Nefarious (2023) – A Movie Review

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Here’s another film that I won’t have the spoiler alert attached because I won’t spoil any surprises.  My review will have more to do with the nature and the quality of the film than the plot synopsis.

The basic plot is that a psychiatrist, Dr. James Martin (played by Jordan Belfi) goes to a prison to interview a death row prisoner, Edward Wayne Brady (played by Sean Patrick Flanery) to determine if he’s sane enough to electrocute.  But when Martin enters the interrogation room, he discovers that the prisoner claims to be a demon from Hell possessing Brady’s body.  For the sake of convenience, he tells Martin to call him Nefarious.

And the great majority of the film is the interaction between Martin and Nefarious.  And that brings us to the question of what type of movie is this?  Is it a religious film?  Is it a horror movie?  Is it a suspense film.  I guess it’s little bit of each.  I’m not giving anything away by saying it’s not a gorefest.  The most visually disturbing scene is a prison electrocution.  But that’s hardly in the league of things like Saw.  I guess you call it a horror film in the same way that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a horror movie.  I would say that a psychological drama might more closely describe the atmosphere of the film.

And the film is definitely an attack on the lack of respect for human life that our civilization exhibits with respect to its attitude toward abortion and euthanasia.  And it was produced by a Christian production company, “Believe Entertainment.”  So, from these perspectives this is a religious film.

But whatever else it is, it’s also a well made and compelling film.  The characterizations by the two lead actors are highly entertaining.  Flanery’s Nefarious is mesmerizing.  He has all the best lines and he plays the part over the top and to the hilt.

Belfi does a very good job of portraying a somewhat smug member of the intelligentsia, an avowed atheist who comes up against a persona who tears away many of his comfortable assumptions about himself and his way of life.  And to the film’s credit it’s not a simplistic strawman exercise.  It’s done with skill and very effectively.

Now none of this is to say that Nefarious is a perfect film.  There are a couple of scenes that were less successful.  But overall, it was compelling and kept my interest throughout.  And now here is my recommendation.  I recommend this movie but with a caveat.  I paid twenty bucks to see this movie!  Camera Girl thinks I’m crazy and I kind of have to agree.  That’s an awful lot of money.

20JUN2023 – Quote of the Day

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The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.

George Henry Lewes

Ford v Ferrari (2019) – A Movie Review

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Since this is a true story, I’ll skip the spoiler alert but I also won’t give away any surprises.

Matt Damon and Christian Bale star in this dramatization of Ford’s grudge match with Ferrari to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans road race.  Damon plays Carroll Shelby, the legendary race car designer and Bale is Ken Miles a race driver who partners with Shelby to design a car that can give Ford the victory over the Ferrari in the race that they perennially win.

The movie highlights the contrast between the passionate individualism of Shelby and Miles and the hierarchical and bloodless conformity of the Ford upper management that looks to interfere with Shelby’s team at every turn.

I’m not a racing fan or a car connoisseur.  But the movie provides an infectious excitement that reminds me of that same feeling in movies about the American space program of the 1960s.  There’s a conquering spirit that strives for greatness and pushing the boundaries.  It captures the optimism that America still had in those times and it is exhilarating.

Both Bale and Damon provide excellent performances.  Bale especially disappears into the role.  I won’t elaborate much more except to say this is a surprisingly compelling movie and I recommend it highly.

Too Much Truth

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“In 2020, five psychologists asked the editors of PNAS to retract their study of racial bias in police shootings. PNAS, which stands for the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, is one of the most prestigious multidisciplinary journals in the world. Retraction is an outcome no scholar wishes to experience because it signifies a serious research error and, as such, entails considerable reputational damage.”

Was it because of they made up data or because their calculations were wrong.  Nope.

“Some observers have suggested that the retraction was politically motivated. The study, which showed no evidence of racial bias in police shootings, had been used in political debates in ways that challenged calls for radical police reform; calls that had grown louder in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. Heather Mac Donald, a research fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, claimed the article was retracted because she had cited it in a congressional hearing and in essays published in the Wall Street Journal and other right-leaning media outlets. Others denied this claim. Most importantly, Dr. Joseph Cesario, the senior author of the retracted article wrote, in response to Ms. Mac Donald, “We retracted the paper because we overstepped with the inferences we made from our data.” In other words, he maintained the reason was not political but motivated by purely scientific considerations.”

The narrative must be maintained at all costs, even if it means loss of credibility of some of the hive workers.

The truth?  What is truth?  Is your truth my truth?

Hah!