[Click here for a guide to Booze Revooze and the rating system used]
From the juiced-box and the soundtrack: Ludovico Einaudi – Fly
Ramblings: Just Edgar
Final Proof: 3 Shots
You know how you get drunk in high school? Your best friend steals a fifth of Southern Comfort from under his step brother’s bed and brings it to school in his back pack so you start sharing swigs of it between classes until lunch time when you really hit it hard so by last period you’re pretty well fucked up and find yourself in history class with the kind of teacher that tries to make history exciting by wearing costumes and talking with funny voices but when you get right down to it, history will always be history and history is bunk especially when you’re fucked up so all you do is nap in back of the class and wake up when the final bell rings. That was the kind of class J. Edgar had.
“I drink the Fifth.”
Mrs Demeanor and i saw this a week ago (it came out super late in Yeaman) and we both fell asleep in it. i just want to get that out there in the open right off the bat.
J. Edgar is a really well-made movie and the actors are super good actors (most of the time) and the make up is killer (for many people) and the directing is spot on but beneath all of that there’s a lot of “Who Cares”? Basically, Eastwood decided to make a reenactment of contemporary American History, using J. Edgar Hoover as a theme. Here’s all the lessons Eastwood will teach you:
- Bolshevik bombings in the US
- Lindbergh baby kidnapping
- Martin Luther King and his Nobel Prize
- Watergate references
The Famous Conan Arrest Scandal
Leonardo DiCaprio is Hoover and i’m getting better about not hating Leo for being inordinately good looking and just as talented. It’s either old age or sobriety, but i made the same concession stand on Brad Pitt. Comes a time i just have to accept that there are people who get a lot more better stuff than me for absolutely no reason other than they were born that way. And worked a lot harder and took more chances and made more sacrifices. Life is so unfair.
i knew Di-Crapio (what? i said i accepted him, not that i was gonna grow up) was a good actor because he spoke in a funny accent and that’s always the sign of a good actor. Except for maybe Jeffrey Donovan who did a strange job portraying Robert Kennedy. Either he over-acted or was over-directed, but it seems Donovan plays his A-game for Burn Notice on TV. Which is cool because i like that show better than this movie anyway.
Robert Kennedy Gets Assassinated Again
Speaking of overdoing it, Armie Hammer (who i exposéed like a madman in the Booze Revooze of The Social Network) is a good actor but got the short end of the lipstick on makeup because everyone else turned out realistic looking as an old person except for him. He just looked like he was wearing one of those rubber Mission Impossible masks.
The other thing i wondered about before going in–OK, the only thing i really cared about before going in–was where Clint would come off on the Trannie issue. Was Hoover a cross dresser? Interestingly enough, Clint shows Hoover wearing his mother’s clothes once, even though the research i did on the internets tends to poo poo the concept. Clint also says, and this i didn’t know, that Hoover liked to hoover guys penises. With his mouth. Or at least he was a gay who kept his gay under lacy wraps. The internets backs him up on this, but i find it interesting that Dirty Harry made a movie about how Hoover’s lifelong gay love affair. Maybe that’s the angle Eastwood was hoping would pull people into the theaters.
“I would look so much hotter in something with more lace.”
Why not, but really the question is, “Why?” because, instead of us getting all into the character and caring about him and shit, it’s like flipping through chapter after chapter of a history text and only looking at the pictures. Make me love him, make me hate him, make me mock him, make me feel sorry for him but for christ’s sake make me feel something instead of numbing my brain with your Clint film making that is, technically, perfect. If only i felt as good as it looked.
“My secrets are all…Classified!”
Before i go any further, i’m going to card Sadie Calvano who played J Edgar’s apparently mute niece because she doesn’t say one word in the movie. Sadie’s only 15 and thus too young to hang with the big kids…nothing age inappropriate going on in the Bar None.
Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)
Sex:1 Shot
You might want to bump it up another shot or two if you’re gay, ’cause there’s lots of gayness going on here, even if nothing is ever consummated. OK, that’s not entirely true. There’s one intense sex scene when one wrinkly octogenarian kisses another octogenarian’s forehead. (No tongue.)
“That’s one sexy ass forehead you got there, angel butt.”
For the rest of the sex, well, there are some sexy women in it but they aren’t sexy in it. The female lead is Naomi Watts (43) who is vastly undersexy in this but that’s not so bad because she’s a talented actress and it’s always nice to see a true artist apply her Craft (i picked that shit up from Actor’s Studio, yo). Anyways, here’s what’s Watts.
Click on the Shot for the Wallpaper
The other funny thing (and i’m laughing all the way to the sperm bank) is that apparently Naomi accepts to pose for pictures if and only if she’s wearing something see through. Go ahead and don’t believe me, but scroll all the way down to my drawers and you’ll see how transparent i’m being with you.
There’s also a quick appearance by one of my all time favorite crushes who’ve i’ve been crushing on for decades, Lea Thompson (50). God, she’s aged so much better than i have. Here’s some proof of that.
Click on the Shot for the Wallpaper
OK, there are some more recent shots of her than that in my drawers and you’ll see just how right i can be.
Both of the Silken Butterflies were in the same scene as Lea Thompson in nightclub at J Edgar’s table. Lea Thompson played Lela Rogers, Ginger Rogers’ mother. And who played Ginger Rogers? 17-year-old Jamie LaBarber–which is French for “The Barber”– who i’m putting here because her résumé says she’s “legal 18 status” which could be a handy phrase for me to remember for the police (oh gimme a break, you knew my sense of humor when you came along for this ride).
There are some equally tame shots of her in my drawers.
Finally, there’s the beautiful Amanda Schull (34) who plays Anita Colby (“Feminine Director of the Selznick Studios”, was her job title). Here’s what a Feminine Director looks like.
Click on the Shot for the Wallpaper
There’ll be some shots of her loitering deep in my drawers as well. Just keep scrolling down there.
For those of you more into Hard Crime than Miss Demeanors, here’s Leonardo DiCaprio (37).
Lol, i got some other shots of him in my drawers as well, don’t worry your pretty little heads (and i won’t worry mine–more lol).
Wait, time for one more sex scene from the movie.
Drink: 1/2 Shot
There was enough here for me to write about but not to write home about, which seems to be worthy of 2 shots when it comes right down to it.
- Hoover drinks champagne to celebrate and Tolson remarks on this
- Drinks at the table when the starlettes fawn on Hoover
- Whiskey when Tolson and Hoover admit they’re in love
Slurred Speeches
I will dismiss from this bureau any agent indulging in intoxicants.
Hoover’s speech to his troops on the first day of the creation of the Bureau of Investigation.
Rock & Roll:0 Shots
Yeah, nothing. Not happening. Not the action, not the music. Nada.
Boring Technical Crap
Written by: Dustin Lance Black
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring
Naomi Watts – Helen Gandy
Lea Thompson – Lela Rogers
Jamie LaBarber – Ginger Rogers
Amanda Schull – Anita Colby
Sadie Calvano – Edgar’s Niece
Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar Hoover
Armie Hammer – Clyde Tolson
Jeffrey Donovan – Robert Kennedy
Bottom Line
Wait for it to come on the History Channel
Al K Hall’s Drawers
It’s all over but the crying and if you don’t want to see that, then click on the link here and it’ll take you straight to my drawer shots…
You know how you drink with heroes? Those people who make you feel better about yourself, not by getting drunker than you but simply by hanging with you. They’ve got this inner light thing going on which doesn’t even come from the booze. What makes them rock so hard though, isn’t that they succeed in being cool but that they don’t even give a rat’s ass what cool is supposed to be. The heroes i’m talking about are not amazing people; they’re ordinary people, like me or maybe even you, who do heroic things. They inspire you to believe in the hero hiding inside you. Plus, they always pay for your drinks. Invictus is kinda like that, except for the paying for your drinks part.
Sure it wasn’t the point of the flick, but there was absolutely no sex in Invictus. At all. Makes you wonder how South Africans reproduce. At least there were a lot of South African babes…
You’ll find the best drink references below in the Slurred Speeches portion of my show. Besides that, you have people drinking beer at home and in the bar while watching rugby. About as surprising as the ending.
