Watching: The Witcher S3

2023, Netflix

By reasons that can only be lost to the ether, we dropped it three episodes in, when it first came out, and then pretty much binged it this Canada Day Weekend.

What 100. Geralt (Henry Cavill, Enola Holmes), Ciri (Freya Allan, The Third Day) and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra,Wanderlust) are on the run from: bounty hunters seeking Ciri for her dad in Nilfgaard, the Elves who want her Elder Blood, and a mad fire wizard named Rience. Eventually they tire of that and go to Aretuza so Ciri can learn magic from the school, as well as allow Yennefer to repair her relationships there. That doesn't go well. Conspiracies abound. They culminate in an attack on Aretuza, which pretty much destroys the place, and then tosses Ciri into a portal, sending her far far away. Lots of people are betrayed, lots of people are killed.

1 Great. This is a challenge. Based on the bland paragraph above which dismisses about 75% of what's going on in the show, I guess the best thing about the season was the multi-perspective episode 5, "The Art of the Illusion" where Geralt and Yennefer attend a ball. We see the conversations happen, edited for one perspective, and then we see them again, edited for another perspective. And so on, and so on. I guess the show, which made made some creative buzz back in S1 by having two stories told in different timelines, and not informing us until the very end, wanted to at least have one episode where they fuck with our perceptions? Either way, its well done and a lot of fun.

2 Good. At this point in the series, where I am no longer very into it, possibly even not-liking-it, I guess the general aspects of what I did like about the show are still there, on occasion? At its heart The Witcher (book, TV shows, games) is about a D&D-like adventurer for hire who kills monsters with sword and magic. So, whenever we do actually get that in the show, I enjoy myself? And, despite my boredom with the rest of it, Cavill's investment in the character is always apparent, and I do enjoy that immensely.

3 Bad. My boredom with the politics of the show. I get it, a key aspect of the books and the game was the continental politics, reflecting the author Sapkowski's fantasy version of European history with Elves, and Dwarves, and Dragons, but their attempt to match Game of Thrones for all the machinations and complicated plotlines involving many political powers just bored the fuck out of me. It is trying to be epic but in doing so, loses sight of the primary focus of the show -- a man killing monsters. And if the show's goal is to get to a game-changing (pun intended) plotline involving The Wild Hunt, then... fuuuuuuck, just get there already.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Final Cut

2022, Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) -- download

Or Coupez!

When I was writing the post about The Animal Kingdom, I noticed that Duris, the star, was in the French remake of One Cut of the Dead, and also a survival movie I had meant to download, called A Breath Away.

Nothing like benefiting from a terrible memory, in that I had the same reaction to the opening of this movie as I did to the original, i.e. is it supposed to be this bad? Was that intentional? What the fuck are they going on about? Is this ... an art film zombie movie?

And then the movie ends, and then the movie really begins.

I have done work as an extra in the distant past. Its fun to see behind the scenes, but Big Hollywood Productions are massive, so your peek is very minimal. I have also more recently done a few scenes in a few shorts, where the BTS (not the Korean Boy Band, as I always first think) is much more tangible. With lower budgets, you see they often have to just make-do, live with results, and pivot a lot, given unforeseen circumstances.

This is the crux of the core of the heart this movie (in for a penny, in for a pound). The lead actor and actress are in a car accident on the way to the set, so Rémi (Romain Duris, Eiffel), the director, a man more comfortable with doing "cheap & cheerful" then anything involving producer meddling and "staying faithful to the script", and his wife Nadia (Bérénice Bejo, Under Paris) step into the roles. Another lead, with a drinking problem, accidentally has an expensive bottle of Japanese Whiskey sent to his dressing room. Another actor, who has a long, complicated rider, is really not kidding when he says he can only drink the water he brought with him. The recognizable actor is constantly trying to add gravitas to his role as a zombie. Nadia, who had once been an actor but had to step away because she takes method acting to the n-th level, begins getting far too into her role. Yeah, shit is unexpected, and Rémi is constantly altering the production, on the fly, with whatever and whomever is at hand, in order to just complete the live event.

Suddenly all  the fucking weird shit you see on camera, from the first part of the movie, make more sense.... kind of.  Rémi, is under a lot of pressure from his own usually supportive producer (lots of money on the line) and the Japanese bankroll who have brought this script, which is to be made, explicitly, live, unedited, on the launch of the French version of a Japanese network dedicated to B and Z grade schlock horror, which of course the Japanese excel at. They won't even let him change character names leading to me saying, during the first part of the movie, "Wait, is this movie based word-for-word on the script of the original movie ?!?!" I was ... kind of right? But, oh my, the fun that is to be had as all  the weird camera angles, confusing action, confounding plot & dialogue is all explained away as part of a production that falls apart as we watch it, live.

Without exposure to the original Japanese movie (the real movie, not the one we are watching being made), this would have been an incredible romp. Even so, as a French Remake of something I loved so much, this was pretty good.

KWIF: constant Crave-ings

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week Kent has a spotlight movie of which he writes a longer, thinkier piece, and then whatever else he watched that week he attempts a quick wee summary of his thoughts (and fails...in the "quick" part).

This Week:
Incendies (2010, d. Denis Villeneuve - Crave)
The Witches of Eastwick (1987, d. George Miller - Crave)
Total Recall (2012, d. Len Weisman - Crave)
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009, d. Garreth Carrivick - Crave)

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Denis Villeneuve made four films in his native Quebec before he transitioned into Hollywood fare with the star-studded Prisoners in 2013 and evolving into the preeminent director of science fiction over the past 8 years (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, the Dunes).  Though I've yet to see it, I've heard Prisoners it's a bit of a rough watch. The Academy Awards-nominated Incendies, I can with confidence proclaim is an even rougher one.

The story of Incendies is an adaptation of the stage play of the same name by Wajdi Mouawad, partially based on the life story of Lebanese dissident Souha Bechara but with extensive liberties taken. It tells the story of Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) who, upon her death, reveals in her will to her twin children, Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) that they have a brother.  The will provides a letter to each of them one for their father whom they always presumed dead, one for the brother. Once they deliver the letters, a third letter will be provided. Simon wants nothing to do with this game, clearly he has some resentment towards his mother, while Jeanne immediately ventures to her mother's homeland (unnamed in the film) where she starts to investigate both the whereabouts and identity of her father and brother.

The film cuts between Jeanne's steps through her investigation and each new location triggers another flashback to her mother's past. The bulk of the film is actually told in these flashbacks, with just enough of Jeanne and Simon (and their dutiful lawyer, played by Rémy Girard) to be invested in their response to their discoveries of their mother's history.

Needless to say, for Nawal to have hid her past from her children, it must have been full of trauma, and, indeed it is, starting with her brothers murdering her refugee lover, her grandmother forcing her to give up her love child and getting ostracized from the village. The latter is both the fortunate and unfortunate turn, as Nawal is forced to go to university and receive an education, but there she becomes further involved in fighting the nationalist discord that has erupted into violence, and she takes on the role of assassin, attempting to kill the leader of the anti-refugee government.

And that's just the starting point. Where it moves from there is deeper into a well of both survival and almost utter despair. I was reminded a lot of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy though vengeance is in very short supply in Incendies. 

Villeneuve's direction, along with André Turpin's cinematography, show distinct signs of what is to come in the director's career. Impeccably composed shots, grounded performances in even the most phenomenal of circumstances, and being able to deliver a heavy, weighted tone while still being compelling and entertaining.  There is minimal score outside of the use of two Radiohead songs, "You and Whose Army?" and "Like Spinning Plates" -- both used to tremendous effect.

I have to contemplate representation with this film, as it's a curious issue. Nawal's home country, left explicitly unidentified, allows some wiggle room in the storytelling to play with details, history and culture. It doesn't have to answer explicitly to any particular gaffes in presentation. But would it be more potent if it were trading in very specific historical details, or would that just be even more problematic to base a fiction around it, especially given the dramatic extremes occurring. As well, it would seem none of our three leads, Azabal, Désormeaux-Poulin, and Gaudette, are of middle-eastern decent despite the film taking place in the aforementioned unnamed middle eastern country.  I'm not sure what the crossover is in French-speaking actors of middle eastern origin but, excellent performers all, I doubt that Villeneuve would make the same casting choices today with Hollywood money behind him.

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I have to admit I've spent most of my life not engaging with Cher... her music, her acting, her stabs at middle-aged sex symbol status...none of it I found appealing in my younger years, and everything she did in the 80's and beyond seemed to me to be trying too hard.

Now, in my very middle-age, I have to admit I was perhaps foolish to be so dismissive. I believe this viewing of The Witches of Eastwick will lead me to more peak-80's actress Cher: Moonstruck, Mermaids, Mask, MSilkwood and MSuspect (did you know that Cher voiced a role in 2020's Bobbleheads: The Movie, and did you also know that in 2020 there was a fucking Bobbleheads movie!?!). Cher is so compelling in this role, and stunning. I'm seeing her through much different eyes and I'm completely entranced. I've had crushes on her co-stars Pfeiffer and Sarandon for ages (duh, who hasn't) and yet I found myself captivated by Cher so much more.

The film, in general, perplexed me. From a gender politics angle I'm not at all sure what it's trying to say. Is it a feminist movie, or is it retrograde anti-feminist? It's based on a John Updike novel and I don't think anyone has ever confused him for a feminist. Jack Nicholson's devilishly horny Daryl van Horne is seemingly summoned to Eastwick by two divorcees and a widow who collectively want the perfect imperfect man, which describes Daryl to a T. He is a louse and a letch, but has a gift of saying exactly what each woman wants to hear as he sets out to seduce them all, and succeeds. His playbook is faux humility, negging, flattery and bribery, plus he's stinking rich. It's not long before the three women are ostensibly his harem, though clearly of their own choice.  It doesn't bode well for the town, or them, especially once they start rejecting him.

From a metaphysical angle it's a film that feels like it has no roots, no rules, no guiding principles. It's called "The Witches of Eastwick" and yet, Cher, Sarandon and Pfeiffer are barely witches at all. They certainly wouldn't describe themselves as witches in-film.  And who Daryl exactly is never is made clear. The actual devil, or just a devil? A demon? What?

George Miller, of Mad Max and Happy Feet and Babe fame has a gift for irreverently told stories with a different sense of timing. But with those films, Miller had the utmost creative control.  This being his first (and really, only) studio film, it didn't seem like he had full control over the story being told.  I think this should feel more Beetlejuice-like, but the pacing of the film just felt so off with so many takes seemingly lasting a couple seconds longer than they should, or shots that seem to imply something more worth looking at only for nothing more to appear.

It is a horny movie with questionable tastes. It didn't fully work for me, but it didn't not work for me either.

---

I had dismissed Total Recall (2012) as a real "who asked for this?" movie, with the presumption of it being tired Hollywood remake garbage from a that b-movie action franchise director. But, when I spied Kurt Wimmer on the screenplay credit, I though maybe there might be some fun to be had. Not that Wimmer has the most stellar track record, and not that I've seen all of them (I have prejudged the Point Break and Children of the Corn remakes just as I have judged this Total Recall remake) but I think many of his B-movie scripts as elevated B-movies. And yeah, damn, it's a pretty fun sci-fi action movie with some big, big set pieces and Kate Beckinsale being a doggedly fierce antagonist. I think had this film just used a different title and character names, most people wouldn't have even noticed it was *that* similar to the 1990 Total Recall (though the three titty'd lady would have totally tipped it off).

The future tech on display in the film is pretty great. In one scene a security force breaks a small hole in the door and fires a small projectile in the room. The projectile explodes with dozens of self-adhering cameras affixing to every surface at all angles. The leader of the squad then rips down a flap off the back of one of his men revealing a monitor which projects every camera's view, each one selectible for a better view. This sequence later transitions into a foot chase through a very surreal and confounding cityscape that I would love to just sit and admire all the design work gone into it. This then transitions into a car chase which tries to one-up Minority Report and maybe doesn't succeed, but it also doesn't suck.  Even most of the fight sequences are quite entertaining. In the long pantheon of elevator fights, this one's not at the top of the top ten list but could easily be in the middle.

It's not a groundbreaking plot, of a man, discovering he has been living a false life, and that he has a greater destiny before him, and a hot girlfriend from another life, while his hot wife from his false life is on the warpath to kill him.  You know, that old story.

By no means is it a great movie, and no it is not as thoroughly entertaining or adventurous as the 1990 film (which, yes, had a sense of humour this one doesn't), but as a sci-fi action spectacle it delivered the goods very, very well and far better than its reputation would imply.

---

Three British lads go to pub after work. Two of them are nerds, one of them's a jock, but they're all pals. One of 'em (let's call him Nerd 1, because I can't be arsed to look it up, as played by Chris O'Dowd) got fired from his job at the start of the film, but that's pretty irrelevant to the rest of the film. Nerd 1 goes to buy the next round and winds up having a chat with a pretty girl from the future. The other lads don't believe him until the Jock goes to the bathroom and comes out at a later time and everyone's dead in the pub. He goes back into the bathroom and returns to his regular time. Then all the lads go to the bathroom together and start time traveling to other times in the pub's future, sometimes running into time travel girl (Anna Farris). Over time (ha) the boys find them looping back around on the other times they've already seen until they solve the thing that they need to solve and save their own future. Or something like that. You know the drill.

Maybe if I'd never seen a time travel film before, I'd find this clever. As well versed as I am in the milieu, I found it utterly predictable. 

I love Chris O'Dowd but his character here has no character, and even O'Dowd's considerable charms brought almost nothing to make the character more interesting or appealing. The other leads too are similarly lacking in anything of interest in their individual journeys. Just three lads caught up in something, yet there's no weight to any of it. And for a comedy, not much levity either, maybe the odd chuckle here or there, but little to stick out in memory long term.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Slumberland

2022, Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) -- Netflix

I watched this as comparison to IF, both movies about a child dealing with make-believe that has become a very real part of their life. Both are about a child dealing with the loss, or potential loss, of a parent and seeking to escape it. Both have oversized man-childs stepping in as companions for the child as they enter and explore a world of magical wonderment. Where IF felt like a vehicle for Ryan Reynolds to play with some family friendly magic, primarily for his audience, this actually feels like a kids movie made for kids, but not childish in the least.

Nemo (Marlow Barkley, Spirited) lives a fairy tale life in a lighthouse with her Dad (Kyle Chandler, Godzilla vs Kong) the lighthouse keeper. She is home schooled by day, read stories and taught to dream the best dreams by night. Then reality hits and her father is taken by the sea. She is sent to The City to live with her uncle, her father's estranged brother Philip (Chris O'Dowd, Moone Boy), who does not adjust well to his new ward. Nemo wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, to dream a way to find her father, who she is convinced can be rescued by a magic pearl wish. That is when she meets Flip (Jason Momoa, See), her father's old outlaw partner, a centre figure in all his bedtime figures. He lives in the dream world, lives his life in Slumberland, avoiding the dream authorities. At first he doesn't want to have anything to do with her, but Nemo perseveres and soon they are hunting down a pearl, and dealing with the nightmares that chase her everywhere. That is, until she realizes who Flip is.

A "duhhhh" moment that I did not catch onto as quick as I should have.

I loved this little movie. Surprisingly, Momoa's usually grating wah-hoo's worked really well with the character he was playing, a giant man-child with faun horns, furry ears and clawed toes that were always wiggling his true feelings. And as a vehicle for magic lost, the movie was perfect. Barkely, who struck me eerily as Saoirse Ronan returned to childhood, played the independent child so aptly, a girl who had been raised by her father to stand on her own, to live with dreams always in her heart, but also to be brave when things didn't go her way. And Slumberland, as depicted by the dreams of a number of people, but only those with a still beating heart connection to their childhood, was really magical.

Of note, I was wondering if I could still do just the 3 Short Paragraphs, and reading back, I see that I never really did many actually SHORT paragraphs, and I started using the nomenclature almost immediately after the start of this blog. Also, this voice made its appearance almost immediately as well, though it has had many lives through the years.

Alt-Media: Ancestor

2006, Empty Set Entertainment

At the beginning, what I wanted was a light thriller, horror or scifi audio drama. What I got was more akin to an audiobook, which I have never actually listened to before explicitly -- a read-through of the novel by Scott Sigler. No, not quite that. Sigler is a bit of an empire builder, a pathfinder, having been doing audio drama podcasts for over 15 years. This started as one of those, a serialized podcast in 2006 and has since been published as novel. Also, from the brief amount of the podcast's 2010 Q&A I listened to, he is prone to tweaking and rewriting his stories to tie them all together, update them, etc.

I think this was added to Spotify in 2023, where I listened to it.

I said, at the beginning. In the end what I ended up getting was a hate-listen to something that enraged me as much as it intrigued me. He's got a solid grasp on pacing and structure and how to depict apparently realistic scientific terminology and "action". What he cannot do is write people. In all my decades of watching B and Z grade movies, and reading trashy novels, I am quite aware of writing cardboard characters. And for the most part, I accept them as they are meant to be. And even enjoy a lot of them. But this book had zero characters I actually like, and only a couple I ended up enjoying. Each character comes across as the worst of the worst of cardboard stand-ins for real people, like the most terrible character in an Uwe Boll movie.

And he persists in doing "the voices" of the characters, even the women. Nothing can break me from the immersion than him switching into a "funny voice" because every single one of his fucking characters has to have a distinct accent or voice. A few he can pull off, but most just ended up grating on my nerves, furthering my dislike for many of the characters. 

And furthermore, I expect its partially because he has an audience (white male machismo mongers), what can we expect from the female characters? If the male leads are cardboard, the female characters are vastly stereotypical blow up dolls.

OK OK, so it was terrible but why did you keep on listening, and even, almost, briefly, consider listening to / reading his prequel "Infected" series?

Again, for a scifi thriller, its not bad, more akin to the B-scifi & horror I watch.

Essentially, a biotech company intent on creating surrogate creatures for human-matching organ harvesting instead ends up creating monsters, monsters that get loose and eat everyone. Its up to a couple of scrappy "heroes" to survive and kill the monsters before they get loose.

The story opens, setting things up. After the events of the Infected trilogy where something got loose in Detroit and ended with the government nuking much of the city, the President sets up a new taskforce, something mostly off the books, to monitor and stop scientific situations before they "blow up". It was  this premise I was onboard with, and somewhat disappointed it ended up only being the B-plot. But it establishes the kind of pressure the Bad Guys, a biotech company called Genada, are under.

The Genada story starts on Baffin Island, where we establish the characters: PJ Colding - head of security, his asshole security guards made up of ex-military goons - OK, Gunther is not that bad a guy, considering he is writing vampire romance novels in his spare time, a bunch of asshole scientists -- Jian is less asshole, more an utterly broken genius plagued by hallucinations and racial stereotyping. But that act ends soon enough due to sabotage. The owners of Genada, the Paglione Brothers, fly out the remaining team on a modified C5 plane to a remote island in Lake Superior. That is where the real story takes place.

Scientist Liu Jiandan, or Jian, has invented a powerful computer system that can model evolutionary traits with almost magical speed. With it she has brought a few species back from extinction but its primary purpose is to create animals capable of producing human-compatible organs via xenotransplantation. Except, she's suffering from paranoid delusions and ends up creating something less passive organ host, and more uber-predator.

As the small island is cut off by a massive winter storm system, the implanted cows used for the experimentation start showing signs of being dangerous. But of course, the asshole scientists have already ignored all the warning signs. Dante Paglione, one of the heads of the biotech company and a raving muscle-headed psychopathic military type, shows up to make sure things go well, and if they cannot, wipe out all signs of the work -- because B-plot still is there, somewhere, in the background.

The cows begin giving birth after an aborted attempt to escape the island. And they are massive, quickly growing, bigger than ever conceived, land-sharks. They eat everything in sight: their cow mother's corpses, people, other cows, their own dead. They do so quickly, violently, consuming everything even bones & hide. Our few sympathetic character survivors have to survive not only the monsters, but also the human monsters working for Dante. Not a lot do.

Again, decent pacing and good description of the action allowed me to stick to the story even as almost every character, even the sympathetic ones, grated on my nerves. The monsters are scary, and I have always enjoyed a good science-gone-wrong story, I just wish the B-plot had played more of a role, but it was more tacked on as part of Sigler's world-building reboots. I can respect his alternative approach to fiction building, and rebuilding, even if it annoys me.

Normally I would now go back, in the writing of this post, and add in the actors, or voice-actors, for each of the characters, and while I was attempted to amusingly do a -- Clayton Detweiler (Scott Sigler) -- for each character I mentioned, I resisted the urge. Probably for the best.

Wimp. But don't forget to mention that the fandom for this writer is likely to come commenting on your less than favourable (catch phrase of the month) writeup, much like the "fans" of "Tomorrow When the War Began" used to.

Watching: Dark Matter S1

2024, download

The multiverse is in. Not enough movies of TV shows are properly exploiting its potential. What we really need is a Max reboot of "Sliders". But I will be OK with this one, though it suffered much from what I feel a lot of genre TV does -- adding into much dramatic filler, in order to ground it in a world where a wider audience will enjoy.

SPOILER WARNING: In order to actually relate my 1 Great bit, I need to spoil the best part of the entire show.

What 100.  Jason Dessen's a physics teacher at a Chicago college, unsuccessfully attempting to convey the idea of Schrödinger's cat to his bored students. He's also rather checked out at home. Then another Jason Dessen shows up and steals his life, shoving Our Jason into his world, where he discovers his alt had invented a method to traverse alternate universes. Our Jason escapes back into the box, along with Other Jason's wife, and spends the rest of the season desperately trying to get back to his own world, his own wife. It takes awhile and the return has some unexpected consequences.

1 Great. The consequences. You would assume that if one Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton, Zero Dark Thirty) has invented a box that can traverse infinite number of alternate universes, that there is also an infinite number of Jason Dessen's doing the same. But most of these stories consider a one to one linear path for the traversal. Jason 001 goes to Jason 002's universe, and Jason 002 ends up going to the universes of Jason 342, Jason 881, Jason 9999, Jason 41001, etc. And in those universes, if a Jason is using his box to steal another Jason's place in another universe, then they are all similarly displaced from our perspective's early versions. But, since the show postulates, like so many other multiverse shows have, that new universes are born of choices, then there were new choices for Jason 002 each and every time there was one to be made, creating Jason 002.1, Jason 002.2, Jason 002.3, and so on. Guess what happens in the last few episodes? All those Jason's return to what is technically their original universes as well. Suddenly Jason 001 is not only dealing with a very very angry Jason 002 but many many MANY more. But who gets to have this world, this life, this wife (Jennifer Connelly, Dark Water)?

Does your head hurt yet? Its not perfectly thought through, but its sure a novel take on the multiverse traversal idea.

1 Good. Jason 002 gets to visit a BUNCH of worlds before he figures out how to properly control the box. Until the final few episodes, I was convinced they were going to reveal that it was never actual, physical, travel but just perceptual, and Jason 002 was going to wake up in a box eventually, but that theory was too fraught with paradoxes, so the show did do as expected --- have him do the Sliders thing, and go to a bunch of slightly different worlds. Some were good, some were only imperceptibly different, and some were vastly, terrifyingly different. Some were incredible, utopian places, others were just apocalypses. As Jason and Amanda (Jason 001's wife; Alice Braga, Elysium) work to control the boxes, things become less... interesting.

And no, we never get a "everyone is a cartoon" or "everyone's a blob of paint" universe, which just told me that Jason and Amanda are not very imaginative.

1 Bad. The drama. This is an idea that has to be spread out over season for accessible viewers. It knows where it wants to go, but it has to establish the Jason's and their family dynamics and their relationships and their worlds. And all too often, all that filler became boring AF. I just didn't find either Jason's rather compelling.

This is a show that doesn't need a Season 2; its all done and if I was be asked if it was "good" I am not sure what I would answer. I know I like anything multiversal in nature, but until the final few episodes and a handful of segments as they visited other worlds, I wasn't always very engaged.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Mechanic

1972, Michael Winner (Death Wish) -- Amazon

I watched the remakes a few years ago. Kent recently watched this original, which inspired me to view.

Migawd this movie dredged up a bias in me that I had thought I had worked through -- a distinct dislike for movies made, and set, in the 70s. From the opening quirky discordant more suited to horror movies music, to the haircuts, to the clothing, I hated it all. And while I tempered to the movie the more it went along, as the story became tighter feeling, for much of it all I could think was, "OMG, this is everything I hate about low-budget, badly directed, badly acted 70s movies." 

That said, the opening establishing sequence was nicely done, despite the trappings I hated so much -- the quiet, methodical nature of hitman Arthur Bishop's (Charles Bronson, Death Wish) setup of his hit, the likely hitech aspects his equipment, his precision. And then the switch, from the grotty apartments of his job, back to his obviously opulent house that the hitman money bought. I cannot say where the hitman genre was at this time, but I have seen enough 70s movies to think this movie was extremely rough around the edges, but was establishing something not before seen. If the same tactic was taken now, if this mythology of hitman was being established now, I would applaud it. And yes, I can see, as Kent did, that it was this mythology that setup The Killer by David Fincher so many years later.

As said, Arthur Bishop is a hitman for a syndicate. After the introduction kill, he is invited over by the old family friend Big Harry (Keenan Wynn, The Clonus Horror [!!!]), who has his own connections to the syndicate. Harry has run afoul of his business partners, and asks Bishop to intercede on his behalf. Instead, the syndicate assigns Bishop to kill Harry. Arthur doesn't argue. The movie does present the emotional toll of his job, from the pills he pops, to the unexpected panic attack he has. But Arthur knows the cost of doing anything other than what the syndicate asks.

And he runs into Harry's son, Steve (Jan-Michael Vincent, Airwolf), who is not all that bothered by his father's death, considering the wealth he inherits. Steve shows an interest in Bishop, admitting an awareness of what Arthur does for a living. Steve's a bit of a hedonistic, narcissistic layabout, and while you get the sense that Bishop doesn't care for his lifestyle, he indulges the man, allowing himself to be introduced to Steve's annoying hippy friends. Bishop sees something in him, but what, I don't know? Amorality? If Bishop is all about control and moderation and precision, I am not sure why he thinks Steve can attain that. Never the less, he invites Steve along on a hit, which goes awry, and Steve finishes the job for him.

That doesn't sit well with the syndicate, that Bishop would involve someone in their business without their express permission, especially the son on the man they just had killed. In recompence, Bishop is sent to Italy to take out another of their own. Do this job and all is forgiven. Except, its a setup -- they are killing Bishop away from his own terf.

Arthur and Steve survive the attempted kill on the boat where he was supposed to perform the hit, and then fend off a number of other thugs on a precarious coastal highway. They survive and return to the hotel with the nice view. Steve is pleased with himself, Bishop seems far too at ease considering his own organization wants him dead. They share a glass of wine, and then Arthur begins to feel the effects. A poison, clear and tasteless, applied to the inside of the glass. Steve is very pleased with himself. But he intimates he won't be slipping into the void Bishop leaves behind, more doing it for the joy of killing. Maybe for money? Maybe not?

Steve (Jan Michael-Vincent, Damnation Alley) returns home, home to Arthur's house, now his. Fully pleased with himself, gets into his fancy muscle car and finds a note from Arthur -- you just triggered a bomb, so long kid.

BOOM.

That the last act took place in Italy kind of surprised me -- maybe the movie was not as low budget as I thought? Winner did have a decent film career before Death Wish, two years later, but maybe the rough edges was his style. I don't do a lot of digging when it comes to these write ups. They are more about the experience at the time, and only on occasion warrant some digging. 

And in saying that, I want to think of this movie as having set a tone for hitmen, that it established something in the sub-genre that would be further repeated. But I cannot say for sure. I kind of liked the movie, but still had to deal with my hangups. And I could never stand Jan-Michael-Vincent, even when he was the centre of much of my childhood viewings, but at least here he embodies the smarm of sociopath Steve. Bronson is Bronson.

Recently, Paramount decided to pull down a lot of the archives of websites they own, including much of the backlog of MTV. Disk Space is expensive, I guess. More likely paying people to maintain is expensive. But I am so glad that the Roger Ebert site hangs onto to everything cuz we get this less than favourable review from 1972.

Also, you can see the creases in the poster. Hee!

Kung-fu Quarters: Four HBO (Asia) Originals

Master of the White Crane Fist: Wong Yan-Lam (2019, d. Guo Jianyong - HBO/Crave)
Master of the Nine Dragon Fist: Wong Ching-Ho (2019, d. Si Xiaodong - HBO/Crave)
Master of the Drunken Fist: Beggar So (2016, d. Guo Jianyong - HBO/Crave)
Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying (2016, d. Guo Jianyong - HBO/Crave)

[I am by no means an expert, nor a connoisseur when it comes to kung-fu, wuxia or Chinese martial arts history, so please excuse me any ignorance I may have to the titular characters of these films or the historical contexts they might find themselves in. ] 

On all the streaming services I am subscribed to I have a watchlist. They're never well-curated, usually just a dumping ground for anything that seemed to have an interesting description, or maybe I had heard about on a podcast, or maybe stars or is directed by someone I kind of like. If it was *really* something I wanted to watch, I would have watched it already and taken it off the list.

On Crave -- a Canadian streaming service with its own original content, as well as curated new release and older movies, and, with the extended package, all of HBO's content -- I discovered these four films. I think Crave had a little Jackie Chan kick for a month or two and these came up in the "More Like This" section.

Given their titles, they all seemed of a piece, perhaps even a connected series, which seemed intriguing enough, so I added them to "My Cravings" and saved them for a later day.  In the frequent perusing of my various watchlists when looking for something to watch, I've passed these over dozens upon dozens of times, sometimes even wondering why they are on there.

With seemingly nothing but time this past week (not true, but seemingly) I started chipping away at "My Cravings". Master of the White Crane Fist was the first of this quartet to be chosen for no other reason than it was the shortest and it was late.

I can't really express why this very middling TV movie spurred me on to watch another, which was of even lesser quality, which then spurred me on to watch another, and by that point I might as well just finish them off. 

I'm not really lying when I say these feel like the kung-fu version of Hallmark movies. They've got some budget but corners are definitely cut in the production values category. The lighting is often natural and oversaturated giving the image an amateurish feel, while the sets can range from decently immersive to obviously anachronistic.  If they were all shot on a studio backlot in China somewhere I wouldn't be surprised, as everything seems so crisp and new, unweathered and not lived in.  One exterior setting in Master of the Nine Dragon Fist reminded me of a Disneyworld main drag.

These films are not really connected in any way, save for the fact that three of the four were directed by the same man, Guo Jianyong, which explains the samey-samey vibe of them, not to mention the speed-up/slow-mo/speed-up pseudo-Zack Snyder technique they use constantly that just makes my teeth itch. But I cannot solely blame Guo because, woof, those scripts all needed at least two more passes before they were ready to shoot.

From my limited experience with historical kung-fu of the Shaw Bros. classics and the like, these seem like they're trying to pay homage to them in terms of both story structure and kung-fu spectacle. But these films make two critical errors. First is they are each too self-serious, they play too far into the melodrama and not far enough into the sense of camp and visceral violent fun. Second, they are using digital cameras instead of film, and there's a surreal grittiness to film that is absolutely lost with the crisp brightness of digital high-definition. These films needed a filter or even a digital pass to mute the brightness. They feel largely sterile.

While I compare them to the rote, predictable Hallmark movies, I also need not remind the loyal Disagreeables (that's you, dear reader) that we have a thing for Hallmark movies over here. We're not snobs.  And in the same way that one can find value in the differences between one Hallmarkie and the next, I too could see the differing redeemable qualities in these HBO Asia/China Movie Channel productions.

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Master of the White Crane Fist: Wong Yan-lam wound up being my favourite of the four, largely because its opening half quickly won me over. It starts with a gang of bandits taking over a tea house theatre, cutting then to a troupe of guards walking their heavily manacled prisoner in the rain, only to arrive at said tea house. The tension becomes thick as the bandits have to play nice to the very suspicious head guard. And then enter Wong Yan-lam, a travelling prognosticator who appears seemingly out of nowhere and gleefully starts engaging the very confused room. Everyone seems to have their own agenda and this quite Poirot-esque mystery builds up exceptionally well for a good forty minutes before it all deflates unsatisfying like a  balloon in a thresher. 

The second half fumbles around trying to concoct reasons for people to fight in between melodramatic exposition. The fight coordination is not bad at all (which can be said for all of the films) but it's not always shot the best nor does the fighting always feel cohesive to the story or character. I mean you think for a film called "Master of the White Crane Fist" that it would spend some time setting up how awesome the "white crane fist" technique is and then showcase said technique, at least in defeating the main villain. But no, the big climax of the film decends into a no-holds barred street-style brawl, which, I have to say, is a pretty fresh thing to do in a kung-fu movie.  All the actors present are particularly good, but the lead actor playing Wong Yan-lam is super charming, and the lead villain actor has the most wonderfully nasty charisma (the credits were too small to read and there's no listings for performers on IMDB or Letterboxd).

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With only a couple exceptions, which I will most definitely get to, the performers in Master of the Nine Dragon Fist: Wong Ching-Ho are also extremely charming. Master Wong himself is the standout but strangely Master Ho is almost the secondary character of this film, as it follows for a long time Man Sing, a Northerner who has come to Guangzhou with his family to find work at on of the city's many kung-fu schools, only to be ostracized for being a Northerner.  The inner-country prejudices are just as prevalent in this film as are the anti-western, anti-opiate sentiments that frame the story.  Man Sing, master of the Iron Shield skill, protects his family from assault by rioting rival schools, but is left desperate without money, food or lodging, and has nowhere to turn but the unscrupulous western opiate trader Mr. James.

Mr. James, in collusion with the local authorities, sets Man Sing out in the streets to challenge all the school masters to a kung-fu duel, to prove who is the most talented in the city.  The intent is to undermine Master Wong's attempts to organize the schools into an anti-opioid patrol, as well as his opiate addiction recovery clinic. While everyone agreed that Master Wong is the most talented, Man Sing surely can give him a run for his money. But Mr. James stacks the deck against him by having his pregnant wife targeted by street thugs, and later has Master Wong arrested for opioid possession (I think he was treating opiate addiction in a methadone kind of way) during which one of the city guard ruthlessly punches his pregnant wife in the gut killing her and the baby...in broad daylight...in front of dozens of witnesses... with no repercussions. ACAB, man. ACAB.

There's a lot of injustice heaped upon poor Master Wong, and for him to triumph in the end means that our poor, deceived, ostracized Northern master Man Sing must lose, and it's so unintentionally soul crushing... I have to wonder if the filmmaker is sort of an anti-Northerner bigot himself, or if it's just careless scripting?

One of the most bizarre aspects of the film is opiate trader Mr. James. He's played by a white performer who is not much of an actor at all. He spends almost all of his time in the film comically looking out a second story window with a spyglass. When he's not doing that, he's stroking his beard menacingly. Or half-grin smirking, menacingly. The performer has no idea what to do with his hands or his face. He's also completely dubbed, both in English and Cantonese (I think...I looked it up and Cantonese, not Mandarin is the traditional language of Guangzhou) by a Chinese performer. The English dialogue is almost unintelligible, while Mr. James's Cantonese (?) voice is hilariously nasal and mumbly. (I think they're further taking the piss out of him). Mr. James is a hilarious cartoon white devil villain and serves as the butt of a very anti Western message... which I have no problem with.

The absurdity of Mr. James elevates this film to nearly "so bad it's good" territory, but its crimes towards Man Sing (including his unbelievably shrill nagging wife) and fridgeing Master Wong's wife really bring the mood down something fierce.

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My experience with other drunken fists/masters/boxing in film and TV it it has always had a tremendously playful aspect to it, but beyond the initial encounter between "Master of the Drunken Fist" So Chan (as written in the movie description but written as Su Can within the film's subtitles) and Lau Pak-Gwai taking place under a very tall dining table there's not a lot of fun to be had in the technique here. Master of the Drunken Fist:Beggar So is an overly self-serious movie that follows Su Can's journey from brash and cocky military scholar, poised to be the next great commander, only to have a sudden and immediate downfall into poverty, mostly as a part of the convoluted machinations from the eunuch Song Fok-Hoi.

Now, Song Fok-Hoi is actually a pretty tremendous cartoon villain, and I wish this film could embrace the campiness the actor brings to the role by matching it everywhere else, but it seems to think it's doing some important historical storytelling...on a Hallmark budget.

It's also a script that can't decide what's more important: Su Can's overplayed redemption story or Song Fok-Hoi's overwrought ambition to, what, stop a rebellion attempting to depose the Dowager Empress as she's wielding too much control over her Emperor child...or something. I really couldn't follow the politics at play here and its storytelling suffers greatly for how much it entangles itself in Fok-Hoi's plans, especially in the climax which reveals schemes within schemes within schemes. Unnecessary.

That all said there are some likeable performances from all the main leads, but it's really a shame that Lau-Pak Gwai is not in the film more, he abruptly departs at the halfway point. I assumed he was off to have a showdown with his old nemesis Fok-Hoi, but, upon review, it seems he just turned tail and ran into the woods. Unheroic.

This story really needed to use The Mask of Zorro as a template, investing more into the mentorship and romance (oh boy the romance between Su Can and Yoke-Long is all over the place tonally -- including an abruptly started and just as abruptly cut away sex scene -- as is Yoke-Long's characterization).

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The final film, Master of the Shadowless Kick: Wong Kei-Ying, doesn't even have the good graces of good performances. Our lead playing Wong Kei-Ying is a dry, charmless performer who may yield sympathy but not much else.

Wong Kei-ying is legendary Wong Fei-hung's father, and little Fei-hung does appear in the film. It was only after the film that I reminded myself who Wong Fei-hung is (Once Upon a Time In China, Iron Monkey, Drunken Master) and suddenly it made sense as to why the film was so focused upon us hearing his squeaky little voice calling out for his father all the damn time, and then the film ends with a post-script mentioning Wong Fei-hungs impending greatness (it really undercuts Wong Kei-ying's importance as the lead of the film, it really, really does). 

The story of Fei-hung's dad, starts out pretty rough but builds in intrigue through its first half with a intricately woven plot that finds Fei-hung's dad embroiled in helping a government official take on an opium gang, only to later learn that said official has kidnapped his master and deceived him into handing him full control over Guangzhou's drug trade.

Like Master of the White Crane Fist, the film's second half is unable to sustain this intrigue the first half establishes, as once Fei-hung's dad discovers General Wei is no hero, he's unable to hide any moves against the General, and ultimately winds up hooked on opium in an ill-advised cinematic side quest. Eventually, Fei-hung's dad must rescue his child (Fei-hung if you didn't know!), sister-in-law and other friends he's made along the way from the General in a tournament of death, which is mostly entertaining if it didn't feel so out of place and unlikely to resolve the far bigger societal problems at hand in the film.

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While Wong Kei-Ying and Wong Ching-Ho both explore China's problematic history with opium and government corruption, it's not really the common thread for all. There could be revenge plots in each of these films, but revenge never ultimately seems to be the motivating factor for the heroes in question, there's always got to be some nobler goal. But in robbing these characters of their revenge fantasies (which these films do repeatedly) the catharses of the films are all pretty much negligible. I didn't find any of the endings very satisfying.

These films, running between 86 and 98 minutes, still feel too long by at least 20 minutes. They should be far tighter, and again, much more fun to watch.

If I had to watch any of them a second time, it would be Master of the Nine Dragon Fist just for being sheer bonkers, yet, I don't think I can really recommend any of these when I know there are far better kung fu and wuxia products out there that deserve eyeballs much more than these.  

Watching: Doctor Who S1 (???)

2024, Disney

Season One. What? Not even 2005 Doctor Who has the conceit of rebranding itself as Season One. But Disney bought streaming rights for anything "new" and that has caused all sorts of weird fuckery. 

What 100.  A new Doctor, introduced to us in a weird, David Tenant guest-appearing, Xmas Special, and a brand new companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson, Coronation Street), an adopted orphan with a mysterious past linked directly to The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, Masters of the Air). This is a Doctor for our age: much more sexual, black (sad this is groundbreaking), extremely colourful, and oh so emotional. The anti-woke whingers will hate him, but fuck em. Russel T Davies returns to give us back the Willy Wonka, welcome to my factory, wonderment of companion-ing with The Doctor, but also with his requisite, dark, underlying story that ties directly to Ruby.

1 - Great. The dynamic between Ruby and The Doctor. Its a romp across space and time. But not without its dangers. She immediately falls for The Doctor, but not in a romantic way, just in a "we can be best buds forever" kind of way, which is how it should be. 

Also, when The Doctor is talking to the intergalactic bounty hunter Rogue (Jonathan Groff, Mindhunter), "Did you get your name from Dungeons & Dragons?!?!?"

Also, the requisite Davies standalone episode "73 Yards", wherein Ruby crosses over a fairy ring in Wales and ends up losing The Doctor, stalked by an old woman pointing at her, which derails her life almost entirely, and ends up saving the world from "the worst Prime Minister in History" (no not, Boris Johnson). She lives her entire life through to its end, only to return to Wales and cause a paradox so we can have our show. I am sure this will come back to bite her on the bum.

And a cute bum it... Shaddup you.

Also, Goblins on a flying boat and a song & dance number -- sadly, the only one for the season.

Ummm, I just noticed you are are not actually using Kent's format for this 100-1-1-1. So, I guess this is a Or Not scenario applied here as well?

1 - Good. The season long arc, which combines The Mystery Behind Ruby Sunday and a legacy Big Bad from Old Doctor Who -- Sutekh, the Egyptian God of the Dead. As is the tradition, it causes The End of the World, but only temporarily as a pissed off Doctor can undo just about anything. I am generally not jazzed for how Davies ends up his long running story arcs, as he is almost always anti-climactic, I did like the chicken & egg aspect of why Ruby was so important, so important that any time she came close to finding out who she actually was, it caused snow out of time to fall. And only because a Dumb Death God thought it was important. Turns out Ruby was just a normal girl with a normal mom, and a normal dad, who just happens to get mixed up with The Doctor, which makes her important from almost the first day of her life.

1 - Bad. Despite the fans lauding a drag queen playing Big Bad Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon), I just found the whole episode tiresome. Maestro is connected to the other (legacy) Big Bad from the Xmas Special, The ToyMaker (Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Hauser MD), and both are supposed to be all powerful godlike beings with specific agendas. Sure sure, The Beatles show up. Sure sure, its all over the top melodrama -- classic Doctor Who. Yawn.

Also, its Ruby's only season. Booooooo.

Boooooo !!!

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): IF

2024, John Krasinski (The Hollars) -- download

I am never one to be bothered by spoilers, to avoid trailers or clips or whatnot. I usually say its because by the time the movie comes along, I will have forgotten anything, but really its just because I cannot be bothered to make any effort to hide myself away. Also, I am on a really big trailer kick right now, and I might go so far as to say I am watching more trailers than I am movies. That is probably because there is less I actually want to see, once having seen the trailer. Anywayz, this movie was served up a great disservice by its trailer, in that I realized a third of the way through the movie, "Wait, they don't expect you to know <the reveal> all along?" Yes, there is something depicted in the movie in the movie that would have been more enjoyable if you had gone in cold, and not expected it.

Side note, from grumpy face here -- Ryan Reynold's so obviously dyed hair and beard are a stark difference from all other images I see of him. This movie did not want him depicted as his actual age. That bugged me.

12 year old Bea (Cailey Fleming, The Walking Dead) moves in with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw, Andor), while her Dad (John Krasinski, The Office) awaits open heart surgery. Through flashbacks we see that Bea lost her mother earlier to Cancer, and Dad has done his best to make sure Bea is good through all this latest challenge, focusing on stories and play, something the family cherished. Bea is reserved but mature acting, a strangely agreeable child. Most kids in movies like this are always pushing up against boundaries in difficult situations, but Bea is more concerned with her Dad feeling better than her own feelings.

And then Bea sees a walking, talking anthropomorphic, anachronistic black & white cartoon. She is accompanied by a an adult man, also dressed rather anachronistically. Bea follows them to a house where the man climbs through a window, and returns with a big, furry, purple monster named Blue. Bea faints. When she wakes, she is in the man's apartment, along with the B&W cartoon Blossom (kind of a butterfly girl; Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Blue (Steve Carell, Welcome to Marwen), and she learns that they are Imaginary Friends, and the man is Cal (Ryan Reynolds, Red Notice), a rather fastidious man who is focused on helping forgotten IF's either find new children. Since their now grown children have forgotten them, they will eventually just ... fade away.

So Bea gets it in her mind that she will help Cal find new children for these IFs. Cal shows her to the secret world of IFs where we meet a ton and a half of the very weird, very different ways kids had IFs. Bea is accepting and fits in easily. She gets a dance number. Which is kind of weird unto itself. Why doesn't she freak out? Why is their no commentary on her IF ? Why does she fit so easily into this magical world? I mean, yes, we are shown that because of her Mom & Dad, she lived a very magical life filled with wonder and imagination, but ... still.

Eventually Bea starts realizing its not so much about letting the IFs reconnect with their grown children, or even find new children, but to rekindle that tie they had, that aspect of memory that reminds adults of what was important to them when they were kids, and how the IF was more than a friend, but also a source of strength in tough times. Bea shows them how to revitalize that energy, that glow.

There are a few things going on in the movie. She spends much of the movie running around NYC unattended, but for Cal and his IFs. We don't question it. Nobody seems to question it. Bea is obviously running away from her problems, but its towards such a gleeful, magical world that we don't blame her. And Cal, sure he can see IFs which connects him to childhood more than most, but what else do we know about him? Nothing. Meanwhile, Dad sits in his hospital bed keeping a brave face for Bea, and her in turn keeping a brave face for him. And Cal, who I guess is entirely ineffectual in his plans to find places for his IF friends (dept of redundancy dept), is just dragged along by Bea's enthusiasm.

All this avoidance is to avoid the (!!!) SPOILER (!!!) which wasn't a spoiler for me -- Cal is not a man, he is an IF, and Bea's IF who she has let slip away. Since the trailers made that very obvious, I was confused for much of the movie that we were all playing like we didn't know, and in the not knowing (i.e. Cal is a real man) I was left confused. Kind of creepy, in fact. 

Yes, you are kind of creepy.

For me despite the imaginative depiction of the IFs and all their Special Guest Voices (Lou Gossett Jr, Emily Blunt, George Clooney, Bill Hader, Christopher Meloni, etc.), the movie didn't quite work. Its pretty much a standard-fare Netflix Ryan Reynolds movie, without being from Netflix.  Krasinski had the seed of an idea, and while he nailed the sentimentality, the wonderment, while incredibly well done as vignettes, ended up just tacked on.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Trigger Warning

2024, Mouly Surya (Marlena the Murderer in Four Acts) -- Netflix

Surya came out with her last movie in 2017, Marlena the Murderer in Four Acts, right into the pandemic. She had been approached by Netflix right around the time that movie premiered at Cannes. But, of course, the production got delayed. But even before that, I guess Netflix was doing the thing where they find a director whose visual cues they like and offered them American money to do something (more accessible) for them? Is it even Hollywood? Am I saying that sometimes the purple suit business is not all bad business? But is it? Is it all about cost effectiveness? Lack of expectation? More control over a foreign body unfamiliar with the industry in this part of the world? Probably, but I still believe they saw something in her movies, and in her, and that the act of making a movie in North America prepares a director for something invaluable they can use going forward. Even if every day on set was guided by purple values, she still got to do it.

And despite the panning, I didn't find the movie all that bad. The usual comparisons to John Wick and even Rambo are confusing; lazy. If I was to do any comparisons, it would be to Reacher, in that a skilled military agent gets mixed up in small town corruption, with an added dose of revenge for fun. I mean, the dialogue was ... lacking, and gladly they skipped the quipping, but it many ways it was more a mood piece between Surya and Jessica Alba. I honestly think the two women worked well with the uninspired material given to them, which is a shame, but again, purple meddling wants easily done products, not constant reshoots and script tweaking.

Parker (Jessica Alba, Dark Angel) survives a mission in Syria, along with her friend Spider (Tone Bell, Whitney). What does she do? Doesn't matter, its just enough to know she is a military trainer operator with skills. She gets a call from home -- her father has died in an accident, so she returns to Creation, New Mexico. She hasn't been back in a while but her old friends, the now Sheriff Jesse Swann (Mark Webber, Scott Pilgrim vs the World), and stoner Mike (Gabriel Basso, The Night Agent) expect her to take over her father's bar, built in an old mine outbuilding. But she's just back to settle her father's affairs and sell the land.

Until she finds evidence the mine collapse was not natural. There is scoring on the rocks that suggests explosives, like a grenade. She starts poking around and runs afoul of Jesse's brother Elvis (Jake Weary, Animal Kingdom), who turns out is selling military weapons stolen from a local base. Parker calls Spider to use his tech skills to do some digging. Her investigations lead to the bar being burned down, and Parker arrested for the death of one of Elvis's friends.

From there, things just escalate, revealing corruption in all of the Swann family, including her old boyfriend Jesse, and their father Senator Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall, The Dead Zone). Spider comes to help and after a requisite amount of violence for these kinds of movies, she gets her revenge.

These movies are never outside their wheelhouse, but Surya is able to give it a certain amount of gravitas, especially when we are alone with Alba. You can see a desire to tell Parker's story from the quiet moments, to further enhance the bursts of well-controlled violence. If this is to be her break into the western film industry, I hope she is able to get back to movies from her heart. While I haven't seen any of her previous films (I have just downloaded Marlena), the descriptions tell me she was not doing the Indonesian equivalent to stock action-thrillers, but... well, things that get Cannes attention.

Still not sure why the movie was called Trigger Warning. In today's parlance its usually associated a slur against sensitive people who need to be warned against content that might trigger an emotional response, but nobody in this movie was sensitive. I suspected that the original script may have made references to Parker being prone to intense violent outbursts, thus her leaving town, thus her line of work, but if so, it was entirely milked out of the movie. She was not "triggered" into investigating her father's murder, just doing what was expected.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

2024, George Miller (The Witches of Eastwick) -- download

Weird, my headcanon says George only directed The Road Warrior (and Fury Road) but whatever, my headcanon is sometimes stupid.

I am not. Also, WTF dude, download?

I am already on my second viewing of this one, as I have to admit, I started nodding off after Hour One (pt 3). It was all my own fault: a long day of work, a carb take-away, and an overly full tiki drink. So, second viewing already only days later and I am enjoying it.... even more? There are so many, many, and while I won't use the title of the video essays ("Every Frame a Painting"), scenes that stand as beautiful pieces of work on their own.

So, so many scenes a painting? Quit rolling your eyes.

But what kept on going through my head during the watching, and is retained during this one is that this reminds me so much more of Babe: Pig in the City than any other of Miller's works. Its almost fairy tale like in its depiction, as he danced the thin line between recreating the visual cues and imageries that made Fury Road so distinct, and doing something ... new.

Of note, I made this mistake of listening to a less that favourable review podcast (Maximum Film!) and it has left me thinking. Was what they said warranted? Is it diminishing what I felt about the movie, especially now that I have finished second watching? errr... watching 1.5 ?

I liked the movie, maybe even a tempered love. And I also know that deep down in my heart, I will love it more with repeated viewings. The thing I can say is that it did not want to be Fury Road and in that it succeeded. Where the previous movie was fraught with silences, this one was overwhelmed by the constant monologuing of Dementus. If this is but one of the Mad Max movies of the "new era" then it may be less than lauded, as Beyond Thunderdome was, but it still stands up as such a spectacle.

So, prequel. The story of how Furiosa came to be.

She's a wee thing (Alyla Browne, Sting) in the Place of Abundance: food, water, horses, even electricity -- you can see solar panels on the roof of buildings in the background. Her horse is taken down by raiders from the Wasteland and before she can finish disabling their bikes, she is taken. But not before she can alert her home, her mother.

Don't forget to mention that the other girl with Furiosa is Valkyrie, who ends up being one of the Mothers. Is she the final inspiration for Furiosa to betray Immortan Joe?

The first chase, as these movies are naught but chases scenes strung together by plot and need. Two women, one is Furiosa's mother. She traces them back to the camp of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, Snow White and the Huntsman). This is where we slide back easily into the world building Miller has given us as the raiders yell at each other, "My lips. Dementus's ear. My lips. Dementus!" They may have found a Place of Abundance, but what's more important is carrying this information to their leader, being the first to mention it, to rise in the ranks.

Gawds, Dementus, what's with the Jesus look?

The second chase. Mary Jobassa (or Joe Bassa? Jabassa? Furiosa's mom; Charlee Fraser, Anyone But You) succeeds in rescuing Furiosa but not without injury and loss of the fuel they need to get back to the Greenlands. They are caught, and rather than run to safety as instructed, Furiosa comes back, only to be confronted by the death of her mother, and the first instructional of life in the Wasteland, by Dementus.

Second Act. Months later? A year? Little D is Dementus's pet, along side The History Man (George Shevtsov, Mystery Road: Origin) wearing his and tattooed with (mostly useless?) facts from the old world. By chance Dementus's horde comes across a warboy (one must wonder why this is the first time; the world of Mad Max doesn't actually seem all that big) who leads  them to The Citadel ("the whata-del?"), home of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, Offspring) and his genetic reject sons, to semi-quote Dementus. This is the first hint of how inflated the ego of Dementus is, as his horde is decimated and unsuccessfully threatening Joe and crew.

Instead, Dementus, who is not entirely stupid, finds his way into Gastown and takes it for himself. He offers the previous deal they had with Joe, in return for Little D and The Organic Mechanic (Angus Sampson, The Lincoln Lawyer). Well, technically Joe takes them as part of the deal. Dementus doesn't have as much leverage as he hopes. That is the repeated truth of Dementus, in that while he feels he is underestimated, he constantly overestimates the effect he has on people. Little D escapes from Joe's clutches almost immediately, hiding among his people as a boy.

Third Act. Years later. Another chase. Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy, Morgan) has become a Dogman, the grunt mechanics of The Citadel. But she has a plan and works through it with precision, helping build the legendary (but first) War Rig, something that is already "shiny & chrome", even so far to be adorned with a bas relief of Immortan Joe and his legacy. It is driven by Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, CB Strike), a survivor of more runs (between the triad of Gastown, the Citadel and Bullet Town) than any other. Based on the actions of these two movies, that could mean surviving more than two runs, but hey, he's legendary, his truck is legendary. Furiosa (secretly) rides with him, and survives an attack by Dementus's crew... actually no, its a breakaway crew belonging to the Octoboss (Goran D Kleut, Wyrmwood Apocalypse), someone who has already seen how Dementus treats those who are loyal to him. Just another example of the slow degradation of Dementus's reign. She is the lone survivor, and Jack offers her a place in his crew, and a promise to help her escape, once a new crew is trained up.

Fourth Act. Some time later, again. New crew, same War Rig. Furiosa is now a Praetorian. A run to the Bullet Farm where another plan is in place. Jack and Furiosa will change things up, her lagging behind in a vehicle packed with two bikes and lots of supplies. While the crew is concerned with filling up the tanks with bullets, they will escape into the wasteland (small W) together, making for the Greenlands. 

Exceeeept, it doesn't as planned. Dementus has already taken the Bullet Farm and wants the War Rig, probably for another Trojan Horse attempt. They do succeed in surviving the attack, so, another chase. They are captured, Jack is killed and Furiosa only survives by gnawing off her own arm... well, not literally but she might as well have. So long Jack, you are gone far too soon. Furiosa returns to The Citadel, minus one arm, but with great resolve. 

Fifth Act. A reckoning. She builds an arm. She instructs the angry, petty, awash with toxic masculinity fools to not pursue Dementus to Gas Town, which is on fire, but to prepare for his attack. We get the "40 Day War", where we see whatever crew Dementus has left cut down, piles of bodies, almost all vehicles destroyed or in need of repair. And Dementus escapes.

There ya go Dementus, ya get yer Jesus thing.

The last chase. Despite an attempt at deception, he is caught and the words just keep on coming out of him, never stopping. He is not regretful, and he has his "freakishly high pain tolerance" but he asks one thing of her, that she "make it Epic." 

She does.

So, there we have it. Mega post for Mega movie. Something I didn't bless the first movie with after only a single cinema viewing. But what did I think? I still strongly believe I loved it, but I still have some issues. The production of Fury Road was said to have been a nightmare, but from the fires of the forge we got perfection. This seems.... rushed? It is tightly paced, but maybe covers too much? He shaved off the bright, saturated colours of Fury Road for crisp, clean scenes but supplemented by CGI far too often, and far too obviously. 

What I really need to do is see it a third time, in cinema. 

Kent's post. We agree, but a tempered agree.

What?!?!? Not even a single reference to Chris Hemsworth and the nose/teeth? Seriously? 

The Dark Year: Rampage

Because we never have enough projects in this Blog, I am creating one of my own, wherein I indulge my desire to rewatch a movie (because sometimes a rewatch is easier than absorbing a new movie) but also fill in a blank left by the Great Hiatus of 2018. It will be more interesting to me to see what I will be willing to rewatch, than see what I missed writing about.

2018, Brad Peyton (San Andreas) -- download

In Googling to see if I wrote about this one, I see Kent did, but I did not. Surprisingly Kent liked it, but then again, not surprisingly consider our shared fondness for kaiju-ness. And this movie has a giant ape, a giant-er wolf and and even more gigantic gator thing.

The movie is based on a video game. But not just any video game, but a rather obscure 80s arcade game. I say obscure because few people I know, from the 80s, even remember it, but apparently it was a big success. The premise is 80s arcade game silly. Three people transmogrify into giant monsters: George the Ape, Lizzie the... Lizard, and Ralph the big werewolf thing. From there, you climb buildings, do the smashy smashy and eat food... and people, if I recall correctly. Oh, and fight the military. 

This is not the kind of video game that is dear to the pop culture nostalgic heart, so I have no idea why they thought it needed to be adapted into an action-thriller ala Transformers. But whichever Purple Suit green lit this idea, I want to hug them, cuz I absolutely love this stupid, silly, utterly ridiculous movie. I even went so far as to grab a 4K copy, cuz whatever format I watched it in 2018, was lost to a HDD crash. If I was still adding to The Shelf, it would definitely be there. 

Why AREN'T you still adding to The Shelf? And don't use the lack of media outlets as an excuse.

The ISS, an experiment gone wrong. A bug ugly spiky rat thing has killed all but one of the scientists and astronauts. She is desperately trying to get to the escape pod, but Evil Boss Lady (Malin Akerman, 27 Dresses) yells, "No! Get the experiment first and then you can escape." She does, barely getting into the pod before the rat thing eats her, the space station exploding around her. Alas, rat thing is blow into the pod and his scratchy scratch claws compromise the pod and soon its burning wreckages is falling down over the US, three of the experiment cannisters crashing into: the everglades, hills of Montana, and a zoo in San Diego.

Intro act. Ex-military guy Davis Okoye (The Rock, Moana) is a primatologist working at the San Diego Zoo, and is best friends with big albino ape George. George is intelligent, knows sign language and is a bit of a joker. Davis doesn't like people, despite all the girls swooning over the bald head and all the muscles. His assistants are basically plot exposition -- fill in some details as to the character of Davis.

Also, at least three people in this movie are in "The Boys". Casting agency? Some connection to Kripke?

The night after our introduction is when George finds the experiment cannister in his compound. The next morning, George is a wee bit bigger, like 9 feet high bigger. And aggressive. Apparently he killed a grizzly. WTF George!! What did the mean bear ever do to you? They sedate George but... he's still growing and the next morning he breaks out and escapes. 

Oh yeah, mention grotty scientist lady, Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris, Miami Vice). Grotty because she used to work for Evil Boss Lady's corporation, but was fired and now sleeps in her own filth, and is now trying desperately to get her bastardized experiment back. She ends up with Davis and Big George, claiming to be there to help him. She's lying. Davis doesn't like liars.

Grotty. A bit harsh maybe? She is depicted as the completely-focused STEM type who doesn't have time for proper sleep schedules and ... hygiene. I actually envy being so enthralled with something that all normal human action takes second place. No really, I do. I have never had any such level of passion. When people talk about "Doing what you love!" I wonder if sitting, staring into space can be a passion.

Anywayz, the Acronym Police (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Losers) show up and arrest George. I am not sure what Davis and Caldwell did to also be arrested, but sure, whatever. Also, George is stuffed into a big C17 plane. Davis says he doesn't like planes, and In the Air (Phil Collins drum solo) is not exactly the best place for a big (BIG!), angry gorilla but Acronym Police Guy has to take George away. That's alright, they have George sedated.

Of course, George wakes up, goes ape-shit (really?) and kills pretty much everyone onboard but Davis and Kate. Also, David saves Acronym Police Guy. The plane crashes. They survive. So does George. Of course he does.

Interlude. Evil Boss Lady and her Lesser Evil Brother (Jake Lacy, Girls) have hired some military goons to capture a wolf-creature that shows up in Montana. It doesn't go so well.

Davis and Kate are once again incarcerated unfairly by the military who have taken over control of the op from Acronym Police Guy. But he ends up helping them escape, steal a chopper (which Davis can fly), and head to Chicago, because that apparently is where George, and his new best pal, Ralph the Wolf (does anyone actually call him Ralph in the movie? Wikipedia seems to think so....) are headed. Kate postulates something about bat signals and Evil Boss Lady's headquarters being there. 

Inner voice tangent. I commented the other day, to myself and to Marmy, that Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays a lot of "acronym police" types in movies and TV -- guys in black & white suits working for a government agency, either as the Bad Guy or as the Grey Area Guy. I said that seeing him appear as a new character on this season's "The Boys". And here he is playing exactly that kind of character.

Chicago. Its being evacuated. The monsters have arrived, drawn to the signal on the big tower. Military types are not having much luck shooting the monsters. They also don't, as expected of military types, don't know how to stay OUT OF ARM'S REACH !! At this point, the movie just glosses over the fact that George, the big albino galoot with a weird sense of humour, is murdering dozens of people. That's alright, he's been roofied.  Also, this is a big, dumb, action-thriller so I am not sure why I would ascribe human morality rules here.

Davis and Kate arrive, seeking to break into Evil Boss Lady's tower to steal.... a cure? I mean, really all Kate wants is to be validated in her research and also separate herself from what it has become. Davis just wants George back. While the monsters are munching and chomping and crushing things outside, Lizzie shows up via the Chicago River. The military is sending in a MOAB (mother of all bombs). 

Evil Boss Lady interrupts Kate and Davis stealing cures, which turns out not to be a cure at all, but it will inhibit the aggression the monsters are feeling, and shoots Davis. They then make their way to the roof where their escape chopper is, but also, the signal attracting the monsters? You'd think they might think it better to install that signal on another tower? Also, why are they attracting the monsters? Something about getting some aspect of the "successful" experiment from their corpses? They will, of course, blame it all on Kate who was fired after all. And then sell the monster making formula to the higher bidder.

Lesser Evil Brother is a bit of a knob, under the thumb of his sister. And he's a bit of a nerd, as we can see in his big, glass office. He has the actual Rampage arcade game console in the office, as well as a few others. He also has some collectible figures on his desk: a dragon, and a pair of robots/spaceships that I am having no luck identifying, not even with the help of the Interwebz.

There is a bit of a kerfuffle on the tower roof, helicopter pilot is tossed away, chopper damaged, and Kate convinces George to eat Evil Boss Lady, along with the vials of "cure". Davis reappears, shot but not dead, and devises a plan to ride the broken chopper down the collapsing tower. Oh yeah, because Ralph and Lizzie have been smashing their way up the tower, its gonna collapse. It does. They ride the "wave" down and ... cough cough... grey dust everywhere... survive. BUT SO DO THE MONSTERS !!

Buuuut the "cure" has kicked in and George is now back cracking bad jokes to Davis via sign language. Dude, much inappropriate? Together, he and Davis get the monsters fighting with each other, Lizzie kills Ralph and George has to duke it out with Lizzie. Meanwhile Kate is convincing Acronym Police Guy to call off the MOAB. George finally kills Lizzie and the bombing run is stopped at the last second. And George dies.

No, not really, George is being a dick, pretending to be dead, so we can have some comic relief at the expense of Davis. The city has been saved, the evil monsters killed and George made not-evil. To accentuate that point, as we pull back, we see George the Giant Ape helping some guy from the second story of a ruined building, letting him do the Faye Ray thing and ride his palm to the ground. If I was that guy, I would still be pretty traumatized and not willing to step into the palm of a giant freaking ape. But you do you, Grateful Guy. Maybe he speaks American Sign.

An utterly ludicrous, immensely stupid, big bombastic movie. But I love it. Almost as much as I dislike the taking-themselves-far-too-seriously Transformers movies. I am not sure where Peyton went wrong with Atlas considering it had the opportunity to do the same here -- ride of the tail of other movies in the same vein, but do something big and stupid and fun. I mean, Atlas was big and stupid, but a lot of the fun was milked out of it. Not sure how though...