Review: Confirmation

Kieran, here. Politics, even at their most abstract are ultimately personal. At its best moments, HBO's Confirmation directed by Rick Famuyiwa’s (Dope) and written by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) understands this. Anita Hill’s (Kerry Washington) 1991 allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas (Wendell Pierce) on the eve of his confirmation to the US Supreme court is a subject about which few who can remember are indifferent. Who was lying and about what? What did the Anita Hill’s testimony say about the positions of gender, race and political alignment in this country? These are the kinds of questions that evoke vociferous, often angry opinions and the film doesn’t offer up easy answers.

The truth of whether Clarence Thomas sexually harassed Anita Hill is secondary. Thomas, as rendered by Pierce in what is actually a small role with few spoken lines, is a beleaguered public figure, forced to defend himself and deal with the consequences these allegations had on his personal and professional life. I say this not to imply that Thomas is innocent (I’ve always thought he was guilty). But, as is often the disgusting and sad truth about men who commit these crimes, they’re not always technically lying when they maintain their innocence under oath. In order for it to truly be a lie, these men would have to believe that they did anything wrong in the first place. Whatever mental gymnastics Clarence Thomas had to go through in order to get to this place, his own words and Pierce’s subtle but precise performance clearly illustrate that Thomas does not believe he was guilty of any wrongdoing. When the film is examining the implications of a culture that allows men to make these leaps and how it turns victims into villains, it shines and Pierce is a key component of what makes this element works. He opts not to turn Thomas into a monster for it’s not the “monsters” who violate women and irrevocably damage lives. They are simply people, a much truer and scarier fact to fathom.

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AHS: Freakshow "Test of Strength"

I ran into Celia Weston today (I feel like her stalker. Always running into her in the city, I am) and told her that she sure has been causing a lot of trouble on Freakshow. She told me a vague but juicy anecdote about a scene she was prepping for the day before but immediately swore me to secrecy, damnit.

Sorry to dangle that carrot!

Plot threads are getting ever more tangled and destructive as we near the winter break. Lobster Boy springs Bette & Dot from the Mott mansion (our favorite place to be this season - hail Finn Wittrock & Frances Conroy) as all three of them begin to sense danger even if they can't yet put their finger on what exactly is wrong with Dandy. Then Lobster Boy reveals Elsa's lies to the freaks only to be betrayed by the twins he just rescued who are planning to blackmail Elsa instead. The Bearded Lady overhears Richard & Elsa's plans to off the twins and wants to off Dell the Strong Man off herself after he is blackmailed by Richard to kill a freak to keep his queer closet door shut. Etcetera etcetera etcetera while not one but two characters are seeking dangerous operations and so on and so on and so on.

Things are... messy. It's one hour of double and triple crossing as everyone turns against each other, lies to each other, and continues the march toward what we assume is their communal doom. Things are going terribly for just about everyone.

...Especially Ma Petit!

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Yes No Maybe So: "The Homesman"

I've been anxiously awaiting this trailer so let's hitch our Yes No Maybe So wagon to Hilary Swank's as she transports three crazies across the country to Iowa in the western The Homesman. We knew from interviews and a cursory knowledge of the novelist Glendon Swarthout only a handful of things before seeing this trailer.

Oh nos. Nathaniel is talking about me again.

1. Six of Swarthout's other books have been adapted for the screen, most famously the ür spring break girls-gone-wild movie Where the Boys Are (1960) and The Shootist (1976) starring John Wayne
2. "The Homesman" refers to the job title that Swank's farmer character Mary Bee Cuddy signs on to perform, carting insane women across the country 
3. Meryl Streep's role is small and she has no scenes with Swank (according to Swank herself) but her character has some part in collecting the three women in the wagon
4. It's directed by Tommy Lee Jones and shot by Brokeback Mountain's cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto
5. It takes place in the 1850s. 

The trailer and the breakdown after the jump...

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