'The Apprentice': Not your average Trump derangement cinema



"You create your own reality. The truth is malleable," Roy Cohn tells a young Donald Trump in the new movie "The Apprentice."

It's a lesson that the starry-eyed scion from Queens will take all the way to the White House.

The crude patriotism expressed by both Trump and Cohn may be self-serving, but it's hard not to see it as preferable to the pessimistic inertia dragging this once great city down.

But it could also serve as a warning to anyone trying to make a film about Trump: The reality-distortion field surrounding our 45th president affects his critics no less than his fans.

Man, myth, monster

Trump is one of the most controversial human beings in contemporary history; a populist messiah or rage-fueled fascist, depending on who you ask.

It is almost impossible to portray him in a neutral or sympathetic light, to grapple with the humanity under the accumulated detritus of five decades of public life.

Past attempts, like Showtime’s “The Comey Rule" — a blatant piece of "resistance" propaganda uninterested in any coherent depiction of the Trump administration's inner workings — don't bother trying.

As a result, most film and TV versions of Trump barely rise above Alec Baldwin's crude "Saturday Night Live" caricature, driven by partisan resentment and mesmerized by Trump's often disagreeable public persona.

Trump in training

“The Apprentice” largely avoids this trap by approaching its subject indirectly. Instead of the fully-formed scourge of democracy, it gives us a portrait of the deal artist as a young man.

Set in the 1970s and 1980s, the film opens on boyish Donald Trump still struggling to break free from his boorish, domineering father and his modest, outer-borough real estate empire.

A company vice president whose duties include going door-to-door collecting overdue rent from disgruntled tenants, the young Trump dreams of turning the family business into something bigger but is hampered by a federal lawsuit alleging racist housing discrimination (a charge the movie suggests is true).

It isn't until a chance meeting with infamous Joseph McCarthy prosecutor and political fixer Roy Cohn that Trump sees a way out from under his father's shadow. Taking the aspiring mogul under his wing, Cohn guides him through the early stages of his career by teaching him the three cardinal rules of winning: attack, deny everything, and never admit defeat.

Sympathy for the Donald

Echoing themes from “Citizen Kane” and classic Greek tragedies, "The Apprentice" presents the rise of Trump as a cautionary tale; director Ali Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman are smart enough to understand that their protagonist needs a sympathetic core if his hollowing out is to be effective.

Superficially, the movie isn’t shy about its contempt toward the man and his influences. Family patriarch Fred Sr. is unabashedly racist, Cohn drops homophobic slurs and rambles about liberals and socialists stealing from great men, and one of Trump’s opening scenes is him as a landlord threatening to evict Section 8 renters overburdened by medical bills.

Trump himself is depicted as a venal adulterer who goes as far as to rape his wife (as Ivana Trump alleged and later backtracked on in her 1990 divorce deposition). The movie works overtime to earn its bleak conclusion, in which the student callously discards the master.

Surgical strike

"The Apprentice" emphasizes Trump's ultimate dehumanization and moral degradation in the graphic, close-up shots of scalp-reduction surgery and liposuction (on a patient coyly suggested to be Trump) with which it ends. Evoking both Darth Vader and Dr. Frankenstein's abomination, this clinical, creepy scene makes the movie's subtext clear: We've just witnessed the creation of a monster.

Trump may be a monster, but he's also very much a product of his environment. As "The Apprentice" takes care to establish, the New York City of this era is rotting, with even the iconic Chrysler building in foreclosure. The crude patriotism expressed by both Trump and Cohn may be self-serving, but it's hard not to see it as preferable to the pessimistic inertia dragging this once great city down.

According to Abbasi, his goal was not to portray Trump as “a caricature or a crooked politician or a hero or whatever you might think, but as a human being.” As Politico puts it, he’s an anti-hero. “He’s tragic, not evil.”

High-rise Hamlet

Sebastian Stan brings this tragic note to his portrayal of Trump, especially in scenes with his alcoholic older brother, Freddy (a suitably dissolute Charlie Carrick), summoning a tenderness not often associated with the former president. Stan ably captures his subject's more peculiar eccentricities, speech patterns, and mannerisms — even if the face of the Winter Soldier occasionally proves distracting.

This is a quality film, to use one of Trump's favorite descriptors. But its nuance may well have hurt its commercial prospects. Despite being marketed as "the movie Donald Trump doesn't want you to see" (bolstered by Trump's threats to sue the filmmakers for "pure malicious defamation"), "The Apprentice" hasn't done much business after a week in theaters.

Not much of an October surprise after all. But then, maybe it was too much to ask a well-crafted period piece like "The Apprentice" to compete with the riveting drama playing out before us in real time.

Trump isn't one for dwelling on the past, and neither are those drawn to him, whether out of love or hate. Where's he's been has always been far less compelling than what he'll do next.

'Back to the Future' bully Biff Tannen comes clean



"I’m famous, I’m too famous, and I‘m not famous enough ... all at the same time.”

This is the dilemma of actor Tom Wilson, best known for playing bully Biff Tannen in the "Back to the Future" trilogy. It's a dilemma he explores in his entertaining documentary "Humbly Super Famous," available to watch for free on YouTube.

Fame is a double-edged sword. It can promise you money and success, but in your most private moments, your humanity is stripped away, as you are unable to escape the fact that the world sees you as nothing more than a celebrity. The world sees a character embedded into fans’ memories and pop culture, but what is behind the character? Who is the person underneath?

"Humbly Super Famous" is Wilson's comical yet moving attempt to answer these questions. The film features footage shot by him of his convention appearances, interviews with his family, and candid moments of him interacting with his "Back to the Future" co-stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and Lea Thompson.

The film acts as a memoir of sorts for the actor reflecting on his career, his fame, his family, and his fans. Some of his interactions with the fans can be disturbing. When Wilson's mother dies at the hospital, for example, a nurse bombards him with comments and questions about "Back to the Future" as he tries to pray over his mother’s body.

Another anecdote from his career is too good to spoil here — suffice it to say you don't want to miss his "Batman" story.

Those who are already Wilson fans surely know his song "Stop Asking Me the Questions," in which he hilariously pokes fun at the well-intended but annoying questions he gets asked by fans on a regular basis.

Not that Wilson isn't grateful for his life-changing role, and the joy his performance brings to millions of people is not lost on him. Whether you’ve seen him at cons or had real interactions in person with him, which I’m grateful to say I have, it’s clear that the fandom that made him a household name, or "too famous," means a lot to him.

It is, however, understandable that he longs for people to see that there is more to him than the character of Biff Tannen. That role made Wilson famous, but it also made the man who made the role invisible to the public eye. It is evident that Wilson is a much more thoughtful person than the character who tormented two generations of McFlys.

This is what he means by "not famous enough," as comes across in a touching moment he shares with his daughter Emily. She and the rest of his family are highlighted throughout the movie; it's clear how much Wilson values their love and affection.The love they in turn feel for Wilson comes through as they share the personal impact his career had on them. It's clear that Wilson's Catholic faith has kept him grounded.

"Humbly Super Famous" is the epitome of a labor of love; Wilson alone shot, edited, produced, and directed it. It's a tribute to his fans, his family, and the career "Back to the Future" has given him, for better or for worse.

One theme emerges over the course of the almost 60-minute film: Whether you are famous, too famous, or not famous enough, what you do matters and how you treat people matters. The way Wilson makes time for people (no matter how inconvenient it may be) speaks volumes abour his character and his kindness, making him the rare Hollywood celebrity worth emulating.

I highly recommend checking out "Humbly Super Famous"; it’s easily one of the best films of the year.

Richard Nixon vs. God



Mention Richard Nixon and what first comes to mind is his Machiavellian cunning. Here is a man for whom power — acquiring it, maintaining it, and wielding it against his enemies — came first, right up until his brutal downfall.

But there was another, equally powerful force driving America's 37th president: his conflicted yet sincere Christian faith. Far from being a one-dimensional political animal, Nixon was a man deeply entangled in a lifelong struggle with God.

People don't think Nixon was religious. And he's not if you think ‘religion’ means ‘moral,’ ‘pious,’ or ‘loves to go to church.’

This struggle, as Daniel Silliman’s new biography, "One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon's Search for Salvation," reveals, shaped his actions and haunted his conscience until his final days.

Wm. B. Eerdmans

Hidden tensions

Silliman, an editor at Christianity Today, carefully peels back the layers of Nixon’s public persona to expose the spiritual tensions beneath.

Nixon’s quest for divine guidance, according to Silliman, was not a peripheral aspect of his life but central to his personal drama. This internal conflict, often overshadowed by his public scandals, is crucial to understanding the tragic dimensions of his story.

Even on the eve of his resignation, Nixon sought solace in prayer, overwhelmed by the weight of his sorrow and the collapse of his career. But as Silliman points out, Nixon's glance toward heaven wasn’t a desperate, last-minute attempt at redemption. It wasn’t some cheap Hail Mary.

On the contrary, it was a practice ingrained in him from his earliest days.

Religious roots

Nixon’s religious journey began with his Quaker upbringing. Raised in a household that emphasized simplicity, integrity, and self-discipline, these values laid the foundation for his early worldview.

However, his relationship with these ideals was far from straightforward. His father, a stern man, and his devout mother instilled in him a sense of duty and moral rigor that would shape his complex relationship with faith.

His marriage to Thelma Catherine “Pat” Ryan, raised Methodist, further rooted him in a faith that offered both support and stress. Nixon’s associations with two influential religious figures — Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale — would later play pivotal roles in shaping not just his personal struggles but also his political decisions and moral outlook.

Graham, the famous Baptist evangelist, was perhaps the most significant religious influence in Nixon’s life. Their friendship, which began in the early 1950s, was a powerful intersection of faith and politics.

Graham, with his mission to bring Christianity to the masses, embodied a form of religious authenticity and moral authority that Nixon deeply admired. However, at the same time, Graham’s unwavering commitment to moral purity often clashed with Nixon’s political pragmatism. Unsurprisingly, this created a tension that highlighted the disparity between Graham’s rigid ideals and Nixon’s actions.

Positive thinking

Norman Vincent Peale, a Presbyterian minister famous for his "power of positive thinking," offered Nixon a different kind of religious guidance. Peale’s teachings, which emphasized optimism and self-belief, resonated with Nixon’s ambitious nature. Moreover, in addition to providing him with a psychological framework, they also offered a roadmap for navigating the treacherous terrain of U.S. politics.

Peale’s philosophy was less about repentance and salvation and more about overcoming adversity through the sheer force of positivity. It was more Tony Robbins than Thomas Aquinas. This approach offered Nixon a “better” way to maintain his public image and manage the compounding pressures of his career.

However, Peale’s teachings also presented a paradox of sorts for Nixon. The contrast between Peale’s optimism and Nixon’s personal experiences of failure and moral compromise created a deep internal conflict.

While the power of positive thinking helped Nixon project a resilient public persona, it often clashed with the reality of his darker impulses and the ethical ambiguities that defined his political career.

A man in full

According to Silliman, none of this makes sense without reference to Nixon's spiritual battles. As he told Align, “People don't think Nixon was religious. And he's not if you think ‘religion’ means ‘moral,’ ‘pious,’ or ‘loves to go to church.’ But he's very religious if you think one of the things that means is someone struggling with God.”

“Nixon,” he added, “wrestled with the core Christian idea of God's grace his entire life. I argue that struggle is essential to who he was, and in the book, I show how it explains his great successes and his tragic humiliation.”

In Silliman's view, Nixon's inner, existential struggle with God is the key to understanding the man in full — and inseparable from his specific place in American history. By seeing Nixon in the context of America's mid-20th-century religious currents — most notably, the rise ofCold War Christianity and the impact of evangelical literature — Silliman presents a compellingly nuanced portrait of a complicated figure.

Like all of us, Nixon was far from flawless. Yet, the portrayal of him as a calculating villain fails to capture the full scope of his true character. Yes, his transgressions served his political ambition, but what did that ambition serve?

Silliman ventures an explanation. "I am not a crook," Nixon famously protested. Whether or not he truly believed this, Silliman suggests, he never managed to shake a deeper guilt: the guilt of a hopeless sinner in desperate need of redemption.

'Star Wars' show ‘The Acolyte’ can’t even do left-wing propaganda right: ‘It still FAILS’



"Star Wars" show "The Acolyte" cost $180 million to produce, and it’s finally over.

But after the season finale, Lauren Chen is wondering where the money went — or whether the writers of the show are even sane.

“I’m beginning to think that the writers behind ‘The Acolyte,’ they’re just bad people. Maybe even psychopaths,” Chen says, adding, “Overall, where this money went, I have no idea.”

In the finale, the protagonist of the show kills her old Jedi master, Sol, in cold blood, and it's presented as being “what’s right.”

“Is she really the protagonist? Like, I’m sorry, am I still supposed to like or relate to this character in any way, shape, or form?” Chen asks.

“Not only does basically the only good character in this show get murdered in the finale by the little girl that he helped raise and that he did rescue from these weird space witches, but on top of that, his memory and his legacy are completely dragged through the mud,” she adds.

The show itself was supposed to revolve around the theme of ambiguous morality, Chen doesn’t think it did a good job of that at all.

“Such disappointing stuff. And here’s the thing: The entire morality of this show essentially hinges on the fact that the writers believe that Sol was in the wrong, but they didn’t really do a good job convincing the audience otherwise,” Chen says.

While Chen doesn’t believe the show is the “worst thing” she’s ever seen, she says it’s up there.

“It’s terrible. It’s not good as a piece of "Star Wars" fiction, and it’s just not good as a show standing on its own. Like, it’s one thing if there were a show that kind of poked holes into "Star Wars" lore and canon, but at least it was entertaining to watch and decent,” she says.

“This is just not good as a piece of media. It’s not very interesting, it’s not every entertaining, and heck, even if we just look at it purely as a form of propaganda to push a social message, which it seems like is really all that the creators were interested in doing, it still fails, because the message it pushes is terrible,” she continues.

“It justifies murder, tries to add moral ambiguity into something that’s unambiguously bad, like having a temper or no control over your feelings. It’s just a failure all around,” she adds.


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'Midwit' writers of ‘The Boys’ just took WOKE to a new level



Amazon Prime’s “The Boys” has always been “woke,” but the latest season took the meaning of the word to an entirely new level.

“‘The Boys’ has really always been ‘woke’ since its first season,” Lauren Chen explains. “It’s only now, in its later seasons, particularly seasons three and four, that I found the wokeness is becoming really just too much.”

Chen points to one scene in particular that took it one step too far.

“There was a scene that was so stupid, so poorly written,” Chen says. The scene featured Victoria Newman, a Latina politician with super powers, and the newest character Sage, a black woman, whose entire presence in the show “is so frustrating.”

“Her entire premise is that she is the smartest person alive, but here’s the thing. That’s a problem because the writers for this show are not that smart. So, the question is, how do you portray the smartest person in the world when you are a certifiable midwit?” Chen asks.

The writers came up with a solution to this midwit condition they have by telling “the audience that she is smart, that Sage is smart, many, many times.”

In this particular scene, Newman and Sage are attending what appears to be a right-wing political gathering full of old white billionaires. The pair are scheming to get these billionaires on board with Newman as president, and Newman complains that she had “abortion mansplained” to her by a man who “refuses to be alone with any woman who’s not his wife.”

Not only is Chen disturbed by the abortion comment, the entire scheme is childish and not reflective of the “smartest person in the world.”

“Something that Sage in her infinite wisdom has concocted, but it’s like, well, obviously if you’re trying to seize political power, doesn’t it make sense to get other people who have power on board with your cause?” Chen says.

“That’s not some grandmaster strategy, that’s just literally the bare minimum you would expect to do if you are trying to do a soft coup. This is not genius-level stuff. I’ve literally seen women’s book clubs with more intricate political backstabbing and intrigue than this show,” she adds.


Was This Embarrassing Scene the "MOST WOKE" in TV Show History?

Was This Embarrassing Scene the "MOST WOKE" in TV Show History?

Will new 'Agatha All Along' series reverse Marvel’s downward trend?



Marvel’s surrender to wokeness has all but ruined the franchise. Longtime comic book fans have fled for hills when their favorite MCU characters have been gender-bent, race-bent, or altered to be more socially acceptable.

However, Disney+ will soon debut a new series called “Agatha All Along,” which follows Agatha Harkness, the villain from Marvel Studios’ "WandaVision.”

Could “Agatha” reverse Marvel’s downward spiral?

Lauren Chen, Blaze Media’s cinema critic, discusses the upcoming series.

Disney's NEXT FLOP: 'Agatha' Trailer Breakdownwww.youtube.com

Although the series won’t drop until September, the trailer alone has Lauren fearing that the show will be yet another money pit.

First, she doesn’t think the series will generate enough interest.

“It's not like this was a particularly popular character in the comics and even in ‘WandaVision,’ the show that introduced her,” she says.

Further, according to rumors Lauren is privy to, “the reason they're giving Agatha her own series is not just because she's potentially another girlboss character they can exploit, but also because they are hoping to resurrect Scarlet Witch in the MCU.”

Even the show's producers seem wary about the series, given that it was announced in 2021 but is premiering three years later.

“It definitely seems like the prolonged production period was due, at least in part, to uncertainty on behalf of the show's creators,” says Lauren, adding that the series “has had four different names at different points in time” – names that “had already been announced to the public,” further solidifying the theory that there’s an air of doubt surrounding the show.

MCU fans are also skeptical about the series appearing to be “more horror-centric” than other MCU shows, but Lauren would enjoy a darker series “if Disney could pull it off.”

As for the series’ wokeness meter, rumors have suggested that “they may make Agatha herself gay or at the very least bisexual,” says Lauren, referencing a Bounding into Comics article.

“I think we should expect this show to be completely lockstep in line with the M-She-U as of late,” she predicts. “I personally cannot wait to see how much of a flop [‘Agatha All Along’] ends up being.”

For all its faults, Lauren does see a couple of bright spots for the show.

“It doesn’t look cheap,” she says.

And Aubrey Plaza stars in it, but Lauren doubts that “she's going to be enough to save this series.”

To hear more about “Agatha All Along,” watch the clip above.

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'The Acolyte' is a $180 million WOKE DISASTER that keeps getting worse



"Star Wars: The Acolyte" is an absolute disaster.

The new "Star Wars" spin-off series was created by Leslye Headland for Disney+, and it’s turning the beloved world George Lucas built upside down.

“The show’s creator is actually doing interviews trying to do damage control and defend the show and justify the fact that she’s essentially doing a 180 from what ‘Star Wars’ fans have come to know and expect from the franchise,” Lauren Chen explains.

The show cost $180 million to produce, which Chen notes means “that each single episode had more of a budget than the entirety of Godzilla, minus one.”

While "Star Wars" fans have come to know the Jedi as the good guys, the series is now attempting to portray them as “the patriarchs of the universe who are these unjust authoritarians who are trying to clamp down on the oppressed space witch lesbians of the universe.”

“I think showing a different perspective is always fine, whether it’s entertainment or the real world, frankly, actual politics and history, but in this series, they actually portray the Jedi as doing bad stuff, as being the bad guys engaging in bad actions,” Chen explains.

“So, no, it goes beyond just ‘Oh, trying to portray a different perspective,’” she adds.

While Headland claimed the series has a “morally gray narrative,” Chen doesn’t believe she’s accomplished that whatsoever.

“Morally gray is what a good writer could have accomplished, but I feel like these writers, they lack any nuance. It actually takes finesse and skill, I think, to write something morally ambiguous, and so these people just fail like at best,” she explains.

Instead of a successful narrative flip, Chen says what “Star Wars” fans were given is “Leslye Headland and her DEI crew.”

Headland’s wife, Rebecca Henderson, was also cast in the show as the alien Vernestra, who Chen says is the “worst actress on the show.”

“So, if you’re wondering how on earth she got cast in this, uh, nepotism, basically,” Chen says.


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Should We Worry About The End Of America?

Eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson's latest book, 'The End of Everything,' examines the causes civilizational collapse — and there are some ominous warnings for today.

'A Quiet Place: Day One' saves the cat, spares the monsters



I have fond memories of taking two of my children to see "A Quiet Place Part II" in Topsham, Maine, in the summer of 2020. My son pronounced it the "scariest movie he'd ever seen" and reported trying to make as little noise as possible during a bathroom visit right after the credits rolled.

His high estimation of the film may have had to do with his age: he was 6 at the time. In retrospect, a little young, but I can't say I feel very guilty about it. The three "A Quiet Place" installments are resolutely PG-13, the kind of more or less wholesome cinematic roller-coaster ride Steven Spielberg used to excel at.

In our current age of managed decline, watching terrified, demoralized Americans abandon one of our greatest cities isn't much fun.

At that point in his life, my son couldn't have had more than 30 movies to which to compare "A Quiet Place Part II." He hadn't even seen the first one. My then 10-year-old daughter had, and her review of the sequel was a little more mixed. She'd enjoyed it while watching it, but as the thrill of the jump scares faded during the car ride home, she mentioned her disappointment that it really didn't do anything new.

Blunt force

I had to agree. 2018's "A Quiet Place" ended on a note of defiance. Having discovered the enemy's weakness — and a clever method of targeting it — Emily Blunt's Evelyn Abbott seemed poised to become an unsmiling killing machine a la Linda Hamilton in "Terminator 2." Perhaps director/star John Krasinski would follow the example of the "Alien" series and make the first sequel more of an action movie.

Alas, apart from an entertaining prologue — an effective flashback to the day the creatures landed in the Abbott's small town — "A Quiet Place Part II" pretty much stuck to formula, keeping our heroes on the defensive and exploring more scenarios in which characters simply must not make a sound, despite being very, very tempted to do so.

The first movie gave us what is arguably the ultimate such scenario — giving birth (while also having just stepped on a nail). Its follow-up finds nothing so memorable. We do meet other survivors — but mainly for the usual "the biggest monster of all is man" routine that has been more effectively explored in "The Walking Dead," to name one example. It's hardly an improvement on the original's claustrophobic dread. And once again the movie reminds us that we know how to kill these things. But we still don't, at least not at any meaningful scale.

Perhaps this will be addressed by the upcoming "A Quiet Place Part III." In the meantime we have the official prequel, "A Quiet Place: Day One," which my children and I saw at the same movie theater where we enjoyed its predecessor four years ago.

Slice of life

Like fellow horror icons Jason Voorhees and Ghostface, the Death Angels have hit the big time: New York City. Bigger may not be better, but it is louder: An opening intertitle mentions that NYC generally maintains an ambient volume of 90 decibels, about the same level as a human scream.

This factoid is meant to be ominous, but my first thought was: Wouldn't all that noise make it easier to hide? Much of what made "A Quiet Place" so suspenseful was the utter stillness of the countryside, in which the snap of a branch echoed like an explosion. The city does quiet down quite a bit as it empties out, but characters holed up in a Manhattan storefront or apartment simply don't feel as terrifyingly isolated as the Abbotts did in their farmhouse.

Our hero this time is Sam (Lupita Nyong'o), a dying poet living in hospice outside the city. Like many terminally ill movie characters, Sam has a bad attitude about her imminent death; in fact, she's only able to muster affection for her service cat, Frodo. The promise of one last slice of real New York pizza is enough to convince Sam to join her hospice mates on a field trip to Manhattan; we share her horror when it's revealed that this particular outing is to a marionette theater.

Sam's despair deepens as the invasion begins. Whatever's happening, it's serious enough that they'll have to head back to the hospice without getting pizza. Once the monsters show up in earnest, its clear that nobody's going anywhere, at least not by bus.

Nyong'o is a good actress, and she makes us understand how important getting this pizza has become to Sam. There's nothing mannered or cutesy about it; she displays real anguish and barely contained fury when it's denied her. So it's not hard to buy in to Sam's mission. While everyone else is heading downtown to be evacuated via the South Street Seaport, Sam (still with Frodo) is headed to Harlem to the legendary Patsy's Pizzeria.

A real drip

Along the way she runs into Eric (Joseph Quinn), a young and terrified British law student. We first see Eric emerge gasping for air from a flooded subway tunnel. His suit is drenched, of course, and he also turns out to be "wet" in the British sense of the word: weak, ineffectual, without personality. He begs Sam to let him come with her; eventually she relents.

Is this supposed to be one of those "woke" role reversals I keep hearing about? This time we'll have the guy play the helpless girl? But that doesn't make sense; it's not as if anyone likes that kind of character when played by a woman. These otherwise functional, able-bodied adults exist as annoying plot contrivances, dead weight there just to make the protagonist's life harder.

Whoever marketed this movie must have had reservations about how this role reversal would play; on the movie's ugly, photoshopped-looking poster (increasingly common these days), it is Nyong'o who stifles a scream, while Quinn exudes bland determination.

Eric does nearly get them both killed at least once; he also lets her lead the way, while he cringes behind her likes she's a human shield. This is all the more jarring as Nyong'o is not what you'd call a "Mary Sue." She's also very scared; her silent emoting is one of selling points of the movie. So what does she see in this guy?

Eric's uselessness becomes a real problem when we get to his character's real function: He's there to help Sam "learn how to live." He does this with a classic "nice guy" move. While a more survival-oriented alpha would have been too busy planning their escape, Eric takes the time to really listen to Sam's boilerplate backstory; when the time is right, he knows just what to do to cheer her up.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on "A Quiet Place: Day One." My kids enjoyed it. And I did too, to some extent; I've never not been "gotten" by a jump scare, and this movie has some decent ones. But I daresay the filmmakers are overestimating our interest in an "origin story" for these interstellar man-eaters. "A Quiet Place" is fun because it plunges us into the action in media res. Our minds trying to fill in the gaps adds to the terror.

No church in the wild

Variety recently called the "Quiet Place" trilogy "one of horror's most reliable box-office franchises." I for one am sincerely glad for its consistency. It hits that sweet spot for the parent of pre-teens and teens: chills without gore or sex that the whole family can enjoy. I won't complain if they keep cranking them out at this level of quality.

But I doubt I'll bother going on my own. It turns out these monsters just aren't that interesting beyond their central gimmick. The characters in "A Quiet Place: Day One" may be experiencing all this for the first time, but it's our third go-round. After a while, all the shushing makes you feel like you're in a library.

The screenwriting rule that you should endear your character to the audience by having him or her "save the cat" is a cliche by now; I'm not the first one to point out that Sam has a literal "save the cat" moment here.

The problem is that Frodo (well played by two different cats, Schnitzel and Nico) emerges as the most likeable character by far. Even the little Sam and Quinn do say is too much; the completely silent feline is beautiful to watch in a way that the human characters, saddled by the script's hokey therapeutic concerns, just aren't.

At one point Sam and Eric find themselves huddled with other survivors in a beautiful, bombed-out church. But it's just a pleasant way station on their pilgrimage to Sam's own personal holy site: the jazz club where she used to watch her father play piano. Who needs prayers when you can get "closure"?

But what if they did pray? God might give them the courage to persevere — and with it, the obligation to embrace suffering and maybe even to keep fighting. When self-care is your religion, you face no such demands. Resignation and helplessness become virtues, as does comfort. The most noble end we can all hope for is to die "on our own terms."

That's how you end up with assisted suicide. During peak COVID, there was something a little too close to home in the spectacle of Americans huddled together indoors, too scared to make a peep. And in our current age of managed decline, watching terrified, demoralized Americans abandon one of our greatest cities isn't much fun either.

To paraphrase a certain presidential candidate, I like horror movie heroes who don't get killed. Deep down, most of us do. America needs a win; I hereby call for a moratorium on miserabilist blockbusters until morale improves. Haven't we had enough pussyfooting around?