinema of the 1970s.
Not to sound like the studio boss in 'Sullivan's Travels,' trying to get the filmmaker with big issues on the mind to make a dumb comedy, but right now, 'Eddington' feels like the last thing any of us need. 'Eddington,' an A24 release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 'for strong violence, some grisly images, language and graphic nudity.' Running time: 148 minutes. Two stars out of four.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab Times
11 hours ago
- Arab Times
‘The Bad Guys 2' goes bigger, not better
LOS ANGELES, Aug 2, (AP): The good news for fans of 'The Bad Guys' is the new sequel is stellar. But that's because a good portion is actually set in - are you kidding us? - outer space. 'The Bad Guys 2' has clearly lost its moorings. Returning director Pierre Perifel, writers Yoni Brenner and Etan Cohen and the same voice cast have done what all sequels do these days - amp it all up like everyone is on molly, try to hit the same emotional notes and layer an insane plot with the fate of the world at stake. It's hard to watch a franchise drift so expensively and pointlessly in Earth's orbit. The gang is all back: Sam Rockwell as Mr. Wolf, Marc Maron as safe-cracker Mr. Snake, Craig Robinson as master of disguise Mr. Shark, Anthony Ramos as Mr. Piranha and Awkwafina as hacker Ms. Tarantula. We left them in the last movie, walking out of prison early after good behavior and trying to turn their back on badhood. It's not that easy since would-be employers these days want to know about gaps in their job experience - they were robbing banks, after all - workplace trust issues and salary expectations. No one wants to hire a bunch of ex-cons. 'Anyone who wants to change has to start somewhere,' Mr. Wolf, pushing the George Clooney-like charm offensive, begs one dubious interviewer. 'I'm just asking for a chance.' A life on the straight-and-narrow is hard for four of the former baddies, but not Maron - so perfectly cast as the grouchy, self-loathing snake. Now he spends his days doing Vinyasa yoga, listening to Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso,' telling people 'namaste' and sips wheatgrass kombucha with dandelion. He's even more irritating. Soon all five are caught in a series of traps and doublecrosses by a new robbery crew - Danielle Brooks' lollipoplicking venomous snow leopard, Maria Bakalova's Bulgarian wild boar engineer and Natasha Lyonne's wry raven, using her same vocal tick as on 'Poker Face.' These dames have a plan to get very rich using a substance known as Mac- Guffinite, a clever - or lazy - joke on the object that everyone wants in a movie like this, which drives the plot. There's soon a trip to a Mexican wrestling festival and then a wedding needs crashing in order to gain control over a rocket owned by an Elon Musk-like billionaire - voice acted by Colin Jost - who runs the MoonX company. Then the rocket has to be stopped before a gadget aboard creates a '24-carat catastrophe.' The animation is amazingly kinetic and with no corners cut, from tiny bugs illuminated in a light beam at night to the bumpy way a truck moves on the highway. The franchise's love of vroooming and fishtailing Looney Tunes-like car chases stays intact, as does the wavy green air farts that emanate from Piranha. Based on Aaron Blabey's popular graphic book series, the first movie in 2022 drove hard into the nature of good and evil - like asking if DNA determines behavior - as our heroes whipsawed between heroic and villainous, to the glee of all the kiddies in the theater. 'We may be bad, but we're so good at it,' was the slogan. It was all nicely set against a zombie guinea pig uprising. This time the writers have just given up on what side of the ethical divide their anti-heroes are on. 'Are we bad again?' ask the confused piranha. Replies Mr. Wolf: 'I get it. We're all over the place.' Left unexplored is the concept of doing wrong for a greater good, and can being bad be excused if it stops a worse badness? 'What if the bad life was your best life?' asks one of the newcomers. (Another thing to chew on: If 'The Bad Guys 2' is a worse sequel, does that make 'The Bad Guys' good?) When we say the gang is all here, they're all here without any editing: Zazie Beetz returns as Gov. Diane Foxington, Alex Borstein comes back as the top cop and even the kitten from the first film meows in the second. So is Richard Ayoade as Professor Marmalade, the evil guinea pig who is now surprisingly swole and tatted up in prison. He threatens again to steal the show and may if there's a 'The Bad Guys 3.' (There's going to be a 'The Bad Guys 3.') The joy of 'The Bad Guys' was that it was a respectful send-up of the movies of Quentin Tarantino and caper flicks like 'Ocean's 11.' This time, the 'Fast & Furious' series gets mocked, as does 'Silence of the Lambs,' 'Men in Black' and maybe 'Moonraker,' which is now 46 years old. But the subversion is painfully flat now: The first film in the franchise would have laughed at one climactic line in the second: 'We've got one shot to save the world. Let's make it count!'
Arab Times
a day ago
- Arab Times
Jeannie Seely, soulful country singer behind hits like 'Don't Touch Me,' dies at 85
NEW YORK, Aug 2, (AP):Jeannie Seely, the soulful country music singer behind such standards like "Don't Touch Me,' has died. She was 85. Her publicist, Don Murry Grubbs, said she died Friday after succumbing to complications from an intestinal infection. Known as "Miss Country Soul' for her unique vocal style, Seely was a trailblazer for women in country music, celebrated for her spirited nonconformity and for a string of undeniable hits in the '60s and '70s. Her second husband, Gene Ward, died in December. In May, Seely revealed that she was in recovery after undergoing multiple back surgeries, two emergency procedures and spending 11 days in the ICU. She also suffered a bout of pneumonia. "Rehab is pretty tough, but each day is looking brighter and last night, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. And it was neon, so I knew it was mine!' she said in a statement at the time. "The unsinkable Seely is working her way back.' Dolly Parton was one of several country music luminaries paying her tribute on Friday, saying she met Seely when they were both young and starting out in Nashville. "She was one of my dearest friends,' Parton said on her social media accounts. "I think she was one of the greater singers in Nashville and she had a wonderful sense of humor. We had many wonderful laughs together, cried over certain things together and she will be missed." Seely was born in July 1940, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of Pittsburgh and raised in nearby Townville. Her love of country music was instant; her mother sang, and her father played the banjo. When she was a child, she sang on local radio programs and performed on local television. In her early 20s, she moved to Los Angeles to kick-start a career, taking a job with Liberty and Imperial Records in Hollywood. She kept writing and recording. Nashville was next: She sang on Porter Wagoner's show; she got a deal with Monument Records. Her greatest hit would arrive soon afterward: "Don't Touch Me,' the crossover ballad written by Hank Cochran. The song earned Seely her first and only Grammy Award, for best country & western vocal performance in the female category. Cochran and Seely were married in 1969 and divorced in 1979. Seely broke boundaries in her career - at a time when country music expected a kind of subservience from its women performers, Seely was a bit of a rebel, known for wearing a miniskirt on the Grand Ole Opry stage when it was still taboo. And she had a number of country hits in the '60s and '70s, including three Top 10 hits on what is now known as Billboard's hot country songs chart: "Don't Touch Me,' 1967's "I'll Love You More (Than You Need)' and 1973's "Can I Sleep In Your Arms?', adapted from the folk song "Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister?' In the years since, Seely continued to release albums, perform, and host, regularly appearing on country music programming. Her songs are considered classics, and have been recorded by everyone from Merle Haggard, Ray Price and Connie Smith to Ernest Tubb, Grandpa Jones, and Little Jimmy Dickens. And Seely never stopped working in country music. Since 2018, she's hosted the weekly "Sunday's with Seely' on Willie Nelson's Willie's Roadhouse SiriusXM channel. That same year, she was inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame. She appeared nearly 5,400 times at the Grand Ole Opry, which she has been a member of since 1967. Grubbs said Saturday's Grand Ole Opry show would be dedicated to Seely. She released her latest song in July 2024, a cover of Dottie West's "Suffertime,' recorded at the world-renowned RCA Studio B. She performed it at the Opry the year before.
Arab Times
3 days ago
- Arab Times
Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai is up for the award again with a long-awaited novel
LONDON, July 31, (AP): Indian author Kiran Desai, who won the Booker Prize and then didn't publish a novel for almost two decades, is up for the award again with her long-awaited follow-up. "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,' the 677-page tale of two young Indians making their way in the United States, is one of 13 books announced Tuesday as semifinalists for the prestigious 50,000-pound ($67,000) prize. The contenders include authors from nine countries on four continents. It's Desai's first novel since "The Inheritance of Loss,' which won the Booker in 2006. Two previous finalists are up for the prize again: U.K. writer Andrew Miller, for "The Land in Winter,' and Hungarian-British writer David Szalay for "Flesh.' Tash Aw, who has been a semifinalist twice before, will be the first Malaysian winner if he takes the prize for "The South.' Five of the contenders are from Britain: Miller, Szalay, Natasha Brown ("Universality'), Jonathan Buckley ("One Boat') and Benjamin Wood ("Seascraper'). Books by U.S. writers in the running include Susan Choi's "Flashlight,' Katie Kitamura's "Audition' and Ben Markovits' "The Rest of Our Lives.' Also on the list are "Misinterpretation' by Albanian-American Ledia Xhoga, "Love Forms' by Trinidad's Claire Adam, and "Endling,' a debut novel by Canadian-Ukrainian opera librettist Maria Reva. "The 13 longlisted novels bring the reader to Hungary, Albania, the north of England, Malaysia, Ukraine, Korea, London, New York, Trinidad and Greece, India and the West Country,' said Irish novelist Roddy Doyle, chair of a five-member judging panel that includes actor Sarah Jessica Parker. "All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent,' he said. Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize has a reputation for transforming writers' careers and is open to novels from any country published in the U.K. and Ireland. Last year's winner was "Orbital,' by British writer Samantha Harvey. A list of six finalists will be announced Sept. 23, and this year's winner will be crowned on Nov. 10 at a ceremony in London.
