The Triumph of the Whore?

Ugh, there's so much going on as January 2026 crawls and slithers its way to a close, and I'll address as much as I can in due time.  But in the meantime, the reviews are in . . ..  Critics across America are raving about Melania!

"Melania (★½ out of four) doesn't quite work as a documentary, as [the director] fails to offer a compelling glimpse into the first lady's life, instead presenting an extremely flattering view with little new information." - Brian Truitt, USA Today

"[Melania is so] orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial." - Variety

Melania is a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review; it's so expected and utterly pointless." - Kevin Fallon, The Daily Review

"Some of this is undeniably watchable simply because of who and what she is, but the scenes of [French-American designer Hervé]  Pierre et al fussing as Mrs. Trump models soon grow tedious. More striking, though, is her fastidious attention to detail when it comes to how she appears. Her gaze never looks more intensely focused than when she’s posing before a mirror, checking all the angles with near-clinical detachment." - Manohla Dargis, the New York Times

"[Melania] is a purportedly serious film that plays like a mockumentary. If you were making a movie that parodied the current first lady of the United States, I’m not sure what you’d do differently." - Joy Press, Vanity Fair

And those are the most positive reviews.

But the premiere at the Trump-Kennedy Center was a runaway success.

The name of the director is Brett Ratner, whose only previous connection to the Presidency is that he was born on the same day that Dwight D. Eisenhower died.  He's directed the Rush Hour films, which finally made Jackie Chan a household name among people who do not follow martial arts, but he's also known even more for being blacklisted from Hollywood because of sexual assault charges against him.  Ratner is one of the earliest victims of the Me Too movement of the early days of Trump's first term.  No doubt Ratner got the job to film this thing because Trump sympathized with his plight, but the only way Melania was going to be a success was if Ratner treated it as a comedy, not a serious documentary.  If the reviews of the film - a look at the twenty days before Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration - are to be taken at face value (and why wouldn't they be?), it's a comedy, alright, but the comedy is unintentional.

Joy Press also added in her review that Ratner is no Leni Riefenstahl, and as that great American humorist Earvin "Magic" Johnson once said, man, that's cold.  Even though Leni Riefenstahl and her American counterpart, David Wark Griffith, are likely in purgatory for their racist attitudes and affiliations, they at least gained recognition for their technical proficiency in moviemaking.  D.W. Griffith, for example, may have made Birth of a Nation, but he also gained acclaim for freeing the cinema from merely being filmed plays, with his innovative camera angles and elaborate sets.  Brett Ratner doesn't even have that going for him.  In a word, he's a hack.  

And it's his name on the film.  Several people who were involved with it had their names removed from the credits, so Ratner clearly owns this one.  As does Melania.

Get back, Melania, your mommy's waiting for you.

The most obscene thing about Melania is all the money Jeff Bezos spent on this film, $75 million in production and promotion just to secure government contracts, meaning he'll make back that money in a jiffy - just not at the box office.  Even worse, this movie is being distributed by MGM, since bought by Bezos' Amazon. This is the same studio that lifted to stardom, among others, Judy Garland, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Elizabeth Taylor, Gary Cooper, Gene Kelly, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Mickey Rooney, Donald O'Connor, Robert Mitchum, and the King of Hollywood himself, Clark Gable.

Not to mention Shorty the kitten, the star of Bad Luck Blackie.

Rest in peace, Tex Avery. 

But unlike these stars, and the movies (and cartoon shorts) they starred in, Melania will be forgotten.

Likely by next Tuesday.

Right . . . back in a flash with more trash.

It's Only a Movie

At a time when ICE is murdering people in the streets of Minneapolis and threatening to take their road show elsewhere, Donald Trump is promoting the allegedly long-awaited documentary on his wife.

Melania Trump is particularly in a bad mood because of what is happening in Minneapolis, and not because two people have been brutally murdered.  She's upset because all of the brouhaha there is overshadowing to the premiere of her documentary this week.

I've seen other examples of heartless callousness before, but this takes the kremšnita.

Melania, it must be remembered, is as much a grifter as her husband is.  And like Donald, she only cares about herself and has only one purpose, to make as much money as she can before she dies.  The only reason this documentary exists is because Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, looking to mend fences with her husband, offered $40 million to produce such a film.  In exchange, Bezos expected from Trump - and got - relief from Trump's threats to raise postal rates that would affect Amazon's bottom line, and - more important to Bezos - a chance to get some really lucrative contracts (*cough cough*, Blue Origin, *cough cough*).  Bezos ended up spending 75 million simoleons on the movie, with the additional $35 million for marketing.

Now the movie is premiering nationwide tomorrow, and it's already a flop.  Tickets for advance sales have sold so poorly, the theaters can't even give them away.   People are posting on social media things they'd rather do than watch Melania, such as prepare for a colonoscopy, have their wisdom teeth taken out, or watch the 1978 Sgt. Pepper movie twice (and I've already done all three!).  Melania is likely to be the be the lowest-grossing movie of all time, grossing even less money than Zyzzyx Road, a 2006 thriller that only took in thirty dollars in a very limited theatrical release.  But then, it starred Katherine Heigl. 

Melania, by all accounts, is likely to win a Razzie award for playing herself.  As for Jeff Bezos, he got what he wanted, and the $75 million he spent to get influence Trump is just pocket change for a multibillionaire like him.   In the meantime, following a private screening at White House this past Sunday, Melania has its world premiere tonight at the Trump-Kennedy Center.  A slew of D-list celebrities are attending, and this premiere is likely to have all of the glamour of a home movie being shown in the family den, but who cares when all that mattered is to provide an outlet for lower-middle-class entertainment for the undereducated to appreciate?  That, of course, is nothing new for the Trump-Kennedy Center, which was a second-rate showbiz venue long before Trump added his name to it.

All that notwithstanding, Melania is sure to close in the theaters faster than a storm window in the current brutal cold snap that is currently gripping the Northeastern states (which still haven't seceded like I'd hoped).