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Associated Press
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Movie Review: In 'Heads of State,' a buddy comedy with statesmen
Say what you will about the Idris Elba-John Cena vehicle 'Heads of State,' but it's surely the first buddy comedy about the fraying bonds of NATO. The potential collapse of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plays a surprisingly pivotal role in this fitfully diverting, for-background-noise-only, straight-to-streaming movie. Elba plays the embattled British Prime Minister Sam Clarke, while Cena co-stars as the recently elected U.S. President Will Derringer, a former action star. 'Heads of State,' directed by Ilya Naishuller ('Nobody'), is mostly about their relationship, a tense and adversarial one challenged further when an assassination plot leaves them stranded together in Belarus. But that 'Heads of State,' which debuts Wednesday on Prime Video, is such a mild romp makes it all the more surprising to hear a line uttered like: 'If NATO falls, there's backstop against despots and dictators.'not It's a funny time to release a comedy set around international political disconnection and imperiled Western democracy. But if you were beginning to worry that 'Heads of State' is too timely, don't. Any nods to current events here serve more as reminders of how much 'Heads of State' — like most of Hollywood's output — is unengaged with anything resembling our political reality. You could argue that that's not necessarily a bad thing. You could also argue that the greater sin of 'Heads of State' is underusing Stephen Root. (He plays an expert working for the bad guys.) But the vaguest hints of real-world intrigue only cast a pale light on the movie's mostly lackluster comic chops and uninspired action sequences. The best thing going for 'Heads of State' is that the chemistry between Elba and Cena is solid. The 'Suicide Squad' co-stars trade barbs with a genial ease. Most of the time, those revolve around their characters' divergent histories — Clarke was a commando before becoming a politician — in debates like which one of them is 'gym strong' as opposed to 'strong strong.' That's one of the few decent gags in the script by Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec and Harrison Query. But one problem in 'Heads of State' goes beyond the high-concept set-up. The best buddy comedies — 'Midnight Run,' '48 Hrs.,' 'The Nice Guys' — are predicated on opposites thrown together. Elba and Cena have their obvious differences. (Cena's Derringer is exaggeratedly optimistic here, too.) But ultimately they're both beefy dudes in suits. As the MI6 agent Noel Bisset, Priyanka Chopra Jones gives the movie a kick. But her scenes are left to the beginning and end of the movie. In between, we're left to wonder where she went, how two political leaders would have such non-existent security and whether a few half-decent jokes are enough to forgive the movie's geopolitical delusions. 'Heads of State,' an Amazon MGM Studios release is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for sequences of strong violence/action, language and some smoking. Running time: 113 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Reconstruction review – teens re-enact crimes for state-driven pantomime in communist Romania
Lucian Pintilie's Romanian film from 1968 is a bizarre and wayward political satire that at first involves just a handful of people – and finally unveils a dreamlike crowd scene with hundreds of non-professionals swarming across the screen, their expressions of incomprehension and incredulity pressed into service for fiction. Yet the whole thing is stranger than fiction – more metaphorical, more metatextual than fiction – and, of course, taken from real life. Pintilie co-wrote the screenplay with Romanian author Horia Patrascu, based on Patrascu's novel about an extraordinary event that took place in the early 1960s. Two drunken, hapless youths were caught brawling at a riverside cafe and were made to re-enact the event in detail for a solemn instructional film produced by the communist party authorities to be shown in schools, offices and clubs as a terrible warning against alcohol and anti-social bourgeois delinquency. The two stars of this strange film are moreover tacitly expected to redeem their offence, to expunge their sins moment-by-moment, by recreating their lives in the service of state-sponsored morality. (The actual official film that inspired this, on which Patrascu worked as a crew member, presumably exists in an archive somewhere.) A bleary prosecutor (George Costantin) and careworn schoolteacher (Emil Botta) are tasked with overseeing this earnestly high-minded project, to be filmed at the very cafe where the original events took place. However, they are more concerned with their own problems: the prosecutor's marriage is crumbling and the schoolteacher has relapsed into alcoholic despair due to the death of his daughter. Scowling militiaman Dumitrescu (Ernest Maftei) represents conventional authority while the two offending teens are Vuica (George Mihaita) and Nicu (Vladimir Gaitan) who smirk and flinch with utter bewilderment at what is happening, as the director yells at them to hit each other in the face. They are moreover embarrassed to be having to do this for the amusement of a bikini-clad young woman (Ileana Popovici) who is hanging about, watching. The punishment-slash-redemption involved in this 'reconstruction' is a mixture of sophistication and crass official clumsiness. It is very heavy-handed, pedantic and intrusive for the state to humiliate two young people in this way, and such is the laxity and incompetence of the authorities that nothing gets done for hour after hour, despite the fact that the filming has to get finished before an expected crowd of football supporters shows up. The sweaty prosecutor is more interested in bathing his feet in the river, and even hints that this 'film' is in fact just voluntary, not compulsory. The two boys, larking about, manage to scare away a local woman's flock of geese; they must recover these creatures. Reconstruction demonstrates not just the inefficiency of the political apparatus, but that of movie-making itself, which always involves hanging around on location. Yet it is also an unsettling incident of surveillance, scrutiny, intimate control; an attempt to invade the consciousness of the wrongdoer. The re-enactment is not just for the public, but also to compel the culprits to look at what they have done, to confront them with it in detail. Pintilie's film is the exact opposite of BBC TV's Crimewatch, which reconstructs unsolved crimes to catch the criminals; this is to to further mortify the malefactors and anyone in the audience tempted to do something similar. Film is punishment; film is cruelty. Reconstruction is cousin to Powell's Peeping Tom and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange; this is the postwar communist enlightenment: not an assault upon or imprisonment of the defendant's body, but an incursion into his mind. Pintilie shows these state-sanctioned film-makers demand documentary realism, with grimly ironic and yet blackly comic results. Reconstruction is on Klassiki from 19 June.
Washington Post
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Eight-foot-tall ‘Dictator Approved' sculpture appears on National Mall
Remember the poop statue? The curly-swirly pile of doo that sat atop a replica of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-California) desk? The work of protest art placed on the National Mall last October in mock tribute to the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election? Well, the artists responsible for the political poo plop appear to have struck again. This time with a work called 'Dictator Approved,' an 8-foot-tall sculpture showing a gold-painted hand with a distinctive thumbs-up quashing the seafoam green crown of the Statute of Liberty. It sits at the same location on the Mall near Third Street NW as the poop statue did last fall. The artwork's creators intended 'Dictator Approved' as a rejoinder to the June 14 military parade and authoritarianism, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service. The parade, the creators wrote in the application, 'Will feature imagery similar to autocratic, oppressive regime, i.e. N. Korea, Russia, and China, marching through DC.' The purpose of the statue, they continued, is to call attention to 'the praising these types of oppressive leaders have given Donald Trump.' Plaques on the four sides of the artwork's base include quotes from world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin ('President Trump is a very bright and talented man.'), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ('The most respected, the most feared person is Donald Trump.'), former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro ('We do have a great deal of shared values. I admire President Trump.') and North Korea's Kim Jong Un ('Your Excellency.' A 'special' relationship. 'The extraordinary courage of President Trump.'). 'If these Democrat activists were living in a dictatorship, their eye-sore of a sculpture wouldn't be sitting on the National Mall right now,' Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, wrote in an emailed statement. 'In the United States of America you have the freedom to display your so-called 'art,' no matter how ugly it is.' Mary Harris is listed as the applicant for the permit but no contact information for her was provided. The permit allows the statue to be in place from 7 a.m. June 16 until 5 p.m. June 22. The 'Dictator Approved' statue is very similar in style and materials to the poop statue and several protest artworks placed in the District, Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon, last fall. However, no individual or group has publicly claimed responsibility for those pieces. An unidentified caller and emailer told a Washington Post reporter last year that he was part of the group that worked on the sculptures and provided information about them that only someone who had installed the projects would know, such as when the statues would appear. His identity remains a mystery. On Wednesday he replied to a Washington Post email asking if he was involved with the new statue. 'I have heard about it but not me,' he wrote. He did not respond to additional questions or a request to meet in an Arlington parking garage. Some of the tourists and locals who stopped by the statue between downpours Wednesday afternoon expressed surprise that it was allowed to be placed where it was. And they expressed reservations about weighing in on it publicly. 'I'm amazed that whoever dreamt this up could put this here,' said Kuresa, an 80-year-old from Australia who declined to give his last name because he said as an international visitor he didn't feel comfortable expressing his views. 'It reminds me of 'Animal Farm.'' District resident and retired federal employee Yvette Hatfield stopped by with her dog Max, wearing an adorable raincoat and rain hat, to get a selfie of both of them in front of the statue. Asked why she wanted a photo, Hatfield laughed. 'Because of my political views and that's all I'm going to say.' 'I actually love it,' said another District resident. He declined to give his name because he said his parents and grandparents often told him 'Fools' names, like their faces, are always seen in public places.' He wished the reporter good luck with the story. Francesca Carlo, 20, and Abigail Martin, 21, visiting from Cleveland, happened on the statue just before it started to pour. 'At first I was confused,' Martin said, 'but then I figured it out. I think it's beautiful.' Carlo agreed. She thought the quotes on the plaques could send a message. 'If all these authoritarian politicians approve of our president then maybe people will see a pattern recognition and see where democracy is headed,' she said.
Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Stewart Lee will not perform in US over fears Trump joke would lead to prison
Stewart Lee has claimed he will not perform in Donald Trump's America because he fears being locked up for his jokes. The comedian said he had recently been offered the chance to perform for a week in a Chicago comedy club, but turned it down. He told Krishnan Guru-Murthy's podcast, Ways to Change the World: 'I wouldn't work in the States at the moment. I'd worry about them going through my jokes and ending up spending two days locked up without my heart medication. I just would worry about it.' In his 2018 stand-up show, Stewart made several jokes criticising Trump. 'Because I've got a Trump bit [in the routine] I have to check at half time every night that he's not been assassinated or fallen into a barrel of porn actresses or something,' he told an audience in Southend. 'I don't know if you can make massive generalisations about Americans who voted for Trump. Because Americans voted for Trump for all sorts of different reasons. And it wasn't just racists who voted for Trump. C---- did as well.' He also said: 'Not all Americans that voted for Trump wanted to see America immediately descend into being an unaccountable single party state exploiting people's worst prejudices to maintain power indefinitely. Some Americans just wanted to be allowed to wear their Ku Klux Klan outfits to church.' Jokes on his latest routine are currently unknown, but Lee claimed the US is embracing fascism. 'I don't see a way out of where we're going. Let's call it what it is. People are pussyfooting around this idea. People are being deported, wrongly, from the United States to an El Savador jail without due process. What's that? 'Trump is doing deals for resources with dictators. It absolutely is that and we have to call it that, and we have to act in the way that we should have done more quickly in the Thirties,' he said. In a wide-ranging discussion about comedy, Lee said people may be surprised to learn that the audience at his shows is not entirely made up of Guardian-reading liberals. 'They're not exactly who you think they are,' he said. 'There's a lot of people that would fit the Guardian reader stereotype, but when I go to Southend or Carlisle or Derby there simply aren't that many people like that living there. 'People come out[to his shows] that like comedy. They don't have to agree with you. The assumption is everyone goes to laugh at things they agree with, and while I am happy to provide crumbs of comfort towards an ideologically disenfranchised liberal middle class who've been made to leave Europe and whatever, I also like the fact that people come who don't agree with you but like the skill of the humour.'
