2021 ended with us saying, "Aaron Sorkin has done it again." For some TV critics (the lunatics) that might sound like a good thing. We're not lunatics which means we're not fans of Aaron. So our "Aaron Sorkin has done it again?" It's a warning.
Everything about the film is a fraud. Aaron wasn't forced to do history. To focus on one week in the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, he wasn't forced to do history. But he chose to do history and he chose to to it wrong.
Aaron wouldn't know the truth if it dick-slapped him in the face.
But our big question, as we watched the film BEING THE RICARDOS (available on AMAZON PRIME) was what the hell did Lucille Ball ever do to her daughter Lucie Arnaz?
If you knew Lucy at all, you''ve really got to hate Lucy to executive produce this movie -- which, for the record, Lucie Arnaz did.
What did Mommy ever do to Lucie to make her hate her so?
Advanced publicity on the film had Lucie saying people might not like it because it portrayed Lucy a little harder than they might want to see her.
Oh, if only. Oh, if only. This is a Sorkin written and directed film which means two things (a) it's piece of garbage and it's sexist as hell.
Let's deal with some of the garbage. Some? We don't have time to write the 200-plus page book neededed to refute all of Aaron's lies.
In some form of present day, the producer and the writers of I LOVE LUCY speak to the camera.
"It was a scary week" Jess Oppenheimer (played by John Rubinstein) "I remember that week, it was a very scary week,." Bob Carroll (Ronny Cox). Then Madelyn Pugh (Linda Lavin) agrees as well. What week are we talking about?
First though, what week are we supposed to be in when these three actors play the "older" (check the credits) versions of those characters -- post-I LOVE LUCY -- and younger actors play the characters during the actual week of events the film focuses on?
We ask that because it can't be this year or even last. Oppenhimer died in 1988, Carroll died in 2007 and Pugh died in 2011. So when are these recollections supposed to be filmed? All in 1988? They don't look like 1988.
What year is any of this taking place?
The week in question -- that starts with Walter Winchell doing a blind item. He did not say, as the film has a character insist at the beginning of the film, that Lucille Ball was a Communist. It was a blind item about the most popular of all TV stars being a Communist? That broadcast would be September 6, 1953.
Aaron has the revelations taking place as the program prepares to tape the "Fred and Ethel Fight" episode and already the problems begin. That episode aired March 10, 1952. We're in the fall of 1953 and yet that episode being recorded in the film actually aired March 10, 1952? In the film, that episode is directed by Don Glass. In fact, there is no Don Glass and the episode in question was directed by Marc Daniels. Is Don Glass supposed to be Marc Daniels?
Who the hell knows what goes on in Aaron Sorkin's drugged out mind?
In the film BEING THE RICARDOS, Lucy is appalled that Don Glass is there to direct. They'd done an episode with him before and he didn't get funny, he couldn't comprehend it and he couldn't help stage it. First off, Lucy was the star of a TV show that she and her husband owned. If she didn't like a director, he wasn't coming back to the show. Second, Marc Daniels directed 38 of the first 127 episodes of I LOVE LUCY. And those early episodes he didn't direct? William Asher did -- the two men are responsible for the entire first 127 episodes. Get it? Because Aaron didn't. James V. Kearn shows up to direct episodes 128 through 167. At that point, William Asher returns and directs everything through episode 180 (the series finale). In its six seasons, the show only had three different directors.
Aaron seems to have confused the modern day sitcom (which often has a different director every week) with the way one was shot in the 1950s.
Now the actual episode that was being taped the week that Lucille was accused of being a Communist was "The Girls Go Into Business" and William Asher directed that episode.
Why does it matter?
Facts tend to matter. When you're making a movie about a real event, facts tend to matter.
Aaron's got this entire focus of the film, in multiple scenes, on Lucille being obsessed in the lead up to recording the episode with a vase on the table in a scene from "Ethel and Fred Fight." It's so huge, that drunken William Frawley pulls Lucy aside to tell her how to act appropriate in front of her husband -- yeah, it's more sexist crap from Aaron Sorkin.
It's nothing but garbage, made up garbage.
During this week when Lucy is accused of being a Communist, Aaron wants you to know that CONFIDENTIAL also ran a story on Desi having an affair. That also didn't happen and the mock up cover they use is incorrect. Next to the 25 cents on the cover, right next to it, there should be a monthly abbreviation but there's not. They can't even do a mock cover correctly. Maybe they refused to include that detail because they were afraid people would then go looking for that issue only to discover it didn't exist and it's another lie from Aaron.
So many lies from Sorkin. He tells you that the press ignored Winchell's statement.
Not true. The next morning, Lucy and Desi awoke to find that reporters were staked outside their home and, when they went to work, outside the studio. That was real life so, of course, it's not in the film. The first to publish was THE LOS ANGELES HERALD-EXPRESS and they published it Monday evening (papers had evening editions then) followed by THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, THE NEW YORK HERALD, etc. Again, not in the film. Aaron's film has the press just ignoring the story day after day until it's time to tape the I LOVE LUCY episode. (For the record, I LOVE LUCY was recorded on film but if we use "film," this critique will end up more confusing than Aaron's awful film.)
Aaron is a pig of a man and he loves other pigs. So he uses this film to make J. Edgar Hoover a hero.
That's how awful this film is -- Lucie Arnaz should be ashamed of herself for executive producing this garbage. In the film, Aaron has Desi do a warm up act before the taping (Desi did the warm up act every week) but Desi instead talks about how Lucy isn't a Communist -- and that did happen. What didn't happen was Desi getting a call during this from J. Edgar Hoover and holding it up so that the studio audience knew J. Edgar Hoover was clearing Lucy of the charges.
That never happened.
Never.
US House Rep Donald Jackson did hold a press conference clearing Lucy of charges that she was a Communist the week of the taping. But J Edgar Hoover had nothing to do with Lucy.
Why do you make crooked Hoover a hero? Because you're a pig boy who, when you get your snout out of the lines of cocaine, go right for the ass of a fellow pig boy. How did it smell, Aaron, all these years later, how did Hoover's ass smell?
If he can't answer that, maybe Aaron can explain why his film telling the 'truth' about that September week in 1953 also has Desi fighting with others about Lucy being pregnant in real life and how they're going to have the character Lucy be pregnant on the show.
Its not going to be done! That's what many tell Desi in the film.
And they are right. It's not going to be done. The reason why is that "Lucy Is Enceinte" is an episode that was broadcast in season two on November 24, 1952. It can't be done because it was already done almost a year before.
The week that Lucy was accused of being a Communist? That's September 1953 and that's when they're filming "The Girls Get Jobs" which is the second episode of season three.
So, no, that wasn't going to happen in season three.
Can Aaron ever stop lying?
He lies about everything. He lies about Frawley being drunk at a table read. Frawley's contract forbade him from being drunk on the set because he was already known to be an alcoholic before he was hired for the show. (CBS didn't want him for that reason but he had personally asked Lucy for a job and he reminded her of her uncle so she backed him for the part.) The table read takes place on the set. There is no way in the world that Frawley -- who knew his contract -- would be on the set and openly admit that he was drunk. He knew it was fireable offense. (He was drunk frequently on the set and he would always deny it. He'd say he was feeling under the weather, that he had a cold, etc. He would not say he was drunk because he did not want to be fired.)
Aaron lies about Lucy's career. RKO drops her and that happens in the film as well. But this being an Aaron Sorkin written film, it's used as a lesson for the lady. Little Lucy is informed, as she's being fired from RKO, that she should consider doing radio because of her voice. So, according to the film, the man firing her is the one who set I LOVE LUCY in motion because without that suggestion, Lucy would never have done radio and she never would have been offered a TV show as a result (audience at the broadcasts of the radio show loved Lucy because -- unlike some voice actors on radio -- Lucy acted out the part she was playing before their eyes.)
But the problem with Aaron's lie besides it being false? In real life, Lucy was already doing radio long before RKO fired her. In 1940, for example, she'd done DINNER AT EIGHT (a radio production of the well known film) and THE ORSON WELLES' show -- both on CBS RADIO. In addition, Charles Koerner (played by Brian Howe) did not steer Lucy to radio. No, in real life, he told her RKO couldn't keep her but that both METRO and PARAMOUNT wanted her and he'd let either have her. Lucy said she'd prefer to go to MGM -- which is where she went. Oh, and not only did she move right from RKO to MGM, she got a bump of $2,000 more a week in salary -- another fact Aaron's 'true' story film can't find.
Yes, in real life, Lucy made films at MGM (including WITHOUT LOVE with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy). In BEING THE RICARDOS, it's implied that her film career ended with RKO and wasn't it nice of a man to suggest she go into radio because that led to I LOVE LUCY on TV?
Poor dumb Lucy, poor dumb woman, if a man hadn't told her to go into radio, whatever would she have done? That's the kind of sexism that always wafts off Aaron Sorkin projects.
And now we are on the sexism. By the time season three rolled around, Vivian Vance (who played Ethel) knew full well that there would be no glamour gowns and that she was expected to wear padding and to not lose weight. So the back and forth Vivian has with Madelyn and Lucy over Vivian's weight did not happen then. But it's what Aaron chooses to serve up. Why?
It gives Vivian a story. And it's a plus that it's a retrograde story at that. Catty women and how they can't work together!!!!! He's such an ass. He also has Madelyn insult Lucy in the first table read of the week. Which is not something Madelyn would have done. Unlike Aaron, Madelyn never had a need to put a woman in 'her place.'
To watch BEING THE RICARDOS is to be told that Lucy was just a dumb bitch.
Now Lucy was tough. Lucy knew all about the casting couch, for instance. That's not in the movie but, yes, early in her career, she put out for parts. That was long before she met Desi but she did it and many actresses did. You were often expected to do so. Her peers? She thought the world of Katharine Hepburn but other actors and actresses didn't have it so easy. One example, Joan Crawford appeared on one of Lucy's later sitcoms (THE LUCY SHOW in 1968, "Lucy and the Lost Star"). It was the worst experience of Joan's career and she was furious with Lucy and let her know how furious she was. (Lucy was all over Joan's drinking -- grabbing Joan's purse and digging through it to find Joan's flask which she then waived around to others.) Joan was not the only performer who detested working with Lucy. Tallulah Bankhead couldn't stand her. Vivian Vance only agreed to appear in later sitcoms with Lucy after issues like wardrobe had been addressed.
Lucy could be kind and supportive as well and was to many actresses who ended up divorced and trying to make it post-divorce. She told Cher, for example, after Cher had left Sonny and was about to go for a solo career including a solo TV show, to go for it and that she could do it. Lucy didn't like the label feminist but Lucy was a woman with tremendous power (ignored by the film Aaron made) and she did pay it back. Though she was a victim of the casting couch, she did not let that take place at RKO when she ran it -- yes, Lucy would end up running the studio that fired her, owning it. That's also not in the film. You can argue, "It wasn't in the week they focused on." In the week they focused on, Aaron lied about everything else and they also could have had "older" Madelyn, Bob and Jess note that fact.
It's an important fact . . . unless your whole point it to portray Lucille Ball as a dumb bitch.
The issue of the vase? In the taping, it goes badly (with the staging) and Lucy lets it go and they film it as planned in the script -- even though people watching the film should grasp it was funnier the way Lucy blocked it out. But she's just a dumb bitch who wastes everyone's time on blocking and character motivation and then forgets it all.
Dumb bitch Lucy is also responsible for her bad marriage to Desi.
J.K. Simmons does his usual performance but this time he's called William Frawley in the movie. That's the only thing that separates this J.K. Simmons performance from anything else he's ever done -- from everything else he's ever done.. He sounds nothing like Frawley and hes nothing like him. For all the time devoted to Vivian Vance's weight in the film, is there a reason that chubby, stocky Frawley is played by a reed of a man, a slip of a boy?
We'll get back to casting in a moment, but let's stay with the way drunk Frawley makes out on film. He hid out in his dressing room in real life, getting drunk, if he wasn't on the set. But in the film, he's a regular philosopher king imparting wisdom, such as when he explains to Lucy that she's hurting her marriage and Hurting Desi by demanding that others working on I LOVE LUCY do their job and that funny bits be inserted into a sitcom. It's destroying her marriage and it's why Desi sleeps around.
Really?
That never happened. If it had, Lucy would have told him to mind his own damn business and stormed off. Her personal life was not sport to be discussed or addressed on the set.
For that reason, she probably would have stopped there.
We won't.
Desi was cheating on Lucy long before I LOVE LUCY. His cheating is why she wanted to do a series with him. She hoped it would help him stop sleeping around. She'd hoped for that earlier in his career as well and has asked her friend Bob Hope for a favor: Hire Desi for his orchestra on his radio show. Bob did so. It did not stop Desi from sleeping around.
Nothing did. That's why Lucy and Desi eventually split up.
But sexist Aaron doesn't care that it didn't happen or that it wasn't true. He just wants to put Lucille Ball in "her place."
Lucille is a legend. Aaron Sorkin's a drug addict active in his disease. And he's a sexist pig.
For some reason, it took us to point out his sexism. No one but us noticed, for example, that he did a show called THE WEST WING about a US President but didn't have a First Lady when the show started. We started telling the truth about Sorkin in "TV: White Man Talking (and talking and talking . ..." back in 2006 and The Water Cooler Set did not like that at all. They had propped up the 'boy genius' and praised all of his bad work. Then we came along and spoiled the party.
Which is why a national radio program that insisted upon highlighting us repeatedly prior to that Sorkin review then e-mailed to say, after the piece in the previous paragraph went up, that they would never highlight us again. To which Ty replied on our behalf that we never asked them to highlight us to begin with but how sad that a woman hosting a radio program was objecting to the fact that we called out Sorkin's sexism.
It's not so controversial today to note the sexism in his work. Even adult cartoons talk about it. But it was forbidden to do so when we first did it apparently.
Aaron's a sexist pig and that's what really sinks this movie.
It's not Nicole Kidman. No, she delivers a first-rate performance. Most of the others deliver as well but it's a case of their overcoming their casting.
Then there is Javier Bardem. He plays Desi.
Why?
Desi Arnaz Jr. is 61 right now and he doesn't look as craggy as Bardem does.
This was so offensive and goes to Aaron and his sexism..
Desi Arnaz (Sr. not Jr.) was not an unattractive man. In fact, to call him handsome is to do him an injustice. Desi Arnaz was beautiful in the 1950s. He was the most beautiful man on TV. He was not craggy and he was not swarthy. Bardem has many things going for him and can be very sexy. But he is not handsome and he is certainly not beautiful.
CBS got it. When they made their 2003 TV movie LUCY, they cast Danny Pino as Desi. That was an excellent choice. Danny is a beautiful man like Desi was.
We don't think that America would have accepted Lucy and Desi as a TV couple so easily if Desi hadn't been so gorgeous. He was so gorgeous that even people who hadn't evolved to the point of live-and-let-live couldn't object to this (for it's time) 'mixed marriage.
Nicole does things in the role physically that are shocking because they call to mind Lucille Ball. She has her physicality down and then some. It's amazing.
What is Bardem doing? He's not playing Desi and he never gets a grip on the character. We get it, there's no real character in the script. It's a bad script. But Nicole overcomes it and most of the cast does as well.
Bardem was probably never going to grasp the role. Desi was a dreamboat. It's why Lucille fell in love with him. It's why so many women were eager to go to bed with him. He was gorgeous. A Danny Pino can covey that and overcome script problems as a result. Bardem looks nothing like Desi and cant overcome that fact.
It would be like casting Kristen Wiig in a film as Bella Hadid. Kristen''s pretty and she's immensely gifted as an actor; however, she can't convincingly play Bella and Bardem cannot convincingly play Desi.
Is it rude to point out that Desi was 34 when I LOVE LUCY started and 37 when Winchell's radio announcement took place but that Bardem is 52-years old? He looks it. He's way too old to be playing Desi in the 1950s. Too old, too ugly. Let's be honest and not pretty up Aaron's mess.
And let's be honest regarding Lucie Arnaz. You really have to hate your mother to make this film that turns into a dumb bitch who was lucky men were around to rescue her.
That is not who Lucille Ball was. If a man could help her, great. She was all for it. But if a man couldn't help her, she'd go around him to get what she needed. Nothing could stop her, she was a strong person and she had a lot of drive and a lot of intelligence. She knew the business and she knew it better than anyone.
Is that why Lucie Arnaz is trying to destroy her mother? She doesn't have her mother's drive? She was supposed to star in her own sitcom. Season four of her mother's HERE'S LUCY ended with the episode , "Kim Finally Cuts You-Know-Whose Apron Strings" which was a backdoor pilot for Lucie's Kim to go off on her own. Only viewers didn't like the episode so when season five of HERE'S LUCY started back up in the fall of 1972, you still had Lucie in the cast playing Kim. When she finally did get her own sitcom (THE LUCIE ARNAZ SHOW) in 1985, she looked uncomfortable and it appeared her neck made the network nervous since they were constantly trying to hide it. Lucie's timing was off and the series didn't have the writing needed so the show got the axe after four episodes aired and the last two of the show were burnt off in June of 1985.
It's not fair but as Lucille Ball always said, "Life's not fair."
If you watch BEING THE RICARDOS, you'll quickly realize truer words were never spoken because there's nothing fair -- or honest -- about that film. Please, please, if you like your mother or any woman do not work with Aaron Sorkin to develop a film or TV series about her because Aaron isn't interested in movies which is why the camera so frequently fails to find Nicole Kidman as the plays the title character in a film but Aaron can't keep her in focus.