We live in times when some take delight in exacting moral leverage over others by judging yesterday’s actions against today’s standards. Those of us who aren’t as self-certain in matters of virtue can ponder films like “Chappaquiddick,” the 2018 retelling of the 1969 car accident that killed a young lady and altered Ted Kennedy’s life. It’s fascinatingly ambiguous and will get you thinking – if you’re someone still inclined to do that. As the Kennedy machine tries to save his political career, we’re reminded that Ted isn’t the victim, the girl is. But are we really talking about the car wreck?
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On Halloween, I watched the creepy (not scary, creepy, and by creepy I mean ubercreepy) “Transcendence” (2014), a cinematic treatise on the moral struggle behind man’s quest to create artificial intelligence, starring Johnny Depp. (Side note: You know how pissed you get when tech support asks you if you’ve turned the machine off and turned it back on? OK, well, if your balky machine is designed to create an AI program capable of self-awareness and emotion while also scarily regenerating tissue, reanimating the dead and taking over the voices of others, that on/off thing actually works.) Like I said, ubercreepy.
There are creative people, and then there are Hollywood People. They, too, are creative, but are so manifestly, psychopathically needy that it drives them to seek attention and adulation in ways others cannot comprehend. Under proper supervision, Hollywood People can make award-winning movies that everyone loves. Left to their own devices, they make movies like “Peep World” (2011), whose only redeeming qualities are its brevity and an abundance of attractive redhead supporting actresses. It’s about a dysfunctional Jewish family. One of them wrote a popular novel based on the family’s dysfunctions. There’s lots of stylishly filmed, self-absorbed kvetching. The end.
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