- IMDB link: Marty Supreme
- Tagline: "Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness."
- My Best Picture Project
To quote the god of movie critics, Roger Ebert, "I hated, hated, hated this movie." I hated it so much that I quit watching halfway through. Oh, it ticks a lot of Best Picture boxes all right. Fine acting, obviously good cinematography, lots of great old cars (it takes place in 1952), and good direction. But the story begs the question, "Just how awful can a filmmaker make the protagonist without losing the audience?"
Too far, in this case. Marty is an odious, odious person. The tagline is "Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness," but it should be, "Marty Mauser, a fast-talking young asshole no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of the hustle."
As a woman, I'm hardly qualified to expound upon manhood (I tend to favor the idea that a "real man" is just another way to say a "grownup who is responsible, and attempts to be a good person"), but I'm comfortable saying that Marty isn't any sort of man that I can admire. He's nothing but a spoiled child, and while he's a world-class ping-pong player, he is also a hustler and a cheat who constantly whines about how unfairly he's treated.
Ok, I did like the rather shocking scene when Marty's bathtub falls through the floor of a very, very cheap hotel, but even that was horrifying because the elderly mafioso in the room below gets hurt. Just reading that last phrase makes me cringe, because my god, even the bystanders aren't innocent.
I didn't like a single character in the movie. Nearly everyone is a fast-talking liar, and the ones who aren't are cheaters or predators. And because I identified with literally no one, I couldn't get into the movie at all, and when I realized (about halfway through) that I didn't give a damn how it played out, I decided not to waste another 75 minutes of my time.
Seriously, given my background, you'd think I'd identify with a movie full of Jewish immigrants and a Holocaust survivor or two, but nope. I think the most admirable person in the movie is Koto Endo, the Japanese ping-pong player who won the British table tennis open in the first half. He was a survivor of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, which left him permanently deaf. And there are hints that Marty suspects Koto of cheating because of his foam paddle and Asian playing style, but given that Marty is a hustler, his opinion hardly matters.
(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):
- Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
- Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
- Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
- One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 4, Chris: 4)
- F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris: 5)
- The Secret Agent (Strange, sweaty movie about life in fascist Brazil; Cathy: 6, Chris: 6)
- Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 8, Chris: 7)
- Sentimental Value (Slow-paced movie about a family of actors; Cathy: 7, Chris: 8)
- Marty Supreme (Odious ping-pong hustler no one respects; Cathy/Chris: Did not finish)
- Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
* Rankings can change.
