Tag Archives: ryan reynolds

Free Guy

This movie has been on Sean’s most-anticipated list since 2019 and we’ve been waiting impatiently for quite some time. Unfortunately, this film had a theatrical-only release this summer, which excludes the likes of myself, an immuno-suppressed, likely-to-die-of-COVID person who’s obsessed with movies but not quite willing to die for them. And also her husband, who Officially Cares Whether I Live Or Die. I knew he liked me! I made him a badge and everything, but he’s a little embarrassed to wear it. Anyway, I’ve been stalking the movie rental sites like a shark, ready to pounce the moment it dropped. Blood in the water, baby! So colour me surprised when I found it first on Disney Plus – for free. Hello!

Guy (Ryan Reynolds) lives a repetitive life: wake up, feed goldfish, don blue shirt, work as bank teller, get robbed, repeat. He’s surprisingly cheerful about it, considering all the laying on the floor, fearing for your life he does on a daily basis, but it’s all he knows, so he’s pretty content. Until one day he isn’t. Guy discovers he’s an NPC, a non-playing character, in an open-world video game, one of those guys that’s just walking around so that the real characters, navigated by human gamers, can feel their world is populated, or perhaps even interact with them, briefly. And then there’s this woman, Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer), who catches her eye; as an NPC he’s all but invisible to her but once he wears the sunglasses that identify him as a character, they strike up a friendship…for starters.

Interestingly, the movie leaps in and out of the game. When it’s not following Ryan Reynolds around inside the game, it’s sitting in with the game’s real-life creators and coders. Millie (also Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery) are the game’s true originators, but Big Gaming Company’s ruthless CEO Antwan (Taika Waititi) has stolen their code. Millie has left the company but Keys is still there, and he and partner Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar) are among the first to notice that an NPC in the game seems to have gone rogue. They assume some keener has simply hacked the NPC’s code, but there’s actually much more at play: Millie and Keys’ original code wasn’t just for some shoot ’em up game, but for AI that would become self-aware. It seems that Guy has somehow reached that state on his own. He’s not just a video game free guy anymore; he’s fully conscious, sentient artificial intelligence. And it just so happens that watching him level up through the game in order to win the heart of Molotovgirl (interestingly, Milie’s in-game avatar) is highly entertaining. People around the world stop playing the game in order to watch, a crazy phenomenon that doesn’t make the company any money. In fact, sales of the game’s sequel are slumping too, which makes Antwan everyone’s new enemy. His plan to erase the code for good threatens Millie and Keys’ livelihood but more importantly, robs the world of their scientifically significant invention, and it also of course threatens Guy’s very life, for he is a self-aware consciousness, but he only exists in the game.

Don’t worry. There’s no existential crisis here, no philosophical debate. This is a popcorn movie. Video game violence mixed with Reynolds’ trademark good guy vibes make Free Guy irresistible. Reynolds gets to do what he does best, playing a naïve, hapless guy who chuckles at life’s little foibles. Guy’s best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery) is just as guileless and gratified; together they’re the picture of perfect contentment until someone’s awakening starts to expose the cracks in their happy little lives.

Had Alexander Payne written/directed this, we’d have an introspective, meta exploration of the Life is a Game philosophy at its core, debating the rules, and how to win, and just who was the Great Gamer in the Sky operating the controller. And though I’d kind of like to see that movie, Free Guy, however, is in the hands of Shawn Levy, oh ye of Night at the Museum, Cheaper By the Dozen, The Internship, and Real Steel. Dude is guaranteed to keep this thing light. Super light. L-I-T-E lite, even. But that’s not a bad thing. It seems Levy has cured his habit of creating utter crap and found his stride, matching Reynolds’ sweetness and goofiness bit for bit. There’s an enthusiasm here that’s hard to beat, and Free Guy turns out to be exactly the kind of movie we need after 18 months of no movies. It’s endearing, entertaining, and energetic. Dumb, but fun. Dumb, but not brainless. Crowd-pleasing but not bland. Crowd-pleasing but not condescending. Caters to gamers with plenty of tongue-in-cheek Easter eggs, but doesn’t alienate anyone. It’s a rare family-friendly (PG-13), action-comedy-sci-fi hybrid that has something for everyone but still feels fresh and exciting. Good Great Gamer in the Sky, what more do you need?

The Croods: A New Age

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So the last time we met the Croods, back in 2013, Grug (Nicolas Cage), the overprotective patriarch of a caveman family, was struggling to adapt to his teenage daughter Eep’s (Emma Stone) new modern friend Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Guy has new ideas, new inventions, and Grug senses that his position as leader of the hunt is threatened by this little punk. But out of pure necessity they agreed to work together, Grug searching for safety for his pack, and Guy seeking the ever elusive “tomorrow.” Eventually Grug is forced to admit that Guy’s modern thinking is in fact better for their survival, and he must have been right because the family’s still intact for a sequel.

They’re all still following the light toward “tomorrow,” but Eep and Guy are starting to think of starting their own pack, which Grug takes rather hard. Any plans for splitting up are put on hold when it seems they may have found tomorrow: huzzah! In fact, it’s a gated community, a lush oasis, an exotic land of safety and plenty. Its inhabitants, and in fact creators, are Hope (Leslie Mann) and Phil (Peter Dinklage) Betterman, and their teenage daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran), who are actually family friends from Guy’s childhood. The Bettermans are beyond ecstatic to be reunited with Guy, who would make the perfect mate for their daughter (not that there are any other options), and to show off their better way of living. Indeed, their treehouse is the absolute zenith in modern living, with every convenience, every comfort, and best of all, loads of food. Grug doesn’t necessarily appreciate its “privacy” or Phil’s emphasis on individualism, but wife Ugga (Catherine Keener) and the rest of the family seem awfully keen – even Eep, who is rather happy to have her first female friend, at least until she starts to see Dawn as competition for the one and only teenage boy in the vicinity. And after all, Guy is a modern human like them; what could he see in a cavegirl like her?

There’s lots of adventure to be had in A New Age, new lands to discover, new characters to sneer at, and plenty of wacky, zany stuff, like land sharks and punch monkeys, which may make tough critics like my nephews, who will not appreciate the teenage romance aspects, feel a little more forgiving. And while parents won’t be as keen to watch this as, say, Soul, which is hardly fair comparison, I’m sure we can all relate to fearing change, especially when it comes to family. There is a balance between the modern and the traditional that every generation must find for itself, and according to Dreamworks, that’s been true since before humans walked fully upright.

The Captive

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Matthew (Ryan Reynolds) is a loving husband and father who struggles to pay the bills since his business failed. He’s the one to pick 9 year old daughter Cass up from figure skating practice while wife Tina (Mireille Enos) cleans hotel rooms in Niagara Falls. One evening, he pops into the pie store off the highway for just a moment, but in the time it takes to pay for a cherry rhubarb, his daughter has disappeared from the backseat of his truck.

You and I have the privilege and the horror of knowing that she’s been snatched by sexual predator Mika (Kevin Durand), whom you’ll immediately be able to identify by his pedo mustache. But the police, including Jeffrey Cornwall (Scott Speedman), a detective newly appointed to the Child Exploitation Unit, and his boss Nicole Dunlop (Rosario Dawson), suspect Matthew to be involved. Though they never have evidence to arrest him, over the next 8 years, the strain and taint of suspicion eventually crumbles Matthew and Tina’s marriage.

Matthew resolves to find Cass on his own, which mostly involves driving slowly by every single teenage girl he comes across, while Tina is still in touch with the Child Exploitation Unit, who’ve been coming the dark web obsessively, Jeffrey posing as a fellow pedophile and trying to ease his way into a sex trafficking ring. After 8 years, he’s found an image that he suspects might be Cass, and indeed we know that even as a 17 year old no longer of any interest to pedophiles, she’s still be held and used as a friendly face to lure other unsuspecting children into the vans of predators. But since no one knows where Cass is being held, including Cass herself, a rescue mission is impossible. And as the days tick by, both Matthew and Jeffrey are losing touch with reality.

Director Atom Egoyan crafts a film that is deeply unpleasant to watch, while Reynolds’ performance adds up to heartbreak. However, the film remains difficult for other reasons, Egoyan’s murky jumps in time seemingly purposely obfuscating reality. Egoyan often plays around with time and memory, but the result is usually haunting rather than confusing. The twists and turns feel cheap and tricky and even though the outcome to root for seems painfully obvious, it also feels undeserved. Each frame taken individually is ridiculously and meticulously perfect in its composition but their combined effort is unconvincing and unsatisfying. As Dunlop says herself: “there are no happy endings in my line of work.”

6 Underground

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A billionaire who goes by the name of One (Ryan Reynolds) has assembled a team of ghosts. Six men and women, having faked their deaths and truly gone underground, operate outside of the usual channels to clean up the dirt other people can’t, or won’t.

Two (Melanie Laurent) is a CIA spook; Three (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is the hitman; Four (Ben Hardy) is a skywalker; Five (Adria Arjona) is the doctor; the new recruit, Seven (Corey Hawkins) is a frustrated, sharp-shooting soldier fresh from Afghanistan. Together they have plans to topple a dictator. Ambitious? You betcha. Especially so early in their mission history. After all, they may be officially dead, but they’re as flawed and vulnerable as the living. The bad guys are pretty angry about their lack of hubris.

6 Underground, a new Netflix original, is directed by Michael Bay and it’s got all his hallmarks: American flags, big explosions, scantily clad women. In fact, there’s sex in this movie where no sex belongs. But it’s the car crashes that are truly nutso bananas. This is Michael Bay, unleashed, unmuzzled, unrepentant. The opening car chase alone threatens nuns, babies, AND puppies. Too much, you say? Bah. Just you wait. Now, Michael Bay didn’t write this one but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occasionally replace dialogue with taglines. The writing is a notch above Bay’s usual tripe, and Ryan Reynolds goes a lot way toward pulling it off. Still, much of the movie is montage, and that’s normally a relief – less cringey lines uttered – though less so when it starts to feel like a wannabe Baby Driver ripoff.

“No man is more important than the mission,” says One, but some of his team disagree. And that’s kind of a big thing to disagree on, real deal breaker type stuff, and the last thing you want during a coup d’état is your little gang splintering. But that’s One’s problem, not yours. If you’re just here to see teeth splatter and brains splatter and people get multiple knife wounds by multiple knives, then this is your jam.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu

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After 17 hours of trailers, the movie started playing. I’d of course forgotten what I was here to see. Ah yes, Detective Whatever. It occurred to me suddenly that it was possible that total ignorance was not the best state in which to be watching this movie. Should I have take some crash course? Too late now. But there’s the naked truth: I don’t know what a Pokemon is or what it does or how it works or if it’s the name of the little guys or just the name of a show. I wasn’t even entirely sure that it was a show. I remembered a very popular app from a few years ago that had otherwise sane grown adults running around cities chasing after imaginary conquests, and that there’d been something back when I was a kid – cards, maybe? A show? Pogs? Definitely something. Which is why this movie is not called Detective Jay or Good Memory Jay or Jay Gives A Shit.

What I’ve surmised is: Pokemon are a kind of cute little…animal? With powers? And Pikachu is a type of Pokemon with a specific set of powers, including a lightning bolt tail. The human component of this movie is a young man called Tim (Justice Smith) who has MV5BMWVkMjIxOWUtYmQzMC00YTRkLWExNDUtNGEzOWY1Mjk0MTczXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTgwMDI0MDA@._V1_ just learned that his father is dead. His father lived in the big city where he worked as a detective. Tim was raised in a small town, by his grandma. He hadn’t seen his father in years. When he lets himself into his dead dad’s apartment he learns two things: 1. His father was working a very big case when he died – and he possibly died in its pursuit, and 2. His father had a partner, and that partner is not dead as previously believed, but alive, and also happens to be a Pokemon named Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) that can be understood by Tim even though this is apparently unheard of. Oh and a third thing: his father never stopped loving him, guys!

But anyways. Pikachu has suffered amnesia and can’t really help solve the case, but he’s game to give it a go from scratch, which for some reason Tim is eager to do even though he’s an insurance adjuster, not a cop. It involves a purple gas that renders normally docile Pokemon into rabid attackers. Don’t ask me to make sense of this. The thing is, if you’re a Pokemon fan, or even just know the slightest thing about them, then this movie likely has more appeal to you than it does to me. But for me, this movie was really a buddy cop movie, just don’t ask me which one is the Ice Cube. But since I don’t know the pre-established rules of this universe, I don’t get the oddball pairing, I don’t get the humour, if in fact there is any. Ryan Reynolds lends quite a bit of charisma through his voice, but for some reason it keeps reminding me of Deadpool, which is probably the exact opposite of what this cute little pika pika persona is supposed to project. Although he is a hard-boiled cop. In a deerstalker cap. I don’t know, man.

But what I do know is this: the kids in the audience didn’t love it. And before the movie, I thought, dear sweet baby cheesus, we’re in for a ride. Because the pre-movie commercials were KILLING IT with this kid-packed audience. Telus had a commercial where a flamingo was dancing to She’s A Maniac, and I don’t think that Jerry Seinfeld in his entire career racked up half as many laughs as that flamingo did in a 30 second spot. There was a trailer for Abominable that was a laugh riot. So was Secret Life of Pets 2. This was a disturbingly easy audience to pander to. Sean missed a lot of this because he was patiently waiting in the drinks line to quench my ruinous thirst, and I felt the need to warn him when he got back of what was to come. But it never did. There must have been some laughs of course, and it’s possible my brain was so overheated trying to to unravel story lines I missed them. But there wasn’t much. It seemed in my screening that the kids were underwhelmed. I can’t say that I was expecting any kind of whelm myself. I’ve been perplexed and unanticipatory since I first saw the trailer. And I guess that’s what the movie delivered: slight confusion and utter forgettableness.

But you know what? My 6 year old nephew Ben is a real Pokemon connoisseur and he has a different take:

Paper Man

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Richard Dunn (Jeff Daniels) is a failed writer, and perhaps just a failure, period. His successful surgeon wife Claire (Lisa Kudrow) has rented him a little writerly cottage in Long Island and gifted him a laptop as well as the time and space needed to get to work on his second novel. Despite that sounding like absolute pure heaven to most of us, Richard doesn’t manage a shred of gratitude. Instead he wonders if this is in fact a trial separation in sheep’s clothing.

So I guess that’s why he doesn’t feel particularly guilty when he spends this time not at his desk but getting to know a teenage girl named Abby (Emma Stone). Abby is a lonely, solitary sort of person, despite the fact that she has a devoted friend and a bad boyfriend. She and Richard are practically kindred spirits, which they discover when he repeatedly hires her as a babysitter despite the fact that he has no kids. Yes, it plays as creepy as it sounds. And yet a friendship blooms in this unlikely, inhospitable place.

Despite Richard’s middle age, he is a child. He is petulant. Self-indulgent, he sees only MV5BMTMyNTk2MjcwNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTMyNzUzMw@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1501,1000_AL_ his own need and sorrow. This is further indulged by his imaginary friend, Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds, before he played Deadpool or even Green Lantern), a super hero type in cape and tights who tells him what he wants to hear.

You can imagine what it might be like to be married to a Richard. This is a coming of age tale for a man who is way too old to need one. A late bloomer or just too pathetic for words? Richard straddles that line, uncomfortably. But he’s reaching out, so not all hope is lost. He’s perhaps reaching out to the wrong person, to an inappropriate person. How is this relationship likely to be interpreted – by his wife, or her parents, for example? And yet this is what it is to be human. It’s all about the connection. Richard and Abby can truly be themselves around each other in ways that they haven’t achieved anywhere else.

Jeff Daniels continues to be good in dark roles. Emma Stone is vulnerable and feverish. They’re a couple of wounded characters and they ooze their indie drama. There’s a danger of drowning in all the mutual wallowing. For all its quirk, Paper Man might be lumped into those “man-child-struggling-to-grow-up” films (coming of middle age?), but it is saved by some very compelling performances.

Deadpool 2

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deadpool_2_poster.0 There are times when it feels like a movie has lost a sense of direction, and is relying on one-liners to fill in the gaps until it finds a way forward. Deadpool 2 never feels that way, mainly because the whole film is a series of one-liners. That is how Deadpool 2 gets Deadpool right.

Deadpool is supposed to be an immortal wisecracking antihero, and that’s exactly what Deadpool 2 delivers. In fact, movie Deadpool may be even more potent than his comic book counterpart, since we have seemingly hundreds of superhero movies to send up and most are easy targets. Deadpool makes sure not to miss any by taking seemingly hundreds of shots at them. None are spared, with Ryan Reynolds’ past superhero movies (and Reynolds himself) being hit as much as any other (and maybe more). More than anything, that self-effacing attitude is why Deadpool works.

Deadpool 2 is stupid and it knows it. It will do anything to make you laugh, and it will succeed. But Deadpool 2 doesn’t stop there. As you get into the film’s rhythm, you realize that in between the jokes, there’s a ton of action, a superteam origin story, the onscreen debuts of two classic X-Men characters, significant character development, and best of all, a much-needed mop-up of some major continuity issues. And with an X-Force movie on the way, Deadpool basically has birthed his own cinematic universe (I’m treating it as a separate universe than the X-Men films since aside from Colossus, there are no other A-list X-Men in sight), so for better or worse, Deadpool is sticking around for the long haul.

Overall I think Deadpool’s success is more better than worse (though Jay would surely disagree). Deadpool 2 is an entertaining movie that can co-exist with movies like Avengers: Infinity War (and Deadpool is probably the superhero best served by being removed from the Marvel Universe, as evidenced by Fox keeping him separate from the X-universe for all intents and purposes).

The comparison between Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War brings up an interesting contrast. Since I was frustrated with the lazy writing in Infinity War, I should have been equally frustrated with Deadpool for the same reason. Lazy writing is lazy writing whether or not a superhero breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge it, right? Then why did I give Deadpool a pass when I held lazy writing against Avengers? The answer, I think, is because Marvel is asking me to take seriously that half of the universe was wiped out with a magic glove, whereas Deadpool is up front about how stupid and meaningless this all is, that everything can and will be undone, and figures out a way to have fun with it. And that is why for as long as they are making superhero movies, there will be a place for movies like Deadpool 2.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard

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The following paragraphs will make you think I haven’t seen The Hitman’s Bodyguard; let me assure you, I have. But I will struggle to summarize its plot. Or even locate the plot from between all the gratuitous explosions. I think it goes like this: Ryan Reynolds was once the caviar of bodyguards, but he let some VIP get shot in the brains, and now he’s been downgraded to the spam of bodyguards, which is really, really embarrassing and he’d do just about anything to be caviar again.

Meanwhile: Samuel L. Jackson is a hitman who is safely in prison. BUT he’d also be an excellent witness in an international court of law against a crazed, genocidal Hitmans-Bodyguard-The-5-News Belorussian dictator (Gary Oldman). So he cuts a deal: if they let out his wife (Selma Hayek), he’ll give testimony. The only catch is that every other witness has been systematically murdered. Sam Jackson nearly is as well, but one of Ryan Reynolds’ disgruntled CIA exes calls him in at the last minute to try to get Jackson to the Hague in one piece.

I suspect that this movie is bad because it never slows down long enough for you to ask yourself whether you’re enjoying things. The thing feels like it’s been edited by a two year old high on 5 juice boxes. It relies HEAVILY on the odd couple banter between Ryan and Sam, but if this is a Deadpool wannabe, it should wannabe harder. I feel like I just ran an obstacle course and I’m just so grateful to have crossed the finish line I cannot recall a single event along the way. Bleeding eardrums, I think. Some tulips? A car that smells like ass. The Hitman’s Bodyguard may not be an actual movie but just a compilation video of Reynolds’ and Jackson’s greatest hits. Lots of motherfuckers. Lots of explodey explosions. I refuse to overthink this one.

Life

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When I think about space, my limited imagination often goes to the arrogant American astronauts boldly planting a flag on the moon. In fact, there are now 6 American flags on the moon, one from each Apollo mission that landed there. Of course, none of these flags would be identifiably American any more, the stars and stripes long since bleached away by radiation from the sun. And none of them ever rippled in the breeze as the famous photo would have you believe (there is no wind on the moon, there is no atmosphere on the moon). It was a ruse devised by NASA and enabled by Neil Armstrong. The flag has a hidden metal rod along the top of the fabric; when Armstrong planted it, he gave the metal bar a push and the flag “waved.” It was a cheat, but after declaring a giant leap on behalf of “mankind”, the Americans wanted a way to tell the world “We got here first.”

Why am I rambling about the flags on the moon? Well, mostly because I don’t think there’s a single inch of film in all of Life where director Daniel Espinosa could plant his flag. It’s a complete retread. And I don’t mean that it’s bad, just that it owes a lot to space movies that have come before it, and it doesn’t have anything original to add to the “trapped in space” trope.

There’s questionable judgment and the flagrant flogging of protocol. There are plot holes to rival black holes. If you think about it at all you’ll be sucked into the vacuum of space where there’s no enjoyment of anything. But there is a way to enjoy this film: lay back and enjoy the ride. Because what Life is is a pretty intense thriller. My anxiety was so high I life3 had to look away from the screen and focus on my gold Converse for safety’s sake. It was so tense I had the bones in Sean’s right hand nearly as mangled as a certain someone‘s in the movie.

Basically, six surprisingly attractive astronauts are hanging out in the International Space Station, waiting for a special delivery, some samples from Mars. Their mission is to probe the samples that arrive, and before long they’ve found the first incontrovertible evidence of life on Mars, which is cool for about 10 seconds before it starts trying to eat them. This is of course their own damn fault for pushing the thing out of hibernation in the first place. Note to everyone: curiosity killed the cat. So yeah, this alien thingy becomes very strong and oddly sentient and wildly out of control. The astronauts’ lives are in imminent and immediate danger, which is hard to care about because we hardly know them before the single cell from Mars becomes the monster that threatens humanity. And that’s the other slight problem is that the lives of the astronauts are overshadowed by the greater threat against all of humankind.

Luckily, the acting is pretty good. None of the characters is all that distinguishable but between Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds, there’s enough charisma to circle the earth roughly 16 times a day (Zing! that’s an international space station joke, y’all!).

Okay, I’m quitting while I’m ahead. Life: fun but forgettable.

Dick

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I wonder why I’m so attracted to satirical political movies lately? I’m in some kind of mood I guess.

Two ditzy, boy-crazy blonde teen girls (Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst) are on a field trip to the White House in 1972 when they wander away only stumble upon the President himself, Richard Nixon! This film is a parody, a not-true imagining of who and what brought down Nixon with the Watergate scandal. What if Deep Throat is actually two fifteen year old girls?

MSDDICK EC003 In light of recent events, I suppose a film like Dick actually harkens back to simpler times, and I don’t just mean a time when Dunst would get top billing over Oscar-nominated Williams. It was a time when teenaged girls had the luxury of not thinking about the president very much.

With a cast including Harry Shearer, Dave Foley, Dan Hedaya, Will Ferrell, and Bruce McCulloch, it’s a great big serving of farce, an alternate version of history, and maybe one we could live with. I can’t help but wonder how people will rewrite the new administration, and if Trump’s legacy will eclipse Nixon’s as Biggest Joke Ever. The thing is, it seems to take at least a generation before we can find these things funny. At the time, Nixon was the guy swimming in corruption, sending your brother off to die in Vietnam. The reality of Trump as president may be even worse than that. It seems to already be inspiring some extremely gross acts of hatred.

In order to buy the girls’ silence, Nixon appoints Arlene and Betsey dickpromo02s the official White House dog walkers. Meanwhile, Trump’s shoe-horning his kids into his cabinet is an even scarier prospect. Since when can a 70 year old man not do business with being able to ask his kids for advice? I guess that’s what you get for electing a dude with no experience. His kids are probably the least scary amid the many “contestants” he’s considering for staffing the White House.

As Nixon’s “secret youth advisors”, Arlene and Betsey have the president’s ear, and manage to influence a lot of his policies. Which has more positive outcomes for America than, say, Putin’s input will, or the KKK’s. And eventually it’s these sweet, optimistic young women who reveal the truth, which is a stirring reminder that the youth can indeed make a difference (whether or not they accidentally witness majorly classified evidence of wrongdoing).

Actually, I read an article recently that really broke my heart. It was about the fracture between young women and their fathers. The fathers, middle-aged white men, are the demographic who voted Trump in. Their daughters, however, not only abhor him, but will suffer the consequences of his actions for years to come. It feels like a betrayal to learn that their fathers so devalue their worth, their health, their bodies, and their prospects. That the men who raised them can also vote for a racist, a bigot, and a misogynist, a candidate who violates almost every lesson we teach our children from the youngest age. If you want to give it a read, you can find it here. And if you want to give yourself some hope that this too shall pass, watch Dick, a movie that re-writes a painful political past.