From Maureen Dowd’s NYT piece, titled “Slovenian Sphinx Flick Nixed!”:
"Some theaters showing “Melania” were so empty that wags suggested that undocumented immigrants should hide out there. Reviews are brutal: The Independent said the first lady came across as “a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda.”
For $500? Maybe.
I can’t plus one, so I 
.
This movie is definitely gonna sweep the Razzies, though.
I was wondering what this movie could be about.
Even a show about nothing would be more interesting.
So was I.
I’m thinking that a biopic is typically about a person famous for achieving something. Bohemian Rhapsody for Freddie Mercury of Queen, Oppenheimer for Robert Oppenheimer, La Bamba about Ritchie Valens, Jobs for Steve Jobs. The list goes on, but those are enough for now. Point is, that each of those achieved something: music like nobody had heard before, the nuclear bomb, fame at a very young age, and a new kind of computer, respectively.
I have not seen Melania, but from what I understand from those who have, it concerns her activities in the twenty days leading up to Trump’s second inaugural. Place settings, menus, choosing an outfit for inaugural balls—sorry, but these activities are not on par with the groundbreaking “Bohemian Rhapsody” or inventing a device that can destroy the world.
It sounds like the Seinfeld of movies: a film about nothing.
Except that it isn’t a biopic. A biopic is a drama, with actors following a script. It recreates (supposedly) true events, but isn’t a recording of them. A biopic may closely follow the facts, or it may diverge from them considerably, but it is always essentially a work of fiction.
This is called a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It’s quite a common format. It records events as they happen. The events are often quite mundane, and the persons are sometimes quite ordinary that you’ve never heard of. That, in itself, does not make a bad film.
Not defending it. I’m sure the subject matter is so unpleasant it can’t be good.
Without the jokes
So, just like Seinfeld, then.
IMHO Seinfeld has jokes. Almost none are funny.
We’re usually pretty much on the same page on most issues, but I must very strongly disagree with you here, my friend. Seinfeld self-deprecatingly referred to itself as a series “about nothing”, but it was actually a very clever and insightful take on the challenges and foibles of everyday life. Whereas this movie is worse than nothing; it’s a preening content-free self-serving propaganda piece about a Slovenian gold-digger. Yes, for $500 (amounting to $250 an hour) I’d sit through it, but only if I was mercifully anesthetized first.
Melania does seem to maintain the same policy for her life that Larry David did for “Seinfeld”: “No learning, no hugging.”
To add on to something Peter Morris said, many of the best documentaries that have ever been committed to film are just people going about their lives; a documentary is often just a focus on a conventional aspect of the human experience, as distinct from a biopic, which is a dramatic presentation that follows a traditional dramatic arc.
“Gates of Heaven” would be the classic example; it’s an examination of ordinary life, and yet it’s deeply touching. When that lady says, of dead pets, “but where’s the thing that makes it MOVE?” it brings tears to my eyes. This examination of a mundane event (a pet cemetery being moved) reveals elements of love, grief and loss, universal truths that bond us all.
I have zero illusions “Melania” will attain the heights of meaning or poignancy of that.
At least in Phoenix (and i assume everywhere) you can buy tickets using your phone app. So these paid operatives can buy these tickets from Washington, or Moscow.
Perhaps, but there are 44 movies with a rating of 0%.
Why? There are plenty of photos showing the current Oval Office.
I just checked online at Harkins Superstition Springs. It’s got about six showings today and I checked the 4:30 and 7:10 showtimes, figuring those would be when most ordinary people would go.
The 7:10 showing had one pair of seats together, the 4:10 had twelve, eight in pairs scattered here and there, and a block of four. It would appear in that theater, east Mesa being deep MAGA country (Andy Biggs being the rep there) there are no bot sales.
A slight hijack:
I haven’t lived in the United States for a while. Back when I did, and for years after that, Americans (at least here on this board) seemed generally opposed to the concept of reserved seating in movie theaters. In this thread, though, I’ve learned then reserved seating is now standard practice. When did the change take place?
Around here, the Covid era.
That listing is hilarious! “It should go on one those Best/Worst of Craigslist” threads. BTW, I didn’t know that CL was still a thing.
Before then, at least here in the Chicago area. I’ve only been to a theater twice since COVID, but assigned seats, and pre-booking, had been the norm at the big chains here (Marcus, AMC, etc.) for at least five years before COVID, maybe a bit longer.