Daddies are a Girl's Best Friend

Based on what people had said about Andrew Dominik's Blonde, I had this completely different experience lined up in mind. Reading a large portion of the reviews on this film, you'd think it was some OTT Gaspar Noe Enter the Void sex orgy free for all. There's been plenty of talk on this one about CGI vaginas and it being the first Netflix NC-17 film. Thought that was great personally and ever since they announced the rating I was like "Go on Netflix!". Having now seen the film, I can't say it matched how it's been presented at all. A totally different kind of experience with extraordinary discipline.

Cannot even comprehend this or even believe that I'm saying this but Netflix could well have made my two favourite movies of the last five years, this and The Irishman-who could have seen that happening when Netflix first announced they were making movies? They've come a long way since their first Cannes Film Festival screening Okja was booed for their logo appearing on screen and having to be restarted as it was played in the wrong aspect ratio. The traditional models have been dismantled and we are well and truly in the streaming era. Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal step it up fellas, the new kid on the block is putting you to shame!

Arguably based on the media reaction, it appeared as though we had the first big sexploitation blockbuster since Showgirls on our hands. I was ready to bring out my love of the sturdy duo that was director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Dubbed by many to be the most immature team to ever be backed by Hollywood. All began in 1992, when they made Basic Instinct and everyone got behind it. Verhoeven was called the 'next Hitchcock' and compared favourably with the likes of DePalma and Polanski. Then when it came to their follow up which went to the edge of excess and maybe even veered over it with Showgirls, everyone undeservedly turned on them.

Eszterhas had to go it alone for his next sexual endeavour Jade, whilst his boy Verhoeven had to switch genres with Starship Troopers Luckily with Jade, Eszterhas had another chance with one of Hollywood's most insane and daring directors, William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection). Somehow this didn't even keep the man's screenwriting career going. He didn't get the news. Time was up for sex. Unfortunately, by this point the early 90s string of popular Hollywood supported erotic thrillers were beginning to die out as critics turned on them, which is a real shame because Jade's got all the mystery, dreadful dialogue and utter nonsense a film of that genre should have. "The fuck of the century" was over. Died an unfair and undeserved death in 1995, engrave that on the fucking tombstone. A hero's death rattling one too many conservative critics. Well, it was over in Hollywood. Verhoeven had more luck with his next film Starship Troopers.

Already mentioned back in issue 1 about my adoration of creature features. Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is one of the last really interesting creature features. For that he combined Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will and creature feature classic Them in order to critique US militarism, fascism and media. A bizarre choice of films to combine but ultimately by some miracle it works. For those interested, I think the last really great creature feature was 2010s Pirahna. If you have ever had the pleasure of seeing the sea of boobies and the flood of blood in 3D, you must know it is really something. Recalls that year in 1983, when horror went 3D. Many of the big franchises like Friday the 13th and Amityville Horror were entering their third instalment. Therefore, it just made sense to stick a D on the end and get the 3D cameras out. Hence why we got Friday the 13th 3D and Amityville Horror 3D

Pirahna, which is actually a remake of genre legend Joe Dante's film (the chief I declared as honourably for the children in issue 1), updates the original with modern sensibilities regarding teen trash. Has a lot in common with Spring Breakers (mentioned back in issue 2). Plus you get to witness the greatest beach blood bath since young Alex's death in Amityville (the Jaws Amityville that is).

One which truly delivers on its promise unlike the disappointing 12A rated The Meg, where it will always be known that Jason Statham completely scared the biggest bastard of the seas the prehistoric Megalodon in to submission, resulting in a clear winner of worst shark performance in the history of cinema. We can only hope Ben Wheatley can bring back some honour for Megalodon fans in the upcoming sequel.

Verhoeven still makes erotic cinema by the way just very far from Hollywood. He does not get invited back any more. Alongside my admiration for the horny duo of Eszterhas and Verhoeven, I was ready to bring out the big guns in discussing the excellent pop trash career of Adrian Lyne, who's form of cinema I really appreciate. His film earlier this year, Deep Water (even featured Blonde's star Ana De Armas giving wet Gone Girl actor Ben Affleck a blowy in the car and pulling the pubic hairs out her own mouth) was definitely a big talking point for what could be deemed modern popular sexploitation.

Hear me out, three different avenues you could take for that film. Number one, you know it wasn't the genres finest hour but you miss that shit so badly you low key love it (the Kelly camp). Number two, you have respect for the genres greatest hits but you're under the belief you're literally witnessing the post-death of popular erotic thrillers right before your very eyes. Number three, you're un-initiated and unfamiliar with Adrian Lyne's style of filmmaking wondering "what the fuck is this crap?"

Finally, I may have lost myself in the amazing Animal Instincts from 1992 and hardcore turned softcore director Gregory Dark's style of noir meets erotica (a sort of adorably second rate David Lynch). The aforementioned Animal Instincts, actually develops the genre I made up the other week of Dinner Table. This could well be considered Dinner Table softcore. For some reason, these movies really intrigue me, anything which invades the bourgeois home, challenges notions of taste, rattles just about everyone and still walks out with a fan base no matter how small. When something shouldn't work but it does. I happen to champion shit like that. Anyway, mentioning all these films and directors is kind of useless here because Blonde isn't really like any of these at all. If you can believe it, I was only meant to quickly run through those films to illustrate what I thought Blonde would be like and exactly what it wasn't. Somehow I still managed to digress massively. I am excessive and ill-disciplined lacking any sense of self-control or restraint. On the other hand, Dominik is none of these things and his film operates at the perfect level to be fully effective.

Some critics will try to make a link with Showgirls by suggesting that when attempting to critique excess and exploitation, they fall victim to that which they are supposedly critiquing. It's a classic case of liberal critics not wanting to get their hands dirty. You can't help but reference Bruno Dumont in those situations, who once said something to the effect of the only changing movies being the ones that are mostly on the edge of acceptability and then peer over to the other side briefly. The point being you have to show the audience some of that other side so they know what it looks like.

Films which don't subscribe to this notion notably come up short. Anything less than this is as the master satirist Chris Morris said, "a parade for the court". Either you believe in what you're doing or you're after doggy treats and I can't stand cinema which is just pats on the head. Court jesters will be shot on sight.

My stance going in to this movie was if it does have this orgiastic final half that's been written about, it might not inherently be a bad thing because it's subject Marilyn Monroe did have sex. You know, women have sex. Is it really misogynistic to show a woman having sex and experiencing pleasure? That's not to say I decided before viewing that it wouldn't be misogynistic but rather I was keeping an open mind unlike these other freaks who have had it out for Blonde without watching. I don't even understand the point of controversy in today's climate any way because the whole idea is that it should ignite conversation, which it doesn't any more. Too often, these days people shut things down before production even begins with this cancel culture business. In effect, the conversation is over before it even begins so it’s a useless tool today.

Have we also considered the fact if anything it would be worse not to show sex in a movie about Marilyn Monroe? We can't avoid the fact Marilyn Monroe was turned in to a sex symbol. You simply can't ignore that no matter your thoughts on miss Monroe. No-one is saying you have to conclude that she is nothing other than a sex symbol or blonde bombshell. If you ask me, she was a brilliant actress with a lot more going on than her looks but to ignore public perception would be to do her story a grave injustice. That's exactly the substance or motivation that was driving her entire career. An all-out attack on a brutal industry where looks can bring you in, your acting talents aren't appreciated and as soon as your looks go you are spat out and your time in the system is short. I like the tagline on this, 'Watched by all, seen by no-one'.

So get extreme. Get right fucking in there at her struggle for acceptance as an actor and that public image that could well have destroyed her. Are these people calling themselves "feminists" really so naïve? I refuse to believe so but this film has certainly brought out a few morons who label themselves as such. Who has to be the one to tell this corner of the world flying the banner for nothing other than self-gain that if we don't get in there with this kind of dark subject matter, you won't see change. In fact these people are doing more damage than good. How can they be so blind? Female liberation, true female liberation will be squandered if they continue shitting on movies trying to do some good and films will just become some commodity never living up to their potential of influencing change if we continue with this naivety.

As for that take I've seen knocking around about you can't make films about dead people, what the fuck? Bye-bye the biopic! Talking biopics, this is quite the novel approach in that it is not technically about Marilyn Monroe's life but a fictionalised book written by Joyce Carol Oates. I'm deeply lost as to why some have called this a fabrication of her story, the filmmakers have been pretty open from the start this is based on the book itself, going as far as to put it in the synopsis when marketing. You have not been lied to. You have not been duped. This should be considered more of a bold hypothesis as to why her mental health declined and in doing it this way, we get closer to her mental state than any other work before it.

I'm always odd when it comes to biopics. My favourite movies are normally Scorsese movies, so naturally it could be said that makes my favourite kind of movie the biopic. Yet if someone asked me, I'd probably go off on one about the relentless stream of biopics out there which are just by the numbers, Wikipedia copied and pasted retellings, which never even get close to the power and intrigue the subjects involved had.

They never capture why these fantastic mythical figures we hold so dear have reminded in the public consciousness all this time. What they don't understand is that maybe it is because that power these people held wasn't real in a literal and logical sense. It's something way more complex in our minds where truth and myth begin to mix. The two overlap until they are indistinguishable. In the process, an individual may really become that which they represent in a manner that goes beyond abstract.

Todd Hayne's I'm Not There is a recent biopic, I regularly find myself referring back to. The concept for it really sticks in mind as a creative approach to the biopic. In that film, they tell the story of Bob Dylan but through all the different personas and voices he created (something which you could easily do with fellow musician David Bowie too). Instead of just one actor playing the big Bob, an army of Hollywood A-listers take up the role in several different timelines and realities. Consequently, through the unique format they really nailed who this guy was and just as importantly what his work was. The latter being a part which is regularly ignored in the typical biopic. Too often, they forget the artists creative output and even if they do show them blandly producing it, they fail to grasp why it was so important and how to conceptualise it in a stylistic manner appropriate to the artist. A vastly wasted opportunity that if it was explored further would actually create more genres and modes of individualistic expression in cinema.

I subscribe to the belief that sometimes fiction is more true than reality and the surreal more real than the real. Our subconscious reveals far more than what comes out of our mouths. Therefore, any decent biopic should address these aspects and step outside of reality if they wish to genuinely capture some sense of truth and fully realise what compelled the filmmaker to create the film in the first place and deem such a story noteworthy.

If you're still hung up and worried at this point about the presentation of Marilyn Monroe on this film, forget what other people have said and take note of the fact the Monroe estate were happy with the results and approved of the film. Anyone who could possibly still continue their crusade against Blonde after knowing this detail is virtue signalling. Who are you keeping up this selfmoralising charade for? Who is it you seek to impress? Are you so desperately seeking attention?

Having seen the bulk of Marilyn's movies, I have myself developed an undeniable appreciation for her artistry and would not particularly want to see her exploited either. If that was the case, I'm not saying I'd be offended by it, I'd probably just find it silly and humorous. A notorious exercise in selfabsorption and an accidental masterpiece in the male gaze. I'd come out and say that's exactly what it is, as I said knowing me I'd probably enjoy it but I would say exactly what it was. At the end of the day, I just don't believe Blonde is any of those things in all honesty.

I wish Blonde was revolting and exploitive and all the things it was made out to be. That it was sleazy and stupid. Handled with absolutely irredeemable taste. Then I could have laughed about it and not found it so sad. People are stupid man. Honestly, I don't know you could come out of this thinking it was anything but tragic and devastating made by a group of people who clearly loved Marilyn. A passion project which took 10 years to make rather than some quickly churned out ill-conceived idea. I didn't find any of it remotely offensive or damaging to her legacy but rather cementing it. These didn't seem like filmmakers wanting to make a quick buck profiting from someone's misery.

All I found it to be was something that illustrated the horrors in a woman's life which led to an early death made by people deeply and genuinely concerned. A scathing attack on the industry and media who destroyed the woman. There's been countless documentaries which go through the motions but not one has been able to answer the question in the moments leading up to her death of 'Why?'. The film really does provide an answer. Maybe not 'the' answer but certainly 'an' answer.

I don't see any trashy influences involved here and would actually go as far as to compare it to some of the most highly regarded filmmakers such as Billy Wilder, David Lynch, Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick, Chantal Akerman and Agnes Varda. To be absolutely clear that is not a list of names I aim to drop cheaply. Allow me to explain myself.

This is Cleo from 5 to 7 but Cleo doesn't know what time it is. What we have here is a girl in search of a past she doesn't have and so she's constantly recreating her future with nothing to hold on to. She has no understanding of the self or historical identity and as such is caught in some endless loop of creation and destruction where nothing remains for very long. An inverse of Akerman's Jean Dielman, in which the character is driven insane by lack of domestic routine and repetition. The other extreme. A jigsaw puzzle which every time she tries to assemble, she is thrown by the media in to an unknown future. The narrative itself is assembled in that manner too, you never really find your footing. I can't remember the last time I was so wonderfully lost in a picture from recent times.

Every time I tried to follow it, outside forces were controlling and dictating the direction. I can only assume that's what Marilyn's life was like. Every attempt made to make sense of her life is annihilated because someone else is determining her course.

Hollywood and the media had this woman on the strings playing this poor woman like a puppet. The whole experience to have it done to you cinematically is frighteningly intoxicating. I see it as replicating the experience not exploiting it in order to make us understand how she must have felt. Imagine that one scene from 8½ when he's climbing under the tables to escape the shower of cameras recording his every move but that goes on for the entire movie. Much like La Dolce Vita there is this total rejection of continuity and time in favour of these episodic encounters and it becomes this descent in to Dante's Inferno. Hollywood in this case becoming a burning hell.

You know I cannot recall ever seeing a biopic quite like it. In the sense, that I'd seen most of catalogue and am aware of her marriages therefore should know the trajectory of the film. Yet, even being armed with this knowledge, I couldn't fully figure out the path the film was taking due to the lack of continuity and consideration of time. The sprawling narrative is handled in a way that replicates her inner traumas and existentialist fears. Throughout the film there's these proper 2001/The Tree of Life CGI shots of a foetus growing in the womb being used as a visual motif to tap in to the cycle of life in the most disturbing way imaginable. What we have is a kind of Predestination style narrative paradox in that this girl does not have a father so she can't visualise her own existence. She draws blank every time.

Hence why she probably throws herself in to all these sexual encounters. What is it Freud said about having to understand the father's genitalia to recognise one's own or some shit like that? Dominik's film takes such an idea and produces some psychosexual horror movie out of it.

That scene where they talk about Marilyn as a baby sleeping in a cupboard draw, then she has visions later on of her own baby in that same draw freaked me out on a level I do not possess the knowledge to understand. What would Freud make of this? Someone get the bastard out of his grave, find a way to get his ticker going, prop his eyes open and get him to the cinema to watch Blonde. And while you're at it call Hollywood because that actually sounds like a fantastic sequel to Weekend at Bernie's.

Put simply, Blonde is the best film ever about girls in search of a daddy. Those who possess such a kink are dangerous and should never be underestimated. That is the research I have gathered from my time in the field. They are among the most troubled that walk the earth. Their questions are rarely answered and their satisfaction seldom met. Frequently, these are the women I am drawn to and these are frequently the women who ruin my life. Go figure.

Many reviews have commented on the quite frankly absurd amount of times "daddy" gets said in the second half. Can't even downplay that. All of a sudden, I had this stupid idea to start drinking from a bottle of wine every time she said "daddy" and so I came out the cinema walking like a bloody crustacean. Unable to move forwards in a straight line, it was more of a sideways motion. As though auditioning for a Romero remake of one of his zombie films. I don't know what went through me first the word "daddy" or the bottle of wine, it was an interesting experiment but one which proved fatal. Unlike others, I didn't think the repeated usage is lazy or though. No, this was no gratuitous "daddy" but literally what the story was about. Monroe's partners barely commenting on it only adding to the inebriating effect.

Find it crazy that Blonde has been passed off as misogynistic when it seemed to me the greatest study of femininity and motherhood since Rosemary's Baby. Not since that film have I felt the fears of the fragility of the females body and her offspring go through me.

The pair of them are basically Eraserhead with a female perspective. Blonde may even improve on them by exploring absent fathers and mentally unstable mothers. It recalls the quote from David Fincher's Seven, "Well, I got up one morning and went to work...just a day like any other day, except it was the my first since hearing about the baby. And I felt this fear and anxiety washing over me. I looked around and I thought how can we raise a child surrounded by all this? How can any child grow up here?".

Normally, I find horror icon and scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis's white liberal feminist bullshit to be annoying and truthfully insufferable but even she said that she, "dropped to the floor. I couldn't believe it. Ana was completely gone. She was Marilyn". I had to agree. The film swept me up into this overwhelming drama, which became almost like a prison as we roamed endless studios and red carpets. An experience which reached the operatic, tragic and cinematic heights of Perfect Blue and Black Swan. A woman so lost in her art and life, unable to tell fact from fiction. The constant switching between black and white and colour only adding to the confusion as you try to figure out a pattern.

I'm an auteur purist so naturally I'm more drawn to directors, who in both the cases of Rosemary's Baby and Blonde I am aware does happen to be men. However, let's not forget that these films wouldn't achieve what they do without their female stars De Armas and Farrow. Anyone with greater knowledge on acting methodology should focus on these elements. I for one would not be able to do it justice and have not had the time to fully consider it. Regardless, very happy with how well De Armas has done, especially since she got all that shit about how a Cuban should not be playing this role. Plus my Queen smashes the Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend sequence, which takes some doing because Marilyn was on full power when she did that all those years ago.

Dominik's film actually allowed me to consider Marilyn's career in way I never have before and appreciate her talents as though for the first time over again. Shone a whole new light on her contributions to film. Why would someone trying to exploit her misery attempt such a thing? Riddle me that, Batman. I knew a little about the background of Monroe's past which made her such a suitable candidate to portray the Nell Forbes character in Don't Bother to Knock . However, I never really acknowledged just what makes her performance in it so damn good. They highlight this in a scene when some casting directors are gathered round discussing her screen test for it. These people mention that what she's doing is not acting and there's no technique. Comedically, in Blonde they're shown hating the performance but the exact words they use are the very reason she is so good in that movie. It's this raw and untrained approach that can't be taught, the likes of which is rarely seen.

Moving on to Some Like it Hot, I'll never be able to watch this in the same way after Blonde. They really go in hard in to that menage a trois like arrangement in a way that never crossed my mind. You really begin to understand why the role might have appealed to her. Didn't even realise the song which plays near the start, 'Everybody Needs a Daddy' was sung by Marilyn herself. It's hard to say how much of the film is exaggerated but in all fairness, they're using elements that did happen in her life to propel the story. As a result, it's difficult to argue with the conclusions drawn and the interpretation presented before you. That's what makes it so unique, creative and downright bold. What we have is far from a traditional approach and yet it holds up.

There's this absolutely stellar moment where it match cuts between Marilyn in a threesome on the edge of the bed and a waterfall. Obviously, hinting at the next film in her career, Niagra. The link or even connective tissue between the two: sex. Sex runs through them in a straight line.

Niagra is far from my favourite Marily movie, it's more interesting to read about than it is to watch because the waterfall seems to unconsciously symbolise Marilyn's sexual energy. Before this is misunderstood, Dominik isn't the first to establish this connection. It is evident to anyone who watches it, yet its disappointingly tame and underused. Mr Dominik deserves credit for bringing this to the forefront in a way that movie was unable to, thus bettering it.

It wouldn't be a leap to compare Blonde with Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard . All three dissect the mysteries and dark underbelly of Hollywood that the industry does not wish to share. Perfect visual accompaniments to 'Blue Jay Way', a Harrisong from The Beatles. A song which was written by George as he stood not too far from Mulholland Drive by the foggy hills of Hollywood waiting for an acquaintance to appear. Notably also one of the songs used by Charles Manson for his preposterous Helter Skelter theory. Tarantino literally made the link between Hollywood and Manson abundantly clear in his last film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , which focused on the family's time at Spahn Ranch, an old movie set.

Manson's invading of the music industry is well documented too with his friendship with Dennis Wilson and a Beach Boys B-side writing credit. However, those wanting to get their heads blown off even further should check out the exploitation film Mondo Hollywood, which stars Manson victim Jay Sebring and a few other members of the Manson family such as Bobby Beausoleil, who were later indicted. Wait a minute, Jay Sebring? The unfortunate hairdresser who was slain alongside Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski). Haven't I already mentioned Rosemary's Baby in this? It's all linked I tell you! Hollywood has its secrets. Why do you think that no good dirty rotten rapist shock rocker called himself Marilyn Manson? Two of Hollywood's greatest secrets.

Doubling down on the Mulholand Drive angle, I'm still reeling in horror terrified by the Lynchian red carpet displays. Rows and rows of faces with humongous mouths all wanting a piece of Marilyn. Those shots belong in an art gallery. Deeply disturbing on another level. Blonde, Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard are all masterpieces in intersecting the dark part of Hollywood with a mind blowing sense of erotica. Reality, fiction and sex blurring over each other.

Explicitly, there is a character in Blonde who is the son of Charlie Chaplin and feels his future his entrapped by this fact. The knowledge of his father's identity crippling him in a very different way to Marilyn. There is a creepy scene in which a picture of Charlie Chaplin is seen burning. Well before, Charles Manson came in to the picture, Chaplin's mentor was involved in the first Hollywood scandal, which forever tainted the innocence of the silent period. Fellow silent star Roscoe 'Fatty' Buckle was accused of raping and accidentally killing Virginia Rappe. Couldn't tell you if that's a link that's supposed to be made here but it does seem to linger like a foul odour corrupting the pristine and immaculate utopia of Hollywood. Either way it would have worked better if the kid in Blonde was Fatty's son. No point discrediting Chaplin's legacy, seemed a decent guy who was meant to be a socialist. Then again, maybe they were playing on him being a bad father (very fitting in this world of Blonde) with 11 kids with about three different wives. Perhaps his inclusion here was not so bad after all.

Expanding on the reality, fiction and sex blurring over each other, about the only time I thought Blonde verged on exploitive was the belting moment she ended up giving JFK head. A scene which blew my head off because when he climaxes, we cut to a shot of JFK's personal TV and see scenes from Earth Vs the Flying Saucers and other 50s Sci-Fi creature features. The rockets and saucers become phallic substituting for the president's penis. This is just about the most Jacob Kelly moment I have ever witnessed in my life.

You could say its exploitive because of the way it tarnishes a potentially decent and innocent relationship she had in her life. However, a few things to things to consider here. There's a solid amount of evidence to suggest they may have been having an affair and these two were banging on the regular. If so, go on girl get that president dick! Make Air Force One stand to attention.

Two, if the public believes it's true, then in a strange and unexplainable way it is. Don’t have a go at me, that's the logic in most situations. Not saying I agree, just how it is. The mass consciousness is a living breathing thing. It's like pronouncing a word, if the general consensus is it's to be said in a particular way but everyone says it in another, are you wrong for saying it the right way? What do you do in these situations? You're coming up against a brick wall of culture, stand tall or prepare to be obliterated brother!

Three, the way this is handled isn't particularly dodgy or overly graphic. The way Marilyn is coerced in to the act is extremely well done. She's disoriented and dragged in, confused as to where she is and whether she's being arrested. The woman can't even tell if it's real or just a scene from her next film. Throughout, she keeps trying to maintain their relationship is spiritual and not sexual. If you ask me, Marilyn herself is not being exploited by the filmmakers, this about the media exploiting her, which is what the whole films about. Exploitation to a degree that you don't even recognise your own image any more. Moreover, the scene isn't particularly graphic and albeit handled with a Hitchcockian wit, I would say is generally handled with good taste. Tonally a little crazy, which it needed to be to establish the surreal nature of it but as stated, it is not overly revealing.

Sadly, we do not get to see this dude playing "The President of the Free World" hang dong. Note that if this was film was in my hands it would have played out differently. I would have had Marilyn under the assumption she had been fucked by the country and fucks it right back by having anal sex with the president of the United States himself. Yes, that is me saying I would have Marilyn Monroe pegging the president.

Later in this issue of Funeralopolis, I think I even distastefully exploit the president myself (see the Gonzo Porno section). I could not help such an act. Whilst, Dominik demonstrates a tremendous amount of self-restraint and I'll defend that, I myself do not and have already admitted to this. Although does it support my case if I add that it was all in the good silly nature of addressing the psycho sexual and where fantasy and reality meet, like my favourite book of all time, JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition? As Geroge Lucas once said after making the Star Wars prequels, "I may have gone too far" In the case of Blonde though, I'm going to say: strictly tasteful. Say what you want about Jacob Kelly but don't bring my baby Blonde in to this. She's a good egg. I remain as ever nothing if not honest.

One thing I'll never understand, how do the fucking documentaries get away with it? No-one bats an eye when Netflix churns out yet another one of those true crime docs. Somehow all these years those have gone so under the radar and are totally accepted by the public. Noone ever gives them a good bashing for how offensive they are and the normalisation of suicidal celebs and serial killers. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm completely against these, on the contrary I think these things are hilarious even if they are bottom of the barrel trash, only pointing out the hypocrisy of how they go undetected. Not been able to take these in the same way ever since seeing how Natural Born Killers parodies the entire genre. It's the narration that kills me every time.

Perhaps, some will take issue with the early rape scene in Blonde. Not necessarily a true story but I'm not sure it's worth kicking off about. Above all, it seems timely with the metoo movement and an ugly but true metaphor for how the industry treated Marilyn from the outset. On the one hand, it's lazy but it nails the point like Tyson Fury punch to the face.

Here's the thing, there's literally a biopic coming out about the Harvey Weinstein scandal, the most recent horror of Hollywood. In fact, I saw the trailer for it strangely enough just before Blonde in the cinema. Everything about it screams bad filmmaking but relevant issue. I hate films like that where the whole thing is in the trailer. What's the point in watching them, fuck, what's the point in even making them? They do not surprise, they do not challenge, the cards are laid out on the table in the trailer. How will it inspire change? What's its purpose? What horrors will it expose? What will it teach that we don't already know? Go read about it on Wikipedia its much quicker.

Watch everyone absolutely laud this Weinstein film when its released and forget how appallingly made it is. Critics will be getting on their knees and saluting it to show they are in full support of the metoo movement. 30 minute standing ovations, first one to sit down loses their feminist card. That's a film saying look at me, wank me off and people will do it too. One whiff of that trailer had me thinking: we could well have another court jester on our hands. And what did we say happened to court jesters? I'll be fuming if that turns out in to a hit. At least Blonde is made by one of the best directors currently working. Blonde isn't pretty but nor are some of the things female actresses and women in general have to face. People will forget this Weinstein film quickly, whereas Blonde will, mark my words, have a resurgence at some point. When all is said and done, Blonde is a force for good.

Absolutely sickens me that we live in a word where Elvis got better reviews than Blonde. You know what the difference between the two films is? Both have two of the most disjointed narratives of the year except Blonde uses that to emphasise its characters confusion and disillusionment further. Whereas, Elvis mainly fucks about at the expense of narrative. There's little purpose and care to the decisions made. I will admit, there are a few scenes in Elvis where Luhrmann's style does work. For example, the way they show him embodying the history of the blues in a single moment is undeniably impressive, leaning on the spiritual. Unfortunately, this accounts for about two scenes and for the rest it doesn't work coming across as decisions made for the sake of visuals and not story. Blonde is where style and story meet in perfect bond.

I can't believe I almost let the media fool me into thinking this was something it wasn't. Dominik has never been particularly vulgar. Other than one white sending scene in his debut Chopper, where Eric Bana wacks his cock out in the boozer. However, he's come a long way since that act of madness and embodied his status as the true heir of Terrence Malick. The competition has been killed off too since George Washington and Undertow director David Gordon Green smoked too much ganj, bottled it completely and went in to stoner comedies. Initially, the Halloween remake suggested a potential return to form somewhere in between his arty origins and stoner deviations but the geezer seems to have lost himself in that bollocks too. Halloween Kills was by no means a great movie I enjoyed it for how it was a fool's version of Fritz Lang's M. It amused me cause Jamie Lee Curtis was bigging it up in interviews as some political juggernaut and came out looking like a moron. We haven't had any decent press to interest me on the new one. We need something stupid to happen in the promotion because the trailer looked bland.

The future doesn't look too good for him either with these Exorcist remakes he's doing afterwards. Anyway, the weeds killed him, it's a TKO, only Dominik is left standing as the true heir of Malick.

Domonik's Killing Them Softly wasn't fully appreciated on release either but that one's really started to grow on people. We're almost out of cult status and in to general acceptance. In the scenario of Softly, he didn't just succumb to the lazy violence and material excess of many flawed gangster pictures. Instead, actually using the genre to make a socioeconomic commentary on the financial crash back in 2008. In its final scenes, it becomes a brutal take down of a massively revered and respected political figure in American history, Thomas Jefferson. The American Dream wasn't safe either. Brad Pitt's character notices President Obama giving a speech on the television about reclaiming the American Dream and decides to give a crushing speech of his own:

"Don't make me laugh. One people? It's a myth created by Thomas Jefferson. My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words 'all men are created equal' words he clearly didn't believe since he allowed his now-children to live in slavery. He's a rich wine snob who got sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So yeah he writes some lovely words and roused the rabble and they went out and died for those words while he sat back and fucked a slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America and in America, you're on your own. America's not a country. It's a business. Now fucking pay me". Fade to black. Roll the credits. One of the best endings in film history.

Although they seem worlds apart at first, Softly and his previous effort from 2007, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford have more in common than you'd think. Jesse James is deemed by many to be one of the greatest films of the 21st century and it's hard to object. Essentially, Softly modernises the spaghetti western classic The Great Silence to investigate bounty hunters and the illusions of government control and the broken legal system through the gangster genre. You only have to look at Scorsese's Goodfellas to see how the western and the gangster genre are so linked. Like the Hell's Angels (discussed issue #2) Gangsters are another form of modern outlaws. Literally watch Goodfellas again and count the western references. Now how could someone as brilliant as this sell out and make something so cheap as was claimed with Blonde? The answer is he did not. Why did I for one second believe Blonde wouldn't be as genuine as its predecessors? Why did I let the media do that? This guy means what he does.

Jesse James sees Dominik updating Gregory Peck's The Gunfighter (fuck your John Wayne shit, this could well be the best from the golden age of Hollywood westerns before the Italian nutters came along) and brought the likes of Roger Deakins along with the musicianship of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The result is true sound and image beauty. Deakins has many memorable shots but who can forget the one from The Shawshank Redemption when he breaks out of prison, it rains down on him and he embraces his new found freedom without a care in the world?

That has always been a personal favourite of Deakin's handiwork. In more recent times, people will no doubt bring Blade Runner 2049, Prisoners, Skyfall and Sicario in the argument but for me the Shawshank one is a tough cookie to beat for the feeling it gives you. After a masterclass in time and pressure, that image really resonates as a triumph. If a picture speaks a thousand words, then just like the final shot from Runaway Train, it is one which expresses freedom.

However, the one in Jesse James when they stop the train could be better. I can't even downplay it, the fluidity of the movement, the way it echoes cinemas past and the ghosts of The Great Train Robbery really gets to me. Poetry in motion. A document of how far we've come in cinema since 1903. All scored by the phenomenal Nick Cave and Warren Ellis just to top it off.

Jesse James ended up being this study of fame, myth and the media shot in Malickian style. A movie version of the Kendrick Lamar lyric from Money Trees, 'Everybody gonna respect the shooter but the one in front of the gun lives forever'. A gift of a movie for those who think Badlands, The Tree of Life and the Thin Red Line represent the peak of cinema. Blonde picks up exactly where Jesse James left off, critiquing the very same issues. Yet, it has gone down quite terribly. Ruined by reactionary reviews going off what the media have said. No-ones really engaged with this one the way it needs to be. When did criticism get so lazy? I'm baffled as to how they can't see its doing the same things as Jesse James. Is it cause Jesse James is a figure who's been dead longer? Surely it can't be something as simple as that. Either way one's widely accepted as a classic and the other is a mega flop. Explain it to me!

If anything, I believe Blonde could be the better of the two and at least belongs on the same shelf with Mulholland Drive and There Will Be Blood. Noting its Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb or Letterboxd scores you wouldn't get that impression at all. You'd think I was off me rocker but Blonde was genuinely something special and not something that comes around often.

Honestly, I was sold on this from the outset and I knew I was back in Jesse James territory from the moment the ash drifted across the screen and Cave/Ellis's moody ambient synths hit me like a train. An unbelievably good way of bringing you back in to this world and suggesting something new by opening with a fire spreading across Hollywood. A mad mother and her child trying to survive the night in this haunting opening set piece. Sets up the atmosphere and purpose of the film instantly. An evil corrupt industry burning in its own filth and rubble, enticing and killing those it can from any age it can. A continuation of Killing Them Softly's cynical ending where Hollywood substitutes in for America.

In life, one thing that intrigues me is the cylindrical nature of criticism. It would be a costly mistake to think its static. Nope, nothing is static in this game, the tides are constantly shifting, which is why I'd always promote going with the take you believe and not just following the popular vote. Trust me, it'll save you having to embarrassingly back track at a later date.

The strangest part of whenever this happens, everyone forgets the contemporary reviews upon release. They get lost under Hollywood's pile of ash never to be seen again as a new belief spreads. They'll declare that "it was always a masterpiece! No-one ever believed any different" Remember when Vertigo was released it was hated? That's just forgotten now. Even the more appropriately fitting Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me had a disastrous Cannes reaction. Look at how that films held now. So when the conversation comes up again in, I don't know, 10 or 20 years time, know that some of us championed it from the start for what it was, an elaborate jigsaw puzzle of fame, media, femininity and existentialism. A puzzle so powerful and shocking that even today the media tried to destroy it by declaring it as the very thing it was always critiquing.

Bonus Points:

-Being the finest piece of feminist cinema since Rosemary's Baby

-The Lynchian red carpet displays

-The creature feature representation during the president's orgasm

-Netflix getting brave and making their first NC-17 rated movie

-Making us love Marilyn even more than we already did

-Its cynical view of Hollywood and the media

-An original approach to the biopic

-Being the peak of Daddy

-Being the peak of Daddy

Cinema

-Ana De Armas and Adrien Brody, no further comments needed

Overall Score: 5/5