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• We are all revolting children.

• The movie war is getting ugly.

• More reason to love Jennifer Coolidge.

• Life is 30 Rock: Part 459.

• Big Gay Day.

Matilda Is Shockingly Good

There’s something gratifying during the holiday season about watching children stage an uprising against a sniveling, diabolical, oppressing overlord who has ruined their lives. In their success, those kids turn the world into the accepting utopia it should be. That is to say that this holiday season in particular, with those in power hellbent on making life miserable for us all, there’s something invigorating about Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical.

I had been resistant to watching the musical, which is now on Netflix. I don’t know why. I love musicals. Now that I’ve seen it, I feel foolish. It’s wonderful. 

Roald Dahl’s story, about a telekinetic child who, ignored by her parents, is sent to a school where students are demeaned and tortured as a way of falling in line, is as captivating as ever. (The 1988 novel was turned into a 1996 movie starring Mara Wilson.)

Matilda, played here with star-making vivaciousness, spunk, and wide-eyed tenderness by Alisha Weir, has too much intelligence to tolerate the injustice she sees. Sure, she has the superpowers to stand up to the tyrant, Emma Thompson’s ghastly headmistress Miss Trunchbull, and incite an uprising. But it takes the whole student body, each of whom has that spark within, to join in to make the change happen. 

Like much of Dahl’s work, it doesn’t patronize its readers by pretending the world isn’t dark and unfair. Matilda leans into the fact that it can be downright cruel and mean. (Preach!) 

Matilda is born to parents who don’t want her. When they’re not berating her as a “lousy little worm” or “nasty little troublemaking goblin,” they are banishing her to an attic, where she escapes through books she lends from her local librarian—her only confidante. Going off to school should be a dream respite from this miserable existence. Mrs. Trunchbull has other plans.

“This isn’t a school. It’s a prison,” Matilda is advised when she arrives, excited for her first day. Her classmates are a mixture of jaded and resigned. They know the drill. Fall in line, or risk being sent to solitary confinement—or even worse punishments, like being forced to eat an entire multilayer chocolate cake or being hurled like a shot put by your pigtails.  

Trunchbull’s motto for her school is “Bambinatum est maggitum,” which translates to, “Children are maggots.” That might seem outrageously cartoonish, the invention of a children’s author trying to make hyperbole out of a school’s harshness in order to get through to young readers. But, um, look around, folks. It’s not far-fetched.

There’s no shortage of legislation that dehumanizes children and restricts what they can be taught, while educators around the country will tell you how frustrating it is that mandates have turned students into nothing more than testing scores and statistics. 

Branch out beyond the young population, and adults feel it, too: the helplessness when those in charge don’t think of you or your well-being as worth validating. That applies to the housing crisis, the cravenness of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, or the dog whistling upholding the rise in antisemitism, racial hate, and transphobia. On a more granular level, it’s the deep-sigh reaction to what’s happening with Twitter, or the unforgivable series of decisions that led to the fiasco with Southwest Airlines that affected millions of people this week.

It sounds silly to extrapolate any of this from… the Matilda musical. Yet when Matilda starts singing, “Just because you find that life’s not fair, it / doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it,” you find yourself calling out in response, “Yeah girl!” Yes, this is a story about a child’s revenge. But, like every great children’s story, there are base-level lessons about humanity that should stir something in all of us. 

Dahl’s an expert in that, and this particular cinematic adaptation—complete with Tim Minchin’s music from the West End and Broadway stage productions—excels at lavishing in the fantasy and the fanciful, creating a sense of wonder that, nonetheless, always stays grounded. 

Thompson’s Trunchbull is a monster, as vivid and deliciously grotesque as in any creature feature. She’s padded to an imposing stature, with her bulbous warts, yellowed teeth, and broken capillaries dotting her face as she sneers, spits, and bullies. She is a juxtaposition herself: as militant and concerned with order as she is crude and gross. To call a performance of this kind of character delightful might seem strange, but such are the transformative powers of Thompson. It’s a triumph that is a complete 180 from her sensitive tour de force earlier this year in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.

Tempering Trunchbull’s insidiousness is Miss Honey, played by Lashana Lynch in a similarly impressive show of range, after appearing so formidable in the action-heavy The Woman King. Miss Honey is Matilda’s lifeline, a compassionate, if sometimes meek advocate for the students—even if Trunchbull’s reign of terror dominates. 

All of this wouldn’t matter if the singing or dancing weren’t so good. (This is a musical, after all.) And this ensemble of kids… wow. What are the memes and the lingo the youths say these days? They ate. Quote Gigi Hadid, “Slay, big slay.” Their dancing was a major flex and that’s on periodt.

Hell if I know how young people will describe it, but I’d call it thrilling. 

Director Matthew Warchus did something that, bafflingly, is rare for recent movie musicals: He let us see the dancing. Long, sustained group shots allow us to see these kids nailing incredible choreography. The highlight of the film, “Revolting Children,” finds the students storming through the hallways while executing complicated dance moves that are all rapid movement and sharp elbows, captured in vigorous, long tracking shots as they move through the school. It ranks high among the coolest movie sequences I’ve seen this year. 

“We are revolting children living in revolting times,” they sing, as they take back their right to a happy life—heck, even just a normal one. “We will become a screaming horde… Never again will we be ignored.” 

I gotta say: It’s quite the rallying cry.

The Discourse Is Broken

It’s wonderful to love a movie. It’s OK to think it’s bad. 

The people who like a film have found something worthy to latch onto. How nice! The people who didn’t aren’t tasteless buffoons, which you might be confused about if you’ve seen any tweets about the movies Babylonor Glass Onion in the last week. 

People—brace yourselves—like different things! That includes critics. That includes cinephiles. That includes the people who see movies about once a year. It’s all fine. In fact, it’s supposed to be the fun of all this. 

There is value in attempting to dissect the reasons for any sort of polarized reaction, especially when it’s as split as Babylon or Glass Onion. The former film stars Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, and is a bonkers romp commenting on Old Hollywood. The latter is the sequel to Knives Out, with Daniel Craig returning to solve a murder mystery involving Kate Hudson and Janelle Monáe. 

Depending on the exact moment you scroll through Twitter, you’ll either see that Babylon is an audacious masterpiece that only the high-minded among us can appreciate, or you’ll see someone warning all Americans to turn off the film after 15 minutes and save themselves. When it comes to Glass Onion, you might see someone heralding the meticulousness of Rian Johnson’s script and filmmaking, or you will see someone spitting on all the plebian idiots who ever said the movie was good in the first place. 

The discourse is broken. I’m not sure why it’s these two movies in particular that shattered it, but it’s been exhausting to witness. Tiptoeing through it, it’s impossible not to get cut by the shard remnants. I think it’s ruining the way we talk about film, pop culture, and fun. 

It’s bizarre that people are discounting or invalidating the critics who don’t share their opinion about a film. There is value to criticism. Reviews are an individual perspective, formed from years of experience and an understanding of how art influences industry and culture. It’s also very personal. A review is not binding law. It is guidance for thinking about a piece of art as you watch and process it, so that your own understanding of it might deepen—whether or not you agree. 

If you read Twitter’s reaction to reviews of Glass Onion or Babylon, you’d think a review the poster disagreed with was the world’s most heinous hate speech.  

It makes sense that there are differing opinions on these films. Damien Chazelle’s three-hour-and-nine-minute bacchanal that opens with a close-up of an elephant defecating isn’t going to be for everyone, but will be passionately appreciated by some. The experience matters, too. Would you believe that people who saw Glass Onion at packed advanced screenings or in theaters had a glaringly different view of the film to those who watched while scrolling through their phones half paying attention with no audience reaction besides their family members in the kitchen talking loudly about Christmas dinner plans? 

How you feel about either of these films shouldn’t be your defining trait, no matter what trends on Twitter might say. (How you feel about Sister Act should be.)

In any case, both of these movies are predicted to be Best Picture nominees, which to me says more about the fractured industry than anything.

Jennifer Coolidge Does Stand-Up!

After just ranting about people on Twitter, I feel foolish celebrating it. But were it not for Twitter, I never would have found out that Jennifer Coolidge, before some high-end gays tried to kill her on The White Lotus, did a stand-up set at Comix in New York in 2010.

Coolidge is not a stand-up comedian, though she may be among the funniest people alive. So discovering this was like unearthing buried treasure at the bottom of the ocean. 

In the clip that’s been circulating, Coolidge talks about the very first job she had in Hollywood. According to her act, she had a bit part in Sophie’s Choice, as the German girl working in a strudel shop. Did you forget about that scene in the Oscar-winning, all-time tear-jerker? No worries, Coolidge recreates it for you, strudel and all.

Just when we think we’ve seen all the layers to Coolidge’s brilliance, a clip like this surfaces to remind us that her talent knows no bounds. (Watch it here.)

R.I.P. Andrew Tate

This week, Andrew Tate trolled Greta Thunberg by showing off how many carbon emissions his travel gives off each week, to which she replied with a tweet about his “small dick energy.” He then responded to her in a video, in which a pizza box was visible. The restaurant on that pizza box apparently alerted Romanian authorities that he was in the country, and they arrested him on human trafficking allegations. 

Once I Googled “who the fuck is Andrew Tate?” I really appreciated this news story. (He’s a former kickboxer, reality star, and internet idiot—someone for the straights to know and me to blissfully ignore, until now.) 

Not only was the way he entrapped himself the epitome of narcissistic foolishness: trying to make a snarky point in the face of a “woke” teenager. The way he was caught was also exactly a plot on 30 Rock. It’s how Liz found Tracy when he went into hiding: a pizza box in a video. 

This is 2022. All life is 30 Rock.

The Gay High Holy Holiday 

This week, we commemorate the time 20 years ago when an entire generation realized they were gay. Happy 20th anniversary to Chicago and The Hours. 

• Kaleidoscope: The new Netflix show lets you choose what order to watch episodes in. It’s fun! (Sun. on Netflix)

• Watch What Happens Live:Our long national nightmare (WWHL’s holiday break) is finally over. (Tues. on Bravo)

• Lizzo: Live in Concert: A good-as-hell way to end the year. (Sat. on HBO Max)

• CNN’s New Year’s Eve: Some buzzkill head honcho is not letting them get drunk! An affront to us all! (Sat. on CNN)

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