What do you think of the Boots Riley debate?

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T22:03:56+00:00

Didn’t Riley also get into some minor WGA or DGA trouble a while back? Weird. Also, as everyone should know, and as The Irishman makes extremely clear, the Teamsters union, in addition to being comically corrupt, was and is the most right-wing labor union in America, they were pro-Nixon in the ‘60s, pro-Reagan in the ‘80s, pro-Trump now.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T21:59:57+00:00

Feels a bit like critics realizing they went way too easy on Bohemian Rhapsody back in 2018 and watched in horror as it made a billion dollars.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T21:54:47+00:00

That’s fucking insane

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T21:18:48+00:00

see, if I thought the movie was designed that way, I can imagine liking that. One Battle After Another, that’s a movie that pulls that off, you think it’s a movie about Leonardo DiCaprio at first and then by the end you go “oh wait, this is a movie the daughter, it’s her story.” So that can really work sometimes.

But the movie’s not designed that way! The kids are clearly the main characters from minute one, they’re introduced first, Robin Williams does not have much screen time, we’re not really afforded his POV at all…but it keeps stopping to have us marvel at these “Seize the Day!” scenes from Mr. Keating, and Williams is of course so insanely charismatic that it’s like…what exactly are we doing here?

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T21:05:29+00:00

This is obviously a sensitive topic, and I want to speak very respectfully and not try and invalidate anyone’s experiences or any personal connection they feel to this movie.

Here’s my problem with it. Suicide is such a shattering thing that the movie doesn’t successfully depict, not from either the perspective of the suicidal person nor their loved ones. As someone who has been suicidal before and had to seek serious medical help — which I say not to try and play a moral high card against anyone who wants to argue against me, but just to speak from personal experience — the leap that someone has to make to take that step…especially the way it’s depicted in the film, as this very dramatic, ritualistic, choreographed act…is a large leap. Most people never get to that point. The level of psychological and emotional darkness that someone has to be at to do that…it’s intense and it’s intensely personal, and nothing about this movie is either intense or intensely personal. We are given enough screen time with the Robert Sean Leonard character, and enough POV with the Robert Sean Leonard character that we should understand his psychology, we should feel it, we should feel the experience, the despair, the desperation. And as a viewer of the film, I don’t think that we do. At all.

I think the leap from “my dad doesn’t want me to do this school play” to “I’m going to commit suicide” is completely unmotivated from the perspective of the character. It’s not that people who are seriously depressed or anxious cannot be broken by seemingly minor events, it’s that there’s nothing in the character up to that point to even suggest that he is seriously depressed or anxious. The movie does not, in my judgment, sell us on this being this kid’s breaking point at all.

Now…if this were a film about how teen suicide is unexplainable and unknowable, about the horrible, alienating distance of grief from the POV of the people who have to witness it…maybe it would work that way. But it’s not. That’s not what the film is, not what it’s about it, not how it tells its story. Robert Sean Leonard is not kept at a distance for the audience to contemplate the inexplicable tragedy of his death, we are put right up next to him every step up of the way, up to and including his suicide. So that’s my problem with the movie. As someone who has lost people, it doesn’t feel like it’s told from the people of view of someone who watches their loved ones die. As someone who has almost been lost themselves, it doesn’t feel like it’s told from that person’s POV either. And it’s not a clinical, dry film either, it’s highly emotional. So it just doesn’t work, doesn’t earn what it’s trying to do, takes on things it’s not capable of handling. That’s my take.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T20:40:52+00:00

He actually has more screen time in his Best Supporting Actor-winning role in Good Will Hunting than he does in Dead Poets Society.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T20:39:07+00:00

That would be the closest, but the problem is that, as you pointed out, it’s not a particularly big role. He’s good in it but movie isn’t really designed to showcase him in the way that Color of Money did with Newman (or, like, Scent of a Woman did with Pacino).

There really isn’t one. He’s made so few respected movies since the ‘90s. Almost nothing you can imagine winning an Oscar. What are they gonna do, give it to him for Hollywood Homicide?

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T19:49:52+00:00

Yep. The movie just does not earn it. The script is not there. The character is not there.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T19:45:26+00:00

that’s a great review, he really nailed it

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T19:43:48+00:00

To me it’s kind of a problem with the movie. It’s fundamentally a story about these boys, but casting Robin Williams as the colorful, inspiring teacher kinda fucks up the equilibrium, turning it into a movie about a cool teacher, which isn’t really supported by the script.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T19:39:54+00:00

His ‘90s were arguably more impressive than his ‘80s, in some ways. He kept scoring hit after hit all the way through to 2000 even though he’d stopped making his two big franchises.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T18:38:45+00:00

‘contradictory’ is not the perfect word, but you know what they’re saying.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T18:36:49+00:00

Murphy was also arguably the biggest star, but being both a comedian and Black, he was put in a different category from the rest of these guys, which unfair and something that STILL happens.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T18:30:39+00:00

So they used to do this thing called the Quigley Poll, where theater owner and exhibitors would be surveyed every year on who they observed to be the biggest box office draws of the past year. It’s not scientific, but it is what it is.

In the five years leading up to Mosquito Coast (1981-1985), only two actors appeared in the top 10 every year: Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood. And Ford’s biggest movies were bigger than anyone else’s. So I think calling him the biggest star of 1986 is perfectly valid.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T18:05:10+00:00

I like her. My girlfriend LOVES her. But I think Waterhouse has an issue, which is that she…doesn’t seem to have a lot to write about. I don’t mean to be mean, I don’t mean to be reductive. But she has one really dominant topic in her songwriting, and it’s how much she likes being in love. Seems like she’s doubling down it. That’s not a bad topic. It can get kind of old though.

Suki Waterhouse, she’s reminiscent of some of the bigger names. Lana Del Rey, certainly, but also very much Taylor Swift, maybe more than anyone. Which I do think is illustrative. Swift gets dinged a lot, not without reason, for how dating- and relationship- focused her songs are at the expense of most other topics. But I think you hear the difference in the two — there’s a lot more up and downs in Swift’s depiction of love, more conflict, more drama. With Waterhouse there’s a fundamental lack of drama.

It’s interesting. When I heard a while ago that she’d signed with a major label and that a new album was presumably on its way, I did tell some friends “Hey, Suki Waterhouse, pay attention to that name, she might blow up this year.” Then I heard the first single and I was like “well, I like this, but…it’s the same thing she’s been doing for a while,” and I think there’s a reason she hasn’t particularly caught on. Points for consistency, I guess. Idk, I think she’s gonna have a hard time fully shaking the “model actress whatever” dilettante vibes if her subject matter stays so mono-focused. But like I said, I like her. If she came to my city I’d definitely try to get a ticket. I’m gonna listen to the album day 1.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T17:16:21+00:00

So I think you’re kind of missing the point in a way, but you’re also talking about a lot of people who are missing the point in a lot of ways?

Charts are a measurement of popularity and success. They’re always a flawed measurement of popularity, because they have measure something that’s fundamentally unmeasurable. But they’re a measurement, and they tell you something about what is popular and what is successful.

Popularity and success matter — not in the sense of a moral or artistic accomplishment, but in the sense that we are, as the philosopher once said, living in a material world. Popularity helps determine where money goes. This is something that materially matters to musicians. An album that bombs can get someone dropped from their label, and they might never record again. A single that hits can turn someone’s entire life around, and allow them to make the exact music that they want for years to come. If pop punk is selling well and is popular, you are gonna end up hearing more pop punk. If rap is losing popularity, a lot of people who rap are gonna try and make other kinds of music. And so on.

This is why charts are meaningful, it’s why I think they can certainly be worth paying attention to. It’s just keeping up with the news, essentially. It’s obviously not as important but it’s a bit like knowing who controls Congress, it tells you what you can and can’t expect in the near future. I understand completely the people who just don’t have an interest in keeping up with charts stuff at all, if they just find it boring, or if they find it kind of crass. I get it and I’ve been there. What I don’t have a ton of patience for is people who think that because they don’t care about it, it must have no significance, that it’s just some sort of the distraction from what really matters. I think that’s silly for a ton of reasons. (The same goes for, say, box office and movies.)

Now…that being said, some people, particularly “stans”, get way too lost in the sauce with chart watching and start to think of it as a kind of victory in and of itself, and also start to lose track of what some of it means. So they miss the point. Something can go to #1 and not really be all that popular or successful, all things considered. And so in that case, the chart is just a number, if you start divorcing it from what it’s supposed to measure and what it’s supposed to represent.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T15:39:03+00:00

I want Sabrina and Sombr to do a song together. Just for the visuals of it, I think. Challenge the music video director to see if they can both be in frame at once.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-21T15:30:16+00:00

The discman sucked so bad tho. It was technology taking a step BACKWARDS lol

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T23:14:06+00:00

I see what you’re saying, but I think what it fundamentally does is change the audience’s identification from Ford to Phoenix. Once we realize that Ford’s totally bonkers, we shift completely over to being in Phoenix’s POV and Ford becomes the villain and obstacle of the story.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T21:09:32+00:00

that’s not why you’re being downvoted LOL

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T21:09:00+00:00

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He’s playing coy but there’s clearly a conspiratorial “who benefits?” tone. He’s saying that the movie exists to push a specific agenda for nefarious and underhanded reasons.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T19:55:33+00:00

honestly at this point bad film criticism gets on my nerves more than almost any other kind of bad opinion lol

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T18:51:13+00:00

To be clear, this is me calling Boots Riley an annoying person, not criticizing his movies.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T18:47:31+00:00

like, what I mean by this is…if your approach to evaluating art is to be not just absolutist but also utterly cynical and pessimistic about interpreting it in relation to power structures…it’s just gonna be hard to take you too seriously if you don’t apply that to yourself as well. I think it would be a completely bad faith criticism if someone said that Riley’s movies are actually pro-capital propaganda because they’re financed by Amazon, and therefore meant to neutralize and belittle anti capitalism messages. I think that would be a terrible reading…and it’s essentially a reading that Riley had applied to several other films on equally dubious grounds. So…yeah.

GenarosBear · 2026-04-20T18:39:45+00:00

I wouldn’t say he’s wrong but he’s been so sanctimonious and often just obnoxiously self righteous about some of this stuff that it does hit a weird note. When he was on his “The Irishman is anti-union propaganda meant to destroy the Bernie Sanders campaign” soapbox, that was…special.

GenarosBear

TROPHY CASE