Tom Clancy's Without Remorse

 2021, d. Stefano Sollima - AmazonPrime

I'm not a Tom Clancy guy, in that I'm not of that generation.  Bluntly, Tom Clancy is for Boomers.  It's for a generation for whom America is still undeniably the good guy and anyone whom they choose as the enemy is the bad guy.  Clancy's works have always seemed so jingoistic they've make me uncomfortable (not that I've partaken in much of them) but taking a novel released in 1993 set during the Vietnam War and recontextualizing it to a modern setting seems egregiously tone deaf.  

Without Remorse race bends the lead John Kelly to be Michael B. Jordan (hey, turning any character into Michael B. Jordan is going to be an improvement, so it's not a complaint), and yet despite the progressive casting, it still seems to be playing directly to a MAGA-loving crowd laden with conspiracy theorists, anti-government militias, armchair vigilantes, and, yeah, more than a hint of misogyny.  

Seriously.  It's unbelievable that in 2021 they're still making movies where fridgeing a character's wife is the motivation for a character to become, effectively, a super hero.  But it happens here.

Quickly, because there's really not much to the plot here, Kelly was part of a rescue mission in Sirya where they took out, unexpectedly, a whole bunch of Russians in the process.  Some time later, back in America, members of the team are being killed, seemingly by Russians.  Kelly is targeted too, his pregnant wife is killed, and he's hospitalized for some time.  Upon recovering he goes back into service with a team to track down his assailant who turns out to be Brett Gelman (Stranger Things, Fleabag), totally not a Russian.  Yep, they're being set up to start a war because wars create jobs and stimulate the economy.  Yeah, that's about it.

It's a threadbare conspiracy plot, the "twist" you can see coming a mile off (Clancy has never been accused of being complicated, which is probably why his fans like him so much).  The action looks expensive and is possibly good, but the film is so dark and muddy it's really hard to see what's really happening (even with the lights off).  Perhaps in a dark theatre it would work better, but filmmakers...suck it up, films need to be able to play at home now.

One big action set piece takes place in Russia and there's a very casual sense that the terrorist act that John Kelly is perpetrating there is a-OK because, well, he's the good guy...and if he gets captures, dammit, it's war.  But it doesn't feel good at all, and though Kelly as our protagonist has a desperate sense of getting out alive, there's also no sense that he's not trying to kill many, many Russians.  Rah, rah, 'merica (wait, do the MAGAsses like Russia now because Trump does, or do they still hate it after decades of anti-Russian propaganda?)  This film truly carries itself with the sense that "We're Americans, we can do what we want, wherever we want, because...we're Americans."

I love Michael B. Jordan, but I genuinely dislike this movie.  But I didn't dislike it while watching it, I only started disliking it once I started unpacking it.  But that's the insidious nature of films like this... they seem toothless and give you a "rah rah" charge, but underneath there's something unseemly about it all that it refuses to address.  It's there if you think about it, but people who like this stuff tend not to think about it.

 It's an outdated story with no grounding in modern global (or even American) politics.  Because Clancy's biggest fans are likely right-wingers, this film can't go hard at them at all (even though true Republicans should be exceptionally disgusted with the trajectory of their party the past decade, and don't seem to understand they're the biggest threat to America), but there's no attempt here to even try to understand complex geopolitics, nor does it even seem to want to touch upon where twisted American ideologies come from, it just falls back on the "few bad apples within our own ranks does not define us" excuse.  The fact that those "few bad apples" seem to keep bobbing up to the surface implies there's a fundamental problem, neighbour.  That problem, I don't think the inevitable Rainbow Six film(s) will address.  I expect more militaristic bullying in foreign nations.

How To with John Wilson Season 1

2020, HBO - 6 episodes

The Pause, as Toasty calls it, has been a rough, rough time for everyone.  Some have had it very gently rough, while others have gotten very sick or lost loved ones.  There's been a definite mental tax we're all being charged (which some have refused to pay), and it seem the best we can truly do is just sit back, consume various forms of entertainment and try not to worry too much.  Despite production shutdowns, there's been no dearth of content to consume (and even if there was the massive backlog would certainly satiate the need for unseen content), and I've found a lot to enjoy along the way, but I don't know if there's been a whole lot I've been willing to love.  But I love How To with John Wilson.

I don't know a lot about the titular Wilson, except what is revealed in the show.  He is, or was, a cameraman working for one of the shopping networks in the states, which doesn't seem like a very fulfilling occupation.  He seems a little obsessive compulsive, the way he documents his entire life on these tightly gridded pocketbook pages.  He also seems to live behind his camera, recording life as it happens, and, presumably, cataloging it. Each episode of his show, How To... purports to be a tutorial on a specific subject, and while each episode starts with that intent, it rarely ends up that way. 

The structure of the show is mainly a densely edited collage of Wilson's compiled footage on the subject juxtaposed against captivating randomness, with Wilson narrating, musing over the subject (and often the visuals) as he goes.  The narration and the visuals are in their own sort of ballet, one always threatening to get away from the other, but neither does.  It's quite beautiful and meditative, often funny, frequently insightful and occasionally emotional. Invariably the subject of the episode gets away from Wilson as he stumbles upon a unique personality, or opportunity to explore a world he never knew about.  He finds himself with some truly bizarre people (like the episode about plastic furniture coverings which puddlejumps into someone's foreskin restoration basement business) but Wilson's own social anxiety and gentle demeanor never raise the stakes with these odder sort, and even if Wilson can't exactly relate to them, he still seems genuinely interested in what they're about.  

The final episode of the season, "How to cook the perfect risotto" is built around the beautiful relationship Wilson has with his elderly landlady, and his wanting to cook her her favourite food --risotto-- to repay her for her many kindnessess, but the story becomes something even more bittersweet as the early stages of the Pandemic hit and Wilson can't sit down to a meal with her, or watch Jeopardy with her every night.  When he calls from the second floor window - "Hey Mama" (she insists he call her "Mama") - their first potential contact in weeks, but she can't hear him because she elderly and hard of hearing, is one of the most affecting things I've watched in years, and really reinforces the loneliness that the pandemic has caused. (I now just randomly say "Hey Mama", but more "Hey Mowmow" to my kitty in the same cadence).  There's a beautiful ending to that story though, and it's so worth watching.  It's all worth watching.

Wilson's eye for capturing the unique and beautiful and strange is impressive, as is his ability to trim a clip to its perfect length.  He roams the streets of New York City and the show, even though it leaves the city more than once, is through and through a tribute to it and its radically diverse group of oddball denizens.  It really hits home how unique New York (tongue twister) is, how much I would never want to live there, and yet how kind of baffling and marvelous it is that it exists.

n Paragraphs: Devs

2020, Hulu - download

I could probably do a whole series on the rewatches I have blown through during the numerous Lockdowns or Stay At Home Orders we have had here in Ontario over the past year plus. But, as I have done so in the past numerous times, I created an imaginary line between that which I watch for the blog and that which I watch for my own no-agenda viewing pleasure. Or distraction. I find it odd that my brain does this, the separating of two groups, given that this blog is not a requirement for anyone or for any reason. But its my brain, and I have to deal with it. 

But one thing that stood out in my Lockdown viewing, and I have mentioned this already, is Ease of Viewing. I choose easy things, like my ongoing rewatch of Castle or Enterprise or Person of Interest. There are many shows I could be watching, and by could I mean shows I know I want to watch but for one excuse or another, I don't. My looked back at Devs and Westworld S03 and decided to actively choose them, to break my "easy" streak and wake up my brain. I am so glad I did with this series by Alex Garland (Ex Machina).

On the surface, Devs is about our fear of technology, more precisely the fear of big technology companies. Facebook is stealing our private data. Google is listening to us. Microsoft is putting trackers in our vaccines. These massive tech companies have access to mass amounts of money and technologies and we can only imagine what they do with those resources, in order to expand the mass amounts of money even further. Devs deals with one such company, Amaya, whose area of expertise seems to be smartphones and search engines, i.e. Google, but really it all seems to be funding their quantum computing research.

Most of these type of shows suffer from an economy of plot progression, but this shows dives right into the plot, as Serguei accepts a job in the inner circle of Amaya, the DEVS program, where in he discovers the Faraday Caged workspace, air gapped and in a maglev floating programming chamber all excruciatingly beautifully designed and mysterious. Serguei is not told what the project is, but almost immediately he sees something in the raw code that leaves him in awe. But Serguei is not who he pretends to be, and steals said code with his James Bond watch. The security head of Amaya, Kenton (Zach Grenier, Law & Order), and the head head of Amaya, Forest (Nick Offerman, Parks & Recreation) murder him for the act. His GF Lily (Sonoya Mizuno, Maniac) is shown evidence he committed suicide, but she doesn't accept it and begins her own investigation. This is just the first and second episodes.

In Garland's typical slow and deliberate manner (and no, this doesn't contradict what I said above, he doesn't rush, but he also doesn't supplement the space between plot points with filler content), we are exposed to what is actually going on inside DEVS and why it was so important, a software company would murder to protect it. They have used the ultimate in "big data" to create a predictive model of our world. And by "ultimate big data" I mean, the relational information that each and every single particle in our universe has with the next particle. It means they understand the entire universe down to its smallest component. The revolutionary quantum computer they created had an application that surpassed even their wildest dreams.

The simplest way to see what they have done, is that they can see the past, they can see the future, and they can see the present, in that they can also see any physical location. They can see everything. But it assumes that the universe is ENTIRELY deterministic, in that it is entirely based on the relationships between particles and everything we think of as free will or random is an illusion. In theory, what they see is the "simulation" of the time & place based on the relationships between the particles from now/here to there. This revelation/technology revolution utterly terrifies the members of DEVS but also excites them. Forest feels the need to control what they have unleashed, setting guidelines and rules. But of course, team members break the rules. But even then, in his mind, he accepts that it had to happen, as there was no choice.

Lilly represents the world of free will. Forest, and his assistant Katie (Alison Pill, Star Trek: Picard), represents a die-hard belief in determinism. Lilly is throwing all caution to the wind to find out what happened to Serguei, even when it presents more danger to her and those she loves. Those in Amaya "let" it happen because they know it will happen, and Forrest even seems at peace with it. But he has to be, as deep in his heart, if the world was not deterministic than a seemingly small variable took his wife and daughter from him, a variable he instigated.

I loved everything about this show, right down to what had to be a very controversial ending. This is Big Brain pondering about the capabilities of technology, but also about the philosophy of how our universe might be. Besides the ideas presented, the acting and pacing are just top notch. Sonoya Mizuno is just incredible, but then again, she is a stand out in everything I see her in. An amusing side-bit was that two of Sonoya's sisters, and her niece were also involved in the making of the mini-series. Of course, Nick Offerman is spectacular, and boy has Alison Pill come a long way from Sex Bob-Omb (sorry, rewatched Scott Pilgrim not so long ago). 

The post in Kent's universe is here where he also covers Westworld S3, which I will be covering soon, as well.

Series Minded: The Mission: Impossible Sextet

 [Series Minded is an irregular feature here at T&KSD, wherein we tackle the entire run of a film, TV, or videogame series in one fell swoop]

Mission: Impossible - 1996, d. Brian De Palma
Mission: Impossible 2 - 2000, d. John Woo
Mission: Impossible 3 - 2006, d. JJ Abrams
Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol - 2011, d. Brad Bird
Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation - 2015, d. Christopher McQuarrie
Mission: Impossible: Fallout - 2018, d. Christopher McQuarrie

Is there a more in-the-moment-amazing-but-afterwards-forgettable franchise than Mission: Impossible?  I enjoy --quite a bit, actually-- most of these films, yet, I've seen each one 2 or 3 times max over the series' now 25 years in existence.  They are not something I innately go back to nor have a strong drive to revisit repeatedly.  This past April was the first time I had ever sat down and watched them as a series, one movie per evening for six nights straight.  In doing so, however, my perception on the series has changed, quite a bit.

Until now, how I felt about Mission: Impossible was directly related to how I felt about Tom Cruise, as an actor, sure, but more as a persona and a public figure.  When the first move came out I was scratching 20 years old and Cruise was still in his melodramatic heartthrob phase.  I couldn't take him seriously.  While enjoyable, I though Mission:Impossible was ego-driven to a fault, taking a TV series about a team, and making it about one man: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt.

The second film, four years later, was most notable not for its stunts or John Woo's direction, or

anything related to Cruise, but rather the film that (thankfully) kept Dougray Scott from becoming Wolverine in the X-Men franchise.  Cruise in the year 2000 was coming out of his dalliances with auteurs, with Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia netting him another Oscar nom and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut virtually consuming his life (and then-wife Nicole Kidman's) for the better part of two years, with both releasing in 1999.  A that point, nobody (well, speaking for myself) was thinking Tom Cruise: Action Hero, and John Woo presents Tom Cruise with Guns wasn't really anything I was eager to see. Early buzz was that it was a troubled production, which is never a good thing. The commercials showing him with his late-'90s floppy mop (which looks conspicuously like my 2021 COVID hair) and bizarre flying motorcycle gunfight seemed like a warning which I did not heed. M:I2 was incredibly successful financially, but lambasted critically.  

It would be 6 years before another Mission: Impossible would emerge, and by that point Cruise had become rather prominently know as a Scientologist, and that batshit Oprah Winfrey appearance where he jumped up and down on her couch proclaiming how much he was in love with Katie Holmes (a woman 16 years his junior, then still seen as perhaps too young a starlet)...yeah...that happened just before M:I III  came out.  Between MI movies he starred in Vanilla Sky, Minority Report and War of the Worlds, all films I didn't like very much, as well as Collateral which I begrudgingly though was good and Cruise was good in. I was never really in on Cruise, but at this point in his career and the M:I series I was decidedly out on him.  I didn't see M:I III until a decade later.

Mission:Impossible Ghost Protocol released with an excitement around it that Cruise hadn't had in 15 years.  Brad Bird, hopping from Pixar animation into live action for the first time brought...well, not quite a sense of cartoonish reality, but a hyper-reality to the series.  Bird's The Incredibles was as much a spy movie as it was a superhero movie and a family, and he brings all three of those sensibilities with him.  There was also the inkling that maybe Ghost Protocol would be the passing of the torch, where Cruise would be handing the series over (or at least stepping back a bit) to a new team led by always-a-bridesmaid Jeremy Renner, but, because it had such a huge reception, Cruise just doubled down on his stardom. 

The other thing about Ghost Protocol was Chris McQuarrie helping out on the story, recentering the series back on Cruise rather than write him out.  Cruise worked with McQuarrie on Valkyrie and Jack Reacher and it seems that McQuarrie is either being rewarded for his loyalty or Cruise just gets that McQuarrie gets him.

Between M:I GP and M:I  Rogue Nation another 4 years later a second very critical thing happened: Edge of Tomorrow (which we'll be covering in T&K Go Loopty Loo very shortly).  Written by McQuarrie,  Edge of Tomorrow served a very critical role (pun intended) in Cruise's career: it was an active display of humility. Early in the film Cruise portrays a coward, and his cowardice gets him killed, but due to alien science, he starts living the day over again, resetting every time he dies.  Watching Cruise die over and over again was quite cathartic as a view, especially for someone who never really cared for him too much. By the end of the film he's become a very competent soldier (but only because he knows what's going to happen...he knows how to play the video game that is his life) but he also finds humility, courage, and purpose.  Like the Phoenix, he was reborn, over and over again, into a legit action star.  Forget Mission: Impossible 1-4, Edge of Tomorrow is what solidified him into an action lead.  

What basically works with the Mission: Impossible series that differentiates it from the Bond series is that, starting with the third movie, it builds an personal arc for Ehant Hunt that carries through four films.  For Rogue Nation Cruise enlisted Chris McQuarrie as both writer and director.  He returned for Fallout, which was a first time for a director, and also for the first time, they brought the entire team back (except Renner who was unable to return due to Hawkeye stuff) from the previous film, with heavy continuity, not only with Rogue Nation but the entire series being very tight and satisfying.

What differentiates Mission: Impossible from nearly any other action series is, of course, Cruise himself, and his insistence on performing some pretty spectacular, death-defying stunts.  His physicality becomes increasingly insane as the series progresses, and it's all the more impressive considering he's in his mid-50's when shooting Fallout.   I wonder if the the films are insured out the wazoo, or if insurance won't even touch them because the risk of Cruise actually dying is too high.  The rock climbing in Moab, scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, hanging onto the exterior of an airbus aeroplane, the underwater sequence, halo jumping and even just his long running takes, or jumping across rooftops or freeing himself from a pole.  Even though we know as a viewer that Cruise the actor, not Ethan Hunt the character is the one putting their life on the line in these crazy sequences, somehow it not only doesn't take us out of the film, it draws us in even more and holds onto us even tighter.  We invest in watching Tom Cruise not die so that Ethan Hunt can live and save the day.  In an era of tireless fight sequences and superheroes who seem indestructible, Cruise's physicality isn't limited to stunts.  He plays wounded and fatigued better than anyone.  His physical performance adds weight to the actions he does, showing that exerting so much energy does take its toll.  Likewise, his face conveys a vulnerability, often an incredulous expression as if he can't believe he needs to keep going after what just happened.  He'll often take down a bad guy only to have to keep fighting and you can see on his face that he really doesn't want to, but he will.  It's very charming.  Far more charming than anything he does as a romantic lead.  That sense of incredulity is about as relatedly human as Cruise ever gets.

So what about these movies.  I've gone on for multiple paragraphs now... how about six more? One per film:

good poster

Mission:Impossible
Okay, so my 11-year-old daughter actually sat down to watch this with us.  I mean, she literally sat there and watched it with us.  No phone or Nintendo Switch distractions.  She never does that anymore. She had a lot of questions, but it's a super-spy movie, there are always going to be questions.  This one is literally a classic in the genre though.  I still cringe every time I see Emilio Estevez's death.  The much parodied descent into the secure chamber is still an exceptionally tense and thrilling sequence.  You forget how squirrelly Jean Reno is but he's so wonderful.  That sequence in the Chunnel? So good.  It's really edge-of-the-seat stuff, so eye catching and very engaging.  De Palma's style is all over this and it's fantastic.  Of all the mid-90's action films, this has the most individuality.  Even my old assessment that this is just a showboat piece where Cruise demands to be the centerpiece isn't wholly true, as there are a lot of great character actors in this who bring a lot to making the film work.  I don't think they knew at that time what they wanted this franchise to be but even in hindsight it does feel like a very apropos beginning.

Mission:Impossible 2

awful poster

It's just a hot garbage movie so laden with 90's-isms that are the cringe-iest of cringe. John Woo's action sensibilities just don't fit with the series or the genre.  He's an action director, not a spy thriller director.  While the M:I spy movies have some big-time action set pieces, it also needs to have a qualified touch dramatically, and the drama is never sold here.  It's always too much.  At the end of the first M:I Ethan Hunt basically said he was going to retire, and this picks up with him free climbing one of the most difficult rock faces in the world.  I don't get the sense this is retirement.  Anthony Hopkins is stunt-casted as the new head of the Impossible Mission Force (IMF), and it's so out of place.  It's got all-the-wrong-choices sequel-itis.  Its choice of villain in Dougray Scott couldn't be less impressive.  He's such an uninteresting presence on screen.  Thandiwe Newton, however, is as amazing as she always is, well, given what she's got to work with.  She's enlisted to the mission, we think because of her cat burglar skills, only to learn it's because she's Dougray Scott's ex, and she can get close.  It also doesn't help that Woo's lens though is far too leering.  It's not even an admiring leer, it's lascivious, and as great as Newton is, the way her character is handled visually and in the story is all pretty discomforting.  Plus, the chemistry between Cruise and Newton is never really there, you never believe the connection they're supposed to have.  Even the action is largely ridiculous, and not in a good way.  It's overblown and hyper-stylized in a way that none of the other films in the series are.  The car ballet or motorcycle-fu of it all just feels silly and sadly like the only thing it has going for it.  Really, the only good thing about this film is it's so easy to skip when rewatching the series.  It has no impact.  It's an anomaly, a failed experiment best placed aside.

Mission:Impossible III

not a good poster

I just watched this film a couple weeks ago and I've all but forgotten it again.  It's an enjoyable movie, but largely unmemorable.  JJ Abrams' debut feature film does everything it needs to do, but in spite of it all, it has no staying power.  The style is another wild deviation from what came before it, into a gritty, grounded realism, lots of handheld camerawork, with a graininess and grittiness to it both visually and story-wise.  If you skip past M:I2 and jump into III directly after M:I we find Ethan Hunt engaged and domesticated, which seems like it would only work if he was basically retired.  But Hunt is pulled away on an impossible mission (given a team consisting of Ving Rhames, once again the only holdover, plus Maggie Q and John Rhys Myers, with Billy Crudup and Laurence Fishburne being the chain of command they report to) to hunt down ... Philip Seymour Hoffman? Yeah, PSH is the bad guy in this and he bring a scary level of intensity that makes Cruise raise his game considerably.  Not that Cruise was sleepwalking through these by any extent, but Hoffman just brings a weight and severity to his role as an arms dealer completely unimpressed by Hunt and team's interference in his operations.  Hoffman's character's way of dealing with Hunt is by making it personal, kidnapping his fiance and torturing the both of them.  Michelle Monaghan plays the eventual Mrs. Hunt, and she is sort of the spectre that haunts Ethan for the next three films, even though they both survive. This film sets up the next three very adeptly, not just with Ethan dealing with the "fallout" of his inability to make his marriage work, but with the wonderful introduction of Simon Pegg as Benji, who becomes an integral part of IMF after this.

Mission:Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Now this is how you sell an
impossible mission

Just dynamite, the best of the series so far.  It starts with breaking Ethan out of jail, leads to infiltrating the Kremlin before parts of it blow up, then takes us to Dubai for a solid 40 minutes of incredible action and spy stuff, including a foot-turned-car chase through a sand storm that may be my favourite chase sequence.  The film really relies upon, and invests in its team, giving Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton plenty to do while Cruise is recovering from trying to kill himself in the most entertaining ways possible.  The villain, a crazy man looking to advance society by starting a nuclear apocalyse, isn't the most compelling but the final battle in a vertical car park is just nuts (and wrecking all those luxury cars must have been expensive as hell).  Everything and everyone in this is firing on all cylinders, and it's just delightful.  Bird's direction isn't tangibly flashy, but he gets scale and it feels epic throughout. The film even features a coda that cameos both Rhames (unable to return due to scheduling) and Monaghan, which is just the sweetest thing about it, that it remembered its past when it so easily could have just let it pass.  If there is anything disappointing about this movie it's that it opens with a very cool action sequence with Josh Hollaway (Sawyer from Lost) and they promptly kill him off.  He's so picture perfect and Bird uses him so well, you could see him being the star, and then the rug is pulled out.  It's also sad that Patton doesn't return.  She proved herself an awesome screen presence here, and very adept at looking cool doing spy and actiony stuff, and it's like she just disappeared after this without explanation.

Mission:Impossible: Rogue Nation

you can sell an impossible
mission this way too

The team is back, sadly minus Paula Patton, but with more Luther.  Renner is kind of stuck in boring bureaucratic mode, which seems like a clear rebuke of the idea that he would be taking over the series from Cruise.  Instead Rebecca Ferguson dazzles as Ilsa Faust (such a great name), the mysterious woman working for the bad guy, but clearly not working for the bad guy.  Ferguson is so good it's quite easy to overlook just how underdeveloped her character is in this.  There's a strange moment where Ilsa offers Ethan to run away with her and escape the spy life for as long as they can possibly elude their respective agencies, but until that moment there's not a hint of romantic spark.  Faust's desire is to do what she can so she can come in from the cold, go back to London instead of having to do awful things to keep proving herself to the bad guy.  That bad guy is the unassuming Sean Harris, an ex-MI5 agent who has developed a whole Syndicate of rogue agents used will seed chaos on a global scale.  It seems that a lot of effort has gone into countering the work they do, while even more effort has gone into dealing with the fallout of their actions.  The film finds Hunt yet again going rogue, with the Impossible Mission Force shut down by a new director played by Alec Baldwin.  Overall this one is super fun, but the story is as muddy as they come.

Mission:Impossible: Fallout

and if you just want to do
character posters of the pretty
people, that works too

Though Renner had to bail, the IMF is back. Baldwin is, somehow, the first returning director of IMF (though not for long). Baldwin gets a rival in Angela Bassett(!?!) as the director of the CIA.  She forces one of her men, played by SUPERMAN Henry Cavill (!?!), onto the IMF mission to root out the new head of a fractured Syndicate.  Cavill's presence here is undeniably my favourite part.  He's so much taller than Cruise, so much more rugged, so much burlier than him, and sporting the infamous moustache (that had to be CGI-ed out of Justice League) that he's the most striking presence in all of this series, one that has had some of the most exceptionally beautiful and charismatic people adorn it. Of course, at some point the two of them have to come to blows, and of course Cruise just wants to prove he can beat Superman if he had to.  But Ilsa Faust is back, in a role that's maybe 2% more confusing than her role in Rogue Nation, wich seems like an unfortunate step backword, and yet, all the credit to Ferguson, she's perhaps even cooler and more winning in this one.  If there's a future for the franchise without Cruise, it's gotta be Ilsa Faust.  Another first, Sean Harris is back, he's still the leader of all those rogue agents, and his plans are both global and personal...he has big plans for the world, but they also include getting some very personal blows in on Ethan Hunt.  As a direct sequel to Rogue Nation it's great, even better than the first.  As a part of the M:I series it's also awsome, bringing it all together with a tight little bow.  

Rank'em

1. M:I Ghost Protocol
2. Mission:Impossible
3. M:I Fallout
4. M:I Rogue Nation
5. M:I III
   M:I2 only ranks because it smells.
   
   

T&K Go Loopty Loo: Legends of Tomorrrow

[Toast and Kent love time loop stories.  With this "Loopty Loo" series, T&K explore just what's happening in a film or TV show loop, and maybe over time, they will deconstruct what it is that makes for a good time loop. Also, we forgot this for a few posts, so consider this a new loop where its back.]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 11, "Here I Go Again"

[Toast] Full disclosure. I really don't watch this show, but when I walk in while The Peanut Gallery is watching, I sit down and watch the episode, doing my best to not, "Who's that? What's going on?" That said, I have probably seen most of the episodes. To the uninformed, it is a spin-off the DC Comics "Berlantiverse" that includes all those CW superhero shows like Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl. Its a much more wacky show with an ensemble cast all flying around in a time-traveling space ship fighting monsters, magic and getting up to hijinx all over time and creation.

[Kent] Full disclosure, I did watch the show (and have written about it multiple times ) and enjoyed it quite a bit for what it was, but I also never really got past what I wanted it to be, which was a forum for introducing many different DC heroes and villains and stories and concepts from the comics.  It forged its own path and became its own thing outside of the DC Universe trappings, heck mostly outside the Berlantiverse/Arrowvers/DCCWverse trappings.  It abandoned superheroes to be a dicordant mix of cheeky time-travel sci-fi and darkly magical fantasy.  The cast was always game but the more it ventured away from superheroes (by season 4, with the exception of crossovers, it had all but abandoned its supehero nature) it just wasn't something that excited me, even though it did entertain me.  As well, the end of Arrow for some reason also ended my interest in most of the DCCW shows.  At this point, late in the third season, it's already shedded much of that superheroicness, and it's working on shedding any continuity outside of the immediate cast of characters.

How did the Loop Begin?

[Toast] Zari, a character from an alternate dystopian future who bears a magical "wind totem" is on the spaceship Waverider while the team goes on an adventure that involves disco and the battle of Waterloo, cuz that's the sort of thing they do. Zari was left behind to do a diagnostic on the ship's AI Gideon. Instead Zari futz's around with a program mod of her own, a simulation, so she can find a way to alter the timeline in order to save her brother. Changing the future is considered a bad thing.

She gets some time goo sprayed in her face and then the ship blows up, ala ST:tNG "Cause and Effect". And Zari is back at the beginning being yelled at by ship captain Sara Lance.

Later in the loop we find Gary, the nerdy agent of the Time FBI in the trash compactor with some sort of time loop doohickey because he became aware of the ship blowing up (because, Time FBI) so he created a loop to give the crew time to figure out what blew up. But that never explains why only Zari experiences it.

And then finally we learn that its all a simulation created by the meddlesome AI Gideon, actually a successful implementation of Zari's original simulation program but meant to expose her to the crew over and over and over until she learns to work better with them. 

Kind of cruel if you ask me. But it works and they all become best buds.

[Kent] I'm glad you explained that and not me.  It's a really good summary.  I think if I were explaining it, I'd either get too deep in the weeds on the history of Legends or I would have stripped it down to two sentences, worried that I was overexplaining things.  You struck a nice balance.

I guess I would only say that the "time goo" is Zari is working on the ship when one of its hoses squirts her in the mouth with the time goo.  I like the luminescent effect it had on the actress Tala Ashe's mouth.  But I had to wonder... doesn't putting that tube back with a big air bubble in the time goo cause problems?

[Toast] Maybe it did ! Thus the REAL reason for the time loop ;)

What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop?

[Toast] The initial reaction is the typical one, in that she is somewhat confused. But soon after she realizes what is going on and seeks assistance. And being who they all are, they immediately get it, and help.

[Kent] Right, it goes back to the whole point Gideon was trying to make with her... as she systematically starts to trust the other characters to help her.  And yeah, I mean, they've been time travelers for three years now, some of them, so of course they'll get it.

WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop?

[Toast] Well, its all a simulation created by a spaceship AI while Zari sits sleeping in a chair in the med-bay.

No, nobody can be brought into the loop as its not a real loop.

[Kent] Heh, yeah, even within the simulation she couldn't bring someone else in the loop with her because it's not designed for such an occurrence.

How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?

[Toast] The loop is about one hour. We assume the reset is triggered by the ship blowing up. But considering its all a simulation, I assume Zari can trigger an early reset by just being "dead" or unconscious.

[Kent] For the most part, Zari runs through the hour and the ship blows up and the loop resets.  At one point her and Ray (The Atom) shrink down to spy on Sara thinking maybe it's something she did that blows up the ship only to be mistaken for flies and get swatted with a magazine (ostensibly dying) and the loop resetting.

How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any affect on them, their personality, their outlook?

[Toast] She stays in the loop long enough to feel the existential dread of going through it one more time, enough dread to want to shoot herself in the head, hoping it can be ended by her own self-inflicted death. She also stays in the loop long enough to learn how to play the violin most beautifully. So yes, experience in the simulation is retained.

Zari is initially seen as somewhat self-centered, focused only on her own goals, to save her brother, to change the future so things are not as dystopian as what she lived through. She doesn't feel connected to the rest of the crew. But by the end she has learned to love each of the crew members, including the incredibly irascible Mick Rory, once the villain Heat Wave, who she discovers is writing really really bad scifi erotica. But not before she or Nate are injured or maimed by Mick's booby traps.

Amusingly enough each secret or heart felt aspect of each person she learns of is real. I guess Gideon is aware of everything going on inside her hull, whether the crew is aware of it or not.

[Kent] If you look on IMDB, the actress playing Gideon (Amy Louise Pemberton, who we see as a person only twice in the entire series, I believe) is right behind Caity Lotz (Sara/White Canary) in number of appearances in the show. So Gideon has been there from the beginning as the ship's AI, and she knows kind of everything about the characters.   In fact, maybe I'm wrong, but they use Gideon to alert them to blips in the timeline, which may mean she knows pretty much everything about the entire history of everything?  I dunno.  She smart.

What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware?  Does anything happen if they become aware?

[Toast] They aren't initially but this is a smart crew (simulated crew) quite used to wacky, weird things going on, so they adjust pretty quickly. The first person she goes to is Nate, known to be nerdy and pop culture dialed in. Of course, almost immediately he references it as a "Groundhog Day" event, which she is completely unware of, being from a dystopian future. Also, as soon as Ray learns of the loop, that the ship is blowing up, he references "Cause and Effect" which made me LOL. Smart crew.

Nate, in this aspect, is us (as in, me and Kent, fans of time loops) and when he sees on her face that she is starting to suffer under the weight of the repeated, deadly loops, he suggests some time off, and we get the "fun montage". I absolutely love that Nate gets it instantly, but once Zari gains more confidence in her relationships with the rest of the crew she brings them in and soon everyone is helping investigate, albeit with difference focuses depending on the Loop and who she focuses on.

[Kent] I couldn't help but think of Morgan from back when we looked at  The Mindy Project time loop... I was just expecting it to shorthand to Zari saying "Groundhog Day" and Nate saying "I'm in."

But yeah, Nate is definitely our stand in, the guy who is completely thrilled by the idea of being in a time loop, even if he's not the one looping.  Although it was not planned at all, when the character Maisie Richardson-Sellers is playing in this episode (Amaya/Vixen) leaves the crew (Richardson-Sellers then takes on a different non-DCU shapeshifter character), Nate and Zari wind up hooking up, and this really sets the stage for that I think, even though it was meant as strictly platonic time-loop friends.  But oh, wait, it's not real.... but for Zari it is.  But is Gideon that good at predicting people's behaviour (or just her knowledge of the future at play).  Sorry, just let the nerd out.

[Toast] That IS the point of writing these posts :D

[Kent] I also enjoyed Ray trying to "well actually" Nate about the fact that "Cause and Effect" predated Groundhog Day.  Such nerds.

What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?

[Toast] Zari always thinks the people are the real people. There are no NPCs in this scenario.

[Kent] There is a moment of despair there where she thinks nothing matters, but she comes back around through the help of her happy time-travel pals.

Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop?

[Toast] Honestly, the most fun is had with the Rory and the space opera erotica novel. That he has so many horrible booby traps keeping people away from his type writer just cracks me up. Also, a quick scene with Zari standing behind  two characters with their lines on cue cards was worth a snort.

[Kent] The nerd in me liked Zari putting on everyone's costumes... including Hawkgirl's (who left after dragging season 1 way, way down).  But you're right, the reveal of Rory's trashy sci-fi romance novel was a great reveal (and pays dividends for the character from here on out, in case you may have thought it just a cute one-off joke).

How does this stack up in the subgenre?

[Toast] It is a good meta-example of the subgenre, in that its less about the time loop itself, given that it was a double-blind fakeout, and more about the trope. But that fakeout also makes it a let down. She was never really in any danger, existentially or not, and I am sure Gideon would have let her out before damaging Zari's mind to any extent. 

[Kent] Right!  I remembered liking this episode, but forgot about the fact that it wasn't a real time loop.  This is a time travel show, there should be time loops like, once a season.  It is disappointing.  For the character needing to embrace being part of the team, I think it delivers the point pretty well.  It's like the writers wrote themselves into a corner with how to resolve the loop and the explosion (I loved Gary crawling out of the trash compactor with the time loop doohickey as an explanation for the loop) even though it doesn't seem that complex a problem to write your way out of. 

Overall, it's fun, but middle-of-the-road. I don't think any episode of a TV show will rank high in the subgenre by sheer fact that there has to be some investment in the show in order for the overall story to have its greatest impact.

n Paragraphs: Nobody

 2021, Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) -- download

So, here I am about three weeks later, two of which were weeks of lying on the sofa or in bed fighting fevers, body aches, fatigue and a cough, two weeks of not being allowed outside. While social media is full of people having booked their vaccine, I left my social media feed empty of my own news -- having tested positive for COVID19. And showing symptoms. I didn't need to drive that sort of viewership. But I need to write about it, so here it is as I relate some of my viewing habits while on the sofa. Some, not all.

There hasn't been a lot of New Content being absorbed by me when the only thing to do was to absorb content. My brain hasn't allowed for much of an absorption factor. TONS of rewatching has been going on, but easy stuff, best-loved stuff, stuff I won't be writing about. But I knew this action flick, which I runs down the lane of John Wick with Bob Odenkirk was coming soon, and would be generally easily absorbed. And I was pretty much correct.

"There’s a long-dormant piece of me now awake that wants so very badly to play this out...."

Its a line that stood out for me, in the teaser, from earlier this year. Odenkirk's character Hutch is relating it to a bad guy. He's more talkative than Wick but they both share ultra-violent pasts which they tried to bury. And both of them are driven to pull that person they once were out for another spin. At least Hutch doesn't see his dog killed, but they do threaten his family, the family he obviously has built a life for, even if that life has begun to suffer the doldrums of suburban mediocrity. His kids don't respect him, his wife sleeps with a pillow barrier between them and he does the same boring bus commute every single day. And every week, he pretty much forgets to take the garbage out. Then some barely capable burglars attempt to rob his house, getting nothing but they draw his ire... almost. Just when he seems capable of exploding, he pulls back and his son takes a punch. The last straw for Hutch's family. And for Hutch.

Hutch is not only a man suppressing a violent past, but also a man suppressing a very violent now. Its coiled up inside him and he is very adept at keeping the lion at bay. When he lets it go, his wrath is visited upon some Russian gangsters who blunder onto the bus Hutch is riding. Some bone crushing moments later, most of the gangsters are unconscious and one is dying, despite Hutch's effort to assist. He went too far. He assaulted the wrong Russian gangsters. We know where this goes next.

There are some beauties of ultra-violence in this movie, but there are also some very farcical scenes. While this movie is not the stylish ballet of bullets and death that John Wick was, it does have its own sense of working man style. Being shot in Winnipeg really helped out here, as this looks like no movie you have scene, like no city we are familiar with. I see a grand role for the Peg to play in future thrillers. Unfortunately, the tenuous grip the movie has on style is entirely dropped in the third act, much as Hutch himself drops any pretense of having been a mere suburban working man. The movie degrades into a body count mirrored in 80s muscle bound action flicks, making as little sense as they did. But for the level of focus I had at the time, it was a perfect choice, somewhat fever driven, somewhat easy to digest but with a lot of impact.

Horror, Not Horror: Trifecterror

 "Horror, Not Horror" movies are those that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold.  I'm not a big horror fan, but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.

She Dies Tomorrow (2020, d. Amy Seimetz) - AmazonPrime
Love and Monsters (aka "Monster Problems" -  2020, d. Michael Matthews) - Netflix
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020, d. Jim Cummings [not the famous voice actor]) - Crave

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This pandemic-laden reality we're living in is taking its toll, not just in lives lost, but in life lost, as in the time we're losing from being able to do much of anything in the name of keeping ourselves (and just as importantly, others) safe... or as safe as possible.  There are, of course, those radical "freedom fighters" who refuse to lock down or mask up or get vaccinate because "liberties", whatever that means, when in reality all they're doing is putting themselves and others at risk of catching this miserable virus, and prolonging the time it's going to take to try and establish the "new normal".  Looking around the world, at the places that got their shit together... Australia, Israel, China among others... that are finding their new normal right now, and comparing them to the worst case scenarios like India, Brazil, and even the not-quite-yet worst case scenarios like Canada, and it's hard not to let the mind spiral into doomsday thoughts.  I give into that temptation too often, and it's beyond even depressing, it's just too massive to even contemplate except through the lens of what I've seen in film and television.  We have a virus that, anywhere it's allowed to run rampant, starts mutating, and the mutations become more easily transmittable with our newly established vaccinations being less effective.  At a certain point, your brain becomes numb to these thoughts and you become resigned to the fact that maybe things have gone south.

She Dies Tomorrow, from writer/director (and actress, but not in this one) Amy Seimetz, effectively captures this existential sense of looming dread in a story that finds one character telling another character how certain they are that they will not live beyond the following day, and soon that person starts to feel the same way, telling someone else, who tells someone else, who tells someone else, and so on and so on.  The film was not made about the pandemic.  It was more a manifestation of Seimetz's anxiety attacks, but it fits so well for the current cultural narrative.  Even before COVID, it resonates with thoughts of the environmental turmoil, divisive political and societal structures, and the prevalence of feeling-based belief systems that cause people to act very irrationally that all kind of feel very foreboding. 

The spread of this thinking acts like a contagion and before long it's everywhere, and there doesn't appear to be any effort to turn it around.   It's not necessarily horrific, and at times there's a very black barb of comedy situated just underneath, but at the same time there's always a weight to it.  I think, especially these days, its easy enough to emphasize with someone who is absolutely convinced that something is the truth, despite any physical evidence.  Likewise it's easy to emphasize with the people they're encountering who try to handle this news as best as they can, with either placation, sympathy, frustration or vehement rejection.  The scariest thing is that there's no resolution here, and no "cure" for what is affecting them.  One character tries to experience joy, another just tries to continue working, others just panic, still others just get stoned and mellow out.  There's a broad spectrum.

Having stared anxiety attacks in the face, I know how hard it is to reassure someone that everything is okay when their brain can only tell them the worst case scenario is the only outcome.  In that regard, the film finds its allegory well, but it feels so much bigger than one mind, by the sheer fact that it's contagious dread.

The faces here are all "that guy(*cough*) person" quite familiar - Kate Lyn Sheil (You're Next), Jane Adams (Eternal Sunshine...), Chris Messina (Birds of Prey), Katie Astleton (Legion), Tunde Adebimpe (Marriage Story), and each has their own experience with feeling their impending end is coming.   This also isn't John Dies At The End in which the title acts as some arch spoiler for the film, instead it's more the thesis.  

I liked this.  It's not very long at 84 minutes, but it does what it sets out to do effectively in that time.  Seimetz's production style feels very guerilla, but there are moments of visual inspiration which signal much bigger things to come from her.

But, we ask, is it horror?
Going to have to say no, it never quite gets there, but it's just on the other side of line.  It's like it's looking in the direction of horror but shying away from really going there.

---

I had completely forgotten that Toasty had written about Love and Monsters when I watched it.  I mean, he wrote about it back in October during his annual 31 Days of Halloween and Netflix announced it as a new release mid April of this year while also touting it as a Netflix film.  It only got more bizarre when, through my cable provider, it was promoting the film as a new release only under the title "Monster Problems" (which apparently was its original title up until *just* before it's VOD and limited theatrical release last year).  It was all such a bizarre thing.

It was a very disarming watch, because the title seemed to insinuate another eye-rolling teenage romance in a genre setting, and it opens with, basically, a virtual apocalypse.  Without going into specifics (Toasty goes more into it in his review) what's left of humanity huddles in caves and missile silos and fallout shelters and the like, away from the surface where the fauna of Earth has mutated into gigantic creatures, most of which are keen on humans as snack food. Now, this sounds pretty dire, and it should feel pretty dire, but the film adopts a pithy, light-touch voiceover from our main character, Joel, played by the most average-y average early-20's white guy Dylan O'Brien (The Maze Runner).  That's not a diss, but a credit to O'Brien making Joel out to be a supremely average, if not just subtly below-average guy, as was necessitated by the script.  Joel needs to be a shaky, nervous, unaccomplished type in order to make his adventure seem that much bolder and grander.  The actual explanation for the apocalypse as presented in the film is 100% comic-book science, and man do I love it.  It's like "this is our idea, it's completely implausible, but just don't worry about that, we're gonna have some fun".

And we do.

That adventure finds him leaving the comfort (well...barely comfortable) surroundings of an old missile silo, where he has a makeshift family of other survivors roughly the same age as him... only they are all paired off and seem much more capable adults than he is.  After 7 years of searching the CB radio dial for other survivor colonies he finds the one where his old high school girlfriend, Aimee (Iron Fist's Jessica Henwick), has made refuge and makes the bold choice to trek to the coast to be with her.

This puts Joel on the surface where he encounters plenty of monsters, makes friends who teach him a few things and of course winds up at his destination only to find that what's waiting for him is not what he expected.

I really dug the adventure here.  The creature designs were delightful... intimidating but cool.  The next step from taking a real animal and making it gargantuan and mutated was handled so well, since nature would be pretty intimidating if humanity suddenly dropped a half dozen rungs down the food chain ladder.  I also liked that the film dealt with Joel's unhealthy fixation on Aimee and his inability to move on.  For Joel, it was all he had left from his old life, and the only hope he had for the future, which is a lot to put on someone.  It's only when he arrives at his destination that he realizes this, but the fact that he does indeed realize it, and on his own no less, was certainly a welcome touch.  There's a fine line between grand romantic gestures and unhealthy obsession and this film understands that sometimes they're one and the same.  But it gets to the root of that unhealthy obsession and addresses it.

The third act is, as with any post-apocalyptic scenario, the usual third act, where the worst thing the survivors have to face is other survivors.  It's the unfortunate reality, that the worst people will likely do anything it takes to survive, even if it means fucking over the rest of humanity.  But this typical story is usually presented as horror, where here it's more kind of high adventure and even comedy.  That unusual pithy tone and laissez-fair attitude towards the post-apocalypse seemed like such an odd choice for the first two acts but pays off nicely in the Goonies-style finale.

My favourite part of the film is that Joel, a terrible artist in high school, has become a rather excellent one 7 years later.  He puts his talent to use creating a monster field guide, which I would love to see a copy of. 

This isn't a huge movie, a big record-breaking blockbuster, but it's a delightful, fun, spirited, genre-laden PG-13-style adventure film that just stimulates my geek brain and I will definitely be coming back to on regular occasions.  Despite it's Po-Ap surroundings, it's a warm, welcoming, and vibrant movie that welcomes you along for the ride.

Yeah, but is it horror?
Not so much.  It's "horror" in the same way, like, Godzilla movies were horror.  In that they're not really horror at all, but at the root there is a horror concept, it's just not executed to horrify, but to entertain and excite.

---

In that same 31 Days of Halloween, Toasty reviewed The Wolf of Snow Hollow, and unlike Love and Monsters, that one did stick in my brain. Seriously, go read his review and try not to be intrigued by Toast's perplexed and somewhat impressed response (the last paragraph's a spoiler though).

I think I was expecting something even weirder that this, but, even still, it's plenty weird.  Actually, I think I was expecting something differently weird.  This one's weird is... (I'm fighting so hard not to say "weird" right now) certainly unexpected.  Toast's review alludes to writer/director/lead star Jim Cummings' very off-kilter performance and that's the centerpiece of this film's weirdness.  The film opens with a series of panoramic shots over the credits that alternate between normal vistas and an upside-down vantage point, signifying things are going to be regularly turned on its head in this one.  We spend time with a young couple on a romantic engagement getaway, only to have the woman be murdered...or perhaps attacked by a wolf or creature.  We're introduced to Cumming's character, John, at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where he offers up an unpleasant "what I'd like to do to my ex-wife" scenario that is even more disturbing given that he's the Sheriff of Snow Hollow (well, technically his dad - the late, great Robert Forster - is the Sheriff but he's got a heart condition he's not dealing with which causes John no end of anxiety).

When we see John in action at the murder scene, it's just dizzying layers of interaction, with John talking to all his fellow deputies and his father and others, and it's a fine line whether John's in charge or just being an asshole.  The weight of the murder and the investigation and his father's neglected illness, as well as negotiating his teenage daughter sends John to his breaking point and he starts drinking again.  And once John starts drinking, the film is told in the abstract narrative of a drunk, with random thoughts, memories, fears entering his consciousness while he's trying to focus on work and family and everything.  The reality is, his drinking affects everything and the portrait here is of a man a slave to his devices but so desperate to give the appearance of being in control.  But his sense of control, especially at work, seems simply reckless. He fires more than one person throughout the investigation, mainly because John, well, he's kind of an asshole, even more so when he's drunk.

There's a quasi-murder mystery underneath all this, but it's just one of the driving factors in John's story, it's not the only story and it's not the main story.  That the film doesn't even really give us the option of piecing together the mystery or devising our own suspect list speaks to the fact that it's not playing at a true murder mystery.  Couple that with the fact that it point blank shows us a wolfman attacking a couple of his victims (and only when there's a full moon) only heightens the fact that something supernatural may in fact be occurring.  But John only entertains the idea of werewolves in trying to understand where the origin of the myth comes from.  In fact, the film holds back *just* enough to keep John on the table as a suspect without anyone ever verbalizing it.  I think Cummings did that intentionally, to leave the audience just *hoping* that it's not John, because that would be a bad twist.

Turns out there's no twist here, except to say that John is an alcoholic, maybe even a functional alcoholic, and this film is a murder mystery and family drama and irreverant black comedy that shows how that disease gets in the way of someone who want to be in control of everything actually having no control at all.

The real hero of the film is Riki Lindhome's Detective Julia Robson, who, were this a season of Fargo would be the absolute lead of this thing. 

Can it be horror though?
Maybe a little.  Where She Dies Tomorrow never thinks about jumping over the line into anything outright horror, The Wolf of Snow Hollow steps over the line cheekily like a child stepping past the yellow line on the subway platform then quickly stepping back like they did something really daring.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Raya and the Last Dragon

 2021, Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada -- Disney+

Kent has already done some recent posts about classic Disney animations, and I have not finished watching our latest Loopty Loo choice, so I thought I would grab MY two animations from the Upcoming Posts bin. Also, pending, Snyderfuss, as I have to write that post with the video (re)playing next to me because 4 chaotic hours does not lend itself to cohesive memories. This standard fare Disney CGI animation and a more traditional animation venture from Apple TV (Wolfwalkers) bookend nicely against Kent's classic views.

Fantasy, to my cis white male world, has always been pseudo-European. Think Lord of the Rings, Shannara and D&D where all the main characters are white, and the Bad Guys are often depicted as foreign or at least foreign looking. But, other countries must want to do fantasy (easy definition? swords, magic, fantastic creatures) and not just find themselves beholden to historical, albeit often fantastical, fiction? I am saying, if LotR is not set in "real Europe", then why would other culture's examples have to be? That is a long way of coming round to saying Raya does not take place in Historical China as I first thought it did, based on the trailers, but in a more fantastical version of all of East Asia, in lands surrounding a vast river system in the shape of a dragon called Kumandra. All of the familiar East Asian cultures are represented in one form or another. Neat! 

Kumandra was once united before being attacked by dark creatures called Druun, that turned all they touched into stone. The dragons helped fight back, until Sisu the last Dragon was able to banish the Druun with a magic orb. She left the orb in the care of one tribe, Heart, which made all the other tribes jealous, Fang, Spine, Talon, and Tail. Five hundred years later the chief of Heart tries to reunite the tribes but is betrayed, which once more summons the Druun to plague the land. Raya escapes but feels her part in the betrayal heavy on her heart and begins a quest to find Sisu, so the Druun can once again be defeated.

What we get is a classic fantasy quest, with all the standard tropes of modern animation. Our plucky heroin deals with self-confidence, gains humorous sidekicks, has a really cute travelling companion (think giant pangolin meets dung beetle fitted with a riding saddle) and earns the respect of each tribe she goes up against. It is wonderfully colourful, incredibly visual and touches on all the right notes for this kind of movie. Sisu, played by Awkwafina is sooooo much better at being a dragon than Eddie Murphy. If I was 14 again, I would be hoping someone would be writing a world guide for a Kumandra based D&D setting.

T&K Go Loopty Loo: El Ascensor ("The Lift")

 2021, d. Daniel Bernal - AmazonPrime

How did the Loop Begin?

[Kent] It would appear that lightning has struck the apartment complex in Argentina that Sito and Ana live in during a storm.  When the squabbling couple, having gotten into an argument on their fifth anniversary, enter the elevator on the 10th floor to take out the trash, Sitio gets a shock pressing the "0" button and starts Looping. 

[Toast] Argentina? I was thinking it was Madrid. But let's not squabble. That lightning on the roof was odd odd odd, multiple hits on the elevator mechanism room. We just knew something was to come of it.

Why did they take the trash down together? Was it just because she walked out on the argument and he chased after. I am not sure why, cuz he had no way to win this one.

 

[Kent] I don't know where Argentina came from.

Sigh.  That's my brain.  You're right, it's a Spanish co-production with Mexico. 

Well, they live at Sito's parent's apartment, so if they wanted to quarrel with some privacy then the elevator was probably the better choice.

What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop? 

[Kent] Definite confusion. Sito makes a joke about sleeping with Ana's best friend and gets slapped for it. Then the elevator hits 0, he gets a jolt and they're back on 10.  It takes a number of loops before he's confident he understands what's happening and he references "That movie" to Ana, who doesn't understand what he's talking about.  It's not the movie you're thinking of.  They don't even mention Groundhog Day here.  Instead it's "Caught/Trapped In An Elevator" (the subtitles do both) he's talking about, a movie from the 1980's that was always on TV about a hitman hired to kill a woman but they get stuck in an elevator and Time Loop.  I have no idea if this is a real film or not.  I could find no mention of it after doing search after search for a solid hour.  I suspect it's just something they used for the film to get away from talking about Groundhog Day (a movie which may not have any real international appeal since Groundhog Day isn't a thing outside North America)

[Toast] Agreed. I don't think its a real movie, but it sounds so familiar. The whole assassin-in-the-elevator thing rung such a bell, I could almost see the actor playing the role in my mind's eye.  But given this is a Spanish movie, we are being rather NA-centric assuming he is referencing a Hollywood flick, or even a Spanish movie that broke barriers and reached us, or at least Wikipedia.

Though Groundhog Day (the day) is not a thing outside of North America, I would assume that Groundhog Day (the movie) is widely known. Its been around long enough to get wide exposure and is the epitome of Time Loop movies, so I am sure at least scifi buffs know it.

I like how he keeps on playing with the loop, given it is soooo fucking fast. And each time he is shocked by her slapping him. Also, did she change up hands on a few loops, cuz he definitely holds the wrong cheek a few times. 

WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop? 

[Kent] Someone else can DEFINITELY be brought into the Loop as eventually after a few quick Loops Sitio thinks to stop the elevator in order to have a longer chat with Ana.  At one point out of frustration, Ana winds up pressing the 0 button at time of reset and she gets zapped into the Loop instead.  Eventually they both wind up pressing it at the same time and get stuck in the Loop together.  What's interesting is that when Ana zaps into the Loop, Sito completely resets, unaware that he was looping before.

Now... WHY?  Well, it's got everything to do with a secret control booth and a scientist who turned the elevator shaft into a time machine.  Yep, that's what happened.

[Toast] I love that Sito didn't get brought into her loop. So her loop reset his loop until they simultaneously get zapped and a third series of loops in which she gets to bring hers from the second series, and he gets to retain all forthgoing. I think we have a new trope that can be mined here. Imagine a group of people each adding in another person, occasionally losing someone, but eventually all working together to solve the Mystery of the Time Loop!

How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?

[Kent] The Loop is however long the journey from floor 10 to the ground floor takes.  According the the recording from the scientist (when Ana and Sito accidentally stumble upon the control booth trough a pretty absurd scenario, they find his cassette recordings and listen to approximately 40 seconds total across 3 tapes which is even more absurd), he mentions the trip is 21 seconds long.  However if the elevator is stopped before it hits ground floor, the Loop can last indefinitely...although you definitely age within the loop and upon reset you return to your younger body.

The Loop can ONLY be reset by getting to floor 0.  The scientist guy never escaped the Loop and eventually died...likely due to starvation or dehydration.

[Toast] This whole scientist creating a weird bits-and-bobs time machine is just weird to me. It's very Star Trek:tNG hand-wavey scifi mumbo jumbo. I am never entrely sure what happened to his wife -- she left? she died? And if he was trapped inside the elevator (and shaft, and control room) how was that going to help get his wife back? I guess he died before he perfected what he actually wanted to do? Also, if he designed the whole loop to require two people to break, but he was only one person, WHY ? Dude, just reverse-engineer your OWN MACHINE and make a fail safe. 

[Kent] Ha! Yeah...just...yeah.

How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any affect on them, their personality, their outlook? 

[Kent] At one point they seem to imply that they've been in the Loop a very long time, but it really only seems like a few hours total...like, not even a day.   To answer an earlier question, the purpose of them being stuck in a loop is to work on their relationship, to communicate and understand each other's position.  At a certain point early on, at first when Sito is in the Loop alone, Ana suggests they break up, and then vice versa, when Ana is in the loop Sitio makes the suggestion, so clearly there's stuff to work on.  They seem to work through it and Sito seems to grow up a little and Ana seems to ...hrm...I guess lay off Sito a little.  I dunno.  She doesn't seem to be in the wrong, after all it's Sito who stole "their"(her) savings and gambled it away.  They're living with Sito's parents in an apartment, which sucks (and his parents are super racist about Mexicans apparently).  Are we supposed to think that Ana's old news about having slept with her ex one month into their relationship is somehow comparable to 5 years of Sito's lying, laziness and money mismanagement?

[Toast] I like how quickly she not only figures out the Time Loop aspect, even without getting Sito to mansplain to her via his recollection of the 80s movie (she obviously recalls it as well) but she also very quickly learns how to make use of it, getting out of him the information she wants. Its deceptive, but obviously, he has spent a good part of their relationship being deceptive, so she is due some. 

Does he grow? Once given the motivation that he will truly lose her, he seems to. He is a classic gambling addict, in that he sees nothing wrong with what he is doing, even when he loses the entirety of her savings... 6000 Euros (which supports my idea this is Spain) is a LOT of money.

The comparison against her transgression (she cheated early on in their relationship) against his (this is probably only the latest time he lost a bunch of their/HER money) is not comparable. While the movie seems to want us to believe sexual indiscretion means more than money (one could agree with that) it's more the circumstances. He repeatedly breaks her trust, obviously freeloads off her and his parents, while she had a brief dalliance (that word does forgive much, doesn't it) just after they started their relationship while she was away for THREE MONTHS -- I dunno, if you start dating someone and then go away for three months, I am sure that gains you some lenience. In case you haven't guessed, I am on her side.

[Kent] Me too.  Two "Team Ana" T-shirts please.  Or maybe "Team Ana" infinity loop scarves?
If you're dating someone for a month then you go away for three months, are you really even dating anymore at that point? Unless they were already at the "I love you" stage, one month in ...I dunno.  Not really that big a deal 5 years later unless you're really petty and insecure.... like most guys....

What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware?  Does anything happen if they become aware?

[Kent] This is our first loop where there are no bystanders.  This film only has three performers (the third being the voice of the scientist on the tape) an no extras.  It's all Sito and Ana.  But yeah, if somehow someone else came into the Loop, they could press the "0" button and join and/or take over the Loop.

[Toast] Yup.

What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?

[Kent] This is like writing "N/A" on a questionnaire.

[Toast] Yup.

Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop? 

[Kent] At one point Sitio leaves the elevator through the top hatch.  He slips and falls and his arm is severed off in the process. It's utterly ridiculous.  I don't get how it happened.  He even points it out and I still don't understand.  Ana has to press the "0" button with his severed arm in order to reset the Loop...after which they just hug for a full Loop, which was kind of sweet.

[Toast] It was the cockroaches. They have been affected by the space-time energies in the elevator shaft and he was attacked by them. They don't want the time loop to break until they have figured out how to control their own destinies. There are a bunch of loops, which we don't see, where its them experimenting so as to make him fall at the exact angle to slice off his arm. 

The prequel will be entirely from the POV of the cockroaches.

[Kent] I'm in for this.

How does this stack up in the subgenre? 

[Kent] This movie has both a Time Loop AND a hatch, two of my favourite things, and, somehow it's not great.  This falls in the "Technological Time Loop" category, and the technology is pretty bullshit... as is the solution for getting out of the Loop.  That the scientist, trapped in an elevator shaft still managed to make a perpetual motion machine...you know, something that's NEVER been done in the history of ever... which is able to create or harness the power of time and something something.  It falls apart as a movie when it stops focusing on the character drama and looks at the "science" instead.  It's thankfully only 71 minutes long, so it doesn't overstay its welcome and the performers playing Ana and Sito are pretty enjoyable.  I liked the way in which the director kept the confines of the elevator and the Loops visually interesting (circling the outside of the box, or changing perspectives from within the box), but at the same time, the visual language isn't always on point, and at times confuses what is actually happening.  The music is great, though, very Hitchcock-ian, and I particularly like the opening credits, both the music and the style of them.

[Toast] I also rather liked it, until we reached the end.

As I already said, the timey-wimey technological cause is bare-bones at the most, but it gives a reason and some method for the couple to break the loop beyond just a mystical time god (the cockroaches after a few million time loops??) deciding they need time to fix their relationship.

But that, after they actually figure out how to get out of the loop, they pick up at the beginning with no memory of having ever been in it. What? Other than reaching back to reference the tragedy of Sito's 80s movie, this served no purpose. They haven't learned anything, they haven't grown, they are still stuck at the exact point they were when the movie began. And that means, based on their emotional states, they will probably break up.

Maybe its for the best. Sito doesn't deserve her. She should go back to the hunky millionaire in Mexico.