19% Critics, 98% Audience
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New movie? We have some good movie critics on here. Anybody seen it?
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When we were in Hollywood the week before last part of Hollywood boulevard was closed to foot traffic for a premier of this movie. There were people waiting to get a glimpse of the Hollywood types going in. I saw a couple guys arrive in tuxes, but didn’t recognize them.
I’ll see the movie at some point.
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On Friday, I did something I hadn’t done since before COVID-19, I went and saw a movie premiere on the day it opened in an actual movie theater. With my childhood friend Susan, whom I’ve known for more than five decades—a dyed-in-the-wool conservative just like me—we went and saw Reagan. And unlike most critics on Rotten Tomatoes who rated it at 18% and elsewhere, we loved it along with a virtually unprecedented 98% of Rotten Tomato viewers.
Right up front, I can say that Reagan is not without flaws. The cinematography in much of the movie is quite dark, especially in the flashback scenes at the start of the film. Also, at 2 hours and 15 minutes, the film is long. While a lot of footage was likely left on the cutting room floor, getting Reagan down to two hours would likely help. When Reagan comes to streaming, I’ll watch it again.
With that out of the way, I will say that Dennis Quaid’s performance as Ronald Reagan is simply outstanding. It’s easily his best work since The Big Easy, one of my all-time favorite movies, a movie I like to say is a guilty pleasure (with equally great chemistry with co-star Ellen Barkin). When Susan and I entered the 530 PM showing, people exiting from the earlier 3 PM showing had tears in their eyes, saying to us that Reagan would pull on our emotions, which it did. Again, and to not spoil it for you, if I were writing the screenplay, the ending is exactly how I would have written it. It generated applause from everyone in the theater.
I could not find fault with any of the performances. Jon Voight as the ex-KGB operative who followed Reagan for decades and narrates the story, and especially Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan, were perfect. We both thought there was great on-screen chemistry between Quaid and Miller.
Remember that during Reagan’s presidency, Nancy was often vilified. Even four decades ago, the mainstream media showed their bias as they have done with every Republican First Lady since then, save for Laura Bush. This while idolizing narcissists like Michelle Obama and especially, until a month ago, “Dr.” Jill Biden. As I like to say, “It is what it is.”
This is what I call a small, big movie. Small in that it’s not told epically. In some ways, the Ron-Nancy love story is intimate. But it’s a big movie in that it tells the story with an all-star (Quaid, Miller, Voight, and many others) cast. The production was interrupted by the COVID lockdowns, so it took about five years from when Quaid was first cast as Ronald Reagan (he also portrayed Bill Clinton earlier in his career) to its debut last Friday.
But as I mentioned earlier, Reagan has been savaged by the critics, and the reviews fall along ideological lines. Most egregious, of course, was at the New York Times. There, Glenn Kenny couldn’t help himself. Amazingly, the bias at the New York Times permeates everything it touches, going beyond its news coverage to its best-selling books list to even its movie reviews. Kenny closed his review by saying, “It all makes for a plodding film, more curious than compelling.”
Tell that to the viewers who loved it, you jackass. You simply can’t help yourself.
(I would like to contrast how the critics loved Oppenheimer. Of course, the New York Times fell all over itself in praising Oppenheimer, a far less satisfying film, saying “Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb.”
Staggering film? Again, when the story fits its agenda, it gets a gushing review.
As I said earlier, the New York Times simply can’t help itself.
As biopics, both films have their flaws, especially in length. All films do. But as entertainment as well as telling a historic story, Oppenheimer is much more flawed than Reagan.)
As I sorted through other reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, especially the less-than-positive ones, one word kept appearing: hagiographic. Even though I have a better-than-average command of the English language and volcabulary, I had never used or even seen that word. So I went online and looked it up. The definition is “excessively flattering.” It’s as if reviewers got their reviewers’ talking points directly from the DNC. The reviews of Reagan are just like any other political commentary, like anything connected in the mainstream media to “Orange Man Bad.” Trump’s recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery on the third anniversary of Abbey Gate at the invitation of the next-of-kin of the fallen 13 is a perfect example.
This hagiography nonsense starts with Ty Burr at the Washington Post. “The faithful for whom ‘Reagan’ was made aren’t likely to see that it’s a hagiography as rosy and shallow as anything in a Kremlin May Day parade. As pop-culture propaganda—popaganda, if you will—the movie’s strictly for true believers. As history, it’s worthless.”
It’s as if Burr is channeling his inner Hillary Clinton, viewing anyone who enjoyed Reagan as deplorable.
It continues with Joshua Peinado at In Review Online, who said, “It’s one thing to go the route of hagiography and never mention the notable failures of Reagan and his presidency…but Reagan makes the stranger choice to give voice to the issues of his conservatism and then, promptly, forget all about them.”
Christopher Lloyd writing for The Film Yap, giving the film two out of five stars says, “The Gipper gets a goober of a biopic—schmaltzy, hagiographic, and ham-handed—though Dennis Quaid nails the portrait of his self-effacing charm hiding a steely resolve.”
I could go on and on, but what’s the point?
But the bottom line is that a couple that will spend $40 and up (the cost of the tickets plus a bucket of popcorn and two overpriced sodas) for a date night out will love Reagan.
Overall, I’m torn between giving it four or five stars out of five, so I’ll give it a 4.5. It’s an emotional film in many ways. For those of us who came of age during the Cold War and watched the Soviet Union disintegrate in the early 1990s, you will find Reagan an enjoyable way to spend 2 hours and 15 minutes. It’s a satisfying, emotional film. To me, it’s a far superior film (as entertainment) to the Oscar-honored but plodding Oppenheimer. Being a history person, I really wanted to like Oppenheimer but felt the earlier Fat Man and Little Boy with Paul Newman told the development of the atom bomb story far better.
So, if you are looking for something to fill your time on the last day of the long Labor Day weekend, I can recommend Reagan without reservation.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/02/reagan-the-movie-how-the-mainstream-media-cant-help-itself/
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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On Friday, I did something I hadn’t done since before COVID-19, I went and saw a movie premiere on the day it opened in an actual movie theater. With my childhood friend Susan, whom I’ve known for more than five decades—a dyed-in-the-wool conservative just like me—we went and saw Reagan. And unlike most critics on Rotten Tomatoes who rated it at 18% and elsewhere, we loved it along with a virtually unprecedented 98% of Rotten Tomato viewers.
Right up front, I can say that Reagan is not without flaws. The cinematography in much of the movie is quite dark, especially in the flashback scenes at the start of the film. Also, at 2 hours and 15 minutes, the film is long. While a lot of footage was likely left on the cutting room floor, getting Reagan down to two hours would likely help. When Reagan comes to streaming, I’ll watch it again.
With that out of the way, I will say that Dennis Quaid’s performance as Ronald Reagan is simply outstanding. It’s easily his best work since The Big Easy, one of my all-time favorite movies, a movie I like to say is a guilty pleasure (with equally great chemistry with co-star Ellen Barkin). When Susan and I entered the 530 PM showing, people exiting from the earlier 3 PM showing had tears in their eyes, saying to us that Reagan would pull on our emotions, which it did. Again, and to not spoil it for you, if I were writing the screenplay, the ending is exactly how I would have written it. It generated applause from everyone in the theater.
I could not find fault with any of the performances. Jon Voight as the ex-KGB operative who followed Reagan for decades and narrates the story, and especially Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan, were perfect. We both thought there was great on-screen chemistry between Quaid and Miller.
Remember that during Reagan’s presidency, Nancy was often vilified. Even four decades ago, the mainstream media showed their bias as they have done with every Republican First Lady since then, save for Laura Bush. This while idolizing narcissists like Michelle Obama and especially, until a month ago, “Dr.” Jill Biden. As I like to say, “It is what it is.”
This is what I call a small, big movie. Small in that it’s not told epically. In some ways, the Ron-Nancy love story is intimate. But it’s a big movie in that it tells the story with an all-star (Quaid, Miller, Voight, and many others) cast. The production was interrupted by the COVID lockdowns, so it took about five years from when Quaid was first cast as Ronald Reagan (he also portrayed Bill Clinton earlier in his career) to its debut last Friday.
But as I mentioned earlier, Reagan has been savaged by the critics, and the reviews fall along ideological lines. Most egregious, of course, was at the New York Times. There, Glenn Kenny couldn’t help himself. Amazingly, the bias at the New York Times permeates everything it touches, going beyond its news coverage to its best-selling books list to even its movie reviews. Kenny closed his review by saying, “It all makes for a plodding film, more curious than compelling.”
Tell that to the viewers who loved it, you jackass. You simply can’t help yourself.
(I would like to contrast how the critics loved Oppenheimer. Of course, the New York Times fell all over itself in praising Oppenheimer, a far less satisfying film, saying “Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb.”
Staggering film? Again, when the story fits its agenda, it gets a gushing review.
As I said earlier, the New York Times simply can’t help itself.
As biopics, both films have their flaws, especially in length. All films do. But as entertainment as well as telling a historic story, Oppenheimer is much more flawed than Reagan.)
As I sorted through other reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, especially the less-than-positive ones, one word kept appearing: hagiographic. Even though I have a better-than-average command of the English language and volcabulary, I had never used or even seen that word. So I went online and looked it up. The definition is “excessively flattering.” It’s as if reviewers got their reviewers’ talking points directly from the DNC. The reviews of Reagan are just like any other political commentary, like anything connected in the mainstream media to “Orange Man Bad.” Trump’s recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery on the third anniversary of Abbey Gate at the invitation of the next-of-kin of the fallen 13 is a perfect example.
This hagiography nonsense starts with Ty Burr at the Washington Post. “The faithful for whom ‘Reagan’ was made aren’t likely to see that it’s a hagiography as rosy and shallow as anything in a Kremlin May Day parade. As pop-culture propaganda—popaganda, if you will—the movie’s strictly for true believers. As history, it’s worthless.”
It’s as if Burr is channeling his inner Hillary Clinton, viewing anyone who enjoyed Reagan as deplorable.
It continues with Joshua Peinado at In Review Online, who said, “It’s one thing to go the route of hagiography and never mention the notable failures of Reagan and his presidency…but Reagan makes the stranger choice to give voice to the issues of his conservatism and then, promptly, forget all about them.”
Christopher Lloyd writing for The Film Yap, giving the film two out of five stars says, “The Gipper gets a goober of a biopic—schmaltzy, hagiographic, and ham-handed—though Dennis Quaid nails the portrait of his self-effacing charm hiding a steely resolve.”
I could go on and on, but what’s the point?
But the bottom line is that a couple that will spend $40 and up (the cost of the tickets plus a bucket of popcorn and two overpriced sodas) for a date night out will love Reagan.
Overall, I’m torn between giving it four or five stars out of five, so I’ll give it a 4.5. It’s an emotional film in many ways. For those of us who came of age during the Cold War and watched the Soviet Union disintegrate in the early 1990s, you will find Reagan an enjoyable way to spend 2 hours and 15 minutes. It’s a satisfying, emotional film. To me, it’s a far superior film (as entertainment) to the Oscar-honored but plodding Oppenheimer. Being a history person, I really wanted to like Oppenheimer but felt the earlier Fat Man and Little Boy with Paul Newman told the development of the atom bomb story far better.
So, if you are looking for something to fill your time on the last day of the long Labor Day weekend, I can recommend Reagan without reservation.
https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/02/reagan-the-movie-how-the-mainstream-media-cant-help-itself/
@Jolly said in 19% Critics, 98% Audience:
Even though I have a better-than-average command of the English language and volcabulary
I love it when that happens.
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The boudoir scene with Barkin and Quaid in The Big Easy is likely the hottest piece of cinema I’ve ever seen.
We will see Reagan. .
@Mik said in 19% Critics, 98% Audience:
The boudoir scene with Barkin and Quaid in The Big Easy is likely the hottest piece of cinema I’ve ever seen.
We will see Reagan. .
I hope for your sake that he doesn't repeat it with Nancy.
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Funny I used ‘hagiography’ once at the old site, and it was in reference to Paul Kengor who wrote 7-10 hagiographies of Reagan, depending on how you count.
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I still have a link and the search bar works.
I’m talking about before we moved in 2020. Not the PW coffee room.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/the_new_coffee_room/the-new-coffee-room-f5/
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I figured I’d watch this on a plane.
Good movie, is it hagiographic? Sure. Even the soviets fawn over him.
But entertaining. And some good reminders of things from the 80s I haven’t thought much about in years.
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I figured I’d watch this on a plane.
Good movie, is it hagiographic? Sure. Even the soviets fawn over him.
But entertaining. And some good reminders of things from the 80s I haven’t thought much about in years.
@jon-nyc said in 19% Critics, 98% Audience:
I figured I’d watch this on a plane.
Good movie, is it hagiographic? Sure. Even the soviets fawn over him.
But entertaining. And some good reminders of things from the 80s I haven’t thought much about in years.
What did you think of Quaid's performance?
