Jennifer Lopez's new documentary "Halftime" is unimaginably mediocre, taking the genre's birth defects to new heights. The film revolves around two major events since the age of 50: the Oscar-missed movie "Hustlers" and the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show.
Mediocre, not Jennifer Lopez, who is still in great shape. She is great. Her performance in "The Robber" was a strong opponent for Laura Dern ("Marriage Story"), but it was a pity that she lost to her at the Golden Globes first, and the Oscar, which she had been thinking about for 20 years, was not even nominated. have to.
In the Super Bowl halftime show that same year, the two Latin divas of Lopez and Shakira killed the audience, saving the halftime show ratings that had been deteriorating in previous years. The 24-hour viewing volume of the live video on YouTube exceeded 50 million, approaching the previous record of 57 million accumulated by Bruno Mars. By the end of the documentary, they are like two big cats standing on top of the world, confidently demonstrating their strength, beauty and cultural roots. Two lightning bolts - the highest level of the entertainment industry and the ancient Latin culture hit them at the same time, and the strong tremors turned into a beautiful twerk dance of the two, which was played again and again like a magnet, which was ecstatic.
In the foreground of the entertainment industry, singers and actors are different. Actors need a sense of mystery, and they won't readily agree to put their life stories in a documentary before the final conclusion (old age or death). Pop singers are more expressive, especially women. In a male-dominated industry, women who have fought to the top have something to say. Being mistreated, stigmatized, and kidnapped by issues such as sex, body, love, and family have led them to take a career that they take seriously, often reduced to entertaining lace news. For a celebrity, tabloid news and serious comments are ideally balanced, but there are often more top female singers than the latter. Hiring someone to make a documentary at their own expense is a good strategy for female singers to regain their voice and fully express themselves.
They tend to choose a period of efficient creation—the birth of a new album, a show is most common, and the filming team is brought in. In these films, they are both the talker, the main creator, and the finisher of the performance, combining decisiveness, calm fortitude, and passion. These films show carefully controlled products that bring out the best in them. Even if there are fragile emotions such as jealousy, anxiety, and loss, they will eventually dissipate behind each brilliant masterpiece.
Katy Perry's "Part Of Me" chronicles her 124 world tour. Caught in the midst of this overwhelming torrent, health issues and marital collapse not only didn't unravel the Odyssey, but gave it a special life. Honesty is a plus, and when the colorful candy is exposed, it receives a lot of praise.
These documentaries are used as a bonus for show business, and often run counter to the original intent of documentaries to "show the truth." Used well, it is a plus for the artist's image. But if there is only one voice, and it is limited to showing the side that the divas want to advertise, and it emphasizes precision more than the choreography of the stage performance, it will be boring.
Lopez's "Halftime Show" is just that boring. The radiant Jennifer Lopez, the Jennifer Lopez who wants to be heard, seen and recognized, wasted this opportunity to show the world a J Lo who is extremely obedient to the mainstream values of the American show business.
She talks about a standard American dream: Latino, of ordinary origin, escaping family in pursuit of art, and still believing in the traditional concept of family supremacy after becoming famous. She sees the nearly all-female and minority cast of "Pirates of the Dance" as the closest opportunity for an actor's career to stardom, which is itself a kind of trickery and arrogance. In the film, from the Screen Actors Guild Awards to the Oscars, the most dense other voices have been gathered - all of which are the affirmation and regret of Lopez's acting skills. In a word, "you totally deserve these awards".
The rest of the page celebrates Lopez's extraordinary efforts. Indeed, every female artist who can persist until the age of 50 in a highly competitive arena is a superhero and deserves recognition. The problem is that its narrative logic is too simplistic, condensing Lopez's rich acting career into one dimension - all successes and failures because of his ethnicity. This politically correct mindset summed up the actor Lopez: Her 35-, 40-film career was not properly recognized because the public was always staring at her Latino ass and romance , while ignoring her artistry. Is it really just because of prejudice? "Crying Rose" (Selena) is the peak of Jennifer Lopez's career as an actor. From "Selena" to "The Dancing Girl", her acting progress and the accumulation of works are not proportional.
Another aspect of the film's mediocrity is Lopez himself. Although the original intention was to "show the self that she wanted to show", the cut self still has a distinction between the more real and the less real. Jennifer Lopez's "Halftime Show" is precisely the self that lacks authenticity.
In one detail, she raced against the clock to see a private doctor while applying makeup, and confided to the doctor that she was "depressed" because she couldn't see her daughter due to her long-term high workload. The doctor advised her to rest for a while, she smiled and said, "Tell me about this at Christmas". The dialogue is like lines in a TV series, and she plays a self-disciplined and strong white man who uses the jokes on the scene as a self-promotion. The subtext is nothing more than: busyness and success are the yardsticks for measuring the world, and only on this basis can there be equal rights and space for various self-expressions.
But Jennifer did not or would not control herself. In the process of tailoring her self-image, she sometimes reveals an overly narcissistic side. For example, it was also the part with the doctor. After greeting each other, she asked the doctor, "Have you seen my movie?"
There are no top performers in the entertainment industry who are not narcissistic. Only when you love yourself enough can you use your body as a container for creation to contain the world. But narcissism alone is not enough, you also need to have love for others, the courage to reveal the dark side of human nature, and the confidence to express yourself without forcing others to accept it.
If you've seen the documentary "Madonna: Truth or Dare," you're in a league of its own. Madonna in the film does not have a single rhetoric, but insists on one point: all the shocking stage performances are art. Art provokes thinking, but she does not impose ideas on others. Madonna and queer dancers go on an epic tour, feeling like family on and off stage. All the characters in the documentary shine (and not Ms. Mai alone). On the other hand, in Lopez's "Life Halftime Show", all the people who appeared were her foils, including her daughter who was on the same stage with her in the Super Bowl. The characters have only one mission: to say, directly or indirectly, how good a singer and actress Jennifer Lopez is. Everything she deserves and doesn't get is because of her Latino origin and tumultuous romance. She succeeded because of extreme personal struggle, and failed because of social injustice. Such simplification is the greatest injustice to Jennifer Lopez itself.
Under the sky that was successfully propped up, she could have told the half-life story of that real, complex and vigorous Latin woman, in addition to the fulfillment of the American dream, the practitioner of affirmative action, and the hard-working player in the entertainment world.
Mediocre, not Jennifer Lopez, who is still in great shape. She is great. Her performance in "The Robber" was a strong opponent for Laura Dern ("Marriage Story"), but it was a pity that she lost to her at the Golden Globes first, and the Oscar, which she had been thinking about for 20 years, was not even nominated. have to.
In the Super Bowl halftime show that same year, the two Latin divas of Lopez and Shakira killed the audience, saving the halftime show ratings that had been deteriorating in previous years. The 24-hour viewing volume of the live video on YouTube exceeded 50 million, approaching the previous record of 57 million accumulated by Bruno Mars. By the end of the documentary, they are like two big cats standing on top of the world, confidently demonstrating their strength, beauty and cultural roots. Two lightning bolts - the highest level of the entertainment industry and the ancient Latin culture hit them at the same time, and the strong tremors turned into a beautiful twerk dance of the two, which was played again and again like a magnet, which was ecstatic.
Jennifer Lopez Documentary "Life Halftime Show"
Over the past decade, there has been an increasing number of heavyweight female singers making documentaries. The list includes, but is not limited to: Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Charlie Li XCX, Olivia Rodrigo...In the foreground of the entertainment industry, singers and actors are different. Actors need a sense of mystery, and they won't readily agree to put their life stories in a documentary before the final conclusion (old age or death). Pop singers are more expressive, especially women. In a male-dominated industry, women who have fought to the top have something to say. Being mistreated, stigmatized, and kidnapped by issues such as sex, body, love, and family have led them to take a career that they take seriously, often reduced to entertaining lace news. For a celebrity, tabloid news and serious comments are ideally balanced, but there are often more top female singers than the latter. Hiring someone to make a documentary at their own expense is a good strategy for female singers to regain their voice and fully express themselves.
They tend to choose a period of efficient creation—the birth of a new album, a show is most common, and the filming team is brought in. In these films, they are both the talker, the main creator, and the finisher of the performance, combining decisiveness, calm fortitude, and passion. These films show carefully controlled products that bring out the best in them. Even if there are fragile emotions such as jealousy, anxiety, and loss, they will eventually dissipate behind each brilliant masterpiece.
Katy Perry's "Part Of Me" chronicles her 124 world tour. Caught in the midst of this overwhelming torrent, health issues and marital collapse not only didn't unravel the Odyssey, but gave it a special life. Honesty is a plus, and when the colorful candy is exposed, it receives a lot of praise.
Katy Perry Documentary "This Is Me"
On Douban, the scores for all such documentaries are on the high side - 7.5 points at the bottom, and 9 points at every turn. Lady Gaga's "GAGA: Five Foot Two," 2017, is based on a similar angle to Lopez's, targeting the months of her 2016 Super Bowl halftime show and her new album, "Joanne." "Five Feet Two Inches" has a high score of 8.8 for capturing how real pain grows closely with art.Lady Gaga Documentary "Gaga: Five Foot Two"
Taylor Swift's "Miss Americana" (Taylor Swift: Miss Americana) uses a set of quickly edited shots as the film's best metaphor: On stage, Swift's costumes are instantly torn open for more dazzling display Neri (including anorexia and plastic flower friendship). Swift offers her own version of her holiday with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, and her sexual assault lawsuit with a radio DJ. The film lists the maliciousness of the public and the media against her one by one, and does not mention the B-side content that is unfavorable to her, making Swift once again stand as a victim, just like when she was nineteen.Taylor Swift Documentary "Miss America"
Among the younger generation of female singers, documentaries that simply show the scene of their creation are sought after by fans. Billie Eilish's "Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry" casts a deep glance into her dark bedroom. Unlike many fellow divas, Eilish's success is not all a castle cast by hard work, and there are many unknown and vague melancholy. The hottest female singer in the world has just come of age, and this bedroom, her family and a lot of darkness have made her.Billy Eilish Documentary "Blurred World"
Charlie XCX's "Alone Together" intercepted her album creation stage during the epidemic, focusing on Charlie's super DIY ability and the creativity of the online community. There is no haze and refutation, only the pleasure of creation . Olivia Rodrigo's "Love Song Girl" (Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u) chronicles a road trip from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, drenched in invincible sunshine.These documentaries are used as a bonus for show business, and often run counter to the original intent of documentaries to "show the truth." Used well, it is a plus for the artist's image. But if there is only one voice, and it is limited to showing the side that the divas want to advertise, and it emphasizes precision more than the choreography of the stage performance, it will be boring.
Lopez's "Halftime Show" is just that boring. The radiant Jennifer Lopez, the Jennifer Lopez who wants to be heard, seen and recognized, wasted this opportunity to show the world a J Lo who is extremely obedient to the mainstream values of the American show business.
She talks about a standard American dream: Latino, of ordinary origin, escaping family in pursuit of art, and still believing in the traditional concept of family supremacy after becoming famous. She sees the nearly all-female and minority cast of "Pirates of the Dance" as the closest opportunity for an actor's career to stardom, which is itself a kind of trickery and arrogance. In the film, from the Screen Actors Guild Awards to the Oscars, the most dense other voices have been gathered - all of which are the affirmation and regret of Lopez's acting skills. In a word, "you totally deserve these awards".
The rest of the page celebrates Lopez's extraordinary efforts. Indeed, every female artist who can persist until the age of 50 in a highly competitive arena is a superhero and deserves recognition. The problem is that its narrative logic is too simplistic, condensing Lopez's rich acting career into one dimension - all successes and failures because of his ethnicity. This politically correct mindset summed up the actor Lopez: Her 35-, 40-film career was not properly recognized because the public was always staring at her Latino ass and romance , while ignoring her artistry. Is it really just because of prejudice? "Crying Rose" (Selena) is the peak of Jennifer Lopez's career as an actor. From "Selena" to "The Dancing Girl", her acting progress and the accumulation of works are not proportional.
Another aspect of the film's mediocrity is Lopez himself. Although the original intention was to "show the self that she wanted to show", the cut self still has a distinction between the more real and the less real. Jennifer Lopez's "Halftime Show" is precisely the self that lacks authenticity.
In one detail, she raced against the clock to see a private doctor while applying makeup, and confided to the doctor that she was "depressed" because she couldn't see her daughter due to her long-term high workload. The doctor advised her to rest for a while, she smiled and said, "Tell me about this at Christmas". The dialogue is like lines in a TV series, and she plays a self-disciplined and strong white man who uses the jokes on the scene as a self-promotion. The subtext is nothing more than: busyness and success are the yardsticks for measuring the world, and only on this basis can there be equal rights and space for various self-expressions.
"Life Halftime Show" stills
Every word Jennifer Lopez said in the film is like the American dream described by politicians, great, righteous and bright, without the shadow of humanity. She insisted on using the cage-shaped device at the Super Bowl halftime show, expressing her condemnation of the Trump administration's use of barbed wire cages to house refugees. After the contest with the NFL, the performance went as she wished. She and Shakira made a loud noise that shook the house on behalf of Latinos for the whole world to hear. With the great success of the show being self-evident, it would be more effective if the creator could control himself to say less and let the art speak for itself (her partner reminded her).But Jennifer did not or would not control herself. In the process of tailoring her self-image, she sometimes reveals an overly narcissistic side. For example, it was also the part with the doctor. After greeting each other, she asked the doctor, "Have you seen my movie?"
There are no top performers in the entertainment industry who are not narcissistic. Only when you love yourself enough can you use your body as a container for creation to contain the world. But narcissism alone is not enough, you also need to have love for others, the courage to reveal the dark side of human nature, and the confidence to express yourself without forcing others to accept it.
If you've seen the documentary "Madonna: Truth or Dare," you're in a league of its own. Madonna in the film does not have a single rhetoric, but insists on one point: all the shocking stage performances are art. Art provokes thinking, but she does not impose ideas on others. Madonna and queer dancers go on an epic tour, feeling like family on and off stage. All the characters in the documentary shine (and not Ms. Mai alone). On the other hand, in Lopez's "Life Halftime Show", all the people who appeared were her foils, including her daughter who was on the same stage with her in the Super Bowl. The characters have only one mission: to say, directly or indirectly, how good a singer and actress Jennifer Lopez is. Everything she deserves and doesn't get is because of her Latino origin and tumultuous romance. She succeeded because of extreme personal struggle, and failed because of social injustice. Such simplification is the greatest injustice to Jennifer Lopez itself.
Under the sky that was successfully propped up, she could have told the half-life story of that real, complex and vigorous Latin woman, in addition to the fulfillment of the American dream, the practitioner of affirmative action, and the hard-working player in the entertainment world.
Documentary "Sleeping with Madonna"
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