September 29, 2017, - 4:32 pm
Weekend Box Office: Battle of the Sexes, American Made
This weekend at the box office is a sad exercise in blatant fake news and revisionist “history” on behalf of the left. Both new movies are propaganda filled with lies (and with defamation of the right and President Reagan, in one case). Both movies purport to be “true” stories, but neither actually tells the truth. (I did not see the remake of “Flatliners,” which was not screened for critics.)
* Battle of the Sexes – Rated PG-13: In 2013, on its 40th anniversary, I wrote about the so-called “Battle of The Sexes,” the phony publicity stunt parading as a tennis match between Bobby Riggs (played here by Steve Carell) and Billie Jean King (Emma Stone). I urge you to read it because everything I wrote then, applies now to this movie debuting in theaters today. The much-hyped, televised 1973 competition between a chubby 55-year-old man versus the-then Number Two female tennis player in the world was no “battle of the sexes.” Not even close. But this movie doesn’t tell you the truth. It claims the match was about women’s equality and that it is proof that women can beat men. It is no such thing.
As I wrote in 2013, if King had played and beaten the then-current Number One (or Number Two) men’s tennis player in the world, then it would be all of those things and more. It would be an incredible feat. But as John McEnroe rightly wrote in his new book, if Serena Williams were on the men’s tour, she would barely crack the top 500. I think he was being very generous. The men’s 1,000th best player would kick her ass, too. And the same goes for Billie Jean King. This was no contest between “comparables” among the genders. Not even close. Riggs should and could have beaten her . . . handily.
But there’s a good reason he didn’t, and it has nothing to do with Billie Jean King’s tennis playing ability. It’s well known that Bobby Riggs owed tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Mafia, and that he threw the match to pay back his debts. Cosa Nostra ordered him to lose (more here), and it was “an offer you can’t refuse.” Riggs could have easily beaten King. He’d only recently beaten Margaret Court, who was then the world’s Number One women’s player.
While the movie covers Riggs’ gambling habit (the movie pretends his rich wife, played by Elisabeth Shue, gave him money that allowed him to live this lifestyle and pay for his addiction), it doesn’t tell you about the tremendous debts he incurred with the Mafia or the story about his throwing the match. It also doesn’t tell you that he 1) didn’t train as hard for the match as he did for the Court match, 2) was seen meeting with Mafia-connected figures before and up until the match, 3) was reportedly thinking that a loss would make for a bigger payday at a rematch (also planned by the mob), and 4) if he planned to win, he would have bet money on himself (but didn’t because he planned to lose). The movie portrays none of this and acts as if none of this was the case.
Grace Lichtenstein, who covered the women’s tour and The Battle of the Sexes for The New York Times, also thought the match was a whole lotta nothin’.
The fact that what was really an inconsequential, made-for-television, silly matchup—an absolute circus—has gone on to attain this mythical status is remarkable, because it shouldn’t have been a landmark of anything. All the Battle of the Sexes really proved is that a 29-year-old woman in the prime of her tennis career could beat a fifty-five-year-old has been who happens to be male.
While the movie is entertaining and well-paced, it’s basically a non-stop propaganda film for LGBTQ rights. Back in the day, movies like this–filled with semi-porn lesbian sex and make-out scene–would at the very least be rated “R” (a hard “R”). But no longer. I guess, now, it’s “educational”–you know, to pimp children, er . . . “teach” children the greatness and sainthood of being a lesbionic woman. And so is the case with Billie Jean King, champion tennis player, who is portrayed here by Emma Stone. The movie is chock full of intimate lesbionic scenes between King and her hairdresser, a woman with whom the married King (her husband was Larry King, not the octogenarian TV host) cheated. It’s stuff I didn’t want to see, and it creeped me out.
Moreover, the movie heavily romanticizes and glamorizes the relationship King had with Marilyn Barnett, the hairstylist, but doesn’t tell the whole story–probably because King and her current lesbian partner were paid consultants to the movie. In real life, King dumped Barnett, kicked her out of the house, and completely cut her off. Barnett sued her for palimony and lost, getting nothing after nearly a decade as King’s partner and personal assistant. Then she attempted suicide and became paralyzed as a result.
Aside from those objections, the casting for the King role is all wrong. While actress Emma Stone is 28 (nearly the same age as King was at the time), she looks nothing like Billie Jean King. The wig and eyeglasses are right, but that’s it. Stone is a youthful ingénue type. King was masculine-looking and looked far more mature than her years. Other casting, though minor, is also bad. For example, Jamey Sheridan plays tennis champ Ken Rosewall in a barely there role. I was once Rosewall’s ball girl at a series of exhibition tennis matches in Scottsdale, Arizona in the mid-’80s. Sheridan looks and behaves nothing like Rosewall (and he has far more and much better hair).
Carell, on the other hand, is perfectly cast. With the facial prosthetics, wig, and make-up, he looks like Riggs’ twin . . . so much so that I thought it was him (and not the real thing) in the real-life photos of Riggs and King that flash onscreen at the end of the film. Carell–while he gets Riggs’ self-deprecating, braggadocious, and purposely-exaggerated “chauvinism” exactly right–is actually much more likable than the original he plays. And he’s the real star of this movie.
Other than Carell’s likeness to Riggs and his performance in this movie, the best thing I can say about this two hours of non-stop fiction parading as history, is that the ’70s costumes, décor, and soundtrack were well done. Very well done. But they are the only thing accurate to the time. The portrayal of this long-forgotten tennis match is mostly hype. Just like the match was.
It definitely wasn’t the Battle of the Sexes, as the game was billed. Nor was it “history” as the left would have us believe. Nor is it a match worth celebrating . . . or even remembering.
It was just a disposable moment in pop culture that meant nothing. And still means nothing.
As I wrote in my 2013 column on this cubic zirconium “Battle of the Sexes,”
Forty years ago, the media and promoters created a phony event that proved nothing but gave delusional feminists a synthetic plank on which to stand. Today, it’s time to wake up and admit what was always quite obvious.
Billie Jean King won nothing.
***
Also note that two loathsome actors are in this: Israel-hater Alan Cumming (a gay activist who apparently doesn’t realize how welcome his lifestyle is in Tel Aviv versus how unwelcome it would be in his favored HAMAS Gaza–fun being thrown off a building?), as Ted Tinling, the openly gay former tennis champion who designed the women’s tennis dresses and was their liaison on the Virgnia Slims women’s tennis tour; and the always incredibly annoying sicko Sarah Silverman as Gladys Heldman, the tennis magazine editor who founded the Virginia Slims tour with King.
THREE BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS TWO MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS
Watch the trailer . . .
* American Made – Rated R: I hate movies that defame Ronald Reagan and falsely portray the fight against Communist tyranny as an unworthy war. Sadly, there a no shortage of those coming out of Hollywood, and this is one of them. On top of that, it’s just a flat-out lie. Many flat-out lies. The beginning of the movie tells you it’s “based on real events.” But in an interview, Director Doug Liman admitted it’s “a fun lie based on a true story.” There’s nothing fun about the good but dead people negatively portrayed here, who aren’t around to defend themselves (including President Reagan).
The real-life Barry Seal (played here by Tom Cruise) was a Louisianan pilot and drug smuggler, who used his fleet of private planes to smuggle drugs in and out of Latin America for a living. Some of his drug smuggling was for the Medellin Cartel. Before that, he was a TWA pilot, who nobly smuggled explosives to anti-Communist, anti-Castro freedom fighters–reportedly the reason he was fired. During his drug-smuggling operations, he was caught and jailed by the Honduran police and eventually arrested by the DEA and sentenced to a decade in prison. Faced with this stiff sentence, he approached the DEA about working for the agency, and was soon involved as an informant in drug trials and undercover in drug stings for Uncle Sam. The CIA installed cameras in his plane, and he found that top drug kingpins in the Medellin Cartel were dealing with the Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Sean Hannity crony Oliver North had access to the photos and released them to the press and public without authorization. The drug cartel saw Seal’s face in the photos and put out a hit on him. Oliver North cost Seal his life and America a very valuable source of information in anti-drug-trafficking and anti-Communist operations.
That’s the real story. Then, there’s this movie, in which a thin (even after putting on weight for this movie), short Tom Cruise plays the very overweight Seal.
The movie claims that the CIA blackmailed Seal into quitting TWA after discovering him smuggling Cuban cigars. Then, the CIA set Seal up with a phony airplane business in Mena, Arkansas, from which it forced him to send drugs to the Contras–the Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters, whom the movie claims were more interested in making drug money than in fighting the Communist Sandinistas. The movie defames Contra benefactor and supporter Adolfo Calero, depicting him organizing the drug business in concert with the Medellin Cartel figures. It also defames Reagan, portraying him as sort of in on this whole thing. And it acts as if the CIA set Seal up to do all kinds of illegal drug-running merely to aid corrupt anti-Communist fighters in Nicaragua. And it claims that the Contras flew to Mena, Arkansas to train on Seal’s land and then ran away into the U.S. hinterland.
In real life, none of that is true. In the movie, Seal is blackmailed and handled by the CIA. In real life, he was handled by the DEA, and it was a result of his own criminal activity in drug smuggling. In real life, the drug dealers were the Communist Sandinistas, who the Contras were fighting. The Sandinistas allied with and trained the PLO, tried to burn down the Managua Synagogue on a Friday Night during worship (and trapped the Jews in the synagogue to burn to death), seized a Jewish center and gave it to Palestinians for a youth center, and forced the president of Managua’s Jewish community to sweep the streets. In real life, Barry Seal did deal drugs with the Sandinistas and did connect them with the Medellin Cartel. Ronald Reagan and America were on the right side. Barry Seal wasn’t. And America, after catching him, forced him to be on the right side.
That’s not what you see in this anti-American, anti-Reagan, anti-anti-Communist movie. Instead, it’s a non-stop comedy of lies and jokes at the expense of the truth and shows the exact opposite of reality to be the truth. Unfortunately, some of the jokes and a lot of the movie are funny. And people will be highly entertained by this non-stop, action-filled comedy romp of revisionism.
That’s why I hate movies “based on a true story.” Legions of moviegoers (and those who see it later on, outside of theaters) will believe this to be true. America has enough things wrong with it, enough screw ups, that Hollywood doesn’t need to falsify the victories into alleged screw-ups by Reagan and those in America’s anti-Communist past who cared about the future of the Western Hemisphere.
That makes this “comedy” nothing but a tragedy.
TWO MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS
Watch the trailer . . .
Tags: Adolfo Calero, American Made, American Made movie, American Made movie review, American Made review, Barry Seal, battle of the sexes, Battle of the Sexes Movie, Battle of the Sexes Movie Review, Battle of the Sexes Review, Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, Medellin Cartel, Steve Carell
I usually don’t read the movie reviews, except when I see Debbie make a pointed reference to political issues and revisionist history surrounding the movies she posts about. I remember the era of Billie Jean King very well. As a matter of fact, she was my favorite women’s tennis player, up until that time.
I always, as did just about everyone on the planet, knew that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and that Riggs in his prime, and probably even then, could have handed her a defeat pretty easily.
But, as I have continually referred to the period of November 22, 1963 to December 31, 1969, as The Cultural Pancake Flip, this occurred after the culture’s pancake had been flipped. And as I have continually referred to the sprouts of that time becoming the giant weeds of political correctness that now engulf us, this “tennis match” was indeed one of those seminal moments.
And Debbie gets it TOTALLY RIGHT. It was a real smirk-fest, complete with rolling eyes, the aftermath of that “contest.”
And although I was heading toward my senior year of high school in late ’73, and Debbie was I guess in kindergarten, it’s as though she was there, and on the inside of all the machinations surrounding this “landmark event” in phony modern American history.
If anyone wants to know where one of the biggest “fake news” stories of the ruinous past half-century in America is, it’s this one. Debbie’s right, go back and read her previous article on this piece of comedic theater that helped push America toward the doom we are now looking squarely in the face.
As for the Reagan presidency, and how it has been revised and lied about ever since his first inauguration, for shame. Shame on all the “journalists” who then and now, because they are almost all still alive, contributed mightily, and still are, to the DELIBERATE DISMANTLING of “this once great republic.” FOR SHAME!!!
But God will someday fulfill his promise to save us from ourselves. And salvation is something America needs at this point, perhaps more than any other nation on earth.
Alfredo from Puerto Rico on September 30, 2017 at 9:07 am