KeyLargo2019 Reviews

Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood (2019)

Terribly Disappointing Documentary

[8 April 2023]

The documentary's research was incredibly shallow, with no focus. Many, many films not even discussed here at the expense of some high-school history lesson. The documentary wanders off the main topic of Hollywood's treatment of Asians. The commentary by Nancy Wang Yuen and Joseph McBride is cursory, and Yuen's comments are totally inaccurate. She's more interested in making sound bites than a real analysis.

The historical perspective is also sloppy, especially the discussion of the Production Code and its issue of miscegenation. That only applied to Black/White relations, but for some reason Yuen says it includes Asian/White relations which it does not. Looks like she twists the "facts" to support her own agenda. The documentary closes with Alan Parker's Come See the Paradise in 1990 perhaps because Japanese actress Tamlyn Tomita was available.

Overall, a mess. Look elsewhere.

The Cremator (1969)

Great Story but Misunderstood

[8 April 2023]

Many reviews seem to miss the complicated layers of Czech culture, and hence view The Cremator only through western lens.

The politics and historical background of this film play heavily into the story. The director Juraj Herz had been a prisoner in a concentration camp and thankfully survived the Holocaust and went on to make movies. So the film was about the Nazi occupation made by a Jewish director who survived the Holocaust and later filmed during Czechoslovakia's oppressive communist regime (following the Prague Spring). Quite a complicated layer for Americans to swallow. The Czech people are a cynical bunch and understandably trust no type of government. Their culture and worldview (much like that of eastern Europe) remain a mystery to most Americans.

With that, he film was neither horrific nor depressing. It was a wicked comedy-Czech style, if you will. The cinematography was heavily stylized, almost Kafkaesque, and revealed a theatrical satire with odd moments of humor. The idea that this ordinary man with a mundane job could morph into a führer-like character illustrates perfectly the Czech skepticism toward humanity. The movie exposes the stupidity of people and politics, and its fatalistic outlook results in a clever tragicomedy.

Theaters of War (2022)

Documentary and Scholars Preach Moral Idealism

[8 October 2022]

This documentary is as propagandistic as the military it criticizes. It moans about the DOD's content-based intervention or "censorship," but doesn't recognize that Hollywood's filmmakers are the people who should be registering their objections. The documentary interviews an artist here and there like Oliver Stone, but where is the strong outcry from those directors/producers who supposedly oppose any form of government "censorship" of their work? Surely if they refuse any assistance by the DOD, then this whole operation would be shut down.

So, the documentary says filmmakers continue to cooperate because they want "realism" (whatever that means) and box-office sales. Then Hollywood is just as culpable as the federal government. The DOD's program cannot function without Hollywood's cooperation.

Surely other federal and state agencies perform the same function with Hollywood. Filmmakers have long cooperated with the CIA, FBI, NYPD, and even the US Forest Service and National Park Service. Perhaps scholars should complain about their intervention as well.

These scholars are naive to think there's any real solution to this (other than the obvious that if they are offended by content-based censorship, tell Hollywood to not enlist the DOD's assistance). But academics pretend to protect our own best interests. They want Hollywood to place some kind of a "notice" in the front credits to alert audiences that the DOD has intervened so viewers won't be "duped" into thinking they're getting a truthful depiction of the military. Oh, come on. Most Americans know that movies are an illusion and watch them to be entertained. Americans don't really care about what might be propaganda. They want to see big spectacle effects and military hardware. Nothing these academics complain about will ever change that.