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Example of how star images are ongoing.

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Matthew McConaughey's latest, The Free State of Jones, Wikipedias into theaters this weekend - and really what is there to say? It's just ... One Of Those Movies. A film that asks its audience to consider the Civil War from the perspective of [ deepest possible breath] A REBEL WITH A HEART OF GOLD, Free State is lifeless, formless, and prohibitively hedged. It might "mean well," but it doesn't mean well. It's a #woke nap. It's a bad time.

And it feels like the end of something.

But just because the McConaissance has stalled out, that doesn't mean its namesake has to. In fact, I wonder if we will eventually look back on The Free State of Jones as yet another ending-as-beginning for McConaughey. Maybe it will be a functional sequel to Ghosts of Girlfriends Past: that last, fateful bomb before he switches up his flow.

Except there's one small problem: How do you switch up a flow that's already been switched up? How do you get reborn when you've already been born, buried, and born again? How do you turn things around ... from having turned things around?

Well, such is our modest proposal: A new boom period in McConaughey's career must now be initiated. Call it the Reverse McConaissance - and think of it literally: In order to find what he's lost, Matthew McConaughey must retrace his steps. In order to save his career, he must now perform the McConaissance, in reverse.

This is our 10-step plan to save Matthew McConaughey from the plan to save Matthew McConaughey:
Step One: Another Chris Nolan Movie, Preferably in Space
It's time to admit something, and it won't be easy. Actually, the truth is, it's going to be very hard. But we'll get through it together. Okay? Are you ready? I'm going to say it now: Interstellar is underrated. I love you, and that's all that matters. Hold your hand in mine as we walk through the valley of opinions.
Step Two: Stop Trying to Make Three-Piece Suits Happen
This isn't criticism, and trust me - I completely get it. Matthew McConaughey did exactly what I would do if I ever jumped a fame-level: pretend that three-piece suits have always been " my thing. " But they're not, they're just not. And the Reverse McConaissance is about returning to your roots. Our roots.

So let's go there: Jeans-blazer-cross-core? Yes. Black & tan? I mean, okay, sure. Leather? It's your life. Creepy haircut/sunglasses situation? We'll make it work and also Ethan Embry looks great. Trench coat? I can't say why but I'm in. Cowboy hat? It's insulting you had to ask. Patriot chic? Fraternity chic? SCARF + TOOTHPICK chic? Fuck it, we'll take all three.

These are the kinds of decisions that we'll be making in the Reverse McConaissance. No more contorting under the limbo bar of aesthetic thirst. The Reverse McConaissance is about what's real and what's true.
Step Three: True Detective Season 3
True Detective isn't perfect (the Yellow King was ... lawnmowers? I already forget), but there was a dumb beauty to its first season - and an uncommonly metatextual energy. In Rust Cohle, McConaughey authored a sort of beer can-origami rendition of self: the burnout '90s star investigating his own middle-period redemption. It made a lot of sense and no sense and a little sense and it worked. And - notwithstanding " Cary Fukunaga is hot" - it remains True D 's signature revelation.

In the Reverse McConaissance, McConaughey should run Rust back.
Step Four: Maximum Bait
Dallas Buyers Club wasn't the answer, but the question - how fucking obvious are the Oscars? - is eternal. For the Reverse McConaissance, let's greenlight the single most bullshit Oscars movie ever made. Honestly, think of the most bullshit thing possible. Got it? Okay. Yeah: way more bullshit than that. Let's make a movie where a stuttering white child rides the horse from War Horse down to the wreckage of the Titanic, within which they perform a mafia-themed musical number and then do Important Journalism that leads to a life-changing lesson about teamwork and the American psyche and the magic of the male spirit and/or cinema. McConaughey can play the horse.
Step Five: Auteurist Supporting Roles: The Re-up
Dallas Buyers and True Detective collected most of the acclaim, but the McConaissance was established on the foundation of character parts: Bernie. Eastbound & Down. The Paperboy. The Wolf of Wall Street. Magic Mike. More than any later starring roles, these films were the movement's core - and they represent the ethos to hang onto as we shift it back in reverse.

Let's give Lee Daniels a call; no one has filmed McConaughey's body with a stranger eye. Let's give Scorsese a call; no one had ever played an acoustic cover of "Dope Nose" using the specter of McConaughey's penis as a guitar pick before. Let's call Richard Linklater; he's McConaughey-minus-McConaughey-ing, already, as it is. Those are lofty examples, sure, but the basic principle isn't hard: The McConaissance wasn't about McConaughey. It was about breaking an obsolete idea into a million pieces, and then using each of those pieces to build an idea of its own.

To paraphrase a great poet: Let's see if Texas wants a taste. The Reverse McConaissance is about learning to break shit again.
Step Six: Have a Frank Conversation About Hair
Out of all of the lines of demarcation between pre- and post-McConaissance, perhaps none is as stark as our hero's ... "evolving" hairline. Purely as remark and not as commentary: Pre-McConaissance was thinning; post-McConaissance has been full. Again - not a judgment. He should do what feels good, and if that's fake hair then that's fake hair. But he should at least do it right. McConaughey's hair in Interstellar looks like his head selected "send all drafts." McConaughey's hair in The Free State of Jones looks like a face hugging a dead dog. In True Detective, the McConaughair vibe is something approaching "day-old pasta that's been left out." And those are probably his three best looks.

In the Reverse McConaissance, I see two options: 1) pay more for better, or 2) let it go.
Step Seven: Have a Frank Conversation About Lincoln
Fuck an MKX. Get us a meeting with Airstream.
Step Eight: Get Back in With Magic Mike Gang
Full disclosure: I don't want this. Magic Mike was a pretty good movie trapped in a really great pretext for aesthetes to type, "It's about the economy." Magic Mike XXL was perfect. But correlation doesn't have to equal causation - and if a reunion makes sense, I won't flex in anyone's way.
Step Nine: Make a Lincoln Lawyer Sequel
Okay, #NotAllLincolns. I love The Lincoln Lawyer and I'm going to live my truth. Like, yeah, so what - he's a lawyer of the people who got his license a little suspended. Don't fucking worry about it. And yeah, he plays by - whose rules did you think??? - his own rules. Does he have time for silly bourgeois constructs like "offices"? I'll give you one guess. Does he get results? I'll give you no guesses - he gets results. Anyway, The Lincoln Lawyer is a solid B-plus-plus and deserves maybe 5 percent more credit for the McConaissance than it's been given. Let's go make some money.
Step Ten: Star in a (Good) Romantic Comedy
This is where the Lincoln meets the road - and it's the problem, if there is one: the McConaissance was kind of a scam.

The endgame of the McConaissance has always been authenticity. Or, "authenticity": Beards and beers and mid-level luxury sedans. Crime and/or punishment. "Based on a true story" b/w "I've read The Right Stuff before." All, of course, fine. But the fundamental premise of that authenticity - that, in order to reach his full potential, Matthew McConaughey first had to reject the rom-com - has always been false.

This can't be stressed enough. The McConaissance didn't happen because Matthew McConaughey stopped making rom-coms. The McConaissance happened because Matthew McConaughey stopped making ... really fucking shitty movies. That they were romantic comedies is beside the point. It's certainly its own point, and a fascinating one. But here's the truth - and it's a truth inextricable from no less than an entire working theory of pop: The Free State of Jones is as bad as any rom-com Matthew McConaughey ever made.

There; that's it. Once you've accepted this truth, you are free. Though I suspect you already have - and already know that there are great war films, and there are awful war films. That there are great rom-coms, and there are awful rom-coms. That genre isn't a quality; it's just a thing. And that if there is one step of prescriptive comeback left, it's this clarification: Matthew McConaughey needs to stop making bad movies ... and start making good ones.

Thus concludes the Reverse McConaissance: an idea un-redone. Maybe it will save a career. Maybe it won't ever work. But I think it's still worth a try. It's like saying, "Alright, alright, alright," backwards: Alright, alright, alright.

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Matthew McConaughey's latest, The Free State of Jones, Wikipedias into theaters this weekend - and really what is there to say? It's just ... One Of Those Movies. A film that asks its audience to consider the Civil War from the perspective of [ deepest possible breath] A REBEL WITH A HEART OF GOLD, Free State is lifeless, formless, and prohibitively hedged.

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Further cements 'cool guy' image, again a mutual beneficial relationship between star and product.

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Matthew Mcconaughey Lincoln Commercial 2017

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McConaughey's relationship with Bourbon company 'Wild Turkey' mutually impacts one another. McConaughey is able to maintain his image while Wild Turkey maintain theirs. Both 'manly' 'cool' brands.

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Redmond describing the celebrity types 'star-as professional' and 'star-as performer.

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Redmond describing the celebrity types 'star-as professional' and 'star-as performer.

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Martin describing the 'Celebrity Ambassador' 

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Martin describing the 'Celebrity Ambassador' 

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Shows how his sexuality plays into his star image.

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Martin describing the 'Celebrity Close Up'.

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Martin describing the 'Celebrity Close Up'.

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Rojek describing the 'achieved celebrity' type 

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Rojek describing the 'achieved celebrity' type 

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Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame achievement 

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Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame achievement 

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Testament to McConaughey's 'achieved celebrity' status

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Foundation set up by McConaughey and his wife  to set up fitness and wellness schools. 'Celebrity Ambassador'. The name is an example of how McConaughey's film characters intertwine with his persona.

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McConaughey's 'ordinary' interview with W Magazine.

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McConaughey's 'ordinary' interview with W Magazine.

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Shows his private persona, describing his fathers 'dodgy deals' and 'nervous' first kiss. Bridges the gap between star and fan.

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This public appearance by McConaughey which cements his 'cool guy' star image.

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Shows his 'extraordinary' side as he discusses his run in with a ram at the Grand Canyon and how he had to throw his baby to safety. Also fits in with 'cool guy' image.

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The term coined by the New Yorker to describe McConaughey's rise in film.

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This morning, Matthew McConaughey woke up to his first Oscar nomination. There's no denying the McConaissance now, a bold second act in the American actor's life which somehow feels as novel as it does deliberate. McConaughey's return to the Hollywood firmament in the past two years has had an unusually organic quality to it, in that critics and audiences alike have quickly made room for his new oddball intensity and his desire to make interesting choices again after a decade of just livin' and relying on his dimples and his baritone drawl.

McConaughey makes coming back, like everything else he does, look easy. It isn't usually this way. Most actresses, after spending a decade in the romantic-comedy trenches in unchallenging movies buttered with cliché, do not get to return to the Hollywood winners' circle. (Sandra Bullock is a notable exception-maybe the magic is in Texas.) Most actors who disappear for ten years and want to shine again must prove that they've been to Hell and back (see: Robert Downey, Jr., and Mickey Rourke). Their awards are a sobriety chip; the serious acting is a kind of thirteenth step of rehabilitation. McConaughey seems unfazed by his return, cool and buoyant and fully aware of where he's been. In a sauntering speech at the Golden Globes, he winked at his iconic role in "Dazed and Confused," his openness to the press about his lost, naked bongo years, and his unabashed and well-documented desire to "unbrand" himself and start anew. For years, McConaughey embodied complacency; he was an actor who bought too heavily into his own allure and therefore stalled out early on. The fact that he has been able to unravel that perception in a few roles shows how wrong we were. And it takes an actor who's keenly aware of his own mythology to play games with his audience, to slash through his own persona with glee and abandon.

The McConaughey that we are getting now is casually weird and much darker than expected. He seems unshackled after decades of trying to be a matinée idol, an affable, guileless human glass of sweet tea. McConaughey has always used his body as an instrument, exuding sexuality in his work-in 1996, a review of "A Time to Kill" practically panted from the pages of the Times, with phrases like "Adonis factor" and "a profile that belongs on a coin"-but now his take on his own eroticism has turned sour, and his sensuality has become a weapon rather than a crutch. Consider his role in "Dallas Buyers Club," for which he lost forty-five pounds and took on the look of a gangly bobblehead (standard Hollywood penance for a career resurrection). McConaughey was cast as a straight man named Ron Woodroof, who is given a diagnosis of AIDS in the early days of the epidemic and who goes on to become a kingpin distributor of unapproved remedies. In the film, Woodroof is gravely undone by his own sexuality. McConaughey plays Woodroof as virile and cocky, even while he is emaciated, with sunken cheekbones, and covered with sarcomas. Woodroof has paid the price for careless sex, and McConaughey offers his own sexuality as broad and unprotected. He somehow manages to swagger while looking gaunt as a whippet.

Or take "Magic Mike," the film that kick-started McConaughey's return. Everything that he had been mocked for-his well-documented love of shirtlessness, his moony love of the ladies, his chest-puffing, blustering self-regard-came together to make a tragic figure, one who flaunts these talents for dollar bills in a tawdry night club. What the McConaissance is about-if it is really about anything-is the clever (and purposeful) undoing of a mythos and the embrace of a more authentic McConaughey, even if that reveals something grimy and sad beneath the creamy Texas accent. It's also about upholding that past self and twisting it into new combinations. In his small cameo in "The Wolf of Wall Street," McConaughey, still rail thin, electrifies the film with a five-minute meditation on hedonism and underachievement. He convinces the bushy-tailed broker played by Leonardo DiCaprio that the stock-trading business is simply boys playing games with funny money, trying to walk taller than they are and possess the air. It is easy to apply this pep talk to Hollywood, that ethereal land of money-scented breezes, the ultimate fugazi for the hopeful and the lucky. After "A Time to Kill" came out, McConaughey became famous overnight. The entire country seemed to know the name of his dog (Miss Hud). He has spoken about feeling everyone in every place squeezing in on him, that old byproduct of instant stardom. "The world became a mirror very quickly," he said in one interview. "Over the weekend, there were more mirrors in the world everywhere." Mirrors can be fun, of course, when you look like McConaughey. But, after a while, too many can seem like a fun house.

When we think of the "lost" years that came after the heralded ones, the terrible, forgettable films ("Sahara," "Fool's Gold," "The Wedding Planner"), we think of underachievement, dashed potential, and, worse yet, an actor recognizing the limits of his own ability and slowing to a resting heart rate. We felt the kind of disappointment that comes with the promise of a new Paul Newman or Steve McQueen melting into flabby, lucrative resignation. But McConaughey's resurgence shows us that he was always a good actor; the ability was there. The years he lost now look like an active squandering of his position, a deliberate choice to be famous and handsome and wealthy without trying too hard, to reap the benefits of the indulgent side of fame. But even the most exotic tropical vacations grow wearysome, and McConaughey eventually decided, as we all must do, to get back to work. The starmaking machine loves nothing more than swallowing up its young stars, sometimes unspooling them completely (see: Shia LaBeouf). McConaughey's lost years now look curiously like self-protection, a recharging of the batteries for a more dangerous late swell of desire. When he beats his chest with a primal grunt in "The Wolf of Wall Street"-an ad-lib originating in McConaughey's pre-scene warmup exercise-he's reconnecting with what's weird and strange and sad about his embodiment of down-home American masculinity.

Though "A Time to Kill" made him a movie star, the younger McConaughey was really at his best in his first film, "Dazed and Confused," from 1993. Languid, with a mop of blond hair and a slippery mustache, wearing tight salmon-colored pants and a white T-shirt with one sleeve rolled up to hold a pack of cigarettes, he was twenty-three and just getting started. His character, Wooderson, sleazy mustache and all, is a distillation of the raw material that is now being put to use. Some actors overcome their first roles, others never live up to them again. McConaughey seems to have fused with his: Wooderson was stuck in viscid, small-town adolescence, lascivious and joyful and going nowhere in a hurry, the Peter Pan of the prairie who was also a wise man. Whereas Ben Affleck (another actor who has managed to claw his way back from years stuck in the ether), as the other older hanger-on in the film, the raging meathead O'Bannion, channelled violence and vitriol into his lost youth, McConaughey exuded a calm acceptance of his slow pace and of the sense that everything was and would always be all right. He gives a group of angst-ridden teens some sage advice at the film's end, staring down the length of a football field: "The older you get, the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin', man, L-I-V-I-N."

These words were also McConaughey's own-a mantra he repeated to himself to deal with the death of his father, which happened just days into shooting-and they were clairvoyant. He named his foundation for at-risk youth Just Keep Livin', but the words themselves (so blithe as to lack any real meaning) go beyond that when applied to his career. What moviegoers enjoy even more than an arc of redemption after a dramatic fall is a surge of energy after a period of prodigal wastefulness. McConaughey's recent trajectory-which just keeps going (the excellent, eerie "True Detective" is on HBO now, and soon he will anchor a Christopher Nolan blockbuster)-is a joy to watch. McConaughey seems to be tapping into something essential, remaining himself while stretching, getting older while staying the same age.

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This morning, Matthew McConaughey woke up to his first Oscar nomination. There's no denying the McConaissance now, a bold second act in the American actor's life which somehow feels as novel as it does deliberate.

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During the 'McConaissance' McConaughey branched out into television in the critically acclaimed HBO show 'True Detective' winning 2 awards for his portrayal of Rust Cohle.

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The film that changed McConaughey's star image  from 'star as professional' to 'star as performer'  aka the 'McConaissance' and the film he won an Academy Award for.

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Example of how McConaughey's film characters affect his persona.

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The Origin Of Matthew McConaughey's 'Alright, Alright, Alright'

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'The celebrity close up' - we are invited to view an unmediated version of McConaughey as he shares stories about his family.

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Matthew McConaughey winning Best Actor | 86th Oscars (2014)