While reading Ann Hornaday's Washington Post piece about interviewing Steve Bannon last year at the Cannes Film Festival -- back when he was doing nothing more threatening than making right-wing agitprop documentaries -- I was reminded that I actually reviewed for Variety one of his more popular efforts as an auteur: The Undefeated, his 2011 feature-length mash note to Sarah Palin -- which co-starred, no kidding, Andrew Breitbart.
A sample paragraph: “Faster than the speed of thought, The Undefeated is a history lesson designed for students with minimal attention spans. Bannon strives to give every scene an insistently propulsive pace, relying heavily on smash cuts, skittish pans and self-conscious switches between color and black-and-white. [The director] overhypes much of his archival footage and almost drowns out some of his interviewees with the sort of thunderous music one normally hears only in movies when astronauts are preparing to blow up meteors. The interviews are shot in a swervy, jerky manner that may be intended to come across as dynamic, but actually appear to indicate the videographer was barely suppressing nature’s call.”
The funny thing is, my review was one of the more positive ones. But I bet that doesn't keep me off Trump's White House Enemies List. Especially if that list is ghost-written by, well, you know.
By the way: In her Washington Post, Hornaday notes that, over 25 years ago, Bannon served as executive producer for The Indian Runner, Sean Penn's first effort as a film director. Think those two guys still hang out together?
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