Tag Archives: nicholas-hoult

And so It Goes

Today is Saturday, December 28, 2024. For those of you are shivering over the prospect of another Dump presidency, there is a sliver of a silver lining in a new online Raw Story article by Tom Boggioni today entitled ‘Power will start to ooze out of him’: Trump warned he’ll be handcuffed as a ‘lame duck,'” in which longtime political observer Jonathan Alter describes him as a lame-duck president since he cannot run for another term in 2028, even though he might stupidly try. Thus the clock will be ticking on Chump’s hold of power on January 20, 2025.

Speaking with MSNBC host Charles Coleman, Jr. on Saturday morning, Alter said the president-elect stands no chance of running for a third term in 2028, despite speculation that he might attempt it, and lawmakers won’t have to go along with every insane demand he makes.

As Alter explained, “In the short and middle term, I think he’ll be held to account for all sorts of campaign promises. If he is not successful in lowering prices, as he promised he would do, and if his tariffs and other policies contribute to renewed inflation, he will be judged very harshly on that.”

“But remember, he’s not a candidate for reelection,” Alter pointed out. “He becomes a lame duck on January 20th. I know people talk about him getting around the 22nd Amendment and being in office forever – [just like Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’ new reimagining of the age-old vampire story of Dracula, in Nosferatu, which I saw today with Elliot and my friend “Seth”] – that’s not going to happen.” It’d better not, that’s all I can say.

Alter elaborated, saying, “His political power will start to ooze out of him [I’d like something else to ooze out of him, but I can’t say it here], and a lot of the accountability will be reflected first in in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections this coming year and then in the 2026 midterms. But if he ends up governing with a billionaire boys club – [which all early indications seem to point to this grim reality already] – he’s already appointed 12 billionaires – that’s not what he promised. He promised to look out for middle-class working families and if his policies include deep cuts to very popular programs or other things that don’t really seem to resemble the populist promises that he made during the campaign, his popularity is going to suffer.” Let’s pray this does happen, sooner than later.

As I mentioned in the paragraph before, today marked my seeing the latest version of the undying Transylvanian vampire, Dracula, but this time, this remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent vampire film from writer-director Robert Eggers features a stunning performance by Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, the tormented victim of Count Orlok’s (as he’s known in this adaptation) unwanted affection. In the role of the ageless bloodsucker is Bill Skarsgard as the terrifying count who is cast in shadow initially before his image slowly appears before the camera.

The film woos its audience with the beauty of Jarin Blaschke’s atmospheric cinematography and its nuanced performances by Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny) and Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz who is a specialist in the occult who is called in by Ellen Hutter’s physician, Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson). Dafoe’s Von Franz is the film’s answer to vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing who’s featured in the various Dracula incarnations on screen.

Set in 1838, in the fictional town of Wisborg, Germany, the plot centers on estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult who was marvelous in The Order and who played Dracula’s trusted servant in 2023’s Renfield) who travels to Transylvania’s Carpathian Mountains to meet the mysterious Count Orlok, an ailing nobleman interested in purchasing a decrepit estate in Wisborg. Thomas is sent by his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), to seal the deal in exchange for a nice promotion in the firm, and this is what he tells his newly married bride Ellen when he makes the decision to leave for Transylvania.

What follows Thomas’s sojourn to the Count’s decaying estate is predicated on Bram Stoker’s original Dracula in which he is preyed upon by the vampire, escapes the castle, and returns to Germany, while the Count sails for his new home, bringing scores of rats and plague to the city. Thomas attempts to return to Ellen before Orlok arrives.

It is Ellen who experiences night terrors and feverish dreams all throughout her young life and she informs her husband of her premonitions before he embarks on his journey to Transylvania. He vainly tries to soothe her fears, as he rationalizes his trip in light of his getting a solid promotion on his return.

The German Expressionism movement, which spawned Murnau’s classic, is prevalent in Eggers’ adaptation. The monochrome settings, the ghostly carriage arriving to escort Thomas to Orlok’s castle, images of Orlok’s silhouette behind the drapes, and the shadow of the Count’s clawed fingers cast over Wisborg indicate Eggers’ intention to keep the remake as traditional as possible.

Cast as Count Orlok is Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard who dispels the previous images of the immortal demon as personified by Bela Lugosi and countless others in the enduring franchise like Christopher Lee, Frank Langella (who played Dracula on Broadway and on screen in 1979), and others, where here he is more like a walking corpse. He exudes a skeletal look, complete with decaying flesh and a thick mustache, which is very new. Skarsgard speaks in a very low, gravelly voice, which at times, I had difficulty in grasping exactly what he was saying. Skarsgard previously portrayed the devilish clown It in two film adaptations of Stephen King’s immensely popular horror opus, first released in 1986 (which I actually read; it’s over 1,000 pages, as I recall).

As I write this review, I would be remiss to not mention how Elliot and Seth reacted to this new version of Nosferatu. Actually, they weren’t so impressed with the film. Both thought the movie progressed too slowly without much genuine horror. I do take umbrage of an actual film critic’s depiction of this version as very frightening, though. Though I thought the film had some good “jump” moments, I would say it wasn’t all that frightening. But I’m very jaded, you might say, since I’ve been a horror film buff all my life and I’ve seen every kind of horror film there is. Anyway, I would still recommend you go see this film and let me know if you feel the same way as my two companions’ views of it or that you disagree with their critique of it in that it definitely scared the bejesus out of you! And you thoroughly enjoyed the film’s Gothic touches.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, December 12, 2024. Today the worst person on the planet, Donald J. Chump, has already indicated that that he won’t bring down grocery prices, a key promise that he ran on to gain a second term in the White House. I hate the fact that Time magazine named him “Person of the Year” in its latest issue (well, here’s another magazine I won’t be reading in the New Year) and it is here that he admitted, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up.” Resorting to his usual gibberish, Chump stated, “You know, it’s very hard . . . But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down.” Huh! What energy is going to bring down prices here? one must wonder. Then the jerk talks about the supply chain that was one of the major factors that caused food prices to spike during the pandemic: shipping availability decreased and freight times increased, contributing to shortages of imported food. But those issues more or less have since been resolved. Yet Chump talks about the supply chain decreasing prices, which is a fantasy right now. In an online article for CNN by Elisabeth Buchwald entitled “Trump just said groceries will be more affordable ‘very soon.’ He’s also said that might be very hard to achieve,” the implications of his breaking a key promise he made to persuade people to vote for him are outlined herein.

In retrospect, Americans did pay 22 percent more for groceries last month compared to when Dump left office in January 2021, per November Consumer Price Index data released earlier this week. And, compared to February 2020, before the pandemic, Americans paid 27 percent more for groceries in November.

Using an August press conference to draw attention to food inflation during his campaign for president, Chump fumed, “Grocery prices have skyrocketed.” Then he went into his mantra, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one.” He continued, “We will drill, baby, drill,” referring to increasing domestic oil production. He said this action is “going to bring down prices of everything.”

As for crude oil production, December 6 hit a new record of 13.6 million barrels per day, according to federal data dating back to 1983. Experts have told CNN that drilling more, even if feasible, would not move the dial much in terms of lower grocery prices because of a plethora of other factors. Focusing on improving supply chains could prove to be a more effective strategy, though it will not be easy to tackle.

Even if Chump somehow miraculously helps improve supply chain issues (don’t count on it, folks), other policies he’s pledged to enact, including broad-based tariffs and mass deportations of migrants who entered the country illegally, risk raising food prices substantially.

On the deportation side, the food and agriculture industries rely heavily on migrant labor. Without it, those industries will likely contend with labor shortages, which, as a result, could force them to have to increase wages. The higher cost of labor would presumably get passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices. It could also result in food shortages if there aren’t enough workers to support food production, likely putting further upward pressure on prices.

Basically, folks, you are screwed now that your boy is back in the White House!

Today Elliot and I had a lovely day in the city seeing a thrilling action drama starring Jude Law in an atypical role, that of a world-weary FBI agent, tracking down members of a Neo-Nazi terrorist group in the Northwestern United States in the early 1980s. The film is called The Order and we saw it at the Angelika Theatre. What is very scary about the film is that it’s based on fact and it made me squirm in my seat because of its shocking verisimilitude. Law was breathtaking and very believable in the role of Terry Husk who is assigned to small-town Idaho and is soon embroiled in a missing persons case that exposes the origins of this Neo-Nazi group that finances its activities through violent bank heists, counterfeiting, and armored car robberies, not to mention a few murders here and there.

We had to leave early because our cleaning lady “Lareto” was expected to arrive by 10. Instead, she buzzed us downstairs by 9:30; but I had to leave the apartment to move our 14-year-old car to the Thursday side in order to avoid the alternate-side parking situation. Luckily, I found a good spot at 9:45 and waited in the car until 10.

So we left around 10:30 and walked to the subway to get the E. Our first destination was Veselka, the Ukrainian restaurant, on 2nd Avenue and 9th Street. Inside, we saw a mural that explained that the word “veselka” means “rainbow” in Ukrainian. Some of the dishes the restaurant is known for are pierogi, veal goulash, chicken paprikash, beef stroganoff, kielbasa, borscht, bigos, potato pancakes, blintzes, and other menu items. Eschewing the traditional dishes, I ordered pancakes with chocolate chips instead. Elliot did order vegetarian pierogi, however.

We had some time until the movie went on, which was 1:45, so we walked to two bookstores, Codex, on Bleecker Street, and the Mercer Street Books & Records shop. I admit to buying one book at the first store, a Primo Levi collection of personal essays on his surviving the Holocaust called The Drowned and the Saved which came out in 1986. Don’t ask me why I bought this book when I have over 500 titles I still haven’t read at home. Chalk it up to this being my kind of addiction, possibly.

Now as for the film that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival recently and received a standing ovation. The film is directed by Justin Kurzel and penned by Zach Baylin and it draws inspiration from the 1989 nonfiction book The Silent Brotherhood, authored by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. Thus Law portrays the weary FBI agent Husk who teams up with a local cop, Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan), and sort of takes him under his wing when a local bad boy disappears and is found dead in the woods. Reading the reviews for the movie, I learned that there were two Brits – not one – cast here: Jude Law, who I already mentioned, and Nicholas Hoult who plays the charismatic but murderous leader of the Order, Bob Matthews. He is very convincing in his role as a family hater of the “other” who is impatient with the methods of the Aryan Nation that do not resort to such desperate measures as he does to finance an imminent race war. During a meeting of the Aryan Nation, he stands up and condemns the leader for only talking and not doing anything.

In addition to his small army of social outcasts taking part in bank robberies and bombings of porn theaters, Matthews orders the assassination of radio talk host Alan Berg (here played by comedian/podcast host Marc Maron) who is killed gruesomely in front of his house because he condemned such terrorist groups on his show and also because he was a Jew. Now the die is set. As Husk, Law is not his usual sexy self; here he is older looking, with a droopy mustache, and puffy features. He definitely looks the part of a seasoned FBI veteran who is assigned to reopen the bureau’s dormant Idaho office and is presumably hoping to find a house for his wife and kids (whom we never see).

Before long, Husk is thrust into the investigation of the local white supremacy group and is hell-bent on capturing Matthews and his dangerous crew. He is soon aided by family man Bowen and bad-ass Jurnee Smollett as another fellow FBI agent.

The film packs several thrilling action sequences as the FBI descends upon a local hotel for their man and the bullets fly all over the place. All in all, The Order is a gripping crime thriller that hits too close to home, considering what transpired on January 6, 2021, reflecting the current state of white supremacy that lurks within the gutters of American society like a hidden disease, which can surface at any time when we let our guard down. Remember, the events of this film took place here over 40 years ago and these groups have never been totally eradicated in that time!

I wholeheartedly recommend this film to everyone since its theme is still resonant today. Also, I have a book on the life and subsequent murder investigation into the death of Alan Berg, the Denver radio host who was killed by these hateful terrorists, called Talked to Death: The Murder of Alan Berg and the Rise of the Neo-Nazis. This book probably has more details about the Order and the people involved in the organization if you’re interested in reading about them.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are driving to Arlington, Massachusetts, to spend time with Elliot’s daughter and her family. We’re actually going to use the new car for this little motor trip. I’ll be home Sunday.

So have a good Friday and a very pleasant weekend.

And so it went!

We walked to Rockefeller Center to see the tree, and here it is.

There it is again!

Here is the moon as seen in the sky behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral.