A billboard advertising the documentary "Melania" in Madrid, ahead of the film’s January 30 theatrical release.Thomas COEX/Getty
Jeff Bezos’s $40 million bribe of the Trumps, in the form of his Amazon-MGM-produced Melania documentary, is out in about 2,000 theaters across the country this Friday (5,000 worldwide, according to MarketWatch), backed by an inescapable $35 million advertising assault on the country’s airwaves and commuter transit. The Wall Street Journal reported that Melania will personally pocket $28 million.
On the day the nation reeled from her husband’s federal agents shooting and killing Alex Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis, Melania Trump herself hosted a ritzy private White House screening for execs, celebs, and Queen Rania of Jordan. There will also be a premiere at the formerly prominent arts institution once known as the Kennedy Center. All this, and let’s not forget the film’s director Brett Ratner is attempting a comeback after his career imploded in 2017 when he was accused of sexual misconduct (he denied the allegations and no charges were filed, according to People). He also appears in a photo released as part of the Epstein files.
So it was with some solace that I perused the Letterboxd page of Melania, which made for some entertaining reading, as users have pre-swarmed the review section to push the score down and let their voices rip.
Here’s a sample of some of my faves. And yeah, there are so many spicier versions on the page itself, not fit for publication here. I’ll leave that to you to scroll through. These are on the PG-rated end:
- I really don’t care, do u? ½ star.
- ABOLISH ICE. RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES
- I would, however, love to see a scene-for-scene reenactment by Laura Benanti.
- Death of Cinema 🤝 Death of American Democracy
- Lol. No
- Nobody asked for this absolute piece of flaming garbage.
- I heard all of her lines are taken from a Michelle Obama documentary
And my favorite:
★★★★★ Watched by jbruno7478
An astonishing nonfictional rising biopic where an entire life in all its complications and contradictions is expressed through a series of non-linear, subjective fragments of storytelling showmanship that simultaneously construct and deconstruct an enigmatic myth of American empire. Every time I sit down to watch this I go “ok but is it really that good?” and every single time I am sucked in by the form which combines expressive deep-focus images with lots of wide and low-angle compositions that take in the gorgeously-designed, idiosyncratic interior spaces (including miniatures and optical illusion set extensions) and serve to heighten the constantly overlapping sound design and montage that collapses all of the techniques (and the sense of time and space they establish) into a panoramic stream of memory. This is a triumph in every sense of the word. I was left speechless, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be angry. You will get all the feels. It’s criminal that we had to wait this long for this project.
