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Hollywood's Cat is out of the Bag and a Taylor Swift Conspiracy is Why
January 29, 2024
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By now you’ve probably seen the trailer for Argylle, which appears to be another Romancing the Stone retread with spies and a cat. It looks fun, and the stars are reliably charming enough, and director Matthew Vaughn has a decent track record. So until the movie comes out this weekend, what’s there to talk about?

A conspiracy theory, of course.

Not all conspiracy theories are about secret cabals of goat blood sucking hooded figures who secretly run the world. At least, I hope this essay doesn’t arrive at that conclusion, because of course I’m writing about Taylor Swift (who is definitely not in the thrall of goat blood sucking hooded figures who secretly run the world, right?). I mean sure, she’s the most influential person in music, media, and culture right now. Her life seems to be fairly public.

But what if she has a secret?

And what the heck does that have to do with a movie she’s not in?

Apparently Argylle is based on the debut novel by one Elly Conway, a New York recluse no one has ever seen. A novel by an unknown author getting optioned for a film trilogy, TWO AND A HALF YEARS before the book comes out (Deadline reported this in July of 2021, and the book just came out January 9th) is unusual to say the least. Some might say, it’s suspicious. 

I’m saying it’s suspicious. 

The main character in the book and movie is also named Elly Conway, so it’s fair to assume a pseudonym is at work. Given the hurdles one must manage to get a book and then a movie deal, even if the author wants to hide his or her real name, the odds of an unknown falling into this level of success are probably equal to getting struck by lightning and a meteor at the same time while holding a winning lottery ticket. 

Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Taylor Swift.

Elly Conway’s first Instagram post ever is of the book cover and she posted in when? On Taylor Swift’s birthday. Her third post, almost a year later, is of a cat in a backpack. But not just any cat in any backpack. Oh no! It’s a Scottish Fold, like T-Swift’s cat, in a bubble backpack like T-Swift uses. And you know who else has an affinity for argyle (ie: diamond prints)? You guessed it. 

Screenrant has all in the info here, along with links to the Tik-Toker who does the breakdown.

The idea that Elly Conway is actually Taylor Swift became so popular that the director and stars had to address it. Or not address it. Variety reports actor Bryan Cranston said, “I can’t confirm or deny the rumors about Ms. Swift. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her…” Henry Cavill took it a step further and said, “We wanted to make sure that the mystery was maintained, because she [Conway] wants the same thing.”

But there’s a more likely explanation.

YouTuber Joe aka “The Uber Geek” endorses another theory in a video from last Friday, and I think it’s plausible. Joe speculates that the novel is entirely AI generated, citing the numerous spelling and grammatical errors (the book is published by Penguin, a major publishing house), lack of plot, thin characterization, and an obsession with current events. I doubt even Stephen King could get away with all that, writing under his own name or another. 

What does director Matthew Vaughn have to say?

In the same Variety article he said, “It’s not Taylor Swift, but books do not write themselves. I wish they did. I wish screenplays wrote themselves. I wish movies directed themselves.” I have to wonder if he’s trying to get out ahead of something or flat out lying. Given the Writers Guild’s concerns about AI taking over their jobs, now is probably not the time to sell a movie as the first feature film based on a novel written by artificial intelligence. 

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.

At some point, either now or in the near future, traditionally published novels and Hollywood produced screenplays will be largely AI generated. And it’s probably now. There’s no way I’m going to read the Argylle novel, and if the movie is good there’s no way I’ll miss it. For now, the real entertainment is watching how clumsily the world is adapting and how comically bad the powers that be are in hiding it.

No goats were harmed in the writing of this article.

 

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F1 is Modern Western

As a nation, the United States is unique. We don’t share a genetic heritage, but a creed. Americans and our ideas come from all over the world. But we’re at our best when take those outside ideas and make them our own. Everything we have came from another culture, but there was a time when we could take things and collectively make them better.

Democracy? Check. Rock’n’roll? Check. Heck! Chinese food? Yes, we did.

Don’t hate. You know I’m right.

One of the greatest art forms we’ve given the world is the western genre. While rooted in courtly romances of King Arthur, we took the idea of the man on horseback who makes things right on his quest for something spiritual and made it distinctly American. Most of the time, these stories aren’t historically accurate, but that’s not the point. They’re soaked in the American ethos. For better or for worse, the western has become the American myth, even more so than 1776.

And the cool thing about myths is that you can take them and tell other stories. 

Star Trek (and later Firefly) took the western to space. 

A few weeks ago I was able to see F1: The Movie on IMAX, and I had high hopes. Director Joseph Krasinski had proved himself with Top Gun: Maverick, which is about as American as a modern movie can get. But mostly, I just wanted to see if he could do with racecars what he’d done with fighter jets. In that regard, I was everything I’d hoped it would be. The idea of Americanism didn’t even cross my mind, since F1 is primarily a European sport.

Boy, was I surprised.

Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes with all the careless cool of Paul Newman in his prime and a Steve McQueen swagger. While Pitt has never played a cowboy and isn’t a racecar driver in real life, Newman and McQueen played both, and did both. Hayes has been keeping himself busy with no-name races since an F1 crash nearly killed him some 30 years before. But when Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), an old friend and rival, needs some wins to save the team, he tracks down Sonny.

And the old dog knows a few tricks.

Naturally, his tactics put him at odds with his teammate, Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris), and his cocky attitude is a big red flag to the team’s engineer, Kate McKenna (Kerry Conden). So the movie all the tropes of a sports film, and I don’t think I need to summarize further. But it’s not a sports film. Or rather, it’s not just a sports a film. Surprise, surprise, it’s the western myth transposed into a racing a story.

It’s spelled out in the trailer, but it didn’t strike me until the very end.

Kate calls Sonny Hayes an “old school rough and tumble cowboy” in a line used in the marketing. When he arrives in the garage, only Ruben knows him. Sonny is the stranger in town. Like James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff, his method of restoring order and winning is unorthodox and effective. Like Shane, in that Alan Ladd classic, he’s guarded about his past. And like John Wayne in The Searchers and so many other westerns, Sonny Hayes is the outsider who must leave civilization once he’s made it civilized for those who belong there.

But he doesn’t.


Perhaps the hardboiled crime story, another uniquely American genre, is also an outgrowth of the western. Philip Marlow is the man who must walk down mean streets, who is not himself mean. As Raymond Chandler said, “He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.” Basically, the man he’s describing is dangerous, but not cruel. Dispassionate in taking revenge, and restrained by a code of honor.

But destined to be lonely, nonetheless.

Why we’ve made that an essential part of the American is a topic for another time. But there it is. And it’s the story of Sonny Hayes. At the end of the movie [SPOILER], he rides off into the sunset as the credits roll. The western isn’t dead. It’s still there, in essence, speaking to our hearts in different ways.

Nothing more American than that. 

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Girl-Power Isn't the Problem: Stop Treating Movies Like TV Pilots

Last weekend I was able to sneak off the theater for a screening of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. Did I feel silly, telling the high school girl at the ticket counter, “One for Ballerina, and a small drink”? Well, not in the moment. 

I probably drank a liter of cherry vanilla Coke Zero, and that didn’t feel so great.

Plenty of box office analysts and Hollywood types are wracking their brains, trying to figure out why movies like Furiosa and Ballerina aren’t drawing huge crowds. Mad Max and John Wick are popular franchises, but apparently telling the stories of the women in those worlds isn’t working. Even if the movies are pretty good.

I’ve seen both, and they’re pretty good.

Some are arguing that no one will go near a movie that looks like it’s feminist girl-bossing. Others counter that movies like Alien and Kill Bill are female-led action films that were successful. Now, I’m not going to say that Ballerina is on par with those modern day classics. But I will say that, as a man watching the movie, it didn’t offend me. The movie never challenged me to confront any internalized misogyny. The small girl doesn’t take down John Wick in hand-to-hand combat.

Honestly, if you like franchise, whether you’re male or female, you should watch Ballerina.

In short, from a purely cinematic experience perspective, neither Furiosa nor Ballerina would be any better or worse with a male lead. Maybe that’s a hot take. But that’s mine, for whatever it’s worth. Well, okay, I wouldn’t watch a movie called Ballerina if it stared a dude. Nevertheless, I think you get my point. Petite women warriors aside, the plots and action are exactly as expected.

So what’s the deal?

Well, what no one seems to have noticed is that Ripley and The Bride weren’t replacing anyone. As we were watching their movies for the first time, we weren’t thinking about other characters for whom we already had a preference. Movies are more like TV than TV right now, and replacement characters have always been a hard sell, regardless of gender. We all remember Sam and Diane. Who still talks about Sam and Rebecca (even though Kirstie Alley won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the part)? I had to look up her name. 

No, they aren’t technically replacing them. It’s a spin-off, set in the same world.

Spin-offs tend to succeed when the characters are already well established (eg: Frasier). Furiosa and Ballerina are more like backdoor pilots, where new characters are dropped in for a single episode to sell us on the idea of a new show. This technique is very hit and miss on TV, and I can’t think of a single example of this working in a movie franchise. Film and television are very different mediums, and should be treated as such.

Still, if it doesn’t work on TV, it’s probably not gonna work at the movies. Not where new characters and spin-offs are concerned. 

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Going Back to 1995

Maybe I’m just getting old, but it doesn’t feel like we had the thriving and distinct pop culture of past generations. Has there been a look or stye, or feeling, that defines this moment? Everything seems to have stagnated for the last twenty years. And it’s not as if I don’t pay attention. 

It’s making me nostalgic. 

Consequently, for the rest of the year, I’m prioritizing movies from 1995, the year I was twelve. At that time, my family didn’t really go to the theater, and when we did rent VHS tapes, more often than it is was older Disney movies or entirely forgettable Christian titles. Now that I’ve grown tired of trying to keep up with new releases, not there’s much worth watching anyway, it feels like a good time to catch up on those 30 year old movies that have become ingrained in what’s left of our pop culture.

So over on Criticless, I made a list.

Some of these are movies I’ve seen before, but not in a long time. Others will be first time watches for me. There’s really no rhyme or reason to what I put on my list. It’s just movies that either interest me, or are currently in my collection, sadly unwatched. As things become available on streaming, I may add to the list. And if I don’t get to everything before the end of the year, no big deal.

Hopefully, they aren’t going anywhere. 

I’ll be posting some reviews and analysis as I go, so be sure to follow me here. 

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