KWIF: The Sheep Detectives (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. I originally had a snarky comment closing out last week's review of Mortal Kombat II where I was lamenting having seen the video game adaptation instead of seeing the one about investigative ewes. I deleted the comment because I had already heard that The Sheep Detectives was actually, surprisingly, a pretty decent film, and that neuters the joke a little bit. Plus, I was going to see The Sheep Detectives anyway, so there never really was an either/or decision in the first place.

This Week:
The Sheep Detectives (2026, d. Kyle Balda - in theatre)
Mile End Kicks (2025, d. Chandler Levack - in theatre)
Dark City (1998, d. Alexander Proyas - DVD)

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I must have seen the trailer for The Sheep Detectives about a dozen times, most of them in the form of a preview before the screening of one film or another. Every time the trailer would start, I would balk at the very concept of a live-action movie about cgi sheep attempting to solve the murder of their shepherd. And yet, by the end of the trailer, every time, I was completely sold. Well, I guess not completely since the very same cycle would start anew the next time I would see the trailer.

It is, without a doubt, an absurd concept, but absurdity doesn't innately make for a film bad, and often the very absurd nature of a story's conceit is what makes it stand out, what makes it good, different and exciting.

I've been hearing a lot of comparisons to Paddington bandied about, but The Sheep Detectives really takes a greater nod from Babe, in that it's set in the real world, but when the humans aren't around the animals are speaking to each other. Yes, there are plenty of jokes where we watch the sheep talk in English and then cut to a human POV just to see them bleating at each other...and it's never. not. funny! (Director Balda is kind of restrained in his use of this gag to be honest, maximizing it's efficacy.)

Based on a 2005 German novel, this is "cozy mystery" at its coziest... I mean, we're talking wool coats for days, right? But the real surprise is that the mystery is not the most captivating part of the film. The reason The Sheep Detectives works so well is it establishes characters and it establishes a community (mainly with the sheep, but also with the humans) and it establishes a tangible world for them to inhabit. In this world, sheep are intelligent creatures. They sit and listen to farmer George (Hugh Jackman, X-Men: Origins: Wolverine) read mystery novels in the evening, and Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jack the Bear), George's favourite sheep, always solves the mystery before the end. George has a reputation about town of being a prickly bastard, but he's a kind and gentle loner who adores his sheep above all. He opens our story by narrating the letter he's writing to, it turns out, his daughter whom he gave up for adoption three decades ago (Molly Gordon, The Bear).

The sheep, we quickly learn, have the ability to force themselves to forget, which they do as a collective. Only Mopple (Chris O'Dowd, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) can remember the past. The sheep believe that they don't die but turn into clouds. Mopple knows the truth, but lets them have their comforts. Otherwise their understanding of death is restricted only to the stories George tells them, so when George turns up dead, the sheep community is rocked.

So too is the human community of the English town of Denbrook. The kind of hapless town constable Officer Derry (Nicholas Braun, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) is completely incapable of handling any sort of death, nevermind a murder. A wayward aspiring reporter (Nicholas Galitzine, Handsome Devil) seems intent on helping him break the case for his own reasons. The suspects are all in George's will, including the town butcher, a rival shepherd, the lovelorn innkeeper, and George's estranged daughter who just happened into town the day of his death.

In a conventional story, there would be much mileage about the sheep working through each of the suspects and eliminating them as the possible murderer. Instead, The Sheep Detectives is far more interested in the sheep community, and expanding their horizons. There is the whole concept in this community of a "winter sheep". Most sheep, they say, are born in the spring, but the occasional sheep is born in the winter, and they are shunned by the herd. And so a tiny, unnamed lamb George loves dearly, but is rejected by all. Part of the story is the herd confronting their prejudices, but in a roundabout way.  Even upon learning that their greatest ram, Sebastian (Bryan Cranston, Kung Fu Panda 3), is a winter sheep, it takes a lot before the herd truly understands the harm of their prejudice.

But that's just one facet of what these sheep need to learn. They have to leave the familiar safety of their farm and venture out into the world, where they are exposed to the realities they've otherwise chosen to forget. It's a potent moment when Lily realizes that Mopple has had to live with everything they've forgotten, but Mopple presents it as something beautiful, not horrible.

I'm not doing the best job of selling The Sheep Detectives but, to be blunt, I absolutely adored it. Funny, charming, sweet, sincere with a, yes, cozy mystery at its core to keep things moving, but just a delightful cast of characters and some of the most rewarding emotional stringpulls in some time... I cried at least three times and it earned every one of those tears. I never resented the film for them.

There is no reason The Sheep Detectives should be as good as it is, but we're so lucky that it is. A large contingent of my early-evening Wednesday screening applauded at the end of the film. I joined in. There was no one there to receive the applause, but it felt like the right way of mutually socially acknowledging that we all had a genuine emotional reaction to this film, and that we appreciated it. I do not recall the last time that happened.

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Love the pseudo-American Apparel-
style poster for this film. Perfection

Mile End Kicks first shot is inside Toronto's legendary Horseshoe tavern. The band Islands is playing a gig. I am transported back in time.

Despite the caption "2011", I am transported to 2005, to seeing Islands in their earliest incarnation, possibly at the Horseshoe, but maybe at the Rivoli or Lee's Palace or some other joint and perhaps during the North By Northeast festival. Anyway, I'm there. I'm in. It has me. It took the film all of 9 seconds to completely reel me in.

By 2011 I was out of regular "gigging", going to shows around town, and certainly out of the pretense that my photographing and reviewing of such shows (sometimes for online media outlets, most often just for personal blogging) was a career path. Grace (Barbie Ferreira, Euphoria) is 22 years old and already has a foothold in journalism.  She has four hundred articles in the local newspaper she's been writing for, including investigative journalism, interviews, and writing a sex column, as well as music reviews. She ponders the idea of writing a "33 1/3" volume on Alanis Morissette's album "Jagged Little Pill". Her boss at the paper (Jay Baruchel) thinks it's a great idea, and hooks her up with the "33 1/3" publisher who likes her take and gives her a small advance to write the book, but it needs to be done quickly.

The next we see of Grace, she's on a bus to Montreal for the summer, giving the middle finger to T.dot on her way out. Her mom doesn't understand why she has this sudden impulse to move elsewhere, and her dad...well, just seems depressed. Grace has a top 5 list of what she wants her summer in Montreal to be: write her book on Alanis, have real sex, climb Mount Royal, learn French and fall in love, probably not in that order.

She's renting a room in Montreal's Mile End from Madeline (Juliette Gariépy, Red Rooms) a hot DJ whose boyfriend Hugo (Robert Naylor) plays in a rock band called Bone Patrol. Madeline is super friendly and wants to be pals, while Grace is a bit reserved and really wants to focus on her writing. But Madeline insists she come to a loft party where she is DJing and Bone Patrol is playing. At the party, unfamiliar with the Montreal scene, Grace retreats to an outdoor space where she meets Archie (Devon Bostick, Diary of a Wimpy Kid) the bassist for Bone Patrol, and they form an immediate kinship... but when the band finally plays, Grace has a rather visceral reaction to Chevy (Stanley Simons, The Iron Claw), Bone Patrol's frontman. She chats him up and he's the most up-his-own-ass pretentious, faux-ambivalent, self-involved shitheel, but Grace can't see past his stage mystique.

Mile End Kicks is about Grace's epic summer in Montreal, becoming part of it's 2010's hipster scene and getting waaay too invested in a guy who can only ever think about himself (and even then not that deeply). There's an obvious love triangle happening between Grace, Archie and Chevy, but the will-they/won't-they isn't really the thrust of the movie. It's more of a "what the fuck, Grace?" as her logic just cannot find a way to overrule her libido when it comes to Chevy, and Archie pre-emptively takes himself out of the equation.

Mile End Kicks is about Grace building up her life, but also feeling completely helpless as it starts to crash down around her. A lesser film would have spent more time and energy on making more direct connections between Grace's life and the songs of "Jagged Little Pill", but the film doesn't need to link them firmly at all. Grace's fall from grace happens for many, many reasons, (almost all her own) and her only way out of the pit she's fallen into is to find self respect and confidence, to engage the world on her own terms rather than feel like she has to be deferential to the men she finds in the circles she's in.

There's an excellent, fundamental moment early in the movie where some of the men of the paper she's working at are having a debate over a couple of bands. It's clear she's not invited to this conversation and when she interjects her own input, she is dismissed immediately and, to put a finer point on it, laughed at. Late it the film (when she's back on her upswing) she reads an insightful and incisive text at a poetry slam about not just this explicit experience but all the general outside-the-circle-of-men experiences women have everywhere. It's a terrific 1-2-3 execution (especially when Grace returns to the bullpen late in the film).  I have witnessed these types of situations so many time (even well into adulthood) and have probably been a party to them more often than I've been cognizant of or care to admit. It's institutionalized sexism that often we (meaning men) are not even aware of. I mean I was aware of it before this film, but praise it for actually making it a part of the conversation.

The film contains three (or perhaps even four) of the most awkward make-out scenes I think I've ever seen on film. Given that Grace is our POV character, she's mostly not the one being awkward so our cringe isn't a sympathetic one but more of an "oh gods, what the eff" type of cringe. It's almost all Chevy and that boy, wow, is a fucking mess.  Either Levack dated a guy just like this or knew someone who had. The hyper-specificity here is too crazy to be made up.

The film effectively uses its setting as a real "Montreal is a main character" film, and it definitely captures what the Canadian hipster "scene" was like at the time (Toronto, a few years earlier, wasn't that much different, nor likely was Vancouver a few years before that, or Halifax a few years before that...the "it" scene sort of cycles through the major Canadian centers in five-ish-year spans). It effectively seeds in the tension in Montreal's art scene that's so distinct to it (the outsiders that come in and the French-English divide between them, as well as the Toronto resentment)

Mile End Kicks is a film about being in your 20's and fucking up, but also about learning from your mistakes and growing as a person, and understanding that you'll continue to make mistakes (just hopefully new ones, and not repeating them). It's also about empowerment, and while not being so aggressively Alanis about it, it's still a pretty bold awakening.

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I had not watched Dark City for a very, very long time, though I had carried the DVD of it with me to at least a dozen different residences over the years. It would have been one of the first DVDs I bought, but I have no recollection if I ever actually put it in a DVD player and watched the film it contained.

A friend recently brought up the film, noting that clips of it had been popping up in one of his feeds ... somewhere. I recall that I liked the film way back when, and it has maintained a decent if not stellar reputation in the meantime... but would it hold up? Would I still even like it? Does the disc even work or has it succumbed to disc rot?

Turns out, mostly, mostly and yes, the disc still works wonderfully.

The most unfortunate thing about Dark City is that it opens with a narration from Kiefer Sutherland's Dr. Daniel Schreiber. Schreiber exposits about an advanced alien civilization late in its decline looking for some hope of salvation, and that hope is human. Schreiber is helping them in their experiments on humanity, and this film, then, in theory, unpacks just what that experiment is.

The second most unfortunate thing about Dark City is the affectation that Sutherland imbues Schreiber with. He gives the character an out-of-breath speech pattern, speaking in short bursts (not unlike Malcolm's asthmatic friend Stevie on Malcolm in the Middle). It's really a hat-on-a-hat as Schreiber also has a scarred lazy eye and a severe limp as well. Sutherland was making choices.

A few minutes in the proper film starts as Rufus Sewell's John Murdock awakens in the bathtub of a grimy hotel, completely unaware of where or who he is. He receives a phone call from Schreiber warning him some men will be after him, and he needs to leave immediately...it's then that he notices the dead sex worker on the ground with spirals and other sigils carved into her skin.  He moves with haste, just as a quartet of creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers show up and check out his freshly abandoned place.

The streets of Dark City are just that, dark, dimly lit. Every light seems like a spotlight only illuminating in a cone shape exactly what it's pointing at. Also at midnight, the society of creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers use their psionic abilities (called "tuning") to cause the entire city to grind to a halt, and it's denizens to go inert and unconscious. They also reconfigure the entire city, buildings twist up out of the ground forcing other buildings to shrink or retreat without causing any true damage to speak of. Reality bends to their whims...almost.  But these creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers need Dr. Schreiber to concoct new memories for the citizens of this dark city which most citizens have had done a few times over.

But it's John Murdock who has somehow repelled the new personality application and also developed the same tuning powers as the creepy overlords. He poses a genuine threat to the order of things.

As we learn all this, there's also a mystery... is John a murderer. His estranged wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) can't conceive of it, and even John himself has to test whether indeed the impulses are there or if he's truly capable of being a psychopathic killer. The detective on the case, Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt) can't see any other options, because to do so would be to admit that reality is not all that it seems.  While Sewell's efforts as Murdock are genuinely quite good, there's a case to be made that this works better if Bumstead is it's main figure trying to solve a murder and unraveling the case of John Murdock, which then leads to the revelation of where they actually are and who is actually in charge and why.

Dark City is a really decent sci-fi neo-noir that doesn't always tease its mystery in an efficient or effective manner (especially since the opening voice over gives up so much of the surprise), but the exceptional special effects (for the most part) and shadow-laden atmosphere of the picture do so much of the heavy lifting to keep things engaging when the story may falter. Even 28 years later, on one of the oldest DVD pressings in my collection, the film still looks really good, the copious practical effects, sets and miniatures and the well-masked digital effects standing up very very well.

The third most unfortunate thing about Dark City then is the climax is such utter nonsense. Murdock goes tete-a-tete with "tuning" powers against the...leader? (of a hive mind?) I guess of the creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers... and there's nothing more boring that two characters trapped in a mental battle just leering at each other while crazy cgi bullshit swirls all around them.  It's such a let down given some of the film's strengths prior to that point.

The fourth most unfortunate thing is how sleepy Jennifer Connelly is in the role of Emma Murdoch. I can hazard a guess that she's been told to play the character as if she's just had a lifetime of memories slammed into her brain only the night before, so she's effectively a new, but confused person...but for some reason that gets relayed as sedate, with most every line delivered in an unaffected monotone. She's a much better actress than this performance.

But a few unfortunates aside, Dark City holds up as a solid watch. Perhaps it's not the monumental sci-fi story of it's generation (hard to be when The Matrix comes along 13 months later) but it's got very little to be embarassed about, and despite not hiding what could have been some great surprises, still has a surprise or two under its belt.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Hoppers

2026,  Daniel Chong (We Bare Bears: The Movie) - download

Kent mentioned in a recent post that he has to be "in the right mood or zone to watch something." If that is Kent's problem, make mine doubly or triply so. I have been unable to watch... anything. I click, and I click and I start, and I stop and I am just not able to invest time. And yet, I am very VERY good at wasting said time. As usual, this onset of hiatus-s is being caused by something I should be doing and procrastination, this time it being extra-curricular training. I am over 50 and the idea of doing school sends me all the way back to junior high for those few years where stress & depression just had me entirely checked out. And self-led schooling? Oh gawds, kill me now. So, while I am able to waste hours on re-run TV and video games, if I begin to invest some 1.5 hours into something else, I suddenly suffer from the guilt.

Dude, yer a mess.

But a cartoon that is sufficiently distracting and unhinged enough to drive all the maniacal thoughts away? That should work, no? Yes. It did.

Daniel Chong comes to Pixar by way of a popular cartoon series based on a popular, wtf-unhinged webcomic about three bears in San Francisco. I am not sure how A led to B but I guess he showed people he could helm something. I mean he brought it from comic to series to movie, so I guess that's something? It also enthralls me that until I Googled him, I had never heard of any of the three said properties. Even without trying, I am pretty well exposed to a lot of pop culture, and being entirely unaware of something that was skilled and known enough to follow this train is a joy, suggesting there is so much more out there I may be unaware of, things that could raise me above meh.

Its the town of Beaverton, and yes, I head-canoned to assume this is where the Beaverton Times comes from. Mabel (Piper Curda, I Didn't Do It) is a kid with anger issues mixed up with leftist ideas like protecting wildlife and (rolls eyes) saving the world. Her grandmother gives her an outlet in the form of an idyllic glade where she can sit on a rock and just watch life be lived in all nature's glory. Then gramma dies and Mabel grows up and the world goes to shit, as it does IRL. Jerry (Jon Hamm, Baby Driver) the mayor of Beaverton is gonna pave the glade to make way for the final loop in his mega-highway. Jerry claims he has the right to bulldoze the glade because all the animals have left. Mabel needs to stop him. 

The best gag in the movie is the highway itself, which is literally just a big ring surrounding the city. It doesn't even appear to have on-ramps or off-ramps, just a big concrete and asphalt ring high above the ground. Jerry's project is just completing the last portion of the circle.

Then Mabel discovers that her professor, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimi, Hocus Pocus), her biology teacher, is actually a mad scientist who developed robot animals and a way to "hop" into those robots, so as to peacefully observe animals in the wild without disturbing them. She claims, very loudly, that its not Avatar -- its Avatar. Mabel "steals" a beaver bot and hopes to find the animals of the glade, so as to convince them to come back, which will stop Jerry's construction/destruction.

Sam, as a robotic beaver indiscernible from a real beaver, now has the ability to talk to animals and is horrified to find out they live by "pond rules", or a low-conflict acceptance that "people gotta eat". The animals of the glade have all collected in a distant section of the forest as they were driven out by a white noise generator devised by Jerry, something only animals can hear. These animals live together in harmony under the protective embrace of The Mammal King, George the Beaver (Bobby Moynihan, Nature Cat). Mabel befriends George hoping to convince him, and the others, to return to the glade, as long as she destroys Jerry's tech.

The movie is a bit of an unhinged romp, full of action and heartfelt connection, and Pixar is always at its best when it does weird shit. Yes, animals get eaten by their friendly neighbourhood predators in this kids' cartoon. And a butterfly gets squashed -- squishing is the animal equivalent of murder. In its individual bits, this is a great movie. As a contiguous whole, maybe not so much. Don't get me wrong, its fun to watch and has lots to engage with, but unlike classics like The Incredibles or WALL-E this one is not going to live in my brain forever. 

The second best gag was that when we observed animals from only a human perspective, they had cute button eyes and cute little squeaks and squawks. But from their own perspectives, they had full cartoon eyes and spoke English.

Enter the Lexxicon: Eating Pattern

aka Lexx: 3.0

1997, d. Rainer Matsutani - tubi 

in trying to defy the Trek-method of sci-fi adventure show by relying upon irreverence, sexuality, and unheroic leads to carry it, the second entry of Lexx missed the mark on actually being engaging entertainment. Thankfully for this the third episode/movie the creators of Lexx seemed to consider that maybe the best way to make a show that's disinterested in sci-fi conventions is to use and abuse them in their own way.

A standard trope of Space Journey stories is receiving the automated cry for help. The last episode started similarly with a cry for help which resolved unceremoniously in less than a minute, and in this one the Lexx crew actually receive the message, but the cowardly captain of the ship, Stanley Tweedle is too paranoid of strangers to dare to venture there. Unfortunately the Lexx, a living technology, is running low on fuel and needs to feed. It makes a decision on its own to venture towards the signal and eat whatever the planet can provide (for this show, this should be a lot more interesting a process than it is, you know something gross and/or terrorizing... instead it's just like mandibles shovelling dirt into its maw).

Meanwhile, Stan and Zev's attempt to awaken Kai from cryosleep are unsuccessful. It seems his protoblood has run out and that he's now dead-dead, no longer un-dead. Zev wants to bury him on the literal garbage planet Lexx is feeding on.  After burying Kai, they spy what looks like an inhabited station and Zev wants to explore for food. Stan is, of course, opposed, but in this case he's right to worry.

What they discover is no less than fourth sci-fi tropes mashed into one. First there's a post-apocalyptic civilization of scavengers, second they are cannibals (of a sort) and third they are all infected with an alien parasite, and fourth the parasites are controlled by a hive queen.

But this civilzation, with their weird songs, and their silly games, aren't simple drones of an alien queen, the victims are still at least somewhat present in their bodies, if very much controlled by the worm things inside them. The worms are addicted to a substance called "pattern", and pattern is made from people (it's basically Soylent Green but liquid). Pattern is made from meat culled from the hosts during their games (where winners get pattern and losers lose limbs. for making pattern..if they're lucky). 

Stan encounters one of the key people in this group. Wisp (Doreen Jacobi) is an attractive, if dirty young woman in a Witchblade-like jumpsuit. At first she seems like a naif, and the worry is that she's a born-sexy-yesterday trope ("Do you like me" she asks in a creepily seductive manner), but nope...once again subverting tropes, she is a host to the queen's babies and she's responsible for infecting any new, clean meat. And so Stan is turned.

He then meets Bog (Rutger Hauer), who is sort of the de-facto leader of all the remaining people. If he leads it's because he's the only one who knows how to make pattern. Hauer delivers a thoroughly delightful and entertaining performance, and seems to informs the rest of the cast how being infected with the worm, and the delirium it causes, should be portrayed. Of course, he's the best and most delirious of the performances.

For this third installment, the creatives seem to have forgotten (or just ignored) that Zev is part cluster lizard that not only would give her enhanced strength and probably a resistance to being knocked out with a simple conk on the head, but also that would be a reasonable explanation as to why the worms wouldn't want to infect her. Instead she's basically just bound up for most of the episode. She's still exceptionally feisty and not docile, but this feels like some Golden Age Wonder Woman bullshit.

Kai, of course, saves the day at first (having been resurrected with some sort of amino acids spewed by the worms attempting to see if he could be a host), but there's not a whole lot he can do when the queen becomes a Titan-sized Wisp who gloms onto the Lexx and tries infecting it. The Lexx needs to learn to defend itself.

What lets it down is the special effects. You can see the intent, but it all seems rushed and short-handed. Like I said, if there were more budget, Lexx's eating of the planet would have for sure been a spectacle rather than the muted close-up it is. almost every digital shot is unrefined, like the budget ran out during the second pass. I don't know if the effects of the previous two instalments were as visually awful because I was watching it in bed, on my phone, through the haze of illness and this one I was watching on the big screen tv. 

Despite the janky sfx, Eating Pattern is an enjoyable Lexx episode in large part because it leans into the genre tropes and cliches, but mashes them thoroughly together and pushes them to, like, grindhouse levels of absurdity with some minor gore and more than a little humour. Also, unlike the last episode, there's more for the crew to interact with than just one or two guest stars. Quite fun, this one.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): How to Make a Killing

2026, John Patton Ford (Emily the Criminal) -- download

I generally don't like fiction that puts unlikeable characters at the centre of the story. I have never watched Seinfeld, I didn't bother to watch Arrested Development and I had no desire to watch the rich summabitches of Succession. Yet, while I knew the premise of this movie was that a disowned heir to billions in old money started bumping off his own relatives, in order to leave himself as the only possible heir, I do like Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley and Jessica Henwick, so we gave it a go. Maybe a man murdering is relatives can be played for black comedy? Maybe the relatives are so comically evil, we don't mind them dying? Maybe he is so set upon, in life, that we forgive him his trespasses? All yes, but still, he never really becomes... likeable. And that was probably the point -- Fuck the Rich.

Since I am currently "not watching movies" and also "not writing", a good amount of time has passed since I wrote the above, and well, I am reaching "I Saw This!!" levels of escaped memory.

The movie is a death-row confessional. Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell, The Running Man), who was raised by his single mother, after she was ousted from her family fame & fortune for choosing to keep the boy, has been convicted of murder. Becket promises his mother on her deathbed that he will do everything he can to claim his heritage. Years later, while working dutifully in a men's haberdashery, he bumps into a childhood friend Julia (Margaret Qualley, The Substance), still precocious and deviously flirty, who reminds him of the promise he made to his mother. She is part of the world that Becket only got to watch from the outside as his mother seemed to still have some contact with her "friends", of whom Julia's mother was one. This reminder inspires Becket to kill his cousins, leaving him the only heir. We can only assume he ends up getting caught, given the opening of the movie.

I was very confused by the timeline of this movie. It was as if, at some point in the production of the movie, they had wanted it to be set 20 years ago. There are clothing choices, lifestyles depicted and even Becket's wonky haircut that are out of place -- he wears these cut-short sideburns, something I embraced in the late 90s all the way thru the late 2010s, but is entirely absent now. Some of the outfits adult Julia wears would not be out of place in the original The Devil Wears Prada. Maybe Patton Ford has a visual style? If so, its never truly embraced.

Becket's rise to power, through the death of unlikeable people, does not really endear us to him. And yet you are probably supposed to? I guess its just me. As he kills one cousin, a doofus flighty artist, he "steals" the man's girlfriend, giving us a mostly-likeable love interest. Ruth (Jessica Henwick, The Matrix Resurrections) is supposed to have agency but... And then Becket endears himself to the father of one of his victims, a truly likeable figure, which is weird considering he is a Wall Street investment mogul, all the while knowing he eventually has to kill the grieving man.

Black Comedy. That is what the movie is positioned as, and while there are some light chuckles, its mostly just black. If anything is played for fun, its that the FBI catches onto Becket's play almost immediately, but they seem unable to make things stick. Meanwhile snake-skinned Julia is played as an even bigger villain, catching Becket's scheme immediately, and getting the evidence of his acts, and he is just a pawn in her BIGGER plot. But its all about money & power, that some have, and others want.

There is no "rooting for" in this movie, and while I liked watching the movie, the performances by actors I enjoy, in thinking back, in writing about it, I am left exactly where I was before I started -- I do not enjoy watching bad people do bad things while setting us up to admire them. Sure sure, the commentary is that you become the monster you want to destroy, and there is some slice of "its in the blood", but ... meh.

And yes, I still think that, given billions to play with, I would not devolve into the Evil everyone believes is caused by money... well no more than I already am.  Cackle. Moustache Twirling.

KWIF: The Devil Wears Prada 2 (+4)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. It was a real toss up: final two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again's second season, or the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. It was no toss up. Daredevil has been, to put it bluntly, repetitive and boring, while TDWP2 is an event! It wasn't even a competition.

This Week:
The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026, d.  David Frankel - in theatre)
Mortal Kombat II (2026, d. Simon McQuoid - in theatre)
Keyhole (2011, d. Guy Maddin - tubi)
Deadly Outlaw: Rekka (2002, d. Takashi Miike - tubi)
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (1988, d. Akio Jissoji - tubi)

I am not a journalist. Despite having been a writer and for many online resources for over 30 years, nothing I've done is what I would call journalism. The closest I came was a 3 year stint on editorial at my student newspaper in University (I thought this was an extraordinary and fundamental time in my life but in hindsight, turns out it was a somewhat juvenile and retroactively embarrassing era for both myself and the paper, full of (my own) sloppy work, ill-informed editorials, and errors in judgement. My desire to be more like the Harvard Lampoon or Mad Magazine than anything with journalistic integrity (which is not to diminish the work of my collaborators, but I was really not up to the task...but I digress). 

I got a degree in business, not journalism, and I cared about each equally (which is to say, minimally). It's probably for the best I never went into journalism professionally (though I tried on a few occasions). I don't have the stones for it. Much like being an artist, being a journalist requires sacrifice, and the rewards are not monetary, and you have to love it (which I don't...I respect it, don't love it so much). Plus, in the past 15 years or so, there's been a decided attack on journalism as an institution. Truth telling is now all a matter of perspective (or so the 1% overlords would have us believe). It's been a rough dozen-plus years for the media. Most of my favourite writers are now doing their own Substack or Substack-adjacent writing, and supplementing any written work with podcasting. The world is a lesser place for social media having supplanted traditional media as people's primary source of news (or, rather, "news"). There's no security to working in the world of journalism.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a sequel that doesn't need to exist. Nothing about the end of The Devil Wears Prada demands we know more. But now that it does exist, that it sets itself on top of the backdrop of the failing state of traditional media and the billionaire bros who snap up media outlets so they can control the narrative with their detached-from-the-layman world view...well, at least there's something for it say, something to explore in this moment, even if it doesn't quite have the firmest grasp on its message.

We find, when this film starts, Andy Sach (Anne Hathaway) has just won a journalism award but also, at almost the same moment, via text, finds out that she and her entire staff at the newspaper she was writing for have been laid off. Meanwhile Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) has just had an expose written about how Runway Magazine has promoted and supported a brand who runs a manufacturing sweatshop. This is a scandal, one which Miranda of 20 years ago would never have found herself in (it's telling in many ways that she has).  The owner of Runway's media parent, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman) needs damage control, and thus returns Andy to Runway, the place where she interned 20 years ago, now as the new features editor.

She reunites with Nigel (Stanley Tucci) and Miranda (who doesn't remember her, or so she says), and is instantly swept into a meeting with their key advertiser, Dior, where Emily (Emily Blunt) now works as retail manager.

Andy finds Miranda in a subdued position relative to where she once was. Still a titan of the industry, print media is all but dead, and the online sphere for Runway has trouble competing with other scroll-and-like spaces. Andy's role is, at first, damage control, but also about trying to raise Runway's profile up.  It needs to be more than just about the pictures, people need to read it for the articles too.  Without saying it, it's attempting to "Teen Vogue" it (where in the mid-2010s Teen Vogue shifted its focus from fashion and entertainment and rapidly gained attention for it's provocative and insightful political articles.... Teen Vogue was collapsed into the parent Vogue in 2025 by its publishing overlords, according to many to stifle its anti-right wing messaging).

Andy's efforts to raise the status of the magazine is noticed in the media, but not represented in the site traffic. She needs a big gambit both to secure her place and to gain at least a modicum of respect from Miranda. She needs to land the white whale interview: Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu). The ex-wife of one of the world's richest men (a chuckling tech bro doofus played brilliantly under gobs of makeup by Justin Theroux) is now the world's richest woman, but Sasha hasn't given an interview in the three years since the divorce. Andy lands the interview (conducted by Miranda but the article written by Andy) and not only gets in Miranda's good graces once again but becomes a bit of a legend.  

The crux of the film, however, is that no matter what one good story brings for a day, a week, or a month, it's not enough. The cycles move on so fast that there's no time to rest, and media and journalism are still a dying form, unable to demand enough attention in the attention economy when there's injured baby foxes being fed milk from a bottle or video game live streams that run for two days straight to compete with. Runway is on the table to be sold...or on the chopping block to be axed.

While the first act is all about Andy getting reacquainted with a world she left behind 20 years earlier and noting both the similarities and shocking differences, the second act is about settling in, about establishing a new life in a roller-coaster world of uncertainty and insecurity. Miranda is the only one who seems like teflon-coated steel, nothing penetrates and nothing sticks...but even she is showing signs that that it's all actually getting to her too. The world is changing and she can only do so much to change with it.

The third act then becomes about Andy's perception of the situation, that the threat to Runway, one of the last bastions of traditional media, is the warning siren and that saving it means much more than just saving a magazine but providing hope for the entire industry of journalism.  It's idealist and optimistic, and it takes the audience on that ride of hope and scrappy-can-do attitude.

And then Miranda slaps her in the face with reality. It's only a matter of time. There's a boa wrapped tightly around every industry, squeezing tighter and tighter trying to milk them for everything they're worth, until they're worth nothing, at least monetarily. The solution to the troubles in this picture all rely on the good graces of an ultra-rich benefactor to whom minimal, or no returns (or even negative returns) are worth the investment for the art and integrity. You can't monetize artistry and integrity.

This, mercifully, isn't a naive film, although at times Andy is far too naive as a character, and Miranda is far too withholding to fully invest in the driving story forces at play. It does oversimplify its narrative so that it can have a satisfying ending while still being cognizant that there remains a dark cloud overhead and the struggle will continue after the last pan of the New York skyline.

The Devil Wears Prada was a really good movie that has become sort of legendary. The sequel doesn't tarnish the legend, though it fails to find its own legendary status in the process. It's a pretty picture, with tons of fabulous outfits, sets, and settings (and boy does Anne Hathaway look more amazing than she ever has), all of which are a must, and it mercifully doesn't wallow in the past. It does unfortunately seems obliged to put Andy kind of in the same place she was in during the first movie, even though she has two decades of prestigious experience, world travelling and her own life under her belt. It's natural for someone to find themselves repeating patterns of behaviour when with certain people, but I just felt like she should be much more assured than she is here. Similarly, Miranda shows next to no sign of growth, yet she feels muted compared to the ruthless ferocity which she had in the prior film. But she's also almost 70 now, and there does come something of a softening with age which we should find believable.

Already a massive box office success, the best we can say about The Devil Wears Prada 2 is that it does fine as a sequel. It doesn't at all diminish what came before, nor does it immediately discount its own existence. I find myself wishing that it were more interested in its setting, exploring the erosion of media and journalism, especially given the eyes it has on it, but that's not the audience its serving (this isn't The Paper 2 or Broadcast News 2). It serves its audience well...or well enough.

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I didn't see the 2021 iteration of Mortal Kombat (but Toasty did) and, to be honest, I didn't care to. From all reports it was attempting to be a character-driven narrative exploring the characters of Sub-Zero and Scorpion, and that there was not, in fact, any Mortal Kombat to be had. I mean, what's the point then?

I am by no means invested in Mortal Kombat as a property. The last version of the game I played was its original incarnation. But that said, I've long had a soft spot for the '95 cinematic treatment from Paul WS Anderson, a film that has aged surprisingly well in that it was always kind of hokey and wasn't taking the whole thing too seriously. The last thing we need to do is take Mortal Kombat too seriously.

It seemed like (at least from Toasty's report) MK2021 was taking things too seriously. Mortal Kombat II wants you to think it's not taking things too seriously... but it still is. What story there is within the film is wildly unfocussed and largely predictable, with absolutely no tension built along the way (for a number of reasons). The movie starts by introducing the concept of "Mortal Kombat", where two realms, instead of waging war, compete in a tournament of 10 fights. The first to win five of these fights is victor and the losing side's realm is theirs. Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) watches her father get brutally defeated by Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) and her mother and people immediately subjugated under him. He takes her as his daughter (I can't say for certain the scriptwriter was just aping Gamora's story from Guardians of the Galaxy/Infinity War but it's basically the same) which I'm sure will work out fine for everyone as a big happy new family.

Meanwhile Johnny Cage (Karl Urban) is a washed up Stephen Segal-type 90's action star who nobody cares about anymore. He's sad about his life but Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) recruit him for Mortal Kombat, Raiden promising him a greater, more fulfilling destiny. He declines, but, it turns out, he doesn't have a choice.

And so Kitana fights for her father, reluctantly, while Johnny Cage fights for Earth, reluctantly, only it turns out Kitana is a spy for Raiden and Johnny Cage has a warrior within, so the dramatic narrative arcs these characters can take are, well, straight lines rather than curves. Their stories go from A-to-C without even thinking about venturing towards B along the way.

So if there's no real character arcs in this film, surely it will have fun with team dynamics, right? Inner conflict and romances and whatnot? Notsomuch. Or at all. The "team" here, Raiden, Sonya, Johnny, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), Jax (Mechad Brooks), and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) spend their time together largely spitting exposition. There's no real sense of camaraderie or any sense of these characters becoming friends or connected to each other in any way (we're told that Sonya and Jax are old friends, but do we feel it? Notsomuch). 

The film spends a lot of time trying to circle back on characters from the prior movie, even though they are not central figures here. As such, unless you are really invested in MK2021 then these beats have little to no weight on their own (like, Hiroyuki Sanada returns as Scorpion, but in the underworld, where he resumes his fight against the revived Sub-Zero to no real effect of the story at hand). 

So, if it fails at developing anything meaningful with its characters, MKII must be all about the tournament and the fighting, right? Yes and no. It does feature heavily its match-ups, the one-on-one fights, but none of them carry with them the weight of what the stakes of the tournament, and the fate of the "Earth realm". The film brutally fails at finding any tension within the tournament itself. With one or two exceptions, nobody witnesses the fights, so there's no crowd reactions, no cut to team-mates or friends as they watch their friends succeed or fail brutally. There's just nothing exciting outside of maybe a few cool manoeuvres or a particularly gory fatality, and there's not enough of those to justify a feature length movie this uninteresting.

It wouldn't be so bad if the film at least had style, but it's so evident that it was filmed on the Volume or similar on-set digital backdrop technology, and that the crew were either inexperienced with it or didn't have the time to refine their shots. The actors are lit so horrendously that they have a soft glow outline around them much of the time, while the backdrops too often don't feel tangible at all (I will concede that it's entirely possible that watching this on an IMAX screen made this so much more evident than a standard movie screen, or any home viewing implement). The few sets actually constructed feel cheap, much cheaper than an $80million budget would presume.  That, visually, this film feels inferior to the 1995 adaptation of Mortal Kombat is very telling.  That film used mostly practical sets that were well lit and well shot. This film seemed hampered by its constraints and is pretty ugly as a result.  At the very least the 1995 film had a still-iconic techno soundtrack, and this film's score doesn't even seem to be trying. 

There is one sequence not shot on a set, where Johnny, Liu Kang, Sonya and Jax venture into the home terrain of the excessively-toothed character Barada. It's an exterior desert set that has scale and doesn't feel contained by walls or barriers. Since it's outdoors there's a lot of natural light, and it does everyone a world of favours that the rest of the film does not. The fight between Johnny and Barada is fun and silly and feels like the only real payoff for Johnny (or any character for that matter) in the film.

Fans of the franchise will probably get more out of this than I will, but a films at this budget really should be trying for something more than fan service.

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I'm a bad Canadian cinephile. I don't spend enough time exploring the films or filmmakers of my home country. This is in large part due to the fact that Canadian cinema, by and large, doesn't have the resources that the films of other countries do. And with the exception of Quebec, which has an industry all its own, most of our best talents get co-opted by our neighbours to the South, obfuscating a film's Canadian-ness, if anything remains at all.

There are a few notable filmmakers who have made a name on an international scale that still largely work within the Canadian system and tell stories set within the country.  Guy Maddin is definitely such an auteur, one who likes to combine his fascination with the earliest era of filmmaking with a love of his homeland. Or so I've been told. I've seen maybe one or two of his films in the distant past, and have long been meaning to catch up.

Keyhole, his 2011 effort, was maybe not the first place to start. A psychological noir set in a haunted house, the film follows Ulysses Pick (Jason Patrick) and his gang of thugs as they barricade themselves in Ulysses' home. 

Our key signal that things are askew finds Ulysses' second-in-command telling the dead to face the wall and the living to face forward. The dead, then, march out the back door to face a proper disposal.

Ulysses emerges from the rain with Denny (Brooke Pallson) slung over his shoulder. They're both drenched. Eventually Ulysses will get dry, Denny will always seem perpetually wet, despite a change of clothes.

Ulysses warns the gang the house is haunted and to beware of touching ghosts. Meanwhile he searches the house with Denny in tow, her ability to read into his thoughts aid him in his quest to find his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini) within the twisted maze of hallways and stairs and doors. 

He is vexed by the ghost of Hyacinth's father (a very nude Louis Negin), who manipulates environments throughout the house, though does not seem to have any real control.

The journey is an abstract one, lacking decisive logic, living between metaphors. As a film, it is an exploration of Ulysses' life, his failures as a husband and father, and it questions whether these failures mean anything to him.

It's a puzzling film which it both its greatest and most detrimental asset. Bending your brain to understand what it is Maddin is trying to convey has its rewards when you can reach an understanding in what you see, but the dream logic that prevails often has no meaning, serving primarily to keep the audience off balance.

Maddin's first digitally-shot film, it's a black-and-white production but doesn't have the olde-timey feel (the heavy make-up of the silent or gangster film eras, for example) and it doesn't look particularly good. The sets, lighting and costume seem constructed on a shoestring budget (which they probably were) and lack the usual hand-crafted flair of the films of Maddin's I'm (not-so-)familiar with.

What probably lets the film down the most, however, is the character of Ulysses, who just isn't very compelling. Whether it's Patrick's performance or what he was given to work with, I was never certain why we should care about Ulysses or his journey.

Once I get into the swing of watching Maddin's pictures, acquainting myself anew with his sensibilities, I might soften on Keyhole, but as stands I found it a pretty rough watch.

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If I were to attempt to catch up on the works of Takasi Miike, it would have to be the only movies I watched in a year. The director has made around 120 films since his debut in the early 1990s and dozens upon dozens of television episodes. That prolific level of output seems unprecedented, and one has to wonder what gets sacrificed in the process of producing as such speed.

Like Guy Maddin above, I'm not particularly well-versed in Miike's repertoire, certainly not enough to speak to any overall style or sensibilities (a quick search of this blog finds no entries of Miike films...which surprises, me. I thought for sure Toasty would have one or two Miikes written up). 

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka (aka "Noboru Ando's True Outlaw Tales: Raging Fire") opens with a primal scream over a heavy metal track. The camera tracks a young man running full tilt through the streets of Tokyo (intercut with flashes of...other things, a perplexing montage of images at this stage of a film to be sure). Finally the young man, guns drawn, leaps over a small barricading wall of an outdoor stairwell and begins firing on the group of men below (clearly mobsters, based on the way the one man is dressed compared to the other men around him). The gunman dispatches everyone, having hit the boss at least once at this point. The boss does not fall, he keeps lumbering forward, taking more and more bullets, until he has his hands around his assailant's throat. The only escape the gunman has is to cut the man's hand's off. Thankfully his partner has come by for clean-up.  The next shot of the young assassin, we see him naked on a couch, the severed hands still attached to his throat.

Yeah, this is kind of what I think of when I think of a Miike film. Extremes.

The story of the film finds Arata Kunisada (Riki Takeuchi ) freed from prison. The mob boss that was just assassinated was a father figure to him, and he is distraught and vengeful. 

But this isn't a one-man-assassin squad/John Wickian tale, at least not yet. The film cuts between different mob factions and Kunisada's journey, which for much of the film's run time finds him hiding out, rather than pursuing his revenge.  But eventually Kunisada gets back on track and, well, finds a missile launcher to help him on his quest.

Having just watched the excellent Italian mob-revenge actioner Big Guns, this very much feels like another take on the same story, right down to the police sort of standing by, or perhaps even aiding the protagonist in their mission of revenge. The difference is Big Guns felt quite calculated and detailed in its execution. Rekka on the other hand feels quite rushed and unrefined. That shagginess has a bit of an appeal, for sure, but it makes for some confusing story beats, or even whole acts. (There's a detour that Kunisada takes with a possible love interest that seems completely inconsequential to the overall story, and, for the amount of screentime it takes, contributes little to our understanding of this rather one note character).

The film dabbles with character drama and mafia intrigue but isn't particularly committed to either, and by the time the big rocket-launcher climax happens, it becomes a big old cartoon that betrays whatever it was trying to do emotionally before. 

The film closes with the ghost of a dead mob boss popping his head into frame, shouting "rock and roll!" It's not a vibes movie, per se, but perhaps Miike is a vibes director, and you're either on his wavelength or you're not. I dunno...Rekka wasn't boring, except when it was.

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One thing I'm always searching for is films from the 1980s with great special effects, including miniatures and big sets and puppets and stop-motion animation. I've exhausted most of the North American releases some time ago (though there is still the rare surprise) and have to look internationally for such pleasures. The main problem is I have no idea where to look, or what I'm looking for, and sacrificing a few hours hoping for something inspired to look at can be such a gamble.

The opening moments of Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (aka "Teito Monogatari") deliver instantly. A glorious barrage of manufactured clouds, impeccably lit with purple and red hues leads way to a massive set where a group of mages start mumbling incantations, causing the set to rumble and fracture and animated lighting to strike. There are rods sticking up from the ground that receive the lightning and are rotoscoped with a glowing red tinge. This is all glorious even if the dialogue of the scene is moving so fast that I had to rewind at least three times over to catch all the exposition.

The gist of The Last Megalopolis is that, centuries ago, Taira no Masakado led an uprising against the lords of Tokyo and failed. His spirit, though dormant, haunts the city. Should anyone dare to desecrate the site where he lay, he will awaken and destroy the city. And so, the demon Yasunori Kato (garbed in an Imperial Officer uniform, he is no doubt the inspiration for M. Bison in the Street Fighter video games) seeks to do just that, but in order to awaken the Masakado, he needs the blood of his descendant to do so. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

What follows is a convoluted but enthralling tale that takes place over three time periods from the early 1910s to the late 1920s. It's heavy on incantations, sorcery and witchcraft (of a type), and a bevvy of effects to go along with it. The best special effects in the film find paper being dispatched by both the good guys and bad, sailing on the wind before crumpling itself up and then transmogrifying into a bird or a wee little rat-like beastie. It's really, really cool.

The Last Magalopolis is based off the novel "Teito Monogatari" (adapted into Manga prior to the film's release and into an anime series in the early 1990s), and combines elements of real Tokyo history with epic fantasy and spirituality. A lot of the characters in this story are actual historical figures, and I guess the production team thought that it was enough of a shorthand to not really explore these characters at all.  It is completely a story-driven film, and figures wind their way in and out of the story in such a manner that if you're not used to Japanese names it can get confusing as to who is being referred to in a given situation and why. Also, this film is not waiting for you to catch up.

It's a propulsive narrative, even at two hour and fourteen minutes, and by the end while it has a resolution, barely feels resolved... because it isn't. This is effectively the first half of the story, condensed. A follow-up film, Tokyo: The Last War would be released the subsequent year. 

Part fantasy, part horror, part historical fanfic it's a wild and dense production that perplexes and delights in equal measure.

KWIF: Sisu: Road to Revenge (+3)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Lady Kent was down with the same cold that took me out last week, so weirdly I watched more movies this week than when I was down and out last week. It's all international cinema cinema week: Finland! "Persia"! Australia! Italy!

This Week:
Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025, d.  Jalmari Helander - crave)
Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989, d. Luigi Cozzi - tubi)
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975, d. Peter Weir - xumo)
Big Guns (aka Tony Arzenta aka No Way Out - 1973, d. Duccio Tessari - tubi)

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The first Sisu was a cartoon orgy of violence, but underneath it beat the heart of Finnish pride, fortitude and resilience. If there was a message to Sisu it was to tell the world that Finns are tough motherfuckers.  

But Sisu also set itself in a time and place that it didn't really explain. If you're Finnish or familiar with it's history (particularly during World War II) there was no explanation needed. I on the other had had to do some digging. It was a complicated situation with Finland already engaged in conflict with Russia when other battles in Europe started. Sisu took place at the end of World War II, with the Germans set to return home, but attempting to take as much with them as they could before they left, including the gold grizzled veteran Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) had just found.

I don't fully understand the timelines, but Road to Revenge, takes place shortly after the end of World War II, so I assume not long after the first film, just enough time for Korpi to heal. A treaty with Russia saw the ceding of much of Karelia (on the southeastern side of the country) to the Russians, with its citizens of the area being forced to leave within ten days. Korpi's home, which he built himself, remains in the ceded terrain. He crosses the new Russian border with a massive, massive truck, where he deconstructs the home and loads the truck on his own.

His border crossing, however, raises awareness that Koschei ("The Immortal") is in the country. Korpi had infamously killed 300 Russians himself in a rageful tear following the murder of his wife an children. A KGB Officer (Richard Brake) frees the man responsible for killing Korpi's family -- the war criminal Yeagor Dragunov (Stephen Lang) -- from his prison and gives him the resources to, quote "destroy the legend you created and you will go back home a rich man".

And so Korpi and his massive truck and big pile of wood have to travel the 120 kilometers from where his home once stood back to the border...chased by trucks, motorcycles, and airplanes. It's a scaled-down Fury Road but director Jalmari Helander continues to prove he's got the action goods. A lot of wild craziness happens along the way, beyond logic but gleefully entertaining.

The last act takes place on a train, and gets Koschei back into physical action, with some fun setpieces like traversing through the two sleeping quarters without awakening the soldiers (or taking care of them should they stir). The final duel between Korpi and Dragunov is maybe too slow and unrefined to be truely Wick-ian, but it's only one small moment in this 89-minute deluge of violence and survival.

Tommila doesn't speak a word the entire film, and this lack of dialogue really strips the film down to the barest of actions and emotions. Where Brake or Lang might have more to say, there's still likely no more than two or three pages of dialogue, max in the entire film. Whereas the first Sisu felt like a nuveau western, this one feels almost more like a samurai film...but with guns and vehicles and whatnot...but the same attitudes apply.

Helander's next film will see the director's first American production, being brought aboard to helm the John Rambo prequel starring Noah Centineo in the title role. I have no idea what the story might possibly be like, but I'm excited to see what Helander can do with big hollywood franchise budget.

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One of the final releases of legendary 80's B-movie studio Cannon Film, Sinbad of the Seven Seas stars famous muscleman and former Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno as the storied Persian hero, Sinbad the Sailor. Yes, that's right, Italian-American Lou Ferrigno plays Sinbad. Seems a natural fit to me [/sarcasm].

The story is set largely in Basra, which the filmmakers seem to know as much about as I do, which is to say, nothing at all. All the characters here are played by white and/or Italian actors, nary a middle-eastern among them. If this seems like it could be offensive, it would be, if anyone, anyone at all were trying to convincingly portray this as an authentic tale. As it stands, it's one of the least egregious of its cinematic sins, afterall, Sinbad has been portrayed by white actors many times in the past (and will again...RIP Patrick Muldoon).

But Sinbad of the Seven Seas lies to its audience from the moment the film starts. Before its title card, a chunky block of text mentions how famed author Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote an additional adventure for Sinbad titled "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade" and that this is an adaptation of that story. It is not. Not in the slightest.

As legend on this film goes, writer-director Luigi Cozzi (who had directed Ferrigno in two Hercules films for Cannon in the mid-1980s) had written the screenplay for Sinbad and the Seven Seas, but was (for unclear reasons) dismissed from the project and it was handed to Enzo G. Castellari. Castellari would proceed to make substantial changes to the script and then proceed to produce an unreleaseable three-hour film. The film sat on the shelf for years before Cozzi was hired back to make some sense of it, to salvage something out of the whole production.

And so, the film's story does not begin with Sinbad and crew on his boat, or in the city of Basra, or in Baghdad or anywhere fantastical, it starts in a bedroom, with a child (Cozzi's daughter) being read a story by her mother, played by Daria Nicolodi.  Nicolodi will proceed to narrato over a large portion of the film. The touchpoint might seem to be The Princess Bride for this framing sequence, but really, it's just a way of trimming down 3 hours of garbage footage into a barely, if you squint, serviceable 93 minute series of adventures.

The wicked vizier Jaffar (portrayed by English white guy John Steiner, it's a variation on Aladdin's Jafar both of which hearken back to The Thief of Baghdad films rather than One Thousand and One Nights) is fixated on the Caliph's daughter, Princess Alina [Alessandra Martines, a French-Italian white lady]. She is involved with Sinbad's ship-mate Prince Ali, but he's been away adventuring. The vizier steals the town's sacred gems of power, keeping one for himself and dispersing the rest across the seas. He then hypnotizes the Caliph into doing his bidding, including telling Alina to marry Jaffar. She refuses and thus is strapped to a fantastical chamber designed to (verrrry slooooowly) sap her of her will. She will marry him some day). When Hercules...I mean Sinbad and crew arrive in Basra, they beat up some bad guys, get captured, break free and then set out on a quest to find the four gems of power (but not before Sinbad escapes from a pit of cobras by *checks notes* making friends with the cobras and then tying them together to form a rope for him to climb out of.  You know how you make friends with wild creatures [totally normal] and then twist their bodies together, with their consent of course [nothing unusual, at all] and then climb them [all checks out, do it all the time].

The majority of the adventures of Sinbad and his crew (consisting of handsome Prince Ali [white guy], Cheropolis "the bald cook" [another white guy], Poochie the dwarf [not a rapping dog, but a white guy], Viking [played by an Italian actor, not a Scandanavian] and the Chinese mercenary Cantu [played by a Japanese-Italian actor]) are narrated over with the action or conversation or both happening silently under the narration from Nicolodi (yes, we see the characters have an exchange and our narrator explains what they are saying], all the while accompanied by the of shoddiest of synth scores.  

In the first stop, he fights a rock monster that shoots lasers from its head. Sinbad must use feats of his notorious Sinbad strength to defeat it and retrieve the gem from its head. In the second, Sinbad and most of the crew (except Bald Cook and Poochie) head to the isle of the amazons where their notorious beauty finds them immediately under their sway (except Prince Ali who seems to be psychically connected to Princess Alina for some reason). If not for Bald Cook and Poochie coming to the rescue with an magical anti-hypnosis potion...I don't know what would have happened, actually. The Amazon queen Farida was played by the stunning actress Melonee Rodgers, a Black, possibly American actress (there's not much available detail on her and seeing as she had no speaking lines left in the film - which doesn't really matter since all lines were dubbed anyway by different actors, except Steiner and one or two others) and all the Amazons were black, which I thought was fantastic...except when Queen Farida has her gem of power taken from her and she turns into an old lady...well, it's just some old Italian lady in blackface. Yeah. Woof.

During the adventures, we constantly check back in with Jaffar, and how progress is going on sapping Princess Alina of her will. The movie makes it seem like Sinbad's voyages are only taking him the better part of an afternoon in total and not days or weeks of sailing the seas. He tries to interfere from afar, but seems to only be able to do anything sometimes for some reason and most of the time looks like a sweaty guy whose going to lose his kneecaps if the team he's watching doesn't lose the match. He's also joined, bafflingly, by the witch Soukra (played by American bodybuilder Teagan, the only other actor not to be dubbed, it seems) for seemingly no reason. Jaffar sort of acts like she's the one who will break his kneecaps if his bet doesn't pay off.

The third adventures finds Jafar sending a gust of wind to send Sinbad's ship ashore (but why send them to the very island that contains the gem they're looking for Jaffar? The guy is an idiot). There they face, ghosts or something...? I dunno, I fell asleep for a bit. 

When I woke up Sinbad was having a conversation with Kira (another white lady), daughter of Nadir the wizard who speaks in gibberish. They landed on the Isle of the Dead in a balloon. They are jumped by a gang of ghouls, and while Kira puts up a good fight, which Hercules, I mean Sinbad immediately falls in love with her over, she gets kidnapped along with her father. Sinbad mounts his rescue but must face the Lord of Darkness, who is like a pot-bellied Swamp Thing who shoots lasers from his hands. Hercules uses his own gems of powers to shoot lasers and destroy the big gooey plant then head home with Kira and her goof-talkin' father in tow.

The big show-down is ...well, not so big. Hercules/Sinbad rescues Princess Alina and defeats Jaffar, but not before facing a Jaffar-controlled mirror version of himself in a match of strength and cunning. Ali and Alina are married, and so are not-Hercules and Kira, the end, go to sleep kid.

There were little glimmers that maybe the original production, under Castellari, was aiming for high camp, but the structure Cozzi rescues the picture with leaves a lot of the camp off to the side, sneaking in only occasionally. But it's obvious from the footage and dialogue left in why Castellari's first draft of this was considered unreleaseable: it's really really bad. I could never get past the idea of Ferrigno as Sinbad. As witnessed above, my brain kept defaulting to him as Hercules, and it would seem Castelli did too. Sinbad is not a legendary strongman, and yet so much of what Ferrigno does here is "feats of strength".

In the right setting, Sinbad of the Seven Seas might be a so-bad-it's-amazing cult classic, but as a tired adult just looking for a break from having to think about shit, this was just an awful 90 minutes. I had more fun recapping it above than watching it.

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I was introduced to Picnic at Hanging Rock by a friend who I met on a dating website almost exactly 20 years ago. It was an odd time. We'd both recently gotten out of long term relationships and we were trying to figure out the next phase of our lives. We really clicked, but emotionally we just weren't ready for anything other than friendship. It was a friendship that forged quickly but not strong enough to survive eventual physical distance and other life demands (babies) and, frankly, the friendship-subverting suckhole that was facebook (it gives the illusion of being in contact without being meaningful contact in any way). Strangely, Picnic at Hanging Rock was the shared experience most cemented into my mind of that friendship, watching a VHS copy borrowed from the library on a strange couch in a brightly lit room next to a new friend where we were still trying to figure out our dynamic. 

At that time I went into watching Picnic... with a pre-conceived distaste for Peter Weir, having had a high-school art teacher who was a Weir fan and would play us Dead Poets Society, Green Book and Fearless in class at least once per semester...for inspiration? These were not really inspirational films to a 14-17 year old. They were grown-up films for parents.

At that time I found Picnic... a bit confounding. The film starts by letting you know that the titular picnic would end in some sort of tragedy, just as the film's poster does. "On St. Valentines Day in 1900 a party of schoolgirls set out to picnic at Hanging Rock... some were never to return." It's an ominous, and it implies something sinister, something terrifying, something harrowing perhaps. The implication is there will be, at least, something to raise one's blood pressure in watching this film...and there is not. Not really.

It is a film that stuck with me though, left an impression. It's not just a totem but a representative point for a very specific, transitional moment of my life. My memory of the film is nothing to do with plot or characters, but images and tones.

This rewatch reaffirmed that it is a tranquil, vibes-based movie above all, loaded with melancholy (and the tranquil tones of Zamfir's pan flute) 

The girls are aflutter not for their picnic trip but for a Valentines card someone received. Where most of the kids are privileged, some are sponsored, such as Sara, an orphan who is kept behind from the trip because...well, I'm not exactly sure. We don't spend much time with any of the other girl to really get to know them, but there is focus on Miranda, the pretty and independent-minded blonde, and Edith, the cliched fat girl who whines about physical effort and is seen eating.  There at least doesn't seem to be any bullying, at least not in the traditional sense...not at this point. 

At the picnic site is already a young Englishman, Michael, who is there with his parents (grandparents?), and their driver, Albert, who Michael makes friends with. The presence of the girls is instantly exciting to them, and though Albert makes some crude comments to Michael which he finds distasteful, the girls don't even notice they are there.

Miranda, Edith and two others decide to venture up the rock (more than 500 feet high it is!), and they push themselves up until they can seemingly go no further. But they find a crevasse and venture into it, except Edith, who freaks out. She runs down the hill, the others are gone... as if purposefully taken by the rock. A teacher stays behind as the rest of the girls are sent home, and she disappears as well. End of act one.

The rest of the film covers next few hours, days and weeks that follow. There is a manhunt and an investigation. Both Albert and Michael are looked at and then dismissed. Both young men are troubled by thoughts and dreams of the missing girls, with Michael seemingly haunted by Miranda specifically. Michael takes on a dangerous solo search which he nearly dies from, and when Albert picks up the trail, he finds Irma, near death.

The school is in disarray. The teachers are having breakdowns, some kids leave school altogether, and Sara falls ill. Irma remembers nothing and has no answers. She's harassed by the other girls when she returns to visit. Everything's collapsing because nobody can process the tragedy. It's not being swept under the rug, but it's also not being addressed either.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is not a horror movie, but it is a haunting picture. It's hard not to be affected by watching others unravel in the wake of tragedy, unable to make sense of it and not having the support knowledge or infrastructure to work through it. With years in between, and some further exploration of the film and story in the meantime, I respect the picture even if I still have a hard time with its storytelling decisions and the routes it does not take.

It took some additional contemplation to realize that this is not a film about the incident, despite the title. It's not about the disappearance, but a story about the school, and the impact the incident has on it and the people within it.  That's a defined choice made by the storytellers (be it original novel author Joan Lindsay, or screenwriter Cliff Green, or director Weir) not to answer questions, not to give a resolution. It may be unsatisfying but it's most definitely intentional.  It's a film that has, in a way, haunted me for 20 years now, and I think that will never go away.

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I have a watchlist on Letterboxd that I don't consult very often, but any time I do I'm bound to ask the question of "what the hell is that?" to about two-thirds of what's on there. My tastes and interests are mercurial to the point of self-aggravation and self-annoyance. I have to be in the right mood or zone to watch something, so just because I don't feel like watching it now doesn't mean I won't want to watch it later. But also, a lot of what is on my Letterboxd list is obscurities that, well, just won't be cropping up on any of the "mainstream" streamers I most regularly have access to.

But then there's Tubi, always full of surprises. I don't love the streamer, primarily because it's owned by Fox, but also because it has ads (which used to be all Fox News-based ads, but now just seem to be targeted Canadian market ads for dish soap and such), and no standards. You can find a lot of great stuff on Tubi, but in terrible quality streaming speed, bad digital transfers, godawful audio and frequently without closed captioning (a terrible combo for a half-deaf guy like me).

I don't know how the Italian action-thriller Big Guns (aka Tony Arzenta aka No Way Out) wound up on my Letterboxd list but I'm sure glad it did, and I'm also so happy it was among Tubi's fairly decent selection (if not decent quality) of Italian 70's crime pictures.

This one stars Alain Delon, the handsome French actor who played one of the first notable on-screen hitmen in Le Samourai, back again playing another hitman, but this time also a family man, and he wants out. He's done. No more killing for him. Except the consortium of mobsters he works for aren't willing to let him go and they know there's no talking him out of it.

And so before John Wick, before The Punisher, before Death Wish here we have an anti-hero whose wife and child are killed (accidentally mind you) and the response is basically warfare in the streets, one against one hundred.

Delon is Tony Arzenta, an astute, savvy, steely killer who has been wronged, and there's only one way to make right. He's going to dismantle multiple crime syndicates from the top down. At first Arzenta makes his plans and executes them, although not always with ruthless precision, it's a fight from the jump. The mob bosses aren't just sitting back, they have their own schemes as well, setting Tony up so that he has to improvise his escapes. The police are monitoring the situation, but they're sitting back. They're, in a way, buffering for Tony as they see him doing them a service, cleaning up all these syndicates for them.

Tony's bloodlust takes him from from Milan to Copenhagen, murdering on the street and on trains, wherever the opportunity needs to occur. He's not alone, he's aided by his pal Domenico (Marc Porel) and Sandra (Carla Gravina), as well as an ex-dom now living life as a priest who looks out for Tony's parents. 

The film isn't solely told from Tony's perspective and spends plenty of time with the various mafia dons as they start renegotiating territories as Tony picks them off one by one. But there's always one been one don, Nick Gusto (Richard Conte) who didn't want any of this and had tried numerous times to convince the consortium to push for piece. It's only when he's the last one left does he really have any sway, and it all leads to Tony's invitation to Don Gusto's daughter's wedding, and the tense, anything-can-happen environment.

Nothing about it is as straightforward. Tony seems to have ice in his veins, but family, friendships, these have meaning for him, it's where he's vulnerable and he knows it. The scenes where he brings Sandra to stay with his parents, and the awkward-yet-sweet encounters that occur there. There's no definition to what Tony and Sandra are to each other, except that they're family now.

I loved this movie. I'll be eagle eyed looking out for a physical media release. It deserves some special treatment.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Wrecking Crew

2026, Angel Manuel Soto (Blue Beetle) -- Amazon

I did not enjoy Blue Beetle and all its screaming, and yet I enjoyed this comedy-action movie, even with its screaming & swearing; well, at least for the first two acts. We took a break after the first two acts, because it was my bed time, and came back to a movie that felt it was directed by the man who made Blue Beetle even though I didn't know it was his, until the credits were rolling.

But, what I liked. 

Soto exchanges the Latinx experience for a Hawaiian one, except, of the primary cast, only Jason Momoa has any real Hawaiian heritage, instead having people of New Zealand, Somoa and Fillipino culture, along with some stunt casting of actual Hawaiians as supporting cast. OK, I guess I didn't really like that, but Hollywood wants faces, so at least they took Pacific cultures. Sigh. Anywayz, its a light hearted, action-comedy by way of a murder-mystery with family challenges, and almost followed the format of the grimy detective story, but using suspended cop Jonny Hale (Jason Momoa, Aquaman) and Navy SEAL James (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy) investigating the murder of their father Walter, who was a private dick, and a man they both actually loathed.

Jonny and James do not like each other. They are half-brothers and Jonny still resents James for not helping him investigate the murder of his mother when they were teens. Jonny is only back for the funeral, and to annoy James, but he cannot help himself but to start digging into the death, even when warned off by local thugs, and the cops. As Jonny pokes around they add Pika (Jason Batalon, Reginald the Vampire) to the mix, who plays the role of the fat nerdy tech kid. Eventually James is onboard with the investigating, and they even go so far as dressing up as wait staff to infiltrate the local corrupt land developer's party. It does not play well.

Its at this point I realize we are watching an 80s buddy investigator show, like Magnum PI or Simon & Simon except a wee bit more twisted. The half-brothers are constantly arguing, and Jonny's barbs are hilarious, as is his constant Japanese pop-culture references. There are enough one-liners between the two that had me charmed by the characters, especially the supporting cast of the brothers' cousins.

And then it had to go and ruin it with over the top violence. I mean, I know its an action flick, but it starts with the Yakuza attacking the brothers downtown, leading to a number of bystanders dying as the bullets fly. To be fair, the brothers do their best to get people to safety and take out the Bad Guys but... I still hate collateral damage, which is why I hated, utterly HATED the inevitable car chase scene. Its set on a highway, and it grabs the helicopter-vs-car trope and probably ends the lives of at least 50 innocent bystanders in fiery explosions and crashes, adding insult to injury in that the brothers are never held to account for it. We don't even see it make the news! If Yakuza and other corrupt gangsters were slaughtering people in the streets, most movies would at least mention the mobilization of a task force or local anti-terrorist squad. But no, this is just played for bloody, bone crunching, blood spewing, cars-exploding "fun" so the characters could come out of it bloodied & battered. At least we got to see Jonny's ex-GF Valentina (Morena Baccarin, Elevation) do some kick-ass driving.

I have decided to head-canon this movie into a setup for a new Hawaiian-based TV series from Amazon. We've got our Magnum PI reboot and they already had it cross-over with the Hawaii 5-0 reboot, but this new show could come at it from the indigenous experience. We could enjoy the 80s-style re-casting of the main characters but also do some more stunt-casting by having at least one supporting cast member stay in the new show. Maybe Pika.