An addendum to the Biopic

We're back!  The year of Covid crawls to a close with a light at the end of the tunnel looking to be coming from somewhere around April 2021.  In the meantime, this is the first year since 1917 that Ohio State and Michigan will not play and we also have cynical power hungry politicians and their sycophants trying to make stupid people angry enough to give them their money because something something need money to stop a steal something something.  Some day there will be a documentary about these times, which will be followed with controversy about how accurately it depicted the situation, what facts are portrayed and the truthfulness of those facts, and most importantly whether or not blame is assigned to the correct people or if blame is even assigned at all.  It will probably be created and produced in another country if what is left of ours is no longer turning out quality entertainment for the hungry masses.  That's why our movie review mission is so important here at the Big Empty!!!  Future anthro-frickin-pology baby!!!!  The US wasn't always a cesspool of conspiracy, stupidity, and a population that was interested in only knowing enough to be dangerous and not one bit more.  We're here to make sure your great grandchildren know it.  Forward we go to the day when humanity figures out exactly when and where it all went wrong.  My money is on the cancellation of The Game.

Now, on to business. 

A break from a 3 year long movie review series to declare that Donald Trump Wins Re-Election with Broad Sweeping Mandate for Second Term!

Or at least that's what the headlines could have been saying.  Now if you're thinking I'm right because of all of the massive amounts of vote fraud that occurred in November of 2020, this is not the post for you.  Until your crack squad of professional dipshits can do anything besides hold press conferences where they say all the things they won't say in court, yet still never present any evidence, consider yourself out of school here.  You’ve gotten used to trying everything in the court of public opinion and muddying the waters enough to either win or soil the prize to where it isn’t worth anything anymore. You’re as annoying as the lefties who say Putin is the only reason Trump won the 2016 election. Now that your man has to go to actual court court, he doesn’t have a fucking fart in a skillet. Take that shit back to the corner of the internet where your bubble is impenetrable.  Here in the halls of the Big Empty, like the courts, facts still matter.  In God We Trust, all others; bring data.  So unless you are the Almighty Himself, your "plausible theories about what could explain the outcome that you can't fathom is possible" hold not one fucking drop of water here.  There are plenty of other sites that will eat that garbage up, but this isn't one of them.

********

So, How'd we end up here in a movie review series? I've been working on the Best Documentary category, which I hope to finish soon.  My plan was to finish that up in September so that I could get to work on the Horror Category in October.  I think doing the Horror post was my plan for October of last year too now that I think of it.  Holy crap this is taking longer than I ever thought it would.  I'll finish this....I will.  I think I will.  No, I will.

Movies aren't on my mind much right now.  We are almost into month 9 of the Covid.  We just ended a very divisive election.  Every time we have one of those, we always say it was more divisive than any other previous election so saying that is somewhat stock.  But it was partly because, love him or hate him, there is no way that we can  have anything unifying where Donald Trump is involved.  He's not the cause, but rather the most glaring symptom of the rhetorical cancer that is now how government is chosen in the United States.  

As I sit here with two paragraphs written, I'm thinking to myself that I know this is going to be a long post, so I'll say what I think is the crux of the matter right at the top, and then go from there.  There are some, heck probably many many people, especially supporters of Trump that will disagree with me on this, but I truly believe there are two factors that had the greatest influence on the outcome of the election:

The Biopic Winner Is........

Well that last review was radiant eh?  Sorry.  I'll see myself out.

But first, an honorable mention and a winner.  Then I'll see myself out.

For honorable mention, I was very pleasantly surprised last December when I watched a movie called The Two Popes.  It had a limited theatrical release in November of 2019, but made a bigger splash on Netflix when it debuted there the following month.  I'm convinced that Anthony Hopkins can make a discussion about the scientific principles behind the speed that paint dries interesting and compelling to watch.  As someone who is not a born Catholic, the process that brought me to this movie was very organic.  I'm still not a Roman Catholic, but there was a time when I lived about 500 steps from one of the most vibrant church communities I've ever known.  It was a small Roman Catholic parish.  There was no marble.  No elaborate statues.  No paintings on the ceiling.  The frame was wooden, the siding was aluminum, the walls were plaster, and the heart was massive.  The church was rural, far away from urban centers.  It stood in a community where less than 500 people live, less than half of them practicing Catholics.  Yet the church was filled to its 200+ capacity every week.  People traveled from other towns where they had a Catholic church of their own to attend Mass here.  There were many reasons for this, but at the core, one of the most often cited reasons was the sense of community that people felt here that didn't exist at their larger more expensive and elaborate churches.

I grew up practicing my faith in protestant churches with aging membership that were trying to find a way to stop the children and grandchildren of their membership from leaving their home church.  Some searched desperately for answers.  Christian rock bands were started.  Youth groups were started.  Contemporary services were started.  Some of this succeeded.  Most of it didn't.  St. James Catholic Church did not have this problem.  Then in 2005, the Toledo Diocese decided to close dozens of churches due to a shortage of priests.  From my perspective, a shortage of priests was a temporary problem, a shortage of active membership was a potentially fatal one.  If I could see this, why couldn't the church leaders in Toledo see that?  At this time, Pope John Paul II passed away, and he was replaced with Pope Benedict who was even less sympathetic to my point of view.  My view that the Catholic Church was being led by an out of touch hierarchy that had lost vision was cemented at this point.  I stopped listening to church leadership and didn't grant them an ounce of credibility.  Our church family continued without formal recognition from the Toledo Diocese, and without my interest in what the hierarchy would say or do.

The Two Popes is the story of what happened in the most confidential parts of the hierarchy that I had been ignoring since 2005.  It is fascinating discussion, invigorating debate, and deep deep soul searching that suggest I was wrong, very wrong in my conclusion that the Catholic hierarchy lacks self awareness.  I'll post a preview, but I really do suggest setting aside some time to just watch and ponder what took place between Pope Benedict and his successor Pope Francis prior to their transition.

__________________

Now for the shining moment you've all been waiting way too long for...so long you forgot what you were waiting for.

I'm finally back to work to deliver a Biopic category!

I just noticed that I began this project nearly a year ago...April 5th 2019 to be exact.  And, it has been ~9 months since I told you I'd be back soon to cover the biopic category.  Since that time, we've seen Halloween, the season where I wanted to cover the Horror category, come and go.  We've given thanks, watched the Buckeyes crush the Wolverines (again), celebrated Christmas, watched me turn a year older, rang in the New Year, watched me rant about the people who make and enforce the rules in a game played by college students that I take too seriously, and gone into seclusion to avoid the spread of the novel Coronavirus.

You'd think that would be a lot of time to come up with material.  But you would be wrong.  I haven't thought much about my pet movie project.  It's been one thing after another.  But now, we all have a lot more time to tap into our creative side between hand washing, hydrating, remote conference calls, and figuring out how to acquire toilet paper and bread.

So, with that, I bring you my first Gen X Movie review of 2020.