KWIF: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (+3)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film, after a few weeks away.

This week:
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024, d. Tim Burton - in theatre)
The Instigators (2024, d. Doug Liman - AppleTV+)
Orion and the Dark (2024, d. Sean Charmatz - Netflix)
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1 and Part 2 (2024, d. Jeff Wamester - AdultSwim)

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If you were to ask me if I was a fan of Tim Burton, I would indeed say "I was."

I haven't seen a new film Burton has made since 2003's Big Fish. There was nothing ostensibly wrong with Big Fish that made me say "no more", and besides the terrible Planet of the Apes, pretty much every on of his films before that I enjoyed quite a bit. 

But post-2003, I couldn't even stand to look at the trailer for his monstrous Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Corpse Bride, looked like low budget The Nightmare Before Christmas devoid of the Henry Selick magic. The parade of Johnny Depp features that followed Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows didn't even come close to intriguing me, and I would say whatever Burton train I had been on in the '90's, I had jumped off and could barely see it chugging along in the distance.

Of his first 10 features, if you were to ask me what was my favourite, I would probably say Ed Wood,  or I would have up until the trailers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice started popping up. The excitement for a return to that world was shockingly intense and immediate. The sudden surge of sense memories, of watching the original Beetlejuice countless times and being so stimulated by it every time... besides Star Wars, there was probably no other film series from my youth that I desired more of.  I had forgotten.

And so, 36 years later, we finally have a sequel.  

And as movie, it's fine. 

As someone who eyes his movies critically, I know it's merely fine. I wanted it to be everything that it was for me as a pre-teen, but I was a different person, and Tim Burton was a different filmmaker, so there's no way it can recapture the magic. Truth is, no sequel or prequel or remake can ever recreate the experience of watching an original, because times, places, people change and evolve.  The best a film can hope for is to create a new experience for the viewer.

As a fan, though, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did transport me,  not back and time, not back to my youth, but back into the world I'd always wanted to spend more time with, and I cannot discount that exceptional feeling, even if the movie is only just... fine.

Why just "fine"? It just takes too long to get going is all. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with a 30-year gap to fill, can't just get up and going, it's got to catch us up with some characters and introduce new ones, and explain what happened to old ones, as well as establish a plot contrivance or two, or three, or four that will bring everyone together.

The film opens with Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder, Stranger Things), now a widowed mother of a nearly estranged teen daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, X) and host of a paranormal investigation show. She still sees dead people, but has recently started seeing Beetlejuice everywhere and it's freaking her out. Her boyfriend, Rory, is also her producer and a bit of a new age twerp.  The Lydia and Astrid are reunited when stepmom Delia (Catherine O'Hara, SCTV) breaks the news that her husband, Lydia's dad, has died.  A return to Winter Falls is necessary.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton, Birdman) is running a scare business, when he learns that his ex-wife, the soul-sucking (literally) Deloris (played by Monica Belucci, The Matrix Reloaded) has returned and is coming for him. He also has never stopped pining for Lydia, which is gross, but then that's on-brand for Beetlejuice.

Eventually Astrid gets caught up in some supernatural business, and Lydia needs Beetlejuice's help to save her.

I'm skimming over a lot of plot set-up here because there's really five or six threads at play that all eventually collide about mid-way when nearly everyone has made their way into the afterlife. Once this happen the film is crackling with energy. Keaton is clearly having a blast, O'Hara is in top comedic form, and Ryder treats Lydia like she slipped into her favourite pair of slippers...absolute comfort. 

Once we see Lydia and Beetlejuice team up, I suddenly got a jolt of the Beetlejuice cartoon, which spun out of the movie in a very unfaithful way and was primarily about the weird adventures Lydia had with this weird demon creature in the afterlife. This film sparks that notion but doesn't sustain it long enough which is why I wish it got to it much sooner.

The sub-plot that takes Astrid to the afterlife...well, it's doesn't not work, but it doesn't have the time to fill it out properly, and it resolves abruptly. There were ways to get Astrid into the afterlife that would connect her to her mom, and Beetlejuice that wouldn't have to involve a complete extraneous threat (when there's already another complete extraneous threat).

Speaking of, Deloris would have been just a great central plot on her own. I could see if this were, say, the fifth Beetlejuice movie, that it would revolved entirely around the threat Deloris presents. Instead it's a subplot that never feels fully integrated into the central character story here, as enjoyable as it is.

Is Tim Burton back? I dunno. Even in its overstuffed form, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice still ultimately delivers what I wanted from it, which was more Beetlejuice. And, much like how I felt after each time watching the first movie, I would still like more.

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A young crook (Jack Harlow, Dave) is in deep with a small scale crime boss (Michael Stuhbarg, A Serious Man) and has to gather a team to pull off a daring robbery. He winds up with alcoholic motormouth Cobby (Casey Affleck, Oceans 12) and depressed veteran Rory (Matt Damon, Oceans 13). Neither Cobby nor Rory are really that experienced at crime, and the foolproof job turns out to be a monumental shit show. And the shit show just escalates with each passing hour. Car chases, arson, kidnapping, these guys keep getting in deeper and deeper as they start uncovering a whole conspiracy of corruption in the mayor office.

Damon and Affleck together again. At this point, it's like Matt and Casey are in just as many projects together as Matt and Ben. It doesn't matter, these guys have decades of friendship under their belt, great affection for one another, and so pairing Damon with an Affleck on screen is always going to deliver.

The younger Affleck co-wrote the screenplay here with Chuck MacLean, and it's a script that has far more surprises and laughs than expected. It's a fairly lighthearted romp, but one that doesn't ever dismiss the characters, and toys with themes of corruption in political and legal circles. I've seen criticisms that there's no sense of threat or danger to these guys, and it is true that Damon and Affleck don't play like they're in mortal danger, but that's more of a case that both of these characters are far more troubled by their inner demons than external ones. These are men with nothing left to lose. This is why the fake kidnapping of Rory's therapist, Dr. Rivera (Hong Chou, The Watchmen), is so integral to the story, in helping to explore the mindset of the men and perhaps reframe what it is they're hoping to achieve and provide them a path back to living. 

Damon pairs up with Doug Liman for the first time since The Bourne Identity, a film with a pretty great car chase sequence. This film has a pretty big car chase, but it's not terrific. It's evident the production was limited in the speeds they were capable of going through the streets of Boston, and there's no amount of cross cutting and editing that can mask just how slow this chase really was going. There are fun aspects to the chase, but overall it's missing a lot of the oomf.  But the rest of the production looks pretty good.

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Charlie Kaufman is known for his twisty, heady, cerebral-but-weird films that trade in anxiety, delusions, and other mental conditions that often externalize these internal thought processes by way of scenes, sequences, or entire stories. Kids films also often trade in externalized emotions, but they're usually metaphorical, so in a way, a Kaufman-scripted kids movie kind of makes sense, even if none of Kaufman's prior work even hinted at being child-friendly.

In this Netflix animated feature, Orion is a boy of about 10 or 11, and is an absolute nervous mess of a kid. He's anxious and afraid of everything. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing, or embarrass himself which pretty much leads him to saying the wrong thing and embarrassing himself all the time. He doesn't want to draw attention to himself, which invariably draws attention to himself. His school days are nightmares, and at night, well literal nightmares. In the dark, when everything gets quieter, and time seems to slow down, all he's left with is his anxious thoughts and an absence of light.

Enter The Dark personified. The literal darkness who is tired of this kid always cursing his name. So The Dark takes Orion out for a spin in the night sky, to experience the beauty of the night world, introduce him to his nighttime crew: Sleep, Insomnia, Sweet Dreams, Quiet and Unexplained Noises. But Orion's reluctance to accept The Dark leads to near disastrous consequences that Orion needs to face up to.

Orion and the Dark is a charming enough film in the Pixar-knockoff vein of personifying things or ideas, but as a full blown adult, I'm not certain I was absolutely sold on the execution of the conceit. Kids will probably dig it just fine though. The voice cast is rock solid with Paul Walter Houser, Angela Bassett, Natasia Demetriou, Carla Gugina, Nat Faxon, Colin Hanks and more, and Kaufman constructs some narrative twists that kind of work but also kind of break the film at the same time(?). What really holds me back from liking the film is the animation, which is, as most CGI animation has been for the past 25 years, very soft, rounded, and charicature-like. The characters have their eyes set together, Jim Davis' Garfield-style and, well, I hate it. Hate hate hate it. It's a design decision that I never got comfortable with and threatened to soil the whole movie for me.  

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I've watched many of the various direct-to-video DC animated movies since they started appearing in the late-Aughts, but nowhere near all of them. I'd wager I've seen 1/4 of the 55 animated productions since 2007, but you won't find many of them reviewed here. I'm not sure why...I review TV, I review movies, hell...I even do Hallmark movies, so why not spend more time on these superhero cartoons?

I think the answer is they are not good enough to really waste time thinking about too much, nor are they bad enough to really vent about. They aren't part of the main cultural discourse, nor really part of film discourse. They are animated features, typically based off one DC Comics mini-series or story arc, made for DC Comics fans. It's a miracle if anyone who's not a DC fan happens to watch them.

Over the past four years, much of the DC animated movie output has been connected in what's casually called the "Tomorrowverse", culminating in three movies that retell the classic comics epic Crisis on Infinite Earths. The gist of it is the Multiverse is being destroyed, universe by universe, a wave of energy destroying everything in its path. An eons-old being called the Monitor diverges from his observational duties to intervene, assembling heroes from across the Multiverse who may have a hope of finding a way to salvage...somthing.

This is not the first time the classic event was adapted, as it was used as the denouement of the Arrowverse, but this is a somewhat more faithful adaptation. The thing is, in the comics, there was 50 years of comics history and thousands of comics stories and characters to bridge together. In the Arrowverse, there was nearly 10 years of shows and hundreds of episodes of TV, and the Crisis there started bridging gaps with all the other DC superhero TV shows past and present. It made sense.  This... this Crisis... only really makes sense if you know these characters from the comics.

I don't think I've actually watched any of the Tomorrowverse movies and it didn't seem to matter, because I have 45 years of DC Comics reading history under my belt, and I've read Crisis on Infinite Earths at least a half dozen times over the years.  This does tailor the story a little to the Tomorrowverse animated universe, but there's not a great history that it's bringing together.

Crisis... is an epic story, and the only thing that makes this animated trilogy "epic" is that it's an animated trilogy. Part One is a time hopping, non-linear Barry Allen Flash story as he's unmoored from time and  trying to piece together what his actual objective is. Along the way we learn about the Crisis and Barry's integral role in ensuring the continued existence of not just one earth, but infinite earths. It uses its time jumping effectively, although it's often stiffly animated and edited, and the general tone of the piece isn't adventuresome, it's ominous. But even that ominousness is pretty dry.

Part Two is a story that could have been told in scant minutes, but it drags out its plots over roughly 85 of them.  It opens reminding the audience that, indeed, there's a crisis, but there's been a temporary patch put in place thanks to Barry Allen's sacrifice (spoiler for a 40-year-old story). And then it jumps back in time across two character storylines, first exploring Kara Zor-El (Supergirl)'s originals with The Monitor, and secondly delving into the tortured drama of the Psycho Pirate. It's some of the most tedious cartooning I've ever watched.  

Eventually it comes out of these flashbacks but by then it's too late and all the momentum of Part One is utterly lost. Any attempts to build up momentum fall flat, and the emotional beats it's hoping to convey never quite land.  To be honest, if I wasn't such a nerd for this stuff, for just seeing how it plays out differently than what I know, I would have turned it off.  It's not great, and I certainly couldn't recommend it.

Watching: Kaos S1

2024, Netflix

Ended up semi-binging this series about Greek mythology but set in .... modern day Greece? I was hoping it was actually shot in Greece, lending itself to the ideal that countries hurting economically can invite Hollywood over to make shit in their country purely for the money the industry brings in, but alas, it was mostly shot in Spain. Anywayz, at least it wasn't shot in the Hamptons.

My elevator pitch for this series would be, "Think Baz Lurman's 'Romeo + Juliet' but doing for Greek Mythos what he did for Shakespeare."

What 100. Zeus's an ass (Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park). His best friend Prometheus (Stephen Dilane, Game of Thrones) is chained to a stone wall but is regularly teleported in for chats, usually about his existential crises. But something is actually awry in Zeus's reign. There is a prophecy that he will fall. And Prometheus is bringing forth said prophecy via other players: Zeus's hedonistic half-god son Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan, Station Eleven), rock-star Orpheus (Killian Scott, Secret Invasion) and his wife Riddy (Aurora Perrineau, Westworld) who dies by accident, Zeus's brother Hades (David Thewlis, Wonder Woman) who is fucking with the life/death cycle at Zeus's request, Hera (sister/wife; Janet McTeer, Ozark) who is also fucking his brother Poseidon (Cliff Curtis, The Meg), and pretty much all the players we read about. 

1 Great. Yeah, its the gimmick that is the best thing about the show, the idea of turning Greek Myths on their head, set in modern times and applying many aspects of current culture & politics to a world where all-power gods control most of life. The defeated city / culture of Troy is represented by a downtrodden, traumatized Trojan people under the jackboots of President Minos (Stanley Townsend, Blackshore) who is dealing badly with his own prophecy while being manipulated directly by the gods. Amazonian Caeneus (Misia Butler, The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself) born female, in a mandatory all-female culture, realizes he is male in adolescence, and has to deal with the fallout of that realization, and he is played by an IRL trans actor. The ferry to the afterlife looks like one of those ferries used to bring fleeing refugees from Europe to the US during WWII. They have so much fun just depicting the nuances of Greek Myth culture in the modern environment.

2 Good. The performances. I just liked how present everyone was in their weird roles. Sure, Goldblum is doing his usual schtick, hand gestures and pauses and all, but add in some entirely chilling psychotic behaviour and he is the perfect Zeus. I always thought of Dionysus as an uber-sexy, slick like lube kind of character, but playing him as an annoying millennial-type only interested in his own self-gratification and desperate for daddy's affection was actually perfect. And he's a demi-god, so he's only so affected by the activities of the humans he spends all his time around. Rizwan just embodied all this. We all know the story of Orpheus loving his dead wife so much that he went to Hell to get her back, but playing Riddy (Eurydice) as a lonely, disaffected wife of a rock star, just tired of being his muse, all "did I ask you to come to Hell to get me?!?!" was spot on. Yes, I realize I am merging the performances and the roles they were playing but I enjoyed it that much.

3 Bad. I knew they would have to do it but (SPOILER!) they had to have Zeus kill the kitten didn't they. Also bad, its not likely going to get a second season because Netflix sucks. You know, dudes, not everything is going to be The Witcher or Stranger Things, which is weird saying out loud, because a lot of people have utter hate for The Witcher and yet I guess it hits the numbers Netflix Purple Suits need?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Mr Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie

2023, Randy Zisk (Monk) -- Amazon 

We never actually watched the show during its run, but since we have become more open to light procedural in the last ten years or so, maybe a post-COVID movie about an OCD investigator with major germaphobia could be interesting.

OK, things I guess we are supposed to know as fans of the show. Apparently in the series finale he solved the case of his own wife Trudy's murder, the murder that originally sent him spiraling into his OCD/phobic personality state, that ended his career as a celebrated detective in San Francisco (years later, with some coaxing, he ends up consulting to the police force, thus the show). With her murder solved, his symptoms abated somewhat. We are not filled in on what he is doing from 2009 onward, but when the Pandemic hits in 2019 he joins the rest of the world in going off the deep end, but Monk-style (Tony Shalhoub, Men in Black II).

One of the things derailed was his book deal, memoirs of his years as a consultant. He had hoped to use the advance to fund his step-daughter Molly's wedding. Molly (Caitlin McGee, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) was Trudy's illegitimate child from an affair before they were together, assumed to have died in childbirth but in fact, had been adopted and was now an adult. This movie is 15 years further on, and Molly is basically his proxy daughter. Not being able to pay for her wedding is devastating to him, especially since the unbearable state he has been in since 2019 has him planning to take his own life.

I thought this show was a comedy? This is kind of dark....

And then Molly's fiancé dies in a bungee jump accident. But this is a crime-solving show/movie, so yeah, he was murdered and the primary suspect is a Musk-Bezos billionaire analog who was having a tell-all piece written by Molly's fiancé. At first he is not convinced it was murder, but with a little coaxing from all his friends who came for the wedding, he digs into it.

Again, kinda dark?

The movie, as I guess the show was, is pseudo-comedic, usually around just how fucking annoying Monk can be. Sure he is has a bunch of neuroses and conditions, but he's also more than a bit of a dick. I have a feeling this is why I never watched the show. I have low tolerance for asshole main characters unless they go into the parody end of the spectrum -- for example, I absolutely love The Vulture from Brooklyn 99 (OMG, I was expecting we would have at least a writeup of the final season of this show, but not, the only post is Kent's hesitant but positive viewing of season one; from a decade ago!).

There are some jarring, IMO, asides where Monk hallucinates his Dead Wife (Melora Hardin, Monk; I commented out loud while watching that I would love if the show said undisputedly he was actually seeing a ghost) as she tries to convince him to Not Kill Himself, because there are so many more people (dead people) he could continue helping. The murder mystery is not all that compelling, nor is the evidence gathering nor reveal. To the fans of the show, I am sure seeing all the old (OLD!), familiar faces was fun, and Shalhoub is always more than fun to watch, but it was a big ol meh from me.

Of note, there was a web-short from 2020 that was probably the inspiration for this post-pandemic movie. To repeat, the show ended in 2009, long before pandemics were a thing, but the idea of doing a 4 minute "in Zoom" short about how utterly panic stricken Monk is about what's going on (remember, he is supposed to have been "cured" now) was actually amusing. This movie's gimmick was a followup on that, as in The World We Live in Now, but stretched super thin in order to be a movie.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Killer

2024, John Woo (The Killer) -- Amazon

John Woo remaking his own movie 35 years later. I didn't have that on my nostalgia Bingo card. 

The original The Killer was one of those groundbreaking movies for us, introducing us to the Hong Kong stylized action movie world, which we saw multiple times in rep theatres. I cannot remember if the interactive one, where audience members ran around with cap guns diving sideways, shooting each other, or it was something we envisioned when The Mayfair in Ottawa started doing more and more movies with audience interaction. I am going to go with "it really happened".

This was also peak That Guy time when I was exposing myself to as much cinematic experience as I could, fully immersed in everything the world could offer me, from big Hollywood blockbusters in big chain theatres to re-runs and small foreign films in the aging rep theatres of whatever city I was living in at the time. Of all the elements of That Guy I would like to return to, I think that enjoyable experience, without judgement of quality and relevance is what I would like.

The plot is the same. A skilled hitman is tasked with taking everyone out during a job, and that meant EVERYONE, even the young woman she accidentally blinds, a seemingly innocent bystander. But everyone meant everyone, so our new Killer, Zee (Natalie Emmanuel, Game of Thrones), is now running afoul of her handler Finn (Sam Worthington, 9 Bullets) and the client who hired them.

Zee sees herself in the young woman she saved, a lost young thing taken advantage of by the men around her, in a world she pretends to not know. The woman Jenn (Diana Silvers, Space Force) is more mixed up in it than she initially claims but once Zee has decided she is to be saved, nothing will change her mind.

Emmanuel is incredibly thrilling and sexy as Zee, mirroring the impeccably dressed white-suited Chow Yun-Fat from the original (I know, I know, the white suit is just one scene, but its what I remember) but also bringing more to the role. You can see in her actions, her pauses, that she has become tired of her role as killer. knowing more and more each day (or at least finally acknowledging it) she was manipulated into the position. She is also not happy she sees a replacement already in the wings.

Running along after her, as the investigating cop, who more wants to her bosses than her, is Sey (Omar Sy, Intouchables), the Parisian cop who is not only attracted to her (who wouldn't be) but also intent on ending her killing spree, as he is just A Good Cop.

If the movie falls a little its in its desire to recreate the memorable gun fight in the church scene, pigeons/doves flapping everywhere, sideways dives and spins, bullets and bad guys coming at them from all angles. There were too many times when I thought, "Uhh you didn't really have to dive dramatically to shoot that guy from that angle." I think Woo was trying to balance making a new version of his movie but also fearing he would be frowned upon if he didn't recreate some key elements.

Watching: Time Bandits S1

2024, download

So, a re-imagining of something precious from my youth, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits which cannot be all that precious because I haven't felt compelled to watch it in decades. But I remember the reaction I had back in  1981-ish (more than likely saw it on VHS first) when I was an adolescent. It was crazy, confusing, astounding and invigorating. That excitement still carries through as a tangible memory, but... unlike, say, Star Wars only a few years earlier, I did not scramble to rewatch constantly as I few older. Honestly, I felt that way about all the Python-esque films -- they were great in small doses and often not oft repeated.

But when I heard this was coming out, and by Taika Waititi (and his usual gang; wonder how they feel tha he is the name on the "brand") no less, I was excited. But also reserved. I can take Taika in small, controlled doses. I am not a huge fan of Our Flag Means Death but more so of What We Do In the Shadows; Marmy loves Wellington Paranormal but I can take it or leave it. And remember, I have never been able to effectively rewatch Thor: Love and Thunder. But again, back to excited -- I could do with some wacky, ensemble, time jumping hijinks. OK, they are not little people, that's fine. OK, Lisa Kudrow (?!?!?) as their leader, that's fine. I think.

I usually do the above paragraph or two as italics, where Kent does a Meta tail-end, but I only remember I usually do that AFTER I wrote it, with already so many italics. So... that's that.

What 100. Kevin is a nerd, basically me at that age, minus the talkative -- I was and will always be, very quiet except in certain circumstances. His parents love him but don't understand him; his sister tolerates him. And then his wardrobe rumbles and the Time Bandits tumble into his life. They have a Map to Space & Time, barely know how to use it, and are on the run from The Supreme Being (Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit). His nemesis, Pure Evil (Jemaine Clement, Avatar: The Way of Water), also wants the map and has sent demon Fianna (Rchael House, Foundation) after it. The Bandits want to jump around in time stealing its greatest treasures, proving themselves as more than just gardeners, and Kevin is begrudgingly dragged along.

1 Great. Really, just the imaginative, silly escapades. I loved loved loved the concept of what was going on, and obviously a lot of thought went into it. It looks "appropriately" good, as in not terribly high on the special effects scale, acceptable on the sets and costuming. Something about only a middling attention to detail fits with something silly like this show, because if it was much better, you would be expecting more from the show.

1 Good. The characters. I didn't expect to actually like Lisa Kudrow as Penelope, their erstwhile "leader" (they're a collective, no leaders) but she ... kind of worked? Much of this show works to some degree and fails in others. I hesitantly enjoyed pretty much every episode. Its not so much as comedic as it is silly. The mix of weirdoes as Time Bandits is great, but non-sensical, and the Waititi-Clement usuals are always spot on when brought together.

1 Bad. There is just something.... missing. Again, I wonder if its my tempered fondness for the Waititi-Clement model of comedy. Its not always my bag. I have to allow for my irritation with some characterization (the Bandits themselves are confusing, callous, incredibly stupid beings, but I have to remind myself, they aren't humans, despite appearances and affectations.... no, no idea what they really are) to be ignored so I can just enjoy the romp, but sometimes my irritation reigned.  Just ... something didn't always work for me. I wonder if that's what Kent noticed and ultimately dropped the show.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): LaRoy, Texas

2023, Shane Atkinson (feature debut) -- download

I guess critics can sometimes be gracious to new comers. If you look at the TomatoMeter on this, the critics gave it 100%. For a debut that doesn't have anything particularly impressive about it, I guess they were all just happy to see something done capably and of a different fare than they usually see? I am not even sure about that. A brief read through doesn't provide any concrete insight as to why  they liked it, just that they did. I guess it travels the dusty Coen Bros road enough for most?

Ray (John Magaro, Overlord) lives in LaRoy, Texas with his ex-beauty-queen wife Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson, Silver Lake), and works at the family owned hardware store run by his brother Junior (Matthew Del Negro, Teen Wolf). "Works at" -- yes, despite it being the family business, he just works there as floor manager. Also, Junior is fucking his wife. But Ray won't believe it, even when photographic evidence is brought to him by the Skip (Steve Zahn, Sahara) the local fool who styles himself a Private Detective. "Styles himself" -- yes, we are never sure he is a trained, license detective but tells everyone he is one, and yet doesn't seem to have any real clients, and he misspelled "detective" on his business card. 

Meanwhile, a hitman (Dylan Baker, Happiness) has arrived in town, but Ray parks in his "illicit meeting" parking spot moments before the actual hitman shows, leading to the client to mistake Ray for said hitman. Already emotionally unbalanced and chronically incapable of dealing with confrontation, he keeps the money and the hijinks ensue. Hijinks include Ray accidentally killing the man he was "hired" to kill, spawning a fevered investigation by the inept local police force. They also include Skip deciding this is the case he should be investigating, as in why was someone being hired to kill a local lawyer and what about the real hitman.

Ray is not exactly someone who is likeable -- he's the sad sack you almost feel sorry for, but not really. Skip is classic Steve Zahn, suffering from a great amount of Dunning-Kreuger, convinced he and Ray are now best buddies and on a great caper. The movie escalates... slowly, leading to some more deaths, including a rather surprising, unhappy ending. Everything is well told, well shot but not compelling enough to ever come back to me. I was hoping for just a wee bit more seedy, dusty, back-water Texas story telling...

KsMIRT: August wind-up [part 2]

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (or mebbe twice each month?!?) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format. 

This (half) Month:
Unsolved Mysteries Volume 4 (2024, 5/5 episodes, Netflix)
Batman: Caped Crusader Season 1 (2024, 10/10 episodes, AmazonPrime)
G.I. Joe: Renegades Season 1 (2010, 16/26 episodes, Tubi) 
Time Bandits Season 1 (2024, 2/10 episodes, Apple TV+)
Derry Girls Series 3 (2022, 7/7 episodes, Netflix)

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Unsolved Mysteries Volume 4

The What 100:  The big pappy of true crime series returns with five new yet-to-be-solved events of a suspicious nature. These include new looks at Jack the Ripper and the mothman (having now migrated from its usual West Virginia stomping grounds to Illinois' Chicago area), as well as a "who did it?" in Calgary, a "whose head is that" in Florida, and a cold case of a murdered college student on campus in the late 1970s.

(1 Great) Having watched many a season of the vintage Robert Stack-led Unsolved Mysteries giving myself many a night terror as a result, I have to say the new, host-less, hour-long, true crime documentary-style format is pretty great. For the most part, I like how this format frequently teases out the mystery for a good while. The storytelling, the editing is exceptionally good, and as a result a lot of these stories have a stickiness to them that make them hard to easily forget or let go of. I puzzled over "The Body in the Basement", a captivating highlight (and gut wrenching tragedy) for days before my brain settled in on there being no answers to the questions it was asking. Did she fall or was she pushed? If those are her own footprints in her blood, why did she stop short of going upstairs? What happened to her phone? Was the door locked or not? Why were there no paw prints in the blood? So many questions that make no sense.

(1 Good) I like that even though it's using this new, host-less, hour-long, true crime documentary-style format, it's not just going with murder/death mysteries, but still exploring the paranormal phenomena the original series did with the same documentary-style lens as the other stories. The Jack the Ripper bit was probably the least intriguing because we're no closer to answers than we were two decades ago, but this was all about dispelling myths. "The Mothman Revisted" episode, though, was neat for how it cited the classic Stack episode on the Mothman, but had something definitely new to talk about. The middle episode, as well, neither a murder/death mystery, nor a paranormal mystery, but instead, a found embalmed head and the people trying to identify it. Curious.

(1 Bad) What's missing from this series that the Stack series had was updates. It directs you online for submitting any tips or info on the subjects at hand and for updates, but the old series used to do updates on repeats or in a subsequent episode, if there were updates to be had. There was something very satisfying about them. In this host-less, hour-long, true crime documentary-style format on Netflix, there's not the same space for updates that there was in a 20+ episode season of a weekly TV series. That said, they could drop Unsolved Mysteries updates on Netflix at any time, as part of a season or just stand alone.  I don't know why they haven't unless nothing material has come of any of the cases yet.

META: I don't really do a lot of true crime... I've dipped into a podcast or two, I watch the occasional documentary film or series, but it's not a regular part of my diet. Still, I actively look forward to each "Volume" of Unsolved Mysteries. Something about having a dose of the unresolved in my diet is very stimulating mentally, even if the subject matter is disturbing.  I can't explain it.

... Wait.... there's a podcast?!? And Volume 5 is coming... October 2nd!

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Batman: Caped Crusader Season 1

The What 100: It's a new Batman animated series from the co-creator of Batman: The Animated Series...Bruce Timm. He's backed by The Batman writer-director Matt Reeves as well as J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company. It's a more mature animated series set in a vaguely 1930's/40's noirish reality, and early in Batman's career as a vigilante. The over-arching stories are about district attorney Harvey Dent's fraught campaign for mayor, and corruption in both politics and the legal system.

(1 Great) As jarring as they may be, I absolutely love the swings this series is taking. Actually being set in the 1930's (ish) rather than the "neo-'30's deco-styled modern Gotham" of The Animated Series allows it to establish a very specific tone, that of the hardboiled, noir stories of the era. On top of that it plays fast and loose with established Batman lore. The Penguin who pops up in the first episode is not at all like any Penguin we've seen before, but I think she's incredible. Same with the divergences for Harley Quinn or Gentleman Ghost or Firebug, among others. 

(1 Good) It's a show aimed less at satisfying the comic book geek and instead scratching the pulp origins itch that clearly Timm always had and never shook.  It's aged up in terms of tone, for a cartoon it's happier with the darker corners of its world and emotions. It's not unapproachable for children, but it's not softened for them either. Batman's kind of a dickhead (every time he coldly calls Alfred "Pennyworth" I die inside just a little...but there's that moment of redemption in the finale that shows there's room for character growth in this series). They're also not afraid of finite ends to their stories or characters, so tread lightly with your expectations.

(1 Bad) As much as I understand the series is not much interested in a world of spandex, and that it's creating its villains as if they were out of 30's and 40's cinema, I still desperately want the mythology to flesh itself out. I want hints that Barbara is going to be Batgirl and Renee will become The Question. They're both agents of upholding the law, but they're both becoming more and more aware of how the system fails, and I wonder how long they can keep at it before they become disillusioned and join Batman in his style of justice?

META: If one is doing a new Batman for TV, it either needs to be a bold reset, or a near-continuation of what has come before. Rarely is it ever a near-continuation of what has come before, and bold resets can lead to disgruntled fanboys (is there any other type?). The word on the street for The Caped Crusader (despite the creatives saying otherwise) was that it was a continuation, or maybe a prequel to The Animated Series. It is not. If anything, though, because TAS was so art deco inspired and had that feel of the 1930s, it's almost like this didn't veer far enough away from that aesthetic to fully distinguish itself. I think that's what many fans who may wind up disliking this are feeling. But I dig it.

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G.I. Joe: Renegades

The What 100:  Scarlett recruits Duke, Roadblock, Tunnel Rat and Ripcord on a secret mission to infiltrate Cobra Industries and expose it for what it is, not a multinational manufacturer of diverse goods and services, but a secret military with designs on taking over the world with experimental, illegal technology. Not only do they have their hands in seemingly everyone's pockets, but they have their own 24 hour news network to spread whatever lies and disinformation they want. And so, our heroes, in trying to uncover this new world-class evil, are instead brandished as terrorists and outlaws and are on the run from their very own military employers.

(1 Great) I clued in during the initial two-parter that it seemed kind of A-Team-ish in its construction, and then the third episode rolled out its new opening credits:
"Accused of a crime they didn't commit, a ragtag band of fugitives fights a covert battle to clear their names and expose the insidious enemy that is... Cobra. Some call them outlaws. Some call them heroes. But these determined men and women think of themselves only as 'Ordinary Joes'. And this is their story."

Yah, it's the A-Team all right. Each episode is mostly just the Renegades roll into town, find the townspeople embroiled in something Cobra Industries related and they try to help out or expose it. It's formulae, and it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's pretty great.  

(1 Good) I was genuinely surprised by the episode "Homecoming Part 1" which jumps into flashbacks of the origin of Duke's rivalry with Flint which is some pretty deep character building for ostensibly a kids' cartoon. There's a lot of nuance introduced into their dynamic which then pays off in "Homecoming Part 2" where the Joes are captured by the military, with straight-laced, by-the-book Flint maybe seeing a crack in his worldview.

(1 Bad) I do get why this didn't resonate with Joe fans. Despite being exceptionally well animated, it's too divergent from the core G.I. Joe idea, that of a highly trained special mission force who are in an open battle against terrorist organization Cobra. The silent war of Renegades is so 2010, of anti-capitalism, and illicit behind-the-scenes dealings, of there being forces in the world so large that nothing will change in the way the world works unless they decide it should change... it's heavy shit, and G.I. Joe isn't really that known for its heavy shit.  Plus, like Batman: The Caped Crusader all of the characters are some type of reinvention of their previous incarnations. Snow Job, Shipwreck, Dr. Mindbender, all of them, with the exception of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow (again with this ninja shit) seem pretty vastly different from how they've been portrayed elsewhere. It's hard to just sit back and enjoy it, and not want it to just get over its "on-the-run" business and become outright Joes vs. Cobra.

META: It's G.I. Joe, but the A-Team! It seems incredible to me - the me of 2024 - that any regular series would so blatantly rip off the formulae of an old TV series (uh, like Poker Face did Columbo?) but a cursory look at 2010 and yeah, the Liam Neeson-led A-Team movie had just hit, and I think this was made in parallel production. I bet that they had banked on the A-Team movie being a massive success (where the first G.I. Joe live action movie truly wasn't) and they would look like geniuses for reformulating G.I. Joe in that manner. But the A-Team failed (not dismally, but not inspiring a whole new generation of A-Team obsessed kids) and so did Renegades. Even the long-running G.I. Joe action figure line produced a wave or two of figures styled after this cartoon (pretty great looking figures) but failed to ignite much fervour (much of it went on clearance, though they've since become pretty collectible). I'm just picking off episodes here and there, but I will definitely complete it (and probably be sad there isn't more when I'm done).

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Time Bandits Season 1

The What 100: A reimagining of the 1981 Terry Gilliam film by Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and Iain Morris. Young, talkative, nerdy Kevin is 10 years old and not very well liked by anyone. He's bullied at school and by his sister, and his parents, obsessed with their phones, don't understand why their unusual, curious, intelligent child isn't into "normal" stuff. When a  troupe of time traveling thieves with a stolen time map use his bedroom as a passageway, he finds himself swept up in their journey, much to the chagrin of the Bandits.

(1 Great) The show, by and large, looks pretty good. There are some interesting sequences, displays of effects (both practical and digital) that are quite eye catching or stimulating.

(1 Good) Jemaine Clement plays a ruler of demons, a sort of devil, one might say, that is very interested in the bandits and their time map. The scenes of Clement in his ample prosthetic make-up and the absurd hellscape sets he's in are pretty imaginative.

(1 Bad) We only made it two episodes in.  Both episodes were written by Clement, Morris and Waititi with Waititi directing. We have ample love for Waititi and Clement, both individually and together Lady Kent and I do, and yet this did not work at all for either of us. There were a few chuckles but no real laughs, there was a twinge of interest, a glimmer of adventure, but most of it fell flat. Kevin is supposed to be annoying and young Kal-El Tuck really gets it, but there's too much of this riding on his nascent shoulders. The leaderless bandits are led by Lisa Kudrow's put-upon Penelope, but it's Kudrow's sense of smart-idiot quirk that doesn't jibe well with the sensibilities of Waititi and Clement as I know them.  Unlike Our Flag Means Death or What We Do In The Shadows, the writers and performers do not give their individual bandits enough unique character or charisma to stand out. They are a unit that all seem to behave much the same way, they're not very fun.  

META: I have only seen Gilliam's Time Bandits once as an adult, and it didn't resonate with me. At this point it's a vague memory. I more recently read the Marvel comics adaptation (like maybe last year even) and I can't remember that at all. Perhaps it's the property that doesn't work for me.  But specifically here, I look at the repartee of Our Flag... or The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin and there's a template there for these types of characters and how to make them funny and subversive and for some reason these very talented creators just couldn't figure it out.  But is it the writing, or the casting? I'm not sure any of the bandits besides Kudrow stands out, and she stands out for the wrong reason. It just doesn't work and I'm feeling completely uninspired to return to it.

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Derry Girls Series 3

The What 100: One final go for the girls from Derry, their families, and Sister George Michael. As The Troubles reach their revolutionary turning point in the mid-1990s, the girls come of age, ready to graduate and it seems all of Ireland is ready to move on to the next moments of their lives.

(1 Great) The best episode of the series is "The Reunion" which finds the moms and aunties and their friends reuniting for their high school reunion. This leads to all the old anxieties, hurt feelings, and pubescent emotions rushing back, with long buried secrets trying to crawl out of their grave and embarrass everyone. It's an episode replete with flashbacks of the women in their younger years of the late-70's with the obvious parallels to the main young cast of Derry Girls providing the most rewarding threads (especially considering that Mary used to behave exactly like Erin does and yet she comes down on her so hard for it). The whole long-buried (literally) secret is a great through line and provides a little mystery to unfold to really suck in the audience. It's a wonderfully crafted, hilarious episode.

(1 Good) After two highly, highly successful seasons, Series 3 seems to break out of its small-scale shell and go much, much bigger with every episode. It's almost like a different show, the scale of production seems that much larger, and the writing that much better at balancing the adventures of the young cast and their parents, grandparents and teachers such that it doesn't just feel like a teen comedy anymore.  In some ways it could be seen as a betrayal of what was established before, but in other ways it feels like it's finally coming into itself, somewhat unfettered by its previous limitations. Most of the episodes this season take place on location, whether it's another town, or on a train, or at a police precinct with Liam Neeson in charge.  My initial impulse is to bristle a things like appearances by Neeson or Fatboy Slim, but they're really just damn good fun.

(1 Bad)  Episode six finds the teens trying to get tickets to a Fatboy Slim concert being held in town. When they come up in the line to buy tickets, Clare has a meet-cute with the ticket girl, except they are the last tickets available. The street toughs behind them aren't pleased and accuse them of jumping the queue and then want to fight James for the tickets. Things take a turn, and later Michelle goes on a sob-story-leads-to-wish-giving TV program and lies about James getting beaten up and their tickets being stolen. This leads to the Girls being VIPs for the concert but Clare the whole time is just fixated on meeting up with the ticket girl. The Girls have another encounter with the street toughs, while Clare makes out with ticket girl, and they get thrown out, yet it's still pretty triumphant overall. A rollicking episode. Except Clare's dad dies and it ends with her big gay triumph undercut by weepy memorial for her Da.  Why? What does this serve, like, at all? Did we ever even meet Clare's dad in the series? Why decimate this triumphant moment for her like this? Even if it's something true from the creator or staff writer's lives, there's no time in this show for this rapid mood swing in the storytelling. It's the most bizarre creative moment of the series and leaves a real bad taste for the penultimate episode.

META: As I mentioned when I last wrote about this show, each series is too short. Even at 7 episodes it's not nearly enough. There's only a total of 19 episode in the entire run. There's something to be said about not milking a premise or quitting whilst one is ahead, but when you have this great of a setup there's so many possibilities for storytelling. I feel like they barely scratched the surface and we barely got to know these characters. Their growth from series to series seemed so spontaneous.  And it's not like you can just do a revival, since these performer are only getting older (Saoirse-Monica Jackson in The Decameron now looks like a grownup, no longer a viable teen), so they needed to do more when they could have. It's a shame.  Like, why not just a Sister George Michael spin-off show then?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Girl on the Train

2016, Tate Taylor (Ava) -- Amazon

This was not the movie I thought it was going to be. At first blush, I assumed it was going to be a pivot on Rear Window wherein someone who is an "innocent" voyeur of a complete stranger's life gets wrapped up in a disappearance and murder investigation. And it is about that, but also, nobody is innocent and nobody is really a stranger. And unlike most movies, where the "reveal" (more like unveiling) was known to me going in, the only thing I knew about this movie were original trailers, which deftly didn't reveal ... anything?

Rachel (Emily Blunt, The Fall Guy) rides the train every day to Manhattan from Westchester County. She leans against the window, sipping on her water bottle, watching the scenery but in particular, one house, one woman. Like many of us, she imagines a background, a story, a life for this woman. The woman has a loving husband, a lovely house, and an idyllic life. Then Rachel sees her with another man, and then Rachel sees in the news that the woman in the house has disappeared.

Its hard to talk about the rest of the movie without spoiling everything, like pretty much every review, writeup and wiki article does so immediately. So, I won't bother trying. The movie does a very good job of letting us know further details in little dribbles. Oh, its not just that house Rachel fixates on, but the one a few doors down, another house with a beautiful blonde. Oh, that was her house, before her husband Tom (Justin Theroux, The Leftovers) cheated on her, and found himself a new wife, and a child. Oh, Rachel is not dealing well with the divorce and is living with a friend of hers, commuting to the city and getting angry-drunk, relating to others just how she was fucked over. Ohhh, its not water she is sipping from that bottle!

Meanwhile the movie also gives us a bit of Megan's (Haley Bennet, Borderlands) life, the unsatisfied beautiful blonde that Rachel fixates on. Her husband Scott (Luke Evans, Dracula Untold) is controlling, demanding. She used to work, once as a gallery director, more recently as a nanny for ... well, Rachel's ex and new wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson, Dune: Part One). Megan has lots of sex but is unhappy. Once she disappears, Rachel decides to insinuate herself into Megan's husband's life, convinced he must have done it because Megan was cheating. At the same time she is an unwanted, drunken presence near her ex-husband's house and new family. And she's unravelling as quickly as the story is unveiling more and more truths.

Despite all three women in the movie being troubled, living troubled lives, in the end, the blame falls squarely on the men in the movie. It goes from us, the viewer, making our judgments on the women in much the way Rachel does on Megan, to revealing to us how unfair we are being, and surprisingly to me, how (as Marmy put it) we cannot trust the (gaslighted) narrator. The men run the gamut from self-serving to downright evil.

The movie is a solid thriller, if a little trite. But I think that's the point? Its a trashy, messy story but with the statement that we shouldn't pass judgement so quickly.

Note, the novel was based in the UK and considering three of the leads were British, I wonder if early development had the movie in London, and not NYC. Also, this movie did REALLY well at the box office, almost a decade ago, at the ... middle (??) of the era of "why aren't people going to the movie as much?" yet I feel very very sold in saying this is not the kind of movie theatre goers would flock to now. Weird.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Borderlands

2024, Eli Roth (Death Wish) -- download

It seems I have been doing this a lot lately, this being watching a movie that has been fraught with trauma in its creation and wondering whether I should just do a deep dive into that trauma instead of pondering on why the movie sucked so badly. But, my source is The Internet, so the research ("I did my research!!") will be tainted by the content creators itself; there will be no unbiased journalistic take anymore. So, maybe just a bit, nothing too deep.

We can skip right past the Development Hell for the last ten years. I mean, its a movie based on a video game; that's a built in challenge. And then 2020 comes. Cate Blanchett likes to comment on how it was The Lockdown that influenced her to accept the script, but I get it, she was feeling cooped up, a little mad, and the idea of a big, flashy, scifi actioner could have been appealing. But is it her brand? I mean, she did look like she had a grand ol time in Thor: Ragnarok, so ... maybe? Why she was chosen for the role is no matter, as I imagine they tossed it out to a bunch, but she accepted and age doesn't really matter in character roles like this. The only casting I question is really Kevin Hart as Roland, but that's my own personal bias against him. But the telling issue is that the primary shooting completed in 2021.

And then the shitshow. Eli Roth stepped away so Tim Miller (of Deadpool) could handle the reshoots. Gone are the days where we could get some real insider info on what happened, but Roth claiming he wanted to focus on a (probably even more terrible than this) horror movie focused on the Thanksgiving holiday seems suspect. Ten writers later, the original screenwriter telling them to take his name off it, and Things Do Not Bode Well.

And it shows. Fuck it shows. If there was anything that was clear to me in watching it was that I was ... bored. The movie just flows from one setup to the next at a breakneck pace like it was just hurrying to get to the end. Shoot bad guy, shoot bad guy, quip quip quip, shoot bad guy, shoot bad guy. Its almost like they were playing a video game, but no, let me finish... like they were the most disinterested Player playing a the most banal shooter without taking any time to actually enjoy the game.

So, the story.

But do you really want to go through the "story", i.e. your usual recap and whinging?

No, I don't. The story to the games was always simple enough, basically D&D With Guns, as in a bunch of adventurers are drawn to the planet Pandora in search of the mythical Vault. What's in the Vault? Untold Riches, i.e. nobody knows but it does involve some ancient alien beings and the technology they left behind. The characters are part of the fun and over the games included a bunch of typical yet fun archetypes: the soldier, the assassin, the character with mysterious powers, etc. Even the NPCs were well fleshed out and eventually iconic, such as Tannis the Mad Scientist (Jamie Lee Curtis, Freaky Friday), Tina (Ariana Greenblatt, 65) the insane bomb obsessed adolescent, and Moxxi (Gina Gershon, Emily the Criminal), the sexified bar owner. The world of Pandora is Mad Max meets scifi, with the planet covered in scrap, and populated by an endless supply of "psychos" -- colourful mask wearing gun-toting nutjobs who love making mince meat of any Vault Hunters they come across. Oh, and monsters, lots of weird monsters. Remember, D&D With Guns.

The plot was probably supposed to be a wacky romp, finding a reason to jam together the bunch of weirdoes, which they had a lot to choose from, so they did a mix of actual Player Characters and NPCs, and then have them Vault Hunt. And that is what it is, but.... they seemed to have effectively sucked the fun out of everything? 

I originally intended on actually crawling out to see it in the theatre, on my own as Marmy couldn't imagine sinking money into seeing it, but it bombed so badly it showed up on Downloads rather quickly. On the small screen, it still looked lovely. You can see the attention to detail they applied to the movie and it LOOKED incredible, from the colours to the backgrounds, to the set pieces to all the junky elements. But the flow just ... died.

I don't care about the characters. Even Blanchett's attempts to put some gravitas on her character Lilith (Cate Blanchett, Don't Look Up) was just ... wasted. And I was constantly distracted by what appeared to be an immense amount of Botox, smoothing out her skin to a plastic level consistency, but this could have been a mass amount of makeup or digital effects.

Final Boss Battle ! Big climax? Why are we here again? Oh yeah, the Big Bad Atlas (Edgar Ramirez, Jungle Cruise) has been manipulating everyone so he can get into the Vault. But we knew that from scene one, so there is no reveal, and yet ... they try to? Also, who is that obviously iconic Bad Guy in the background? Players of the game will know, but he played zero role in the movie until he is kicked into a hole in the final fight. The stakes in this final battle scene feel empty, and once they get into the Vault, we ... see nothing. There is nothing tangible to call Treasure. I don't even remember if they had some mystical mojo alien technology that they decide cannot get into the hands of Those Who Cannot Be Trusted With Power.

Again, I repeat, maybe I need another viewing to find some mild charm in the movie? I mean, there were things about it I liked as I watched, such as Tiny Tina and 50% of Jack Black as CL4P-TP (Claptrap), and the look & feel, but... yawn.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Jackpot!

2024, Paul Feig (Ghostbusters) -- Amazon

Maybe I need a tag "it was cute" for comedies that were OK, but just OK ? Honestly the best thing about this was the reel of cut ad-libs at the end of the movie. This is a Paul Feig thing? The less tight script, opting for choosing the best of a bunch of improv scenes? Yeah yeah #lazyweb.

And yeah yeah, this is not my usual fare for comedy, but it was stated out loud that we both rather enjoy Awkwafina (especially, typing out her name) and John Cena and needed something light for the evening (do we ever need something dark anymore? there was a time we embraced the heavy & compelling) so we chose this.

So, Katie (Awkwafina, Shang-Chi) was a child actor who also had some middling success in doing commercials until she had to step away to take care of her dying mother. She returns to LA in 2030 (yes, this is a "20 minutes into the future" movie) aware there is a recession on (isn't there always a recession on these years?) but not aware of what the California government has done to distract the populace. She finds out during a disastrous audition when she accidentally places her thumbprint on the winning lottery ticket. Yay! She won almost $4 billion dollar jackpot. Boo! She doesn't know people are entitled to try to kill her in order to claim the win. Instantly she is on the slapstick run. Everyone at the audition and all the adjacent businesses pull weapons out of their asses and attack her.

But in drops (literally) Noel (John Cena, Freelance), a security agent tasked with protecting her. Well, sorry, not tasked, but he offers to protect her, for a cut of the winnings. In this new California, its a legit business to protect lottery winners. Noel's rather an amateur, competing with the likes of the Lewis Protection Agency, a highly funded company. Either way, he is there, Katie is being chased and followed and livestreamed, and he ends up protecting her. She just wants to opt out but even that is not an option.

Chase chase chase, they end up in the panic room of a celebrity (Machine Gun Kelly; I am only peripherally aware of who he is) and Noel is forced to call in LPA for assistance. Briefly Katie feels safe in the hands of the charismatic Louis Lewis (Simu Liu, Shang-Chi), and his all-white (design choice, not skin colour) organization. Until he turns out to be the real Bad Guy. Apparently his company has been quietly killing the winners and claiming their funds. All I can say is that the lottery company is doing a shit job of investigating the wins. Anywayz, Noel continues to protect her and Lewis gets all blowed up.

Epilogue. Katie is a great and nice and wonderful person and has shared her winnings with Noel, and setup a bunch of benevolent organizations. Yawn.

This is the lightest of the light comedies. As Kent said, the state of the world satire is just the elevator pitch for the movie, but not the movie in play. And its cheap looking and cheaply played, all the comedy, the violent action scenes, the supporting cast, the laughs. Sure, Cena and Awkwafina are carrying the movie, and that was why we came here, but... yawn.

Of note, I am hoping that John Cena continues to play ex-military people who lose their entire team due to betrayal. Do a third "My Spy" movie, replacing Bautista's character with Cena, but this backstory! Do a new "The Union" movie but bring in Cena as a retired military guy with that backstory! Have Shawn Levy do another lazy Ryan Reynolds movie and have Cena as a Bad Guy, with that backstory!

Watching: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

2024, Netflix

Generic British investigatorial shows are sort of our bag, albeit with a desire for something different, something more creative. Subbing the whole sub-genre into a highschool environment was supposed to do that. Not sure it succeeded but we persevered with middling satisfaction.

What 100.  Based on YA mystery novels, Pip Fitz-Amobi (quite the name) focuses her EPQ (some project thingy UK high-schoolers do) on the unsatisfactorily solved murder of a classmate five years prior. Unsatisfactory because Pip liked the guy accused of the murder, who then confessed and committed suicide. Nobody wants her dredging up the painful past, as in her small village almost everyone had personal ties to the murder. But against common sense, considering she is receiving threats almost immediately, she runs down every rabbit hole investigating the crime, and eventually uncovers some rather unsavoury aspects to her pastoral village life.

1 Great. Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers, Wednesday) herself. As a high-school kid, Pip floats somewhere on the spectrum of known, popular kid to quirky introvert, but is definitely seen as the titular "good girl". She's likeable, smart, but not Sherlockian, as she gets lots wrong, and more so solves the crime through tenacity even when dealing with heartbreak and tragedy. Myers does an impressive job as a young Brit despite being from Florida.

1 Good. Its a serviceable example of the genre, one I more enjoyed in retrospect than in actual viewing. We in fact, almost gave up on it, as we were a bit bored. While being British, I think they structured it more for the Netflix generation, as the usual 3 or 4 long episodes were formatted to six "one hour" episodes. I think it could have been tightened up.

1 Bad. The dark turn the series takes in the last few episodes turns out to have less of an impact than it should have. Maybe I am more used to these series have dark sides, but one dark thing leads to another and its just not as shocking as I felt it should be? The show, probably from its YA source, was walking a fine line between light high-school drama to the Evils That Men Do, and I am not sure if it balanced it well.

Man, this format really lends itself to "meh, it was alright."

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts

2017, Mouly Surya (Trigger Warning) -- download

I said during my write-up of Trigger Warning that I wanted to reach back to Mouly Surya's groundbreaking and critically acclaimed (I need another way to say that catch phrase) film. I wanted to see if there was something the director brought from this movie to that Hollywood movie that was.... well, rather uninspired (another common film writing phrase I need to replace). But there were elements, as I mentioned, in the quiet moment where I suspected I saw the director at play, untampered. I think I was right for this movie, also about a woman wronged and taking matters into her own hands, is best during its quiet moments with the lead.

I need to write about this movie with less of the snark I usually use. This writeup needs to be a sobre, mature post considering the topic and the attention/intent used to make this movie. I harken back to Kent's commenting about intentionality in movie making, and I don't always agree this holds true, but in this movie EVERYTHING is done with intent, there is nothing added for the sake of a producer, this is a proper creator's vision movie, and for that at least, it deserves my respect.

I know nothing about the Indonesian film industry; I have probably only seen a handful of horror movies from there. I am saying this because I don't know whether this movie is courageous in their film world, but it definitely is from a general film making experience. Dealing head on with the cultural views of rape and a woman's status in one's own society has to be courageous. And at the same time Surya makes a movie with art and intent that resonates with the rest of the film viewing world.

A bit of the snark floats to the top with me thinking many of the critics gave it high marks just because of the subject matter, and not whether they "liked" the film or not. It did well at film festivals around the world, real well, but I still think most film critics would be... "it was fine."

Marlina (Marsha Timothy, The Raid 2) is a widow who lives in the dry hills of the island of Sumba. Her house is far from even the middle of nowhere, from our western perspective. Sumba has an interesting death ritual which plays a quiet part in the movie, as Marlina's husband sits in her house's main room, posed in a crouch, wrapped in many colourful blankets. People of Sumba often cannot afford "proper" burial rituals and will leave family members in the dry air, essentially mummifying them, until they can complete the funeral rites. In this movie, he is a prop, a reminder that Marlina is alone, entirely. She is now subject to whatever other men want to do with her.

Thieves come to her house, claiming her husband owed them money, and they will take everything, including her. More arrive, with a truck, and load all her livestock into the back. They demand her make them something to eat, they want chicken soup (waingapu) after which they will all ... take her, starting with leader Markus (Egy Fedly, Satan's Slaves). But not before he takes a nap.

She makes the soup with small green & red berries, and from they way she handles them, we know what they must do. Markus is oblivious as each of his fellow thieves die from the poison, and chooses rape over soup. In the act, Marlina grabs his golok, a sword or machete carried by all the men, and beheads him.

This was the first act, called The Robbery.

The next act is The Journey and has Marlina on her way to the police station with Markus's head. She is not hiding the fact she murdered him. Along the way, at the "bus stop", she meets "neighbour" Novi (Dea Panendra, Gundala) who is "10 months pregnant". She is heading to town to find her husband, who has run away because of her constant need for sex. Her mother tells her sex will encourage the baby to come, but the act, and her constant desire for it, disturbs him. Novi is blunt, talkative and... well, not really shocked at what Marlina has done.

Along the way, on the bus, a truck really, into which everyone piles, including two small horses and a family on their way to deliver a dowry, they are hijacked by a pair of surviving thieves. These two men had gone off in the truck with as much livestock as they could steal, and were returning for the rest when they discovered the bodies. They gave chase. But Marlina is able to escape on one of the horses, and she continues her journey, followed by the headless apparition of Markus, playing his small, roughly made wooden instrument, a jungaa.

In The Confession, Marlina arrives at the police station and is told a familiar story. She has no evidence, only her word, and they don't have the funding for rape kits, and they know she won't have funds to go to the hospital for such. It doesn't matter much to them, not even the robbery. Marlina doesn't seem surprised. But its been a long, hot journey and she is just tired. Back to her house.

In The Birth, one of the thieves has forced Novi to come back to Marlina's house, and coax Marlina to return, with Markus's head as well. Novi found her husband but he yelled at her and hit her, convinced she must be sleeping around and that is the reason the baby hasn't come yet. At Marlina's house, again the women are asked to cook for the men who are assaulting them. Novi makes food, while Franz, the youngest of the thieves retrieves the head from Marlina and poses Markus's body in much the same as Marlina's husband, resting his head upon its shoulders, and wrapping it in the blankets he steals from her husbands body. He has much more tenderness and caring for the body of his fellow criminal then for any of the women in the movie. When he attempts to rape Marlina, Novi comes rushing in with his golok and beheads him. In the wash of blood on the floor, the excitement and trauma, Marlina helps her deliver the baby, rather easily, a healthy baby boy.

The movie is a rather matter of fact presentation of what Surya must see women dealing with in Indonesia. Is it rural life? Is it all Indonesia? Its not a stretch to think it could happen everywhere, anywhere, for such things happen here in North America. The movie labels Marlina a murderer, without any doubt that is what she will be seen as in everyone's eyes. What the men did, or intended to do, doesn't matter. There are no "extenuating circumstances". But nothing in the movie is done with any pondering -- they have done what they had to do. It is life, and death.

It is said by many, including Surya herself, that the movie styles itself a Western. From the dry wide-shots of the landscape, to the ever present Sergio Leone style (actually Ennio Morricone but associating it with Leone and his movies makes more sense) music, she knew what she wanted it tone and look. But for me, it was the locked off shots of rooms, the geometry squared, that looked grand. We are left feeling like we are looking in on events, unable to intervene, silent collaborators with the abuse.

I still feel its kind of a shame her next movie would be the easily dismissed Hollywood/Netflix revenge flick Trigger Warning but its important she got the chance, the chance to work in the industry, be exposed to the morass of how things are "done over here". I am curious what she will do next.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Union

2024, Julian Farino (Florida Man) -- Netflix

Part of me wonders whether I should be posting these ... posts closer to the time when the movie hits the shelf / screen and I watch it. I mean, its not like I have an audience rearing to read about something new that just came out, it just seems more .... relevant?

We watched Florida Man; I didn't write about it. It was during the recent period where I wasn't writing about TV; I didn't feel the need to fill it in. It was less than satisfying.

I honestly don't think this could have been any more than that -- not satisfying. There have always been films that are purely products of the industry, i.e. they are nothing more than a calculation of investment versus return, effort versus reward. I will never claim to be an expert on the industry, but you don't have to be to see these kinds of signs. But again, I have said before, that is not necessarily a bad thing, a director gets work, writers get work, stunt coordinators get work, and a lot of people get their next job. In the end, all you get is a serviceable movie, but sometimes that's OK.

But is it? What if, and its entirely fantasy, the money shoved into these pablum actioners were funneled towards a dozen other indie-level flicks? the investment would be the same and I cannot help but think the return might be equal, but with the added bonus of there likely being a gem or two from those dozen. Again, fantasy.

Ten minutes of Googling tells me this movie was a "pitch", something originally called Our Man from Jersey. Basically Wahlberg and producer Stephen Levinson pitching an idea to a various shades of purple boardroom. I guess that is the industry these days? Maybe I have half a dozen movie ideas in my notebooks?

Anywayz, what was the pitch? Probably something along the line of "a secret non-governmental espionage organization has to recruit a nobody blue collar worker from New Jersey because they have no choice."

The "no choice" is because one of the current MacGuffins of espionage movies -- a list of all the spies and contacts in the espionage world is out there on the market, so they need someone not on the record to help them find it. Who is the them? Another current staple of the espionage film industry -- a spy agency not tied to any particular government or country, but who does Good Work for all. There is some hint that they pretend to be blue collar workers so they can hide in the shadows, blend in, accomplish what they need to do without being noticed. But other than an opening sequence, that never comes into play and Wahlberg's character is barely ever "under cover".

Anywayz, Mike McKenna (Mark Wahlberg, Father Stu) is recruited into The Union by his highschool GF Roxanne (Halle Berry, Moonfall)) who broke his heart when she left New Jersey to see the world. By recruited, I mean she gets him drunk, sedates him and takes him to the UK where The Union has its headquarters in the BT (British Telecom) Tower. There, he is explained the situation and asked to help. Not everyone is convinced he is the appropriate choice, Mike being one of them. But after an extended training montage they seem to have some confidence in him.

Their plan is to have Mike attend an auction where they can buy the MacGuffin. But first they have to get a proper invite to the auction. So, its about Mike being a lone not-on-the-list agent, and yet, they send a team, including Roxanne, with him at all times. I know they are nameless NPC agents, well most of them, but ... aren't they all a liability? Isn't that the point of the movie? Handwavey time! Anywayz, the mission to get the sub-MacGuffin, a device that acts as "invite" to the auction is screwed up because Mike drops it into a sink of dish water. You'd think they would make those fancy schmancy things at least at the level of a Samsung phone that can go for a swim, but whatever... now Mike has to regain their confidence by stealing another sub-MacGuffin from "the Koreans" who are represented by... eastern Europeans.

In case you haven't caught on yet, the movie is not set in New Jersey, but in UK/Europe and its one of those espionage movies of late that believes exotic (aka non-American) locales make for better espionage movies, and probably also gets the production lots of funding from different country's buckets of film money. This movie is slightly more effective in using the locales than say... My Spy: The Eternal City.

While stealing the sub-MacGuffin one of their agents is killed and their base in the tower is All Blowed Up. So, they are "on the run" convinced they must have a mole in their ranks, I guess not having any memory that there is a List out there (the original MacGuffin) that is supposed to have the locations of all espionage agencies in the world? I mean, that would include them, no? Anywayz, whatever.

Another part I don't get is that they get money for the auction from a Dick CIA Agent (Stephen Campbell Moore, War of the Worlds; playing an American but with the worst accent) but they don't have any intention on going through with the auction so... why do they even need money. One would assume that because they have the sub-MacGuffin that already implies they have the trust of The Auctioneer to be able to pay whatever bid they submit. And if they are only using that sub-MacGuffin to track ("triangulate!!") down The Auctioneer (Jessica De Goux, Pennnyworth) herself, then.... ? Also, if they do have the money, why not just actually BUY the MacGuffin (prime MacGuffin; The List) and take it off the market. Seems easy and low risk to me. Also (lots of also's there, buddy) why do they assume that once they track The Auctioneer down she would have the MacGuffin on her body or would lead them to it? But whatever, that's what they do.

And The Auctioneer has the MacGuffin in her fridge.

Buuuut the (un)expected happens. You see, I never mentioned how the movie opened, with the typical "Everyone Gets Killed" scenario. Roxanne's original team is all killed just after they got hold of the MacGuffin. So, she lost her entire team and the target of the operation. Fast forward to now and there is a knock at the door and (eye roll) its one of her "dead" team, Nick Faraday (Mike Colter, Plane), who also happens to turn out to be Roxanne's husband. Nick betrayed the team, his wife and his honour. He also tells them that their boss Brennan (JK Simmons, The Tomorrow War) is the mole who betrayed The Union. And then there is a bit of a standoff, and Nick escapes. Anywayz, they have the MacGuffin and will hand it over to the US via the CIA. Doesn't strike me as the smartest move, but whatever, rah rah USA. 

Exceeept its a double (triple?) betrayal. Nick and The Auctioneer switched out the actual case and also framed Roxanne and Mike and the Union as a whole. At this point I am thinking The Union sucks pretty bad at its job, but whatever, they have to pull an Ethan Hunt and go on the run to recover the REAL MacGuffin, capture/kill Nick and clear their name. They run off to the Istria Penninsula, tracking Nick.

Chase scene, chase scene, chase scene, Nick further betrays his buyers the Iranians, chase scene, chase scene, they finally shoot Nick and get the MacGuffin back. If anything, I am a bit tired by this act of the movie but the locale is pretty and I get to Google Istria, a peninsula shared by Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. The town is not called Istria, as the movie would have, but the region is. They get the case, clear their name and... kill Nick, making Roxanne properly single to unashamedly flirt with her highschool boyfriend Mike.

Pro's. Two people over 50 as the leads. Cons, at least when you watch John Wick there is a reason for his character to be barely hobbling in the action scenes -- he's been shot, punched, stabbed and probably hit by a car at least twice. You can see Halle Berry is not even comfortable running.  But whatever, its fantasy. Funny how I am not considering this part of my "aging action stars" unlabelled set of movies as they characters are not portrayed as such. Also con, they just don't have any chemistry. They come off more as two buddies more likely to make fun of each other's genitalia than become romantically involved, which would be fine if that was not the setup. Pro; I just like these action oriented, exotic locale romps. Con, all the fucking continuity bullshit; they should have reduced the amount of "complexity" they wanted in the plot and just let it play through. But at least it wasn't Red Notice boring.