Sarah Burns | Through the Shattered Lens

Folk music is the music of evil people.

That’s something that I’ve been saying for years. Of course, as is usually the case with such pronouncements, I was only being half-serious when I originally said it. The first time I said it, it was to an older relative who had just forced me to sit through a 20 minute performance of I’ll Fly Away. The second time I said it, it was to a friend who was really into Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and all those commies After that, I found many excuses to say it because I was going to college that was renowned for its music program. It was one of those colleges where you couldn’t turn a corner without potentially running into someone who was taking a class in folk music. They were always a bit annoying. For folkies, it wasn’t enough to tell you that their music was better than your music. They also had to tell you why listening to the Weavers on scratchy vinyl made them better human beings than you.

That said, I was never totally serious about folk music being the music of evil people. That seemed like a far more appropriate thing to say about prog rock. But, having watched All You Need Is Death, I’m now not so sure. Folk music may very well be evil.

All You Need Is Death tells the story of Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher), a couple who live in Dublin. Anna is a gifted singer and, when we first see the two of them, Anna and Aleks appear to be deeply in love. They work for an academic named Agnes (Catherine Siggins), whose goal is to find the oldest known versions of various folk songs. Their work brings them to an apparently demented old woman named Rita (Olwen Fouere), who is rumored to know a song that is in a language the predates the Irish language. Rita reveals that she does indeed know the song, which was apparently inspired by a romantic betrayal and a brutal death. She explains that the song has been passed down from one woman to another over the centuries. It can never be recorded and men are not allowed to hear the song. After Aleks excuses himself, Rita sings the song to Anna. As they drive back home, Anna tries to sing the song from memory but struggles, which isn’t surprising considering that the song isn’t even in a living language. However, they’re stopped by Agnes who reveals that she secretly recorded Rita singing. Meanwhile, Rita is herself gruesomely murdered by a mysterious force.

Things get progressively stranger from there, as Anna finds herself being targeted by Rita’s unhinged son (Nigel O’Neill) and Anna and Alek’s previously blessed relationship suddenly seems to be cursed. There’s even a touch of Cronenbergian body horror as the film plays out. The film’s plot is not always easy to follow and that’s not a bad thing. This is one of those horror films that works because the audience never feels quite secure in their understanding of what they’re seeing. The story plays out at its own pace, putting an emphasis on atmosphere over easy shocks and jump scares. It’s about as close to a filmed dream as the viewer is likely to find. It’s a horror film that sticks with you after the end credits role. You’ll never listen to another folk song.

Unfrosted is a thoroughly amiable and goofy comedy about the invention of the Pop Tart.

Taking place in an imaginary 1963, Unfrosted tells the story of the Cereal Wars. Kellog’s and Post are competing for dominance in the kids breakfast food market, dominating the scene while the dour folks at Quaker can only shake their heads in holier-than-thou shame. Bob Cabana (played by the film’s director, Jerry Seinfeld) is a Kellog’s exec who spends his day dealing with pompous cereal mascots (led by a hilarious Hugh Grant) and the somewhat random whims of his boss, Edsel Kellog III (Jim Gaffigan). He dreams of someday having a lawn made out of sod and also having enough money to send his kids to a good college. “Those colleges can cost $200 a year!” he says, at one point.

Life is good until he discovers that Post — headed up by Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) — is developing a type of new breakfast food that could revolutionize the industry and dethrone Kellog’s as America’s top cereal company. Bob gets Edsel’s permission to try to create something that will beat Post’s new product to the shelves. But first, Bob has to go to NASA and convince brilliant engineer Donna “Stan” Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) to abandon the moon project and return to Kellog’s. “You know we’re never going to land on the moon,” Bob tells her.

Soon, the entire nation is riveted by the competition between Post and Kellog’s. Walter Cronkite (Kyle Dunnigan) reports on every development, in between complaining about his wife and playing with silly putty. The Russians decide to help Post, leading the world to the brink of nuclear war while President Kennedy (Bill Burr) spends his time with the Doublemint Twins. Harry Friendly (Peter Dinklage), head of the milk syndicate, warns that kids better not stop eating cereal while Bob finds himself being menaced by a sinister milkman (Christian Slater). A German scientist (Thomas Lennon) and Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan) combine a sea monkey with a square of ravioli, leading to a new life form that lives in the Kellog’s ventilation system. Steve Schwinn (Jack McBrayer), the bicycle guy, risks his life to test a prototype while a super computer is shipped to Vietnam and turns into Colonel Kurtz and….

Okay, you’re getting the idea. This is a silly, joke-a-minute film that is in no way meant to be taken seriously. It’s obvious that Seinfeld and his co-writers greatly amused themselves while writing the script and your amusement will depend on whether or not you’re on the same wavelength. I enjoyed the film, because I love history and I love pop culture and I like random homages to other films. Not all of the jokes landed. There’s a lengthy Mad Men parody that, while funny, still feels several years too late. But, for the most part, I enjoyed the amiable goofiness of it all.

Unfrosted is currently getting some savagely negative reviews but that has more to do with Seinfeld’s recent comment that the “extreme left” was ruining comedy. Though most people would probably consider Seinfeld’s comment to be common sense (and would also realize that Seinfeld was condemning the “extreme” as opposed to liberalism in general), the online folks, many of whom were already angry over Seinfeld’s outspoken support of Israel, were scandalized and most mainstream film reviewers today never want to get on the bad side of an online mob, regardless of how annoying that mob may be. (Even a positive review in The Hollywood Reporter contained an odd passage in which the reviewer seemed to beg forgiveness for giving a non-condemnatory review to a film made by someone on the other side.) Of course, there are also some reviewers who are currently overpraising this film as a way to “own the libs.” The fact that a film as silly and inoffensive as this one could suddenly find itself at the center of the culture war tends to prove Seinfeld’s point.

The important thing is that Unfrosted is amusing and, in the end, rather likable. I enjoyed it.