I’m not a professional film critic.
But lest you are tempted to disregard the following thoughts, I do know a thing or two about movies. For example, I know that Christopher Walken and Denzel Washington are worth watching in pretty much every movie they are in, and that Clint Eastwood hasn’t made a bad movie since that goofy orangutang one a million years ago. (And even that one had a few moments.)
I know that Quentin Tarantino is super weird but talented, and he’s got the best batting average after Eastwood.
I know that the first two Godfathers, No Country for Old Men, Unforgiven, and Open Range are five of the best 20 movies ever made. And that True Romance, Groundhog Day and Field of Dreams are the most overlooked sleepers that should also be on that list.
In fact, if you haven’t seen True Romance, correct that this weekend. Tarantino wrote it, and Tony Scott directed. Brad Pitt’s bit part as a stoner is pitch perfect, and an unknown James Gandolfini as a low-level hitman trying to explain what it’s like to kill people is mesmerizing. And the scene in which Walken interrogates Dennis Hopper is a classic.
Walken explains the Sicilians’ status as world-class liars, and then – over a delicate underlayment of an opera piece called “The Flower Duet” – Hopper counters with a disquisition on the racial lineage of Sicilians intended to enrage his interrogator. And it works. Walken’s bemused, slow-burn reaction is beautiful.
Anyway, I say all that as a preface to a movie review. Even though I’m not a film critic.
Sidebar: If you’ve been reading my columns lately – and if not, what the hell, man? Unless you’re reading ONLY the Bible, Victor Davis Hansen, CO himself and Christopher Silber, what’s your excuse? – you may remember that in addition to not being a film critic, I am also not a map-ologist, an ocelot-ologist, or a sex-change-ologist.
And yet, I’ve offered you what I humbly think are some worthwhile musings on maps, ocelots and sex changes. (I’ve got range, people.) So I hope you’ll also bear with me when I tell you that I’m reviewing Snow White. Even though, technically, I haven’t seen it.
But I don’t need to. Because I’m just that good at this, and because I’ve watched the coverage of this movie as it’s made his tortuous way to the screen. I know the original fairy tale, and the 1937 classic version. And I know that what makes fairy tales find new audiences over centuries is that they contain some eternal truths.
And I know that Disney made a bad mistake when they hired a hateful little bundle of box office poison named Rachel Ziegler as their leading lady. She’s a familiar modern type – a social justice warrior who wildly over-estimates her own intelligence and insight – and she has arrogantly assured us that THIS Snow White is not going to be like that beloved old one, with the Prince and true love and all that patriarchal crap.
Nope, her Snow White is going to be a feminist girl boss who needs a prince like a fish needs a bicycle, in a story that’s all about her discovering her own power and awesomeness!
In other words, it won’t be like the original story with the staying power to last centuries. It’s going to be a faddish, modernized version, without the staying power to last through an opening weekend. (Belated spoiler alert!) (Also: Unexpectedly!)
In addition to the audience-alienating leftist drivel that’s been coming out of Ziegler’s pie hole, her casting presents two other significant obstacles:
1. The Evil Queen, who famously asks the magic mirror who is the fairest one of all, is played by the actress affectionately known as Triple-G: Gal “giggity” Gadot. And I can buy a lot of conceits in a fairy tale movie, including musical dwarves and magic spells and talking woodland creatures.
But you cannot ask the audience to suspend their disbelief when Gadot asks a magic mirror who’s hotter, and that apparently crystal-meth-snorting mirror says snotty little Rachel Ziegler!
2. And call me racist if you must, but I’m going to say it: Ziegler is not white! Normally, who cares? But when she’s playing a character whose very name – and the title of the story! – requires that she be as white as snow?
Remember how surprised you were when Disney announced that the titular role in the first Black Panther film was going to be played by Benedict Cumberbatch? Or when George C. Scott got to play Patton only after Dikembe Mutombo had to back out of the role when the Houston Rockets made the NBA playoffs? Or when the lead in the Andre the Giant biopic went to Peter Dinklage?
Of course you don’t. Because those are all ridiculous ideas. And yet Disney expects their audience to accept that the chick they’re pretty sure was the runner-up in a “Miss Colombia Trump-Hater of 2023” pageant is Snow freakin’ White? Not smart.
Speaking of Peter Dinklage, I hope everybody in the dwarf community will punch him in the face the next time they see him.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m no DODVE. (Dwarf-on-dwarf violence excuser. Duh.) But that Dinklage really rubs me the wrong way. And about halfway up my calf.
HA!
I like to live by the Golden (thimble) Rule. “Treat others like you would want to be treated, if they and you were both dwarves.”
And if I were a dwarf actor, I’d be furious with Dinklage. Because he spouted off, as Snow White was in pre-production, about how offensive he found it that Disney was going to cast little people as the seven dwarves.
Saith the triggered little derringer, “They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ … You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that [f-ing] backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.”
First off, Pete, it’s more of a soap dish than a soap box you’ve got there.
Second, you’re the super-rare little person who’s had a successful acting career, and you’re standing tall (snicker) on that pile of Game of Thrones money. But there are little-people actors who are struggling to find work, and you might have noticed that there aren’t a ton of acting jobs for them.
There are a few recurring elf roles – Keebler and Christmas – and a leprechaun or two around St. Patty’s Day, but beyond that? Do you think Hollywood studios are fighting over the rights to a forthcoming Robert Reich biopic? And if somebody shows an interest and the money is right, Tom Cruise will probably snag that role.
So along comes Snow White – the first movie since the Wizard of Oz to have a bunch of roles for little people – and Sir Dinklage has to put on his tiny little cape of wokeness and shame Disney for trying to cast dwarves as dwarves. (The nerve!)
And spineless, hapless Disney caves, and has their sweat shop full of animators create an uncanny-valley’s worth of CGI dwarves. And boom! Back to the unemployment line for little people actors. And what are they going to do, protest, or go on strike?
Good luck getting those picket signs noticed, as you wave them around at waist height!
And in case you thought I’d forgotten…
…let me give a rare shout-out to Liz Warren. Because that delusional pretend-ian could definitely play a convincing Snow White.
#wemustneverstopmockingher
So skip Snow White, and watch True Romance, and you can thank me later.
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 