Everyone is insecure, even Donald Trump or Tom Brady. Within every bombast lies a cowering inner child. Imagine making a new version of The Exorcist where a Donald Trump like character suffers from pre-adolescent possession. Chicken Little would be right on target about the sky falling. Under this theory Woody's Allen's next film should be a sequel to Irrational Man, Irrational Men which shows the human side of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his crew. Somewhere in Raqqa, the reputed ISIS stronghold Baghdadi will be wandering around a former prison which has been turned into a palace. But Abu is a little like the Wizard of Oz, a frightened little man hiding behind plumes of smoke. Underneath all the beheadings and rapes, lies a nervous neurotic played by Allen, with all kinds of eccentricities which he expresses to his confident Mohammed, a Freudian, who had trained as an analyst before being converted to Jihad. One of Baghdadi's biggest problems turns out to be performance anxiety which takes place when he makes appearances as a guest executioner on the big ISIS reality show Head Today Gone Tomorrow. He's also a failed ravisher of young women who have been sold into slavery and has had to walk away from his harem with his tail between his legs on more than one occasion, after not getting it up. In fact, the chief cause for his depression and the thing that makes him want to bomb and maim is erectile dysfunction. Naturally he refuses to take Viagra or Cialis which he feels violate the Koran. Besides the slaves, he's married to a balabusta who yells at him when he tries to stop her from using up the Islamic State's stolen oil revenues for on line shopping expeditions. The portrait of Baghdadi that Allen aims to create would show the human side of a tyrant.
{This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture}