Cinemaga Verities
Every important cultural moment, no matter how infamous, should be commemorated by its own film festival. As far as I know, no one has managed to put together a collection of films that encapsulate the Trump years. Maybe there has been a Trump Film Festival and I missed it? Or blocked it out? (Just to be clear, it would be just fine with me if it turned out to be a retrospective.) I have my list of what films should be part of this shamefest. I am sure a real cinephile could come up with more, but to start with:
All the President’s Men: Someone has to teach the children that there was a time when presidents were expected to follow the law. Should also be shown remedially in every newsroom that does a story explaining how Donald Trump did something presidential.
High Noon: This should be playing on a 24-hour continuous loop in the Senate cloakroom at least until the impeachment trial.
Triumph of the Will: I have never seen this movie, but my understanding is that anyone who has attended a Trump rally would feel right at home, and anyone who hasn’t no longer needs to bother once they have seen the original.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 scary version): By definition pod people would not recognize metaphors, but at least people who are not pod people would know to be scared of the ones who are.
Casablanca: (1) Nazis are bad. Casablanca is not the only movie to make this simple point, but it makes it well. (2) Hero Rick and, perhaps even more importantly, corrupt police Captain Renault move from acquiescing in an evil regime to resisting it. (3) Not to be flippant, but there is always a remote possibility that some might think twice about their mindless demonization of asylum-seekers if they watched a movie made with real refugees.
Trading Places: Acknowledge the uncanny resemblance of the Duke brothers to the Koch brothers and Trading Places becomes an exceptionally prescient and powerful political allegory, particularly when Dan Aykroyd’s Ivy League trader discovers that he is in fact as powerless as Eddie Murphy’s panhandler.
Blazing Saddles: Included mostly because the Trump Administration’s recruitment policy for both judges and cabinet positions is clearly stolen directly from villain Hedley Lamarr’s recruitment policy for the army to destroy Rock Ridge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km7WD8wkb1c). Mel Brooks should totally sue. The last few years have shown that we may not want to see Blazing Saddles II, the story of what happens to the newly-integrated Rock Ridge after Obama and Biden ride into the sunset (talk about reading too much into a movie).
Gaslight: It is so much easier to explain what gaslighting is if people have seen the movie.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962 version): Brainwashing is bad. Politicians secretly working for hostile countries are bad. Is that so hard to remember?
Julius Caesar: The most powerful leaders of the Senate get together and actually decide to do something about the power-hungry tyrant destroying the Republic. If only they’d had a Constitutional process for legally and nonviolently removing a power-hungry tyrant this might have had a happy ending.
Those Star Wars movies (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith) where republic falls and empire takes over. No one’s favorite part of the saga, and awfully convoluted, but reminding Star Wars fans that the fall of republics is a bad thing reaches a lot of people.
Pinocchio: This movie takes place in an alternate universe in which there are swift and certain negative consequences for telling lies. Also, bad things happen when a wooden puppet tries to pass himself off as a real boy.
From Russia With Love and Goldfinger : In the first half of this double feature, information provided by Russian intelligence unmasks Deep State agent James Bond as the author of a dossier of salacious allegations against the President of the United States, which Russia states conclusively are false. In the second feature, all the gold in Fort Knox is transferred to the President’s resort property for safekeeping. If you doubt that this summary accurately reflects the plots of these movies, we are sorry to inform you that you are mistaken. If you continue to deny that the movies have been accurately summarized, be prepared to be questioned relentlessly by Justice Department investigators about your corrupt involvement in the Deep State.
