Can Ben Shapiro DESTROY Hollywood (With FACTS and LOGIC?) - Jared Reviews Shut-In

what's up guys jared here so today i'm doing something a little bit different i'm going to be reviewing a movie that's not even a super popular movie or really big movie but it's a movie that aspires to be very relevant to our culture yes i'm going to be reviewing shut in the first daily wire movie daily wire being ben shapiro's company now why am i doing this well i know some people are critical of me giving any air time to ben shapiro but i think that this is a bold move digital media is my previous industry and i know about how difficult the industry is and shapiro is a formidable businessman you notice that buzzfeed they're not making any narrative films even though they're the leaders of the industry despite their horrible stock price at the moment but um i find it to be a very strong choice for shapiro to start making narrative films so i figured it was something worth keeping an eye on so for this review you don't need to have seen the movie i mean i'm going to keep it spoiler free at the beginning but even the spoilers that i bring up towards the end of the review aren't that important so i encourage everybody to just watch the whole review if you're curious about a if the movie's any good and b what this means for the culture and what it means for hollywood which is what i'm going to be talking about at the end so stay tuned all right first off to give everybody a little bit of background i want to read what this movie is trying to achieve and i think it's best expressed by ben shapiro himself in a facebook message or facebook community post that he put a couple days ago so here it is he says a lot of people have been asking me why the daily wire decided to get into the movie business let me tell you a quick story that explains why we're needed in this space when i read the original screenplay for our new movie shut in i was hooked it's easily one of the best scripts i've ever read i'm a little bit doubtful on that it is beautifully wrapped in symbolism demonstrating the power of faith and one mother's redemption through suffering it is deep it is moving it speaks to the fundamental truths we all recognize deep in our souls and it was almost completely butchered by out-of-touch hollywood executives before the daily wire stepped in a major hollywood studio acquired the screenplay for shut-in they then proceeded to rewrite the entire movie to appeal to a more secular and vapid audience they removed the religious imagery and symbolism they downplayed the role of faith and they completely glossed over the redemptive arc of the protagonist a flawed mother who would do anything to protect her children thankfully kovet protected this woke version of shut-in from being made and the daily wire was able to swoop in to acquire the rights we went back to the original screenplay to tell the story like it was meant to be told this is why the daily wire is getting into the movie business we can't keep letting woke hollywood executives decide which stories get to be told we need movies that treat conservative values like faith and resilience with respect rather than a punchline so this is going to be relevant as i continue to talk about if the movie actually does good on its mission statement i also want to briefly touch on something that michael knowles somebody also part of the daily wire crew said he says conservatives have been locked out of virtually every institution in this country the radical left controls it all nowhere is that more true than in our cultural institutions hollywood entertainment the arts it is the culture that shapes what people value and how they think it is the culture that dictates our politics so if conservatives hope to fight back we need to win back the culture from the radical left let me just briefly touch on this notion of hollywood executives ruining screenplays yeah that's true that happens all the time screenplays are rewritten for cynical marketing reasons all the time as far as if this particular script was really going to be written to neuter it of its religious themes or to make it less conservative well i have my doubts and i'll get into that later but also really quickly i want to touch on this notion of there not being any conservative movies or conservative voices being completely locked out of hollywood it certainly seems that way sometimes because some movies and tv shows that appeal to left-leaning sentiments are very bombastic in their performative virtue signaling and are very divisive like whatever that santa claus show with seth rogen that came out recently but let me just remind everybody that the most popular director in the world makes conservative movies yeah that's right christopher nolan i mean he's constantly asserting the necessity of a noble lie like in the dark knight insomnia and memento and to some extent in the prestige he characterizes occupy protesters as an easily manipulated resentment driven mob in the dark knight rises and let's not forget he lionizes churchill and dunkirk and we know that churchill is not exactly on the nice list for the left and also the most legendary director alive today scorsese is a catholic and makes catholic films and we'll talk about that a little bit later in this review as well okay so let's get to the movie is shut in the first movie from the daily wire any good uh the short answer is no it's not good it's actually abysmal on a lot of levels first and foremost the performances are not very good the main actress i don't know her name uh can't really carry a chamber drama on her back and she's oftentimes very hysterical as that's what the script calls for and she just doesn't sell it 100 and performances are the most important thing i mean you can have the best script in the world the best director photography in the world the best editor the best production team the best everything but if your performances aren't good the whole thing falls apart so first and foremost the performances have to be good and in this movie there's certainly nothing to write home about and i would say they're actually quite weak for what the script requires even vincent gallo's crazy ass yes vincent gallo the heir to the gallow wine fortune the guy who sells his sperm on the internet the guy who makes anti-semitic comments all the time and uh sells shirts about saying fu to black lives matter uh is in this movie and uh you know he's made a good movie in the past and he's not even that interesting in this movie overall the script is just not good shapiro is constantly saying that the movie is so great because it's tense because it's a thriller and because it prioritizes entertainment and getting you to be on the edge of your seat but the tension in this movie is brought about for the sake of tension not through organic character motivations and the most important thing in a movie is that we as the audience are projecting onto the character and the choices that the character makes and that brings about detention but in this movie the motivations are so thin and oftentimes just don't make sense or an alternative choice seems like the more reasonable one but it's not taken obviously for the purpose of maximizing quote-unquote tension and as a result things are at best breaking the suspension of disbelief constantly and at worst just annoying the movie is just annoying the characters are annoying another thing about this movie is it stinks of one of those movies in which no research was done specifically when it comes to drugs and drug users because the drugs and drug addicts are they seem like they're depicted by people who know nothing about drugs and have probably never met a drug abuser as if doing research into the topic that your script is portraying is too much of a violation of your moral code to actually learn about it and learn what these people are actually like it feels a lot like when your church pastor tries to do a rap about jesus it just comes off as like really awkward and really square the other thing about this movie is that the dialogue is super on the nose and super expository it's very obvious when a character is saying something in service of communicating a piece of expository information to the audience rather than being caught up in an organic situation in which words like that would come up instead it's just really obvious that the script is trying to hold your hand through the necessary information to get things started and as far as the so-called powerful religious imagery that shapiro boasts about these symbols and motifs have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face it is just so over the top in your face and we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a second uh ultimately in terms of my qualitative review of this movie it suffers from the ultimate cardinal sin of movies which is just being boring the movie is boring now i want to talk a little bit about what it means to make a conservative movie and the overall religious message that this movie does seemingly get across you know how successful is shapiro in doing what he said he was going to do so in this movie there is a lot of emphasis on the bible and a crucifix that is uh hung on the wall now the problem here is that these symbols do not serve the script first of all and you don't have to watch the movie to really understand this the bible is a deus ex machina so basically at the character's low point at the end of the second act she's about to do something she's about to start taking drugs again and that's going to ruin everything it's basically the closest that the protagonist gets to the quote-unquote darkness but right before she's about to plunge deep into bad territory she reads a bible verse aloud about watching out for false prophets which pulls her out of said darkness in my opinion this casts doubt on this whole notion that these hollywood executives were trying to take the religious elements of the script out just because they wanted it to be more secular and quote unquote vapid i think that there's a very solid argument to be made that they tried to take those elements out because they don't serve the script because a key element to good cinema is watching protagonists make a choice so dustin hoffman famously wouldn't sign up for a movie unless a character makes x amount of choices in a script because he identified that as one of the things that most indicates whether a movie is going to be good or not or whether a character will be worthy of his portrayal so the issue of using the bible as a central plot point is that it's a character foregoing a choice and submitting themselves to a higher power usually a character makes choices experiences the consequences of those choices grows as a person and then makes new choices in this movie the character makes bad choices then finds the bible and then makes the right choices which is not nearly as interesting to watch it's not nearly as compelling it doesn't draw the audience in as much because we have less to project on we're going on less of a journey with that character and you know one could make the argument that cinema as a medium is dialectic like that which is perhaps a real challenge for quote-unquote religious cinema but i don't even really think that that's true case in point now i'm going to bring in scorsese he is again a catholic filmmaker and in some of his religious movies my favorite ones are silence with andrew garfield and adam driver i think that movie's excellent the last temptation of christ also amazing movie in both of these movies faith is not portrayed as easy belief in god giving yourself up to god is hard it's work it requires making these difficult choices scorsese's characters fight for their faith in the face of doubt or physical harm fighting for their faith is what delivers them to salvation not simply giving themselves up to faith and this notion of the bible and the crucifix ultimately harming the script is also bad for the message that shapiro is purporting to put out there because the bible is a prop that's used to differentiate the movie from hollywood without actually aiding the storytelling it's just there to prove that it's not woke not unlike how quote unquote woke hollywood will participate in things like diversity stunt casting that doesn't serve the narrative to prove that they're critical of old paradigms shapiro despite his claim to be creating a political art is really just doing what he always does he's being an opportunist he is amplifying the divide to get people to subscribe to his platform it's just such an absurd hypocrisy that the man who popularized the term virtue signaling as a pejorative is doing the exact same thing but on the other side of the aisle this whole movie is basically just a right wing virtue signal because at the end of the day shapiro is a businessman and after seeing this movie i see this as a cynical attempt to capitalize on the reactionary impulse that hollywood's mistakes are breeding because shapiro might be correct that hollywood filmmakers are fancying themselves social engineers rather than entertainers or that they're attempting to attract audiences with the promise that watching the movie is a gesture towards aligning yourself with a fashionable social position but instead of doing what he promised he seems to be trying to just build an alternative fashion statement because it's all about identity construction people yearn for these accoutrements that communicate their identities oftentimes to solidify or elevate to their position within a community shapiro's movies or at least this movie so far is an accessory for the culture warriors that shapiro is getting very very rich off of the more divided you are the more outraged you are at hollywood the more likely you are to wear that outrage by becoming a member of the daily wire i just want to say that we have to resist the temptation to pressure people to quote vote down the cultural party line in essence that we have to adopt all the opinions of one side of the culture war just because shapiro is correct sometimes that doesn't mean you have to be a conservative and just because somebody is critical of hollywood's super performative identity politics game doesn't mean that that person is not a leftist in my opinion shapiro doesn't want you to adopt nuance he wants to create a tribe that's just as big and problematic as the one hollywood serves so he can be the leader of this tribe and create a media empire that's just as big so what does this movie mean for hollywood does shapiro pose a real threat my answer is no and it's mostly because of talent talent does not bless the moral or the thoughtful and it's going to be almost impossible for him to attract the kind of talent that really makes movies resonate whether or not you like hollywood or whether you like the messaging that hollywood seems to have been preoccupied with for the last couple of years the truth of the matter is is that they have a monopoly on all the people that are really talented and whether or not these people are correct or incorrect in their moral positions as i said before talent does not bless the moral or the thoughtful and ultimately i don't think that this initiative for the daily wire is going to last more than five years i don't think it's actually going to produ produce the kind of revenue that it needs to justify its existence uh because i think that ultimately if this movie is an indication of what the future movies are going to be like all these movies are doing is providing uh you know the a piece of ammunition in the culture war and people already get that from ben shapiro's current content they already get it from him reacting to tick tocks i don't think that these movies are going to really bring in any uh surge of members the only hope that he has to do that is by trying to paint it as a moral imperative like you are not a good christian you're not a good person unless you subscribe and watch these movies that's his only hope i think that's what he's going for and i think he's going to fail thank god he's going to fail and i just want to end this by recommending some better movies that all take place in one location of course sydney lemay's classic movie one of the greatest movies ever made 12 angry men uh richard linklater's tape is quite interesting and really impressive for taking place in one location uh danny boyle's early film shallow grave that is a real thriller that takes place in mostly one location and it really works and then of course the master himself alfred hitchcock watch rear window and you'll see how the real master creates tension in one room so in conclusion for those of you that think shapiro might be could possibly be the remedy for hollywood's many failings i just want to echo the bible verse that the main character reads watch out for false prophets that's it for me for those of you who are disappointed that i didn't do a south park video this week i'm probably going to double up next week and comment on the last two south park episodes because i think uh the whole thing with token's dad creating his own farm is probably gonna be continued in this episode so i think it'll probably be a good time to do both of them together also want to remind you guys to follow me on instagram it's at father of woody and right now it's mostly just pictures of my dog but i'm gonna be trying to do more content there so if you want to see it be sure to follow me there and as always thanks for watching guys peace

Channel: Jared Bauer

Views: 22,239

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Id: B8iiegYfMZI

Length: 17min 15sec (1035 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 13 2022