What I Have Been Watching: donesies

"What I Have Been Watching" is usually the domain of Toast admittedly spending too much time in front of the TV. Kent's equally spending too much time in front of the teevee and is now stepping on Toast's toes (Toastoes? Toestys?) here as a whole bunch of series/seasons have ended and they need to be covered, quickly.

Schmigadoon Season 2: Schmicago - AppleTV+ (6/6 episodes)

Even though I wasn't much, if at all, familiar with the 1950's and 60's musicals of which Schmigadoon's first season was aping, it really didn't seem to matter. I could get the joke of the magical but supremely out-of-touch place of Schmigadoon, and the radical incongruity of two real-world interlopers who are understandably perplexed by the whole thing, and how their modern sensibilities could change the fantasy realm for the better. Plus, at the base of it, there was a core of a relationship in trouble and what escaping into fantasy could reveal to them about their bond.

I was really excited for the return of Schmigadoon if only because the sequel's subtitle, Schmicago, really makes me giggle.  In a sort of unfortunate irony, the subtitle is pretty much the biggest laugh of the season though. Late-60's and 70's era musicals (obviously Chicago, but also hippie musicals like Hair and even a dash of Sweeney Todd) are smushed together (technical term) into a melange of different aesthetics and tones, with the 30's throwback aesthetic blending inharmoniously with the 60's peace and love vibe backed up by a grody pre-20th-century street urchin twist.  Our protagonists, Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan Michael-Key) are feeling the drudgery of daily life, especially after unsuccessful attempts at conceiving. They long for an escape from reality and go seeking Schmigadoon, only to find the magical realm has become something else. The players all look familiar, but they're different people, and the world they enter is far dingier, danker and dangerous than where they thought they were going.

With the first season, there was a pretty easy through-line to follow, and even as our protagonists went on side quests by started inserting themselves into the affairs of the residents it all felt organic somehow. Here in Schmicago, every side plot seems to exist to cue up a number. The songs are really good, but they're played pretty straight, not a lot of comedy in most of them. They're showcase pieces for the performers, less about comedy (see the outstanding Ariana DeBose number at the top of episode 6 that's completely disconnected from the show, since DeBose couldn't return to the series beyond this one number).

The lesson Melissa and Josh need to learn is that in order to make others happy, they need to be happy themselves. Or something. It's not entirely clear, even though the Martin Short leprichauns spell it out pretty bluntly.  It's all lip service and not really shown. I don't feel like this season was a cohesive journey, and it certainly wasn't as funny as the first season (the best comedic bits belonged to Titus Burgess' narrator as he played with the metatext of the show).

That all said, it's still an incredibly well produced show (though not nearly as visually assured as when Barry Sonnenfeld directed every episode last season), and not something any other show is doing now. I dig the cast (Strong and Key are a great team, but Kristin Chenowith, Alan Cummings, Dove Cameron and the recurring gang are all wonderful stage pros), so if another season is to come -- say a Schmantom of the Schmopera, or Schmats (it's certainly going to be diving deep into Andrew Lloyd Weber territory, or maybe Les Schmiberables), I'll be there each week to welcome it.

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Mrs. Davis - Peacock/CityTV (8/8 episodes)

Good lord! What a bloody trip this was. 

Jesus, was this the best TV show of the year? Even if not (and I could see a lot of people challenging that statement) it's certainly the frontrunner for my favourite viewing experience this year. 

Holy shit, I could not believe what a bugnuts freaking show this was. It's a grand, globetrotting adventure, full of spirituality and sexuality, and parental issues and relationship issues around trust and respect. It's also an analogy for how we engage with technology in our reality, whether the screens we're absorbed with (and absorbing) are telling us the truth or just what we want to hear, if they're making us happy or just feeding us dopamine hits, if they're truly connecting us or just driving us further apart.  

Mary, mother of Christ, did I love it. Maybe every episode wasn't perfect (episode 3's "Excalibattle" seemed to impede the frenetic momentum the series had established, and episode 5's history lesson was necessary exposition but the framing sequence around it was pretty wobbly) but I was always on board. At the helm is Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen, The Leftovers), with co-creator Tara Hernandez (formerly of The Big Bang Theory, for reals), and they've crafted a supremely goofy quest series about a reluctant nun who is sent on a quest to find the Holy Grail in order to destroy the near-omnipotent machine that effectively rules the world. But amidst the plot is an immensely human story that touches upon so many different little, grounded, real topics that resonate so much stronger as a result of being juxtaposed against, say, exploding heads, a British Knights shoe revival, and going for a dive inside a whale. Enough good things cannot be said about series lead, GLOW's Betty Gilpin, and how incredibly confident she is in holding the tonal balance in her hands.

Goddammit, if it wasn't a constant surprise at every turn as well. Lindelof, Hernandez and crew really, really defied every storytelling norm out there. They played with conventions so fully, that as a viewer, you seemed always so certain of where it could be headed, and it never went there. There was no way to predict it, that's how far outside the box they are. It's a series that lets its imagination run wild, but guided completely by emotion. You can't predict these turns because they're so illogical, and yet they become the only thing that makes sense in the context of the story, because there can be no other explanation.  One can't help but always bring up Lindelof's puzzle boxing in Lost and wonder if there's a plan when stepping into any of his later series. But he's learned to have a plan, and three incredible series later, you can pretty much trust that he does.

Praise be, this is not going to be a series for everyone. The severely atheistic may bristle at the levels of affirmative faith the show embraces.  Likewise the religious might find it too salacious or blasphemous to cater to their puritanical interests. But if you like to be challenged whilst being highly entertained, this will dazzle and confound and maybe even soothe just a little. I found it deeply satisfying.

Amen.

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Yellowjackets Season 2 - Showtime/Crave (9/9 episodes)

Speaking of Lost, countless shows have attempted to be "the next Lost" since even before it went off the air in 2010. We've had over 15 years of imitators, from La Brea to Manifest to Wayward Pines, among many others. The most successful was Westworld, at least for one glorious season, but it found the mystery box set-up unsustainable and forged its own awkward path. Yellowjackets burned very brightly in its first season, dealing with dual timelines, one in the 90's with a high-school girls' soccer team crashing in the Ontario wilderness, and in the present day where the survivors try to live their lives with the secrets that they carry from that past time. In the past, the traumas have only just begun. In the present, they rear their ugly heads again.

It was a delicious premise, and a uniquely female-driven one that played within genres of horror, fantastic realism, suspense, and psychodrama while dealing heavily with both psychological trauma and mental health issues and how they impact one long term. Season 1, at its heart, wanted you to be both sympathetic to why they do what they do and scared of what these girls and women are capable of.

The second season introduces us to two more modern day survivors, Lottie (Simone Kessell) and Van (Lauren Ambrose), one who runs a not-a-cult commune, and the other still making a go at a video rental store. Everything converges upon the commune by mid-way through the season, which means the increasingly shaky murder/cover-up story from last season, and Taissa's dissociative identity disorder,  Misty's missed love connection with a rich citizen detective (Elija Wood), and Nat's survivor's guilt all need to coexist in this one space. What happens as a result is the drive of the show becomes completely plot focussed and the characters take a back seat. It's to the point that it raises so many unintended questions (not fun puzzle box questions, but just logical questions about the characters and the world they live in) that they threaten to sink the entire show.

The first season wound up the puzzle box, and creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson said they had a 5 year plan for answering it all, but if season 2 is any indication they're not really sure how to execute said plan. Even as they set out providing answers in the past, it's lumpy storytelling that's seemingly forgotten what it wanted it wanted to say about its characters, what it wanted to accomplish outside of just telling a story, and one that's seemingly forgotten its stylistic tendencies.  

By the end of the season, in the 90's story we've been given more insight into where we already know it winds up. There doesn't seem to be any twisting of the perspective of what we've seen before. The show doesn't effectively convey the psychological impact of starvation on the team, even though that's really the undercurrent of it all, that they're slowly going crazy from undernourishment. In the present day, the show tries to wrap a few of its bigger dangling plot threads up into a neat and tidy bow, which feels completely underbaked. If it turns out to just make for bigger problems next season, great, because how could it not. But if it is supposed to be an actual resolution, it's pretty awful.

This season was increasingly disappointing as it went on, and the finale at episode 9, instead of 10, smacks of network interference.  Something's certainly happening behind the scenes that the season was scaled back. I hope they have a more character-focused plan for next season, or I don't think I'll be able to continue through its 5 year journey.

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Barry Season 4 - HBO (8/8 episodes)

[Season 1&2, Season 3]

Every episode of Season 4 of Barry is directed by creator/star Bill Hader, and it's a wonderful-looking show. Hader has a very specific style that combines classic American cinema production with 70's New Hollywood sensibilities. Hader likes a static camera placement, providing a very wide-scale view of the scene with minimal cuts, but he also likes dynamic dramatic acting, complex characters, and big moments.  Hader also eschews soundtrack in Barry, which heightens both tension and comedic relief.  The orchestration and execution of the scripts feel extremely precise, with Hader wanting there to be an immense amount of naturalness, and discomfort in that naturalness.  When done perfectly, it leads to wow-inducing, memorable scenes that feel innovative, yet familiar...or it leads to a big laugh. Hader is perfectly capable of executing on both fronts.

I think Season 4 is about as invested as I've been in the series this whole time. I've expressed in the prior reviews how uncomfortable the show makes me, but also, prior seasons were just too invested in the "L.A. actors" world that, honestly, I find boring. Of course, that was all spiced up with Barry's killer-for-hire other life, and all the complications that brought, so it led to a very uneven experience for me. This season of Barry starts with Barry in prison, and the fallout of that is far more interesting.  Barry's got his time to think about what he's done and who is to blame, while we see Fuchs, Cousineau, Sally and NoHo Hank trying to move on with their lives, which seem just a little emptier without Barry in them. What should be liberating for them seems quite the opposite.

It's quite a ride for the first four episodes, but the fifth takes us through a time jump that raises a lot of questions, and heads up a two episode arc that it maybe didn't need or earn.  I wonder if the season had started with the time jump and worked its way backward if it would have been better, or just more distracting. The final two episodes of the series work really, really hard to bring every major character into view, and the finale works, but isn't completely satisfying. I don't really know what it's trying to say in its final moments (presented as excerpts of the movie of Barry's life and misdeeds, starring Jim Cummings as Barry). I won't contemplate them here, for spoilery reasons, but I wonder the sentiment its actually trying to convey as a series.

Complex.

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Taskmaster Seasons 1-5 - BBC/Youtube (32/32 episodes)

The Brits are experts at the "comedy panel show". There's a rather insurmountable volume of them, and each of them probably has their champions imploring you to catch up on a dozen (or two) seasons of talking heads and shits and giggles. There's a reason UK panel shows work so well, which mainly has to do with a heavily populated, but not very expansive group of countries, mostly composed of islands. Comedians there all tend to know each other, and being in such a limited exposure terrain, their fame is pretty contained, so unless they've migrated to America, their egos tend to stay in check. As such these panels tend to be populated by personalities who are not at war with one another, nobody's climbing up someone else's back to get ahead or more exposure. They're more hang sessions of funny people, not battles for superiority.

I've had more than a few panel shows lobbed my way, and of those I've tried, I have enjoyed, but not enough to plough through the entire back catalog. Taskmaster isn't different from many of those panel shows in that it doubles as a competition/game show of sorts, because there are a great many others that also award points and winners and whatnot. What sets Taskmaster apart from the rest is humility, the humbling nature of bringing a panel of guests on and showing them failing over and over again, sometimes in ways that should be direly embarassing ("that one will haunt me the rest of my life" has been uttered by more than one guest). But in that failure comes both sympathy and admiration for the efforts made, and, occasionally, a flat-out triumph.  It's a warm-hearted show that isn't there to (fully) poke fun at the guests, but to have fun with them.

Hosted by comedic giant Greg Davies, with co-host/creator "Little" Alex Horne, each season has a panel of five guests, who were, months prior to the live-studio-audience panel, subjected to a battery of inane tasks that they must attempt to achieve. Each of the guests does the same tasks as the others, and Greg, as the "Taskmaster", judges them on their accomplishments. Tasks can range from who can put as much stuff in a balloon in one minute as possible, or who can take a giant styrofoam boulder the farthest away in an hour, or who can make a Swedish man blush.  

The tasks can range from very basic, to patently absurd, to utterly difficult brain teaser, to a flex of creative muscles. We watch, along with the crowd and the panel, as the expertly edited clips are presented in astonishingly well-produced order. The dramatic (and comedic) tension that is raised from how the clips are put together and show is as much of the show's fun as what the comedians do themselves.  And after it's all done Davies gives ranks them 1-5 (or disqualifies them) and gives them the equivalent points. The winner each episode takes home an absurd collection of prizes (that the guests themselves brought in as a task at the start of the episode and were judged on, like "hairiest object" or "greatest liquid" or "oddest clock").

The first three seasons are only 5 or 6 episodes, seasons 4 and 5 jump to 8 episodes (while looking ahead, every subsequent season is 10 episodes). Each episode is deliciously entertaining, with heavy belly laughs throughout, while at the same time tweaking your creative brain as you yourself think of how you would approach the task. There is not a dud episode in all 5 seasons, though it does become funnier and funnier the more you settle in with Davies' personality and the dynamic between him and Horne (the kayfabe of their master/apprentice relationship grows over the seasons).

Season 5 is a real standout so far, with an almost perfect panel. Irish absurdist Aisling Bea has the most creative impulses, Scottish oddball Bob Mortimer dips in between utter bizarreness and scatalogical humour (he tells a story about his anus that will haunt me the rest of my life), Mark Watson may be one of the most enjoyably neurotic people on Earth, Nish Kumar seems to be missing the filter between his brain and his mouth, and Sally Phillips is completely horned up yet somehow retains both a sense of modesty and elegance.  Four of the top 5 standout moments from the show for me so far come from this fifth season, with Nish and Mark's "I'm always seeing you (do cool stuff)" song, Sally's "birth of Alex" video, Nish's "oh you bubbly fuck" moment, Nish's most spectacular fail (just one of many) in the coconut challenge,  with the "foot in the crease" moment in season 2 rounding out the top 5.

I genuinely love this show, and can't recommend it highly enough. It's deliriously entertaining and addictive, and there's 15 seasons ALL legally available on youtube.  There's also at least a half dozen international versions of the show which I may tackle once I get through all of these.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Brooklyn

2015, John Crowley (The Goldfinch) -- download

There is a series of scifi novels that I read, the Wayfarers by Becky Chambers, that are not typical for the space opera genre. They are more optimistic than almost anything I have read, that along with the lovely world building being done, are just as much about people (aliens and humans) just being good to each other. They are quiet books, not lacking in conflicts, but the negative situations are dealt with by good people doing the right thing. I am not sure I am describing it in the best way, but they are just quieter books. 

Huh? Space Opera? In relation to a immigrant period piece movie? Well, compared to everything else I watched, this was just a quieter movie, not without the tense situations that a third movie act requires, but less directed by those situations, and more about These Good People. I loved that. It deserved its critical acclaim.

Eilis (pronounced, as in Billie; Saoirse Ronan, Hanna) lives in smalltown Ireland in the 1950s. She lives with her mother and her sister. She works a few hours on Sunday at a local general store run by a cranky old curmudgeon, but beyond that, doesn't have many prospects. A priest she knows, in NYC, arranges for her to emigrate to Brooklyn, NY, where she can find a life for herself. Its hard to leave all you know behind, to make it on your own, but it can be worth it. And that is what this movie is all about.

One would think the movie could be filled with conflict galore. Racial prejudice could abound, a small, country girl in The Big City could supply danger galore, familial connections could be strained to the breaking point. But nope, let's have none of that. The movie just quietly explores Eilis's arrival, after a lightly harrowing Atlantic crossing, in Brooklyn, setup in a boarding house and a department store job by the priest the family knew. There is a wee bit of homesickness but once she finds her footing, life begins to open up.

She meets Tony (Emory Cohen, The OA), a nice Italian boy, who is open to her wit, intelligence and independence. When he brings her home to meet his family, his little brother may be a bit of a twit, but that is solved by some quick ear twisting, and after that they are the most delightful, welcoming Italian family I have seen depicted in quite some time. Eilis begins to establish a life in America.

The third act does provide requisite conflict, and some tragedy, as her sister passes unexpectedly, and Eilis has to return home for the funeral, only to find a life there that was not available when she left. There is work to be had, now that she has learned some bookkeeping, and a young man showing his affections (Domhnall Gleeson, About Time) for her. Most movies would bank on this tension, serving infidelity and shouting outbursts in the conflict between staying in Ireland or returning to the US. But no, the movie shows her light conflict in once again leaving her mother, but inevitably choosing Tony and her new life, over what she could have had. She made the right decision and lives by it.

Its a pretty movie, a clean movie, with muted colours and tones, colourful but never brash. Even the characters she has conflict with are tempered by ... understanding. There are no bad guys, no foils. It is a light, but still weighty in its suggested experience, movie. In the end I was just satisfied with what I was presented.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Sisu

2022, Jalmari Helander (Rare Exports: A Christmas Story) -- cinema

"It's _____ meets _____ ," is how I expect many of the reviews of this movie to go. John Wick will be in there, Quentin Tarantino will be in there. Anyone else? I am not very fond of that trend of breaking something new down into the components that are already familiar in the pop culture eye. This movie is an ultra-violent flick set in WWII, in Finland, about a lone figure who goes up against a platoon of soldiers when they try to fuck with him. And he fucks them up. Into chunks.

OK, let's look at the Rotten Tomatoes posts and see if my previous ascertainment holds. Let's see, I have a "if Sergio Leone had been alive to direct Crank," and a review that calls the main character a "Mad Max maniac," and, "Liam Neeson-esque 'arse-whupping senior' and Inglourious Basterds terrain." And that's just from the Top Critics list. I think my thoughts stand.

The movie begins in the empty beauty of Lapland, vast mostly-flat rolling hills of small scrub and lichen, after a brief history lesson of Finland in WWII: they started the war fighting against the Soviet Union in a horrific "winter war" which ended in an armistice that demanded they drive the Nazis out of Finland. In retribution, the Germans pulled out with a scorched earth method, leaving only the dead behind. Our main character has walked away from all this, but the scars on his body show he was once very very much part of it.

Aatami Korpi is called "The Immortal" by other Finns who have heard of him, a soldier who has constantly survived when the odds were against him. The Germans know his name as well, seeing him as a Wick-ian boogeyman (yeah I had too as well), a name to strike fear in the hearts of evil men (of note, that idiom doesn't seem to have a defined source, where as I had always assumed it as a quote that just kept on constantly getting misquoted). He exemplifies "sisu" an almost indescribable term for Finns implying fortitude, perseverance, grit, an inner strength to continue even when all hope is lost.

First the Germans try to take his gold from him, then they drive him into a minefield, then they chase him down with a tank and many many soldiers, then they hang him, and then... well, you get the point. This retreating (some would say fleeing) company of German soldiers just want to leave the bleak country with something to show for their troubles, but Korpi is not giving up his gold.

It's ridiculous what he survives, almost Looney Tunes blunderbuss-in-the-face-your-bill-pointing-backwards level of unreality. The violence is ultra, the evil is capital E and the hero's grit is something that will never wash out. Not sure if Kent found it as much fun as I did, but it sure was ... an experience.

What I Have Been Watching: Back to the TV - Pt B

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is from The Domein of Toast, he (i) admittedly spending too much (almost all?) time in front of the TV. Kent's not stepping on toests but yeah, he (me) has a piles of TV shows in progress and maybe doesn't have has too much to say about it.

Pt. A is here.

A handfull of one-(or couple)-episoders.

Citadel, 2023, Amazon Prime

The TV is very very heavy with Spy TV this year, and I thought this would be the one that would stand out, adding a bit of Mission Impossible glitz to all the by-the-books British & American style thrillers. It has the sex appeal and sexy sexy people. It has a MacGuffin in a briefcase and even neat names for Good Guys vs Bad Guys (Citadel vs Manticore; wouldn't it be neat if a show just used two random D&D monsters as the agency names? Owlbear vs Illithid?) but whether it will stand out for me, or not, is yet to be determined because.... well, ep01 did not catch me.

Annnnd, how is that only a week and a bit since I watched the first episode, and I don't recall very much about it, at all ? I remember a fight on a train, and sexy Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and a jump forward to a memory deficit Richard Madden (he doesn't remember what happened on the train, nor who he actually is), and that's... it. I am thinking I may have fallen asleep and will have to rewatch ep1. 

The Power, 2023, Amazon Prime

Heroes from a feminist viewpoint -- it's shameful that in 2023, we are still so far away from basic, accepted by all, equal rights, to the point we have to use angry, superhero media to express the point. Or maybe in this current era of the back-treading of such rights, this show is even more needed? 

The show begins with many viewpoints focusing on the emergence of a (super)power exhibited by a subset of young girls - an electrical power. There are abused orphan Allie (Halle Bush, debut) and Seattle highschooler Jos (Auli'i Cravalho, Moana) in the US, Roxy (Ria Zmitrowicz, Mr. Selfridge) the gangster's daughter in the UK, and aspiring [not girl] reporter/YouTuber Tunde (Toheeb Jimoh, Ted Lasso) in Nigeria, who observes it happening to the girls in his town. The worldly viewpoints create the setting as a global event, literally Girl Power metaphor come to life.

It's pretty easy to see that the show will be about the ostracization of these young girls for having an ability few (want to) understand but only see as dangerous. Oh, it can be very dangerous, but I have a feeling the electrical power is just the stepping stone towards something else. Hopefully it treads more than the political statement, and gives itself room to breathe.

Wolf Pack, 2023, Paramount+

We did three episodes and this was a big a nope from me.

I had recalled this from last year as the next (big) thing for Sara Michelle Gellar (Buffy-verse) as a werewolf hunter, but only recently remembered it had already aired. I grabbed three episodes. It starts strong enough, maybe even impressively, in a massive wildfire threatening a small northern California town. Tree line burns, animals are panicking and a school bus full of kids is trapped on a jammed road. There is a stampede, and the kids are caught in it. It is a brutal, bloody, deadly encounter full of smoke and panic and ... something else hiding in the smoke, grabbing kids, biting a few, slaughtering others. But my first hint of the lunacy (pun intended) should have been recognized, when the best reaction to the terrible situation would have been GET BACK ON THE BUS. The kids weren't hiding from the fire, but from the stampede. And yet they ran around like panicking rodents. The rest of the two episodes had me yelling at the screen for all the Why Are You Doing That's.

Plot. Two of the kids are bitten during the stampede -- Blake (Bella Shepard, A Girl Named Jo) and Everett (Armani Jackson, Chad); Blake runs off because she has a shitty family situation and runs from everything, and Everett ends up in the hospital where his quickly healing injuries cause his family to give We Are Disappointed With You face, despite him being COVERED IN BLOOD. So yeah, the kids are bitten/infected, but heal quickly (look, Blake's acne healed as well, so now she's hot) and are confused about the changes happening to their bodies... groan, even I cannot continue on that usual metaphor. But wait! There are more hot teens! The Briggs twins are werewolfs too, but THEY were born that way. And that night of the fire, is also Full Moonish. There is lots of Not Talking About It (a TV trope I loathe) and shitty cops (seriously, these are possessed-by-evil-aliens level bad cops) doing weird shit (seriously, you are arson investigators, so why do you need three full squad cars to apprehend a teenager boy for QUESTIONING), giant CGI werewolf lurking in the shadows and bushes (like, downtown, where he should be very fucking obvious) and lots of horny horny teens being awkward, and horny. Well, at least the gay kid is not awkward. Just horny.

I won't be watching any more episodes, so I won't find out whether SMG is actually just a terrible arson investigator or actually a werewolf hunter who (badly) pretends to be investigating arson. Also, do they actually investigate arson during massive burn-down-towns wildfires?

What's up with that poster? Based on the few episodes I have seen, the kids are the stars, not SMG.

Silo, 2023, AppleTV+

Based on a popular post-apocalyptic novel series (Wool) that I absolutely loved. but for some reason, this show isn't doing it for me. It should have hooked me with one episode, and maybe if I hadn't read the series, I would be? I really don't get it. It's totally PA and with a grimy, rust-punk aesthetic that I should totally dig, but... it's not grabbing me, despite being very faithful to the source material. 

That paragraph was very... bipolar. And, me responding with Other Voice immediately after not so much? 

So, it's The Dark Future. People (whoever is left) live in a massive, multi-levelled silo underground. They produce food, water, electricity, raise animals on grass covered levels, and have ancient machinery that provides for everything, as long as it's kept in good repair. There was a rather big, impactful rebellion some years ago which destroyed much of the electronic archives, so they don't know what happened to stick them inside a silo, nor what is outside that keeps them trapped inside. BUT they know, via scripture level statements, that nobody goes outside, but to wipe clean the lenses that show them the wasteland outside. And nobody does that unless they profess they want to go outside, and that is the most heinous crime. Ask to go outside, and you WILL go outside. And die.

We start when the very popular Sheriff (David Oyelowo, Selma) asks to go outside. He confesses that he has been thinking about it since his wife did so years before. So then we get another even older flashback of her going outside, after getting mixed up in a conspiracy about ancient tech and ancient knowledge that they are not allowed to know. That is what inspires her to go outside. And kills her.

We are then left with an Engineer, the extremely valuable people who Keep The Lights On and she is now investigating what the Sheriff learned, and what he learned from his wife. And that's where I left off, despite the Engineer being Rebecca Ferguson (Dune) who I should be willing to watch in anything. And just might be. Not sure yet. Just not compelled. Yet.

Can someone explain to me, Why? It's PA, its Rebecca Ferguson, its rust-punk, all things I love. Why is it not grabbing me?

Hello Tomorrow! 2023, Apple TV+

Again, this should have hooked me, and it kind of did with the setting, which I absolutely love (retro-futurism) but ... it is so .... bleak?

I have this story inside my head, a story in the world of The Jetsons, but set below those houses and apartment buildings in the clouds. A grimy world that is set below the shiny plastic and robot housemaids and flying cars. This show is sort of set in that grimier world of retro-futurism, where the future was supposed to be flying cars, and living on the moon, and Optimism.

But it isn't.

Jack Billings sells dreams, dreams of a house (time share?) on the moon, in a subdivision where everything is provided for you. Given that most retro-futurism is set in that 50s-ish era when suburbs were being touted as the Only Way To Live, this clicks. Except, its all a lie. Billings may be brilliant at what he does, with a loyal crew of sales people who actually believes his bullshit, but he knows better, and during the off scenes, we see the impact. Add to the mix the now grown son he abandoned and ... wow, this is weighty. Like the bullshit story Jack is selling his chumps, I felt I was sold a bullshit story about flying cars and robots that take out the garbage, when I ended up getting a sad story about sad people doing sad things. Of course, that is the point, but...

And yet, the narrator said, he still felt compelled to continue watching it... someday.

True Lies, 2023, CBS

As I was saying, TV is heavy with the spies this year. I remember being fond of the original movie. Well, not the original original movie but the Arnie & Jamie Lee Curtis movie from 1994, which was based on a French film. So, Spy Guy living a double life, until his wife finds out.

New series by Matt Nix, who did one of our fav shows Burn Notice!! And it stars Ginger Gonzaga whom we loved in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law! We should love it! And yet, we don't. Its a big ol nope from me. Its just incredibly low-brow, low-effort TV making. All the jokes fall flat, most of the characters are cereal box cardboard thin and the plots are cookie cutter. 

FUBAR, 2023, Netflix

Meanwhile, its almost like this show was made in spite of the previous show. For one thing, it actually stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Luke Brunner, in essentially the exact same plot as before, except with a twist (a tweest!). This time he's retiring from his international spy activity, to return home to his seemingly idyllic family life. Except its not. He's actually divorced from his wife, and is deluded enough to think he can win her back. But at least he will have his perfect daughter who adores him, right? Riiiiight?

During his retirement party, he is re-activated and sent to Guyana; the son of a cartel lord he murdered decades ago has returned to pick up where his Evil Druglord father left off. Even after Brunner funded the kid's comfy life, feeling guilty for having deceived them and left him fatherless. So, off to Guyana Brunner goes, only to find out that someone else has been previously embedded in the drug lord / arms dealer's compound -- his daughter, who has pulled a True Lies on Brunner! She's also a spy, and didn't know her dad had been one, but was recruited by the CIA who didn't bother informing Luke. Lies all around! SNAFU !

I mean fubar.

Where the other show falls entirely flat, this actually had me chuckling a number of times. For one, its entirely inappropriate, dropping f-bombs everywhere, and dripping blood whenever it can. The humour, especially from Luke's support team is on point, while actually double-downing on the quickly revealed toxic, dysfunctional family esthetic that should be there in all shows with this plot. We only watched one episode, but I will probably watch the rest, even if no one else likes it.

3-2-1: Fast X

2023, d. Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) - IMAX theatre

The Plot 100:
142 minutes of sensory overload. Aquaman, who really was in Fast 5 the whole time, really, does revenge. But he doesn't want to just destroy the "Family", he wants Riddick to suffer...by destroying the "Family". Snake Plisskin is MIA from the "Agency", Jack Reacher has taken over, placing the “Family” on the "Agency's" most wanted list, but Captain Marvel is there to undermine him. Baby Boy,Ludacris, Missandei and Han are doing their thing. Girlfight gets captured, makes frenemies with Atomic Blonde. XXX’s off on his own doing his thing. Peacemaker, plays funcle. It ends with cliffhangers, I guess? 

3-2-1:
3 Good:

(1) Big. Loud. Dumb. Sometimes, you just want to escape whatever is going on in your life. Sometimes you really need an excuse to tune out the voices and drown out the noise. Fast X is loud enough to drown out any noise, and it's so dumb that you absolutely *must* shut your brain off.  And it's big enough, meaning they sunk a hundreds of millions of dollars into wanton chaos and destruction for a nearly 2 1/2 hour movie that never really lets up on it, because none of the story in this film or film series is ever going to sustain the audience's attention for more than 30 seconds at a time without some engine revving or explosion happening. It's a big, loud, dumbass movie, and it's really not trying to be anything other than that, and that's why it's good. Your mileage may vary.
(2) The End. Oh my god, the ending is so stupid. The inspiration for this two-part finale to the Fast Saga was obviously Avengers: Infinity War as they try to cram as many existing characters as well as a whole bunch of new ones into the framework of an otherwise bare bones story idea. The ending is supposed to be a downer/suspenseful ending (did they just die? Did they just come back from the dead? How are they possibly going to get out of this one?) but it's some real weak tea, '66 Batman "see you next week" kind of plotting that took some real cojones to spend 140+ minutes leading into. It's seriously one of the most ambitiously stupid or stupidly ambitious moves a film has made in a long time. I'm think it's all terrible and I loved it.  Especially if you stop and think about what happens if another one doesn't get made. The hubris is hilarious. Do I genuinely enjoy this movie or is it just ironic enjoyment, and is there a difference?
(3) The players. With a franchise cast of regular players already a couple dozen deep they just keep adding more. Alan Ritchson, Brie Larson, Daniela Melchior, Pete Davidson, Rita Moreno, and everyone has a family tie to somebody else. It's always all about family, and it makes me giddy how they manage to shoehorn the theme in over and over and over again. They keep bringing people back too, like Scott Eastwood and Helen Mirren and Cardi B who you would be forgiven for forgetting that they were even part of this franchise. And of course there's some surprises saved for the very end.  It's like those over-stuffed star-fueled disaster movies of the 1970's, but with espionage and cars and razor-thin character work. It's Roger Corman movies if they had 200 million dollar budgets. It's really hard to be angry with these earnestly dumb movies.

2 Great:

(1) Jason Momoa. I sometime think Jason Momoa isn't, well, a great actor. Since he popped out of the Khal Drogo role, he's basically been a gigantic, handsome slab of meat with incredible tresses and a lot of charm. I've seen a lot of roles I've liked him in but at the same time I'm still wondering "Is he a good actor?" Aquaman, still DC's biggest success(?!?) kind of succeeded in spite of him being in the lead. He was surrounded by better actors there. It's kind of the opposite here. When he's sharing the screen with Vin Diesel or Ludacris or a checked-out Michelle Rodriguez, he's really got a leg up. Being the new guy, and the villain, he just unzips and goes balls out (metaphorically, we don't actually see his balls...I think).

As I watched Momoa traipse (oh, he traipses, honey) around on screen, taking wardrobe change after wardrobe change, providing dainty flourishes to his peppery language, and just being a total slice of spiced ham, I couldn't help but wonder...what is this performance? It's definitely in the gender-fluid, sexually-ambiguous realm, played with giddy menace, winding with a sort of a maniacal Dean Pelton vibe. And then it hit me... it's the Joker. 

Ah, but which Joker, you ask? Jack Nicholson? Cesar Romero? Heath Ledger? It's ALL OF THEM. Every Joker ever is employed in Momoa's gleeful performance. Hints of Mark Hamill's cartoon joker, touches of Joaquin Phoenix, even some of the dead-eyed lunacy of Jared Leto. It's super fun and basically the draw of the movie.

(2) John Cena, the fun uncle. In the last movie, F9, John Cena debuted as racially ambiguous (but confirmed definitely part-Latinx in this film, with Rita Moreno playing his Abuelita) Domenic Toretto's very, very white brother, Jakob. It was never mentioned before that Dom had a brother (besides his brother from another mother, Paul Walker's Brian) so the shoehorning of him in was pretty hoary, and positioning him as a petty, jealous, angry villain who is just desperate for Dom's attention and easily redeemable was pretty dorky all things considered. You kind of forget he even exists in the Fast Franchise until he just pops up.  Cena's such a ridiculous looking guy to begin with...like he's as wide as he is tall, with a face full of soft edges that makes him much easier to accept in a comedic role than a serious one. Cena has done some really crappy films in his career, but also some great work, and I feel like having spent much of the past four years with James Gunn on Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, he's really grown as a performer, with a shamelessness and gusto that translates well on screen. His appearance here, he gets to be physical at first, but most of the work he does with Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry) is just charming as fuck, and Cena, once again checks his ego at the door. There are a lot of little pairings of actors in this film where the chemistry really works (Rodriguez and Theron, Diesel and Mirren, Bridges and Gibson) but I think this pairing worked the best, and I could see a Lone Wolf and Cub/Mandalorian-style comedy-action series with Cena and a child really working well.

"Family"

1 Bad: 
I'm not big into the "Fast Franchise" lore. I've seen most of the films once (Fast Five two or three times, as it's easily the best) and they're all stupid and enjoyable but keeping track of any of the continuity is just. not. worth it. You can tell these are scripts written with zero forethought and barely any immediate thought. They're not really thought through, they're just an action RPG brought to life with dice rolls deciding whether any of the action sequences work, not physics or science or the laws of nature.  Anyway, yeah, haven't the "Family" been working for the "Agency" since, like, Fast 5, or, like, a decade or so? They're contractors, sure, but isn't the "Agency" the good guys?

So, when Alan Ritchson's Almes takes over (because Kurt Russel's Mr. Nobody has apparently done one of his "famous" disappearing acts) and labels the "Family" as wanted fugitives, why then is it just perfectly acceptable to just start shooting "Agency" goons in the head, stabbing them in the neck, slicing open femoral arteries, exploding them, running them over with cars, knocking buildings down on them? I know the "Family" didn't start out on the right side of the law, regardless, they could have been friends with any of these faceless goons, but no, without asking any questions or looking under the masks at the humans beneath, they just start bodyslamming them through floors and spear diving them through walls.

I basically shut my brain off for the film and just went along for the ride, but, this one aspect really bothered me.

META:

not yet family

So, days before release, he-whose-head-looks-like-a-thumb announced, somewhere, that the epic 2-part finale to the Fast Franchise was now going to be a trilogy.

As much as I proclaim to love the dumbness of this series, turning whatever story this is into a trilogy seems both terrible and unsustainable. The plot of this film was threadbare as is, with literally no characters arcs happening (maybe Cypher learns something?). Momoa's rampage of revenge has basically led to the "Family" being on its last legs, but of course there's an easy out for everything, and nobody ever dies in this series, and every bad guy seems to become part of the "Family" eventually anyway, so what are we even doing here?

Hopefully FF11 wraps in a lot of the Hobbes and Shaw cast (would love Vanessa Kirby to return...for...reasons) and we can maybe welcome Hobbes' now probably-adult daughter into the fold. Plus Shaw's brother, Luke Evans, still hasn't been seen since 6, so he needs to come back, and those goofs from Tokyo Drift (Lil Bow Wow and Lucas Black) need to reappear again too.  Of course either Mr. Nobody is coming to the rescue, or it was he who was kidnapped setting a lot of the dumb plot of this film in motion. But I don't really even see 2 more hours coming out of Fast X (it seems like a half hour resolution is needed at best), nevermind another 4 or 5.  But then, this is a series about excess, and pushing limits, and everyone coming back from the dead...so why not the bad guys, like Idris Elba, or Djimon Hounsu,  or Dom's baby mama Elsa Pataki, or even Vince.  Remember Vince? No? Me neither. What about if Dom's dead dad was the bad guy this whole time and they try to tie this all together, Spectre style? That would phenawfulmenel.

Behind the scenes there's been a lot of talk over the years about how Diesel's ego has taken over the series, and for all the talk of "family" he sees himself as the sole creative driving force. Justin Lin, whose filmmaking sensibilities are largely responsible for the franchise having become the juggernaut it is, and was planned to be the director of the two-part finale, was driven out of the director's chair early in the shooting of this production, presumably over creative differences with Diesel. It's a lot less public than the fued between Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, but both are telling on what it's like working with him. It's also telling how much of the film Diesel spends apart from the main cast (which, besides the opening scenes, is all of it). Diesel is the driving force of the series but he's also the burden which the series must carry. He's the star, but biggest presence, but also the weakest performer. Dom seemingly has like a dozen lines of dialogue the whole film, despite dom-inating the screentime, which is probably for the best, since Diesel's emotionless performance leads to such a back-of-the-throat, low growl as to be borderline inaudible at this point. 

This was the first F&F movie I've seen in theatres since Fast 5, and I do have to say that the experience in theatre is so much better than watching from home. Big, loud, dumb, expensive movies are built for it. I can't say if the quality of the film is improved or if it just winds up being a better time when you've committed yourself to this one thing.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Shazam! Fury of the Gods

2023, David F Sandberg (Lights Out) -- download

Zachary Levi freaking out (OK, really just more protesting vehemently; no need to click-bait myself) on the internet over lack of theatre sales, and pretty much begging people to go see it, did not save this movie from quickly being relegated to Online (is Online now the bottom shelf of the video store?).  I am not quite sure that is the punishment some see it as, but more a calculation based on the downward decline of sales in cinema against an already predetermined date. BUT in this instance, it felt like a desperate attempt to stave off.

But, despite his fervour, its just not a very good movie. I haven't done my "old man state" in quite a while, and fell asleep at two distinct points in the movie, if but for only a few seconds. And we kept on wondering who the audience was for the movie. It felt like it was meant for 12 year old's, but the movie itself is about said kids aging out of that awkward stage into young adulthood.  Sure, some of us hang onto that immaturity (until well into 50s?) and need something to urge us into the next phase, but that still leads us wondering who this incredibly immature movie was meant for.

When We Last Left Our Intrepid Adventurers, Billy Batson (Asher Angel, a bunch of his own music videos; he seems to be having his own Billy Batson coming into age journey) had shared his magic with his foster family; well, the siblings, with his parents quite in the dark regarding them constantly disappearing. The new Shazam Family (apparently, Shazamily; really?!!) is only somewhat taking to their new superhero roles, often causing more collateral damage than Saving The Day. And the daily news outlets never stops reminding them. 

They have also awoken some... Greek Gods? Even Hand Waving away the race thing, the Daughters of Atlas (deposed titan, not god) don't even bear any costuming even closely connected to the Greek God mythos and are just magical Super Villains bent on getting back the powers/magic given to the Shazam Family (nope, not gonna use it) for their own. There are fights, TONS of collateral damage (like, Man of Steel level) and a dragon made of wood. There are quips and betrayals and meet-cutes, deaths and resurrections, and a few cameos by SnyderVerse characters which connects it to... just what now?

So yeah, I fell asleep for a few seconds, here and there, during the dragon battle so it did not stay with me. Little of the movie did, and I think that had nothing to do with an Old Man Falling Sleep and maaaaa-ybe Levi should have looked at that?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Renfield

2023, Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) -- download

The best thing about this vampire comedy starring Nicholas Cage (Mandy) as Dracula, is that he is  playing the Bela Lugosi version, cape and widow's peak and all. With the addition of shark teeth. 

And that's it, that's all I have to say. Well, not much beyond it's cute and despite shedding copious amounts of blood and dropping dozens of henchmen bodies, the movie had little impact on me. 

Renfield (Nicholas Hoult, Warm Bodies), who is yes, the original one, is still working for Dracula after all these years. They have moved to the US, Dracula using his blood & bugs to keep Robert Montague Renfield alive, so he can acquire victims for him. Despite greater success in the past, Dracula has hit a downturn, as modern techniques and communication methods have allowed hunters to more quickly find him. While Dracula is off his game, Renfield has begun to pay more attention to his mental health situation and is attending a therapy group. They are urging him to stand up to his abusive boss.

Meanwhile beat cop Rebecca (Awkwafina, Ocean's Eight) is desperately trying to take down a local New Orleans cartel run by Bellafrancesca Lobo (Shohreh Aghdashloo, The Expanse) and her son Tedward (Ben Schwartz, Space Force) -- I don't need to describe those characters, as the choice of actors does it all for me. She's not having any luck because New Orleans = corrupt police force. Until Renfield blunders into the situation, and assists her with his bug powered strength & agility. Together they shoot, smoosh, eviscerate, decapitate, and disarm (literally) the Lobo henchmen and even foil an alliance between Dracula and the Lobos.

Cage is having a ton of fun here. But when doesn't he? The rest just... phone it in? Well, maybe a bit of kudos to Schwartz in his tatt'ed up gangster role that doesn't suit his personality anymore than the guy's suits ... suit him.

Alt-Media: The Consumer - Pt A

Despite this blog, for me, being about Movies & TV, I have written a handful posts about video games (yes, that's the Tag, not just the posts about video games proper). But I don't believe I have covered much of other media. I read at a snail's pace, and usually only when commuting. My days of actually sitting in a corner and reading are gone the way of That Guy, and reading before bed causes immediate zzzzz's. I am also not that properly versed with podcasts, them being (in my old man voice) a rather new media that The Kids are listening to. But, given the Ken't description of this blog being about us sharing consumption habits with each other, why not a mixed media post?

Far Cry 5, Ubisoft - video game

This is a re-play. I play(ed) all the Far Cry games as they come out, often taking a few days to ... watch it download. Yah, before I updated my Internet, I constantly forgot that pretty much every game ends up downloading an update, that on my old speed, took pretty much an entire afternoon. But THIS one, took about 20 minutes. Not even sure why they include games on the disks at all, if the bulk of it comes from the cloud.

Anywayz, in each game you are set down a path towards a choice -- defeat the Bad Guy or admit he had a point. I always choice the former, but because I have played this game before, I am curious how I will choose this time round. You see, this game, came with a quick-on-the-heels mini-sequel, which takes place in a post-apocalypse world, because the Bad Guy.... was right?

But I am getting ahead of myself. Five takes place in the US proper, in an isolated county in Montana where a doomsday cult called the 'Project at Eden's Gate', led by charismatic Joseph Seed, and supported by his two brothers, and a sister, emerges from the background to take control of the county. The game pretty much hand waves away Internet and Phone connectivity, cutting the area off from the rest of the country.

The game begins with you as a rookie deputy sent in to support a US Marshall who has a warrant for Joseph Seed. But the cult won't let him be taken and the helicopter crashes, every one else being captured but you. The powder keg is ignited and the cult start very publicly & violently taking the county, and it is up to you to build up a resistance against them.

This game was done in 2017-18, during the height of Trump's rise to power. Its very much influenced by right-wing politics and conservative populism. This is redneck country and even the people you are working beside are likely Republicans, which slyly works in your favour, as this is a FPS game so an abundance of guns, BIG guns, is required. But as the game would have it, there is a difference between the conservative "value system" and downright evil of the PEG-gies, as the locals call the cult. Everywhere you go in the game are the set pieces of capital E Evil, as locals, and their dogs, are slaughtered so the cult can take what was theirs. And not just murder & mayhem, as the cult also traffics in a narcotic made from flowers, called The Bliss, which causes very very strong mind alteration, as they dose everyone and everything with it. Its very clear that Joseph Seed and his cult have to fall.

But as with previous games, it also seeds (pun intended) the game with hints that Seed may be forward thinking, that something much much worse than who is president (Trump) is coming upon the country. And he is heaping the worst of the worst upon people to prepare them for it. As the game ends, it does happen -- a limited nuclear exchange. I cannot recall whether you know it was instigated by him, or just that he truly did foresee it, in a drug induced, possibly god-given vision. Whatever the reason, he was right -- the world did end.

Alas, our world is not going the quick route to such Evil. We are chipping away at the foundations of decency, at least here in North America. Trump may no longer be president, but his followers, some would say his cult, are still standing strong, and dismantling 50 years of progressive improvement to North American lifestyles. But as I constantly say, its not just what they actively do, but that they have encouraged it to be considered acceptable, and so all the rest of the fucking lunatics come crawling out of the woodwork. Racist crime is up, sexual crime is up, mass shootings are a daily event now and the Internet's loudest voice is a cess pool.

So, why did I play this game in such a climate? For one, less than savoury reason -- so I could shoot some evil motherfuckers in the face with an automatic weapon. Come on, did you expect me to say otherwise? I have commented before on my fondness for violence, in cinematic/fictional veins at least, and I think that as long as I hold it down to a game controller, I am OK. But yeah, call it what you will, but some mental release in this fucked up world, along side my own stresses, and this is ... release.

Horizon Forbidden West, Guerilla Games - video game

Prior to the above game, as I had been out of the console loop for some months, I played a newer game, which was a sequel to something I played a few years ago. It is just as violent, in its own way, but is set in a distant post-apocalypse world dominated by machines that appear as animals, and a number of human factions living amidst the ruins of a world destroyed by an evil AI. Most of the violence is against the machines; not entirely, but most.

This is a beautiful game, visually and setting. You play Aloy, a young woman who in the first game, discovered she was a clone of a woman from a previous age who tried to save the world, but couldn't, and instead left a powerful AI (GAIA) behind to foster the planet into a rebuilding era, via the machines that replaced the lost animal life. Alas, a signal of unknown origin begins corrupting the machines, forcing Aloy to investigate her origins and save the planet, as her predecessor tried so long ago. All through the game, you travel and fight through a world taken back by nature, the ruins of our old world covered in the green and growth. Despite hostile machines and violent humans, there is beauty everywhere.

The first game ended with her defeating an evil rival AI to GAIA. But the signal that activated it is still unknown, and into the Forbidden West she travels seeking its source, before it can once again corrupt machines and the environment, bringing about the proper end of the world. She meets other tribes of people, already mixed up in a civil war, and has to gain trust of the many different cultures, so they can come together, to defeat the new enemy, the source of the original signal.

This is a violent game, like all "shooters", but it retains its beautiful primitive-ism. Her primary weapons are bow & spear, but supplemented by an holographic augmented reality tool that lets her see the Old World as it was, connecting with databases and logs, providing history and exposition. All the while, Aloy is still struggling with what she is, a clone born of no mother, but of a machine. She stands apart from all other people in what she can do and what she is, but uses that to rise above expectations and belief systems.

Its an inspiring game.

Of note, Lance Reddick passed away while I was playing the game, so seeing (hearing?) him appear again mid-game came with a certain bitter-sweetness.

Kaiju Perseveration Society, John Scalzi - e-book

Scalzi wrote this novella, as I learned in the author's note, because The Pause derailed his attempt to write a much darker, more serious book. Eventually, even post-COVID, he had to admit to his editor that the promised book would not be coming. But this one came along instead, and with ease.

Its a short, adventure story about a young woman who is laid off from her UberEats type company, just as the pandemic kicks off, and just before the shithead CEO sells his company to UberEats. She ends up as a driver for said company, because any money is some money. But that is interrupted by a job offer from a college acquaintance, an offer to Lift Things. But its not what the job that matters, but where. She will go to an parallel universe, another Earth where kaiju actually exist and dominate, to join a team that studies them, and she will be grunt labour.

Much of the book is purely devoted to the fun of world building such a world. For example, this universe is the universe that spawned a very real Godzilla back in the 40s, during the US's nuclear bomb testing. Such nuclear events weaken the veil between universes, and in this instance, to the kaiju universe, allowing one such lizardy monster to pass over and cause havoc. The KPS was established to keep this from happening again, and to foster the whole 'so mind-blowing it cannot be real' belief system that hides it from the public.

And I love this, though in glancing at a Reddit thread about the novel, not many other people did. 

Lock In, John Scalzi - e-book

I have been doing Google Surveys for a couple of years, garnering 10 cents here and there, until I have enough to buy an e-book. Noticing I had not spent it in a while, I grabbed these two Scalzi books in one shot, reading them one after the other. The former was a one-shot popcorn read, the latter is the first in a series, a noir style crime novel set in a world with a very distinct difference. There was a different pandemic than the one we had, one that left the majority of the people in coma like states, but still very much alive and aware inside their bodies. They are paralysed entirely, but lucid -- locked in. The novel takes place decades later, after technologies have arisen to deal with the after effects of the disease, that like ours, can be controlled but will never really go away.

One such technology is "threeps", as in C3POs, a pop culture nickname for the humanoid robots that people with Haden's (the disease) can pilot. People pilot such devices from their beds, and are able to live lives much like others. The main character of this novel is a rookie FBI agent investigating the death and possible murder via an offshot of this technology, but where the "threep" is replaced by a human who caught the disease but did not become locked-in; they are called Integrators and the wealthy make use of them in limited fashion. 

Its another Scalzi novel about world building, familiar structures & beats (noir) and the exploration of ideas, and their impact on the world. Are Haden's suffers victims, or just a new aspect of humanity? Do they need to be cured, because they rely on a technology, or can they just be as they are? The novel starts as laws protecting & funding the support of people with the condition are being struck down, leaving a much more capitalistic era to come, one that can be exploited and profited from. Its fun to ponder the questions while also just dealing with a murder mystery, but I am not yet quite sure if fun enough to pick up more in the series.

KWIF: Temple of Doom (+4)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week (or so) I have usually have a spotlight movie which I write a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else I watched that week I do a quick little summary of my thoughts.  This week, nothing inspiring, just six middling films which I don't have much to say about.

This Week:
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984, d. Stephen Spielberg - DVD)
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons (2022, d. Matt Peters - AdultSwim)
Blood and Black Lace (1964, d. Mario Bava - Tubi)
Matango or "Attack of the Mushroom People" (1963, d. Ishirō Honda - Tubi)
Rodan (1956, d. Ishirō Honda - Tubi)

---

I like Indiana Jones just fine, but I've never been obsessive, or really even considered myself a "fan".  I just kinda like them ok. This sort of classic, colonialist adventure is not a genre that I'm particularly enthused with, even when they are some of the most incredibly well made productions. So let's get this out of the way... Temple of Doom is an incredibly well made production.

But it's also deeply offensive and brutally annoying. On the latter, Kate Capshaw puts in a shrieking, whiny, aggravating performance as golddigging chanteuse Willie Scott that begs the question "what is she even doing here?" Seriously, why did Indy bring her along? There's nary a moment that Willie is on screen that she isn't utterly grating beyond the opening song and dance number (a number which transitions into something gloriously huge in Willie's mind's eye, a perspective that we never actually see again...so why, except that Spielberg wanted to do a big musical number?).

Then we get "Indiana Jones: white saviour", as he ventures into a small, impoverished village in India devastated by the removal of a sacred stone (but more a result of the village children being kidnapped by the thugees of the local palatial elite and the river path having been diverted into the mine where the children are enslaved).  Indy agrees to retrieve the stone. Visiting the palace leads to the most infamous scenes: first of the dinner of gross things like a snake full of snakes and frozen monkey brains, and later the ritual heart-from-chest-ripping sacrifice that are offensive made-up ideas of Indian culture that wound up becoming entrenched in many ignorant and impressionable North American viewers as actual stereotypes.

Beyond the offensive, is the silly shit, such as Indy, Willie and Short Round jumping out of a crashing plane in an inflatable raft and surviving (disproven by Mythbusters). I actually like the nonsense mine-car chase because I played an immeasurable amount of Temple of Doom video game on Commodore 64 and that sequence was such a pain in the ass.  

The climactic rope bridge escape is a classic movie moment that still works, but so much of this film is built of classic movie moments that are not aging well..like, at all. 

The most enjoyable aspect of the film, besides Harrison Ford's indelible charm, is Short Round (a very young future Oscar winner Ke Huy Kwan). He has such an endearing and delightful chemistry with Indy that I honestly wish he was in Crystal Skull as Indy's estranged son instead of Shia LeBouef's Mutt.  When Short Round finds himself in situations on his own he proves he's a resourceful and capable kid as well as a skilled fighter (though I'm not sure how much damage a roundhouse kick from an 8 year old would really do).

The end result of all this is Temple of Doom is an exceptionally well made awful movie. It's only really enjoyable if you're willing to look past/desensitize yourself to the ignorant white gaze this film is presented through.

---

I've partaken in only a fraction of DC Entertainment's animated direct-to-video content since they started back in the early 2000s.  The general flavour of this content is just-above-middle-of-the-road. It's never been mind blowing (the powers-that-be know exactly how little money they can invest into these to get a return while still creating a package that will be generally satisfying to fanboys and fangirls and keep them coming back).  

The majority of the content has been adaptations of popular stories moved into 70-ish minute animated form. Both a benefit and a curse of the target audience for these movies is that there tends to be some awareness of the characters, their history, and there may even be connective threads between one film and another, an mini-franchise. But, you're never sure what you're going to get, and invariably, just moving stories out of ongoing serialized comics and into another, more widely accessed medium, there's still a level of adaptation necessary for a more general audience.

Which leads to the cold open of Battle of the Super-Sons, a movie that is ostensibly about the teaming up of Superman and Lois's 11-year-old son, Jonathan Kent, and Bruce Wayne's slightly younger son Damian (who was raised to be an assassin by his mother, Talia Al Ghul). I read most of the Super-Sons comic books (there have been less than 50 of them, so it's not a deep storytelling roster) and quite enjoyed them, so I was keen to see how they would be translated into another medium. The cold open takes us all the way back to Krypton, again, one of the most familiar stories in all of superhero media, and I was expecting some grand, novel deviation on this hoary old story, but no, it's told pretty much as we've seen it told countless times...except as baby Kal-El's rocket zooms away from the dying planet, a starfish hitches a ride. Really, we needed to go through all that, again, just to introduce Starro?

The film takes a while to get to the actual pairing of the super-sons, and I was getting more and more bored (it's not helped by the fact that this film's vocal performance of Superman by Travis Willingham is one of the starchiest reads for the character, just utter milk powder dry). We have to go through a whole segment of Jonathan discovering his powers, freaking out, and Clark revealing himself to be Superman to his pre-teen who is angry that he's never around (real emotions that are just kind of dismissed upon said reveal). But once Jonathan and Damian meet and the super-sons become the focus of the story, the film starts delightfully crackling, both Jack Dylan Grazer (Shazam) and Jack Griffo (The Thundermans) delivering wonderful performances and Jeremy Adams' script really plays them well off each other.  

It all would have been so much more wonderful had the film just started with their meeting, because those opening 15 minutes (or so) where we don't have them together just robs us of more of what we came for. The story is already so in media res in many ways (with a Teen Titans subplot for Damian, and a Justice League roster that gets no introduction filling up the background) that we didn't need such a rehashed lead in.

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I've taken an interest in the works of Mario Bava as of late, mostly spurred on by the acquisition of his Hercules film, which featured an incomprehensible story, but looked so fantastic that it really didn't matter.  I'm still a Bava neophyte, and, had I the time and access, I'd probably just "stupid boy project" his whole repertoire in a week and be done with it. Alas.

Blood and Black Lace is a film I knew only from its title having penetrated into my brain somewhere along this 40-some-odd-year long road I've been on. I knew nothing about what the film was about, nor the genre, nor the actual critical consensus around the film. Hell, I didn't even know it was a Bava film until I was flipping through Tubi's bizarre catalogue (a favourite way to kill an hour) and it told me. Whatever, it was an instant play (despite being on Tubi).

The opening credits are stunning, as each of the film's players are introduced in a living still frame (the actors holding a pose) that are just gorgeously composed like, well, fashion photography. The colours are warm, lush, and romantic but juxtaposed with threatening shadows. The horn-heavy soundtrack overtop is (and remains) sultry and dangerous, like what you'd find in a 40's Noir...yet there's a bit of soap operaticness to the whole presentation. The film does kind of peak this early, but the rest of the film is a wild ride. 

A windstorm brews outside a fashion house, where secret affairs, substance abuses, and rivalries all percolate under the haughty, intense surface.  And then, murder! 

One of the models is murdered, and there are no suspects, but everyone is suspicious, especially when the dead model's diary is discovered...darting eyes, panicked looks. Everyone, it seems, had motive. Motive enough to kill again and again. 

The original title that appears in the credits is 6 Donne per L'Assassino, or "6 Women for the Killer", which tells us exactly how many deaths to expect. The marvel is at how this film doesn't play into any real conventions of slasher films, basically because it's not a slasher film. It plays at being a whodunnit but then unfortunately gives up the ruse early in the final act.  It's the last act where it not quite falls apart but doesn't uphold it's unexpected twistyness. 

It's a film that is utterly style over substance, it doesn't care about any of its characters, but still goes through the preformative motions of telling us just enough about them to let us love to hate them and secretly be okay with whatever cruel fates are in store for them.

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Matango (aka Attack of the Mushroom People) is one of Ishirō Honda's between kaiju features, so there are no gigantic creatures in rubber suits smashing cities. Unfortunately. 

Also unfortunate is this film was sold to me as one of Honda's "better" sci-fi films by a certain Director-cum-podcaster who shall remain QuiTe nameless. And the title, the English one at least, put together with Honda's background, leads to certain expectations. And those expectations are that there will be mushroom people attacking.

It's a sub-90 minute film and at the pass of the first hour we've only had one glimpse of a mushroom person and no attacking!

The film, in reality, is a bit of a psychological drama/thriller, as a few upper-crust friends and two less than upper-crust crew are on a boat when it gets in trouble and spits them out on a remote island. There, tensions rise as food grows scare and their cultural disparities start to reveal deep-rooted resentments and prejudices, plus two women and five men...things could get ugly.

Honda tries, but doesn't quite succeed at showing us the impact of starvation on one's brain, and the pervasive fungi that seems to be coating various surfaces of the island is the elephant in the room, as everyone's told to be wary of them, but wind up hungry enough to risk mowing down.  In the final 15 there's a sort of Sid and Marty Kroft-esque trip out scene as the Mushroom People attack (unfortunately these are literal mushroom people and not metaphorical ones) and it's quite ridiculous.  On top of it all, it's told in a framing sequence that, by the end seems like a sub-rate Twilight Zone than a satisfying feature.

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I backed up watching Matango with watching Honda's other, other classic kaiju feature (no, the other one), Rodan. You know, the giant bird one.  No, you're thinking of the giant moth one, this is the giant pterodan (sic) movie.

Like Gojira before it, Rodan is much about wrestling with the aftereffects of man's use of weapons of mass destruction. Where Gojira takes more of a view on how these horrors impacted Japan and the Japanese people, Rodan posits more the concept of "what is the impact on the world, on Mother Earth? Shouldn't she be angry? How would she defend herself?"

The answer is, basically, by releasing a pair of gigantic, supersonic dinosaurs from beneath the Earth to wreak havoc upon all. Its flapping wings create devastating winds, and the sonic boom it produces in its wake swiftly devastates all in its wake.

Honestly, I found Rodan kind of boring. As much as this is Honda's complete bailiwick, and all the usual great miniatures (and destruction of miniatures) are there, the rodan as creatures (they are a romantically linked pair) are not nearly as compelling as Godzilla, and they don't look nearly as good as vintage big-G.  There aren't really any human characters worth giving a damn about, and the film seems to cycle through them. 

I've seen many, many kaiju films and I typically enjoy them, but this one wasn't doing it for me.

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