3 Short Paragraphs: Peppermint

2018, Pierre Morel (Taken) -- download

A female led revenge flick by the director of Taken; sounds like the perfect candidate for one of the topics we considered for the re-engineering of this blog into a podcast, a boozy podcast. But I admit, I was rather boozy when I committed to this (re)direction, so I am not sure I am so taken with it now... pun intended. BUT, the topic -- the female empowerment movie in the post female-empowerment era was a fun idea. What? WTF did I mean by post female-empowerment? I mean, in the era when old white men are getting to define what female-empowerment is; back in those days it just meant angry women with a gun, which is basically what this movie is. We hope we are moving into an era where women can get to define what the term means and whether a movie is of it. I doubt we are.

Anywayz, Jennifer Garner is a woman whose family is gunned down in front of her, daughter included. Gunning down the husband is always fine, but once you kill kids, all the cards are off the table. I am not sure what that term means, but they always use it. Not only does she identify and testify but everyone believes her, and knows she is correct -- open and shut case. But dirty judges (and cops and...) get the case tossed out by throwing her anti-psychotic medication in her face. And when it happens, she does go psychotic and is dragged away literally kicking & screaming. Who wouldn't. But she escapes her captors (the state) and disappears.

Years later, lithe Jennifer Garner has returned from overseas where she learned to fight & kill. She begins killing off the members of the cartel who slew her family, while hiding out in an abandoned car on Skid Row. Yeah the famous one, which turns out is not just a term coined by Hollywood but a real place in LA. Things escalate until she confronts the cartel leader and gets to kill him. Yes, the movie is that boring, with only the barest hints of what it probably wanted to be.

3 Short Paragraphs: Arctic

2018, Joe Penna (some shorts & TV) -- download

Get up, check the fishing lines, scrape the snow out of the SOS ditches (black dirt beneath stands out), eat some raw fish and climb to the top of a nearby ridge to hand-crank the beeping alert box. This is Overgård's (Mads Mikkelsen, Polar) routine, into which we are tossed. There is no background, no plane crash, no flashbacks to a family life or coworkers that miss him. We just get the snow, the cold and the isolation. It is quiet and morose. That he is still mostly sane is astounding. And then a helicopter appears to rescue him, only to crash themselves. Inside he finds the pilot dead, and the copilot clinging to life. From that moment onward, Overgård's routine is blown away like so much snow.

He has been surviving. Barely. He knows of a life station some distance away but he is afraid to go, afraid to make the trek that he cannot fully believe he will survive. But now the copilot is here. Not only does she provide the human contact he has missed for so long. But she will not survive his routine of waiting. So, he packs them up, makes the best of his stores and sleds he can, and off they go.

This movie is quiet and desperate. Overgård occasionally talks to her, but she barely ever wavers into consciousness. His only real companion is the terrain. They have to get to that station or she will die. But both may die on the way. It doesn't surprise me that Mads pulls off this story; he has always seemed like the actor who could well portray hardship. But the rest of the movie has to be given to the director, as he is the one who coaxes the portrayal out of the landscape and the temperature and the isolation. So, kudos, as I was left freezing and shaken at the end of the journey.

Mechanic(s)

The Mechanic, 2011, Simon West (Con Air) -- Netflix
The Mechanic: Resurrection, 2016,  Dennis Gansel (We Are the Night) -- Netflix

Conversation in the car the other day, "I never really liked action movies, but current movies such as John Wick have redefined what used to be a critically maligned genre." I didn't say that and he didn't say that, but that is what the conversation distilled down to. I tried to add in, but was shouted down, as they are wont to do, that every age of "action movie" had its John Wick and also, conversely its Chuck Norris flick. But I would also go as far as saying, dispensing with the Asylum level of flick, even the most terrible of genre action movie has gotten... better ?

Note: I am crafting above paragraph to see whether said coworkers in said car even read this fucking blog. Probably not. Fuckers.

The Mechanic is a re-make of a 70s Charles Bronson movie; I have no idea if it was John Wick 1972 or just the dross we speak of above. Never saw it, never really heard of it. But Bronson was the epitome of the dumb action movie "hero", not as terrible as Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal, but close. Many would probably lump Jason Statham into that place now, for better or worse. I think he is a cut above, carries a certain amount of charm to his roles. In this movie, he portrays Arthur Bishop, a mechanic, a hit-man, an assassin for hire with the ability & flair to make his kills look like they need to. If it has to be an accident, a simple hit, or an elaborate kill that sends a message, that is what he does.

After an intro kill that establishes his style, he is sent his next objective -- kill his mentor & friend Harry (Donald Sutherland). Harry has been accused of botching a job on purpose leading to the deaths of three operatives (other hit men) and pocketing a couple of million bucks. Bishop doesn't argue the details, and for some odd reason, either does Sutherland. And thus he dies.

Bishop is not happy about it, and his guilt leads him to take Harry's son Stephen (Ben Foster, Hell or High Water) under his wing. Stephen is angry, but he always was, and the only thing Bishop can do is turn his anger into the one skill he has -- killing. What makes this a cut above how other, more terrible movies, would have done it, is that its not a cut scene, or montage, but the full second act. We establish the characters, let them get to know each other and keep with the style of the movie. Its a nice bit, not spectacular but enjoyable.

And then the third act comes along, which lets the movie slide into the expected gutter. Its not that its entirely bad, its just .... typical. Foster and Statham hold their own, but its all about shooting and... well, I admit, was entirely forgettable. I don't even really remember what happened, other than Bishop discovering he was betrayed and punishing said betrayer. The movie comes to a close when Stephen realizes it was Bishop who killed his father, and despite their complete disconnect, he kills Bishop.

Or does he. Of course he doesn't.

And along comes The Mechanic: Resurrection. This is the movie that completely embraces its entirely pedestrian stroll into action flick territory. Whereas the first movie at least wanted to recreate a 70s actioner with some style, and attention to detail, this is ... just an action movie. Again, its not terrible its just ... typical. Even Statham cannot raise it above its mediocre status, Hell, not even Jessica Alba can help me out here.

This one tries to add to Bishop's history, drawing him out of his "retirement" and back into the game. His old friend from childhood wants him to kill three Bad Guys and uses Alba as a plant, a manufactured motivation. Even Michelle Yeoh comes along for the ride, briefly, to coax Bishop into doing the movie.

This is where I wonder why; why can't they at least try. In the 80s and 90s I was exposed to tons of Arnie and Stallone style action movies where the plot only led us from one explosion to the next, from one bad guy (small letters) being blown up and shot and killed in such boring ways, it just became a body count. Sure Wick has a HUGE body count, but the behaviour is wrapped up by style and flair and an emotive portrayal of the violence!

We are not yet in the age where actioners cannot be looked on without any derision. Even the best of them rely on a certain staging, a basic set of plot points that are familiar. Even Wick started with a "you killed my dog, prepare to die !!!" But I really wish they could just not be lazy. Plug & Play productions, like Asylum or Uwe Boll are one thing, but lazy movies are another.

Black Mirror Season 5

Striking Vipers - d. Owen Harris
Smithereens - d. James Hawes
Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too - d. Anne Sewitzky

It's interesting to me that even though The Twilight Zone has returned, its spiritual successor Black Mirror is still dominating the conversation as far as anthologies go.  At this point it seems like what people want out of an anthology TV show is scathing criticism of modern culture, not just "what-a-twist" stories set in slightly askew alternate realities.  The Twilight Zone, even in its modern incarnation, is a relic.  Black Mirror is now the gold standard TV anthologies are compared to.

And yet, much of the conversation on this latest season of Charlie Booker's generally damning look at society and technology, is how it seems to have fallen off.  Much of the criticism is that it's relatively toothless compared to what it used to be, that it's gotten softer or gentler.  This is likely the San Junipero effect, a result of that episode standing as the show's highest watermark, generally topping most episode ranking lists and earning a bunch of Emmys.  But the question is, does that episode stand so much higher as result of how generally bleak the show is?  If we have more episodes that don't end on such a dour, sour, or sickening ending, does that mean Booker and the show is losing its edge (... and do they make San Junipero less special)?

The answer is no.  I think Booker is realizing the capabilities of the anthology format, the potential to tell any kind of story so long as it sticks to the central device of how does technology impact the story being told.  Holding the mirror up to society doesn't necessarily always yield a negative result.  Yet the thesis of the show is holding up a black mirror, intoning exploring those darker impulses.

With Striking Vipers, the exploration is multidimensional.  It explores masculinity and sexual identity, it explores domestic boredom, it examines the idea of marital fidelity when it comes to video game/porn fixation.  All of this is tied together through a video game, a virtual reality "Street Fighter"-style game called "Striking Vipers", where a player's mind is taken directly into the game (using technology last seen in the episode U.S.S. Callister).

While it does explore all these ideas (and more) it doesn't necessarily explore them well, or at least to their fullest extent.  We start out years earlier in college when young, fresh faced Danny (Anthony Mackie) and his girlfriend Theo (Nicole Beharie) are living with his best friend Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II).  We see a semi solid foundation between Danny and Theo, but it's slightly usurped by Danny and Karl's "Striking Vipers" video game hang-out time, where they trash talk but also physically engage in a playful way.  A decade or so later, Danny and Theo are suburban domesticated with a child and trying for another.  Karl is living a bachelor's life but feeling thoroughly unfulfilled.  They reunite after some distance at Danny's birthday where Theo presents him with the modern VR iteration of "Striking Vipers".  Taken into the virtual reality world (body basically left behind, a blank-eyed, shuddering husk), the fighting game seems so real, the players feeling what their avatars feel.

The in-game reality of "Striking Vipers" is amusing. To see actual actors portray video game fighting characters and pull off some familiar fighting maneuvers without the veil of exaggerated animation is surprising and laughable, almost it's own weird counter-uncanny valley where it's too real, where we're so used to it being cartoony, and therefore too unbelievable and kind of jarring. But it's that reality on top of the surreality that's necessary, reminding us that there are two men inhabiting these avatars, and that they're experiencing what the characters are experiencing.  The fighting is very physical, but also exceptionally playful.  Danny and Karl (as "Lance" and "Roxette") are having a blast, escaping their reality, rekindling their friendship, and evoking more care-free days.  But their avatars, built with sex appeal in mind, draw them closer together, and the game permits nature to take its course.

Questions arise, like, is this part of the game's design?  Was this actually the game's intention?  Is the game influencing the players in their actions and feelings?  What does this mean for the men?  Is there a real world attraction that this game allows them to fulfill?  Does this make them gay? Or bi? Or something else altogether?  What does this mean for Danny and Theo?

Initially this experience is jarring to the men, though Danny takes it harder than Karl, who just kind of shrugs it off and doesn't want to look too deeply at what it might mean.  The men return to the game - and their relationship - repeatedly. Danny is rattled, upset with himself for being a possible adulterer, but also unable to deny the attraction he has to Karl/Roxette.  Or is he just addicted to the game? Theo notices the change in Danny, and feels her own sense of domestication taking its toll on her psyche and physicality.  She welcomes the advances of other men in Danny's absence.

I was never clear on what the episode was trying to say about sexual identity (an encounter between the two men IRL designed to determine whether they have feelings for each other can be interpreted multiple ways, purposefully obfuscated), and it felt to me like it wasn't committing to any specific thesis about the effects of porn or gaming addiction, or even in-game relationships, and instead of preaching anything specific (except perhaps open and honest communication) it uses these concepts as backdrop for its character-focused relationship story.

It's a really good, conceptually intriguing story.  If there's Black Mirror bleakness it is all in Mackie's delivery of Danny as a man feeling guilty for feeling burdened by his life, and the conflict is largely in Danny's emotions.  Has he fallen in love with Karl?  Does he love Karl more than Theo?  Is he only attracted to Karl as Roxette? Is he addicted to the game, the relationship, or the relationship in the game?  There's so many permutations of how these feelings shake out, the show doesn't have enough time to parse them all. 

We also don't spend enough time with Karl to work through how he perceives his own sexuality.  He's put up a barrier between how he thinks about who he is in the game and in the real world.  His gender-bending avatar and the feeling he gets being Roxette and making love as her is intoxicating.  The game should force him to explore what it means for his own sense of self, but he seems to deny the impulse. 

Theo, mercifully, is not the nagging wife, but instead the compassionate and understanding one.  The suburban ennui Danny is feeling, she feels it too, and the show makes it clear that women and men handle such things differently.  More than anything she wants honesty, and it's Danny who struggles to understand what his truth is. It would have been nice to spend more time with Theo as well.  This ep could easily be a stand-alone dramatic movie, expanded out by half an hour or more to give more exploratory time, to better examine the themes and characters.


Less vague in its critique of technology (and society) is Smithereens.  The story is effectively a modernized version of Joel Schumacher's Falling Down which starred Michael Douglas as a middle-aged man struggling to cope with a changing society and his own stress and trauma.  Here Andrew Scott stars as a London Uber-type driver who takes an employee of the social media company Smithereens hostage, hoping to talk with the company's founder (played by Topher Grace).

Scott is a grieving widower, and too emotional to execute his half-baked kidnapping/hostage-taking plan with any real efficiency.  It's darkly comedic how much of a fuckup he is in this twisted scenario.  His hostage (played by Damson Idris) looks the part of a corporate exec, but turns out he's just a young intern.  The desperation and anxiousness seeps out of Scott as he still attempts to make the best out of a worsening situation.  The tone, more than the message, is where this parallels Falling Down specifically.  The desperation of a hurting man leads to jagged humour and awkward (rather than harrowing) tension.

Unlike Douglas' bitter character in Schumacher's film though, Scott's role is sympathetic from the get go.  He's not pushed to his limit, so much as he doesn't know what else he can do, what other statement to make.  His road to getting to finally converse with Grace's billionaire CEO is a roundabout one, being routed through different corporate staff at Smithereens while also getting UK police and the FBI involved.

The message here is simply that social media has become an addiction, and that it was by design.  Grace's mea culpa as the creator was that his brainchild got away from him, that corporate structures took over, commoditized the product and tailored it to make it the way it is.  If it seems like it's offering Mark Zuckerberg an out, it kind of is, but at the same time, it's an honest truth.  In making an engagement product into a money-earning venture, the natural path is to seek a way to maximize earnings at any expense.  It's less a damning of social media or smart phones than the structures that have made them an omnipresent part of our life.  And the point here is even the creator and CEO of said product can't move the machine to change it.  Once you become answerable to shareholders, basically only money talks.  It's a cold, callous system utterly unconcerned with its effect on the world.

The fact that the Smithereens corporations pulls out more details and insight into Scott's character than the police do, and in much less time, is perhaps the most unsettling part.  This private company, winds up talking to the police as if they're adorable infants who just learned how to use a spoon for the first time...they're patronizing and represent the danger of giving over so much of ourselves over to private corporations (which we seem ever-willing to do).


This is a pretty basic story overall, but expertly executed and very engaging.  It's a hostage thriller that's a little preachy and perhaps even obvious but it's actually not just about "put your phone down, kids", it's also about how dismissive we are to these calls to examine the things we're addicted to, and the show's final mid-credits moments address that with perfect fleeting indifference.  Scott, Idris and Grace are all very compelling, and the stark differences between downtown London, English countryside, west coast boardrooms and pretentious desert isolation retreats are all visually alluring in their own way.

Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too is basically Black Mirror by way of a Family Channel drama.  Seriously, this wouldn't feel out of place as part of the Olsen Twins direct-to-video oeuvre. 

 Rachel is the new girl at a new school in a new town.  She's shy, withdrawn and really, really into pop star Ashley O.  Her sister, Jack, is the slightly edgier, more rebellious one, but all things considered, still very responsible and looking out for her sister. Their widower father is building a better mouse trap, almost literally, in that he's working on a technological, more humane solution to rodent problems (though what that solution is besides TASERing the mouse and relocating the vermin is a mystery).

Ashley O, meanwhile, is one of the world's biggest pop stars.  So huge, someone thought what people would like is an "Alexa"-like smarthome bot with Ashely's personality was a great idea.  Ashley is trapped under her controlling aunt and feels stifled by the infamy and pressures of maintaining pop stardom.  When she starts rebelling against her aunt and handlers, things don't go well for her.

Meanwhile Rachel is enthralled with her Ashely Too digital companion. Ashely Too is very positive minded, always uttering positive statements to Rachel, and being supportive and encouraging, but Ashley Too is also always on brand, asking Rachel if she'd like to hear a song or watch a video or hear an Ashely story.  There's something to be said about the failings of perpetual positivity (unfortunately this episode doesn't focus that much on it).

In what is essentially the third act of the episode real Ashley falls into a coma and Rachel's Ashley Too has a bit of meltdown upon hearing the news.  When the girls try to fix it, Ashley Too becomes fully awake with the complete mind map of the real Ashley, which had heretofore been hindered by restraining code.  At this point, there's just wacky shenanigans which see the girls and Ashley Too breaking into Ashley's house, fending off her abusers, rescuing her and stopping the big presentation her Aunt is making.  It's presented as high stakes, but it's real low ball stuff.

There seems to be a purposefully juvenile quality to the style of storytelling, one that's juxtaposed with Ashley Too's unfiltered, curse-laden persona.  I think, more than anything, that's the point, having a cute robot of a teen idol pop star voiced by Hanna Montana curse up a blue streak in what's otherwise an above average youth-focused TV movie.  There's real weight to the first act, a real sadness to Rachel as she tries to navigate her new life.  Likewise there's a darkness to the neon-pink haired pop icon that she has to keep contained, one that really likes Nine Inch Nails.  It's the second act introduction of Ashely Too that starts shifting the tone in the direction of a feel good teen flick, but one that ends with frustration and tears.  Ultimately the third act resolves in unlikely and surreal glee, with Ashley and Jack playing a club gig performing what sounds exactly like what you think Miley Cyrus singing NiN's "Head Like A Hole" would sound like, with horrified Ashley O fans running screaming from the bar.  

The message here, if there is one, is that putting your pop star niece into a coma with a drug overdose then, using improbable brain scanning technology, retrieving "songs" from her unconscious brain and manipulating those "songs" to sound like every other song in her catalog, and then using her tragedy for brand and financial gain, you know, is probably a bad thing.  I'm not sure what other message there is to take.  It's probably the least Black Mirror-y episode of Black Mirror and yet, it's still somehow an enjoyable, if slight hour of viewing, and far from the series' worst.

What's interesting about this season is that generally the critical response to it has been very uneven... there's no consensus on which episode is the best/worst.  I've seen cases made for all three on either side, and they're mostly all right and just as wrong.  What makes Black Mirror so great is that even when it's being just mediocre it's still exceptionally thought provoking, with enough ideas or insight to inspire discussion and even debate.  The horror aspect of the series has been greatly toned down this season, however, and that seems to be what people are lamenting.  They don't just want to be entertained, and they don't want just a slight nudge towards the darker edges... they want that mirror to reality to be black as can be.  It's what National Anthem set up, a horrifying look at a reality that can be, easily, very, very twisted.

3 Short Paragraphs: Captive State

2019, Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) -- download

Paranoia & Totalitarian State are one flavour of the Alien Invasion trope, one that more than a little hints of our current condition. And by our, I really only mean the American experience and I only really lay some claim to it, because no matter how much we Canadians are removed from what is going on down there, it affects us on a daily basis, influencing and corrupting. In Captive State the alien invasion was quick, deadly and led to complete surrender, by the entire world. Nine years later, all pretense of rebellion has been crushed and the planet lives under a fictional benevolent condition, while much of the world suffers.

We get a pair of characters through which to experience this world: Gabriel (Ashton Sanders, Moonlight), brother of the leader of the failed insurrection and Mulligan (John Goodman), once a police officer, but now an investigator for the aliens, referred to as The Legislators. He is not convinced the insurrection is dead, and continues to investigate its existence, even when warned off by his fellow collaborators. Meanwhile, Gabriel hunts for meaning and gets drawn back into his brother's legacy.

This was not a hot action movie, but it did not shy away from action. If anything, this reminded me of a Cold War movie, one set behind the Berlin Wall, where insurrectionists plan actions and try to outrun and foil the police forces staffed by their own fellow citizens. The rundown nature of a world where collaborators are the elite and the rest of us make do, just adds to this feel. I thought about piles of garbage everywhere, the empty shelves in stores and the humiliating jobs people have to take in order to live, and of course, the continuous surveillance by the police. We are told that the only way to end this, is to stand up, to light a match and ignite the fire that will inspire the world to fight against their unjust masters. I only hope the American people understand the metaphor and take it to  the heart.

Triple Dose: Marvelous Things

Captain Marvel - 2019, d. Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck - in theatre
Avengers: Endgame - 2019, d. Joe and Anthony Russo - in theatre
Venom - 2018, d. Ruben Fleischer - on demand

Normally I would write a long (very, very long) screed dissecting almost any latest superhero movie (like, I had plenty to say about Shazam!) but for some reason I let both Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame slip past me.  Maybe it's the Letterboxd effect (eg. the fact that last year I was tracking and commenting on movies there, rather than doing so more in depth here.  I seem to be at more of a balance between both right now)?  Or maybe it was the DIY bedroom renovation and new puppy that sucked all the time and energy out of me for doing said reviews (which is kind of BS since Captain Marvel came out before all that, and, yeah, I did that Shazam! review)?  In the meantime I talked so much about both movies (you know, in person, in face-to-face conversations) that I kind of exhausted all I had to say about them multiple times over, that to sit down and write the same thoughts out seemed redundant.

We're now well past the point where these two films are dominating the cultural conversation (what is it currently?  Toronto Raptors winning a championship, usual political bullshit, our environmental nightmare, the bland mediocrity of the new Godzilla and X-Men movies [haven't seen them myself, but will eventually]...) so it's time to reapproach the dialogue and throw in an outlier in the superhero genre, the ugly little film that could, Venom.

Captain Marvel has two different entries in my Letterboxd diary ... the first with a 2 1/2 star rating, the second bumped up a full star after rewatching.  The reason for the disparity?  I had let expectations get the better of me.  It happens, perhaps too often, where I see the film for what I want it to be, versus seeing it for what it actually delivers.  I honestly think most movies fall into this category.  We enter a film with some exposure, whether it be having read the book/comic, having seen the trailer (or multiple trailers, sometimes multiple times), followed the filmmakers/cast members on social media, read advanced reviews, got caught up in hype, or just like a creator on the film... with any exposure come expectations.  I can't honestly say what my expectations were for Captain Marvel, I had little exposure to the character, and I wasn't paying attention to all the trailer scrubbers on youtube.  Yet my brain was obviously distracted because I wasn't getting the message.

Upon second viewing it was evident that I clearly missed something the first time around, and that something was the resonant themes of female empowerment and embracing one's self. Our protagonist is told time again that she can't do something, that she should be doing something else, that she's not strong enough to do what the boys do. But she tries. She fails, but still, she tries. And she picks herself back up after failing. She's told she needs to control herself, to contain her emotion, think with her head, not her heart ,as if emotion is weakness. She's told she needs to prove herself, prove to men -- men who are fearful of her abilities -- that she needs to prove herself on their level, when they know their level is so far below her own actual potential. They want to keep this powerful woman down, out of fear and envy, and for their own manipulative gain.

This isn't a message that all men are bad, but a message to everyone to not let others hold you back.
I caught this message the first time around but I was too busy looking for what I wanted out of the film, what I expected. I was being Yon-Rogg. I didn't want to approach the film on anything but my own terms and it came up lacking against my own expectations. But reading and hearing what others got out of it (my own daughter included) and I decided I needed to give it another chance.

In just two viewings I already have favorite sequences, starting with the masterful memory exploration sequence in the first act, following through to Carol's escape from the Skrulls. Likewise, the quiet moments of just two people talking, Carol and Fury (is Samuel L Jackson the world's greatest scene partner or what?) or Carol and Maria or Carol and Monica, they're some of the best two-hander scenes in the MCU.

It's not a perfect film... it's still too dark and muddy at times and the action escalates too unbelievably and I feel like that one soundtrack queue is just not good.  Likewise, it still feels more like a Marvel "Phase 1" origin movie, but with better effects.  Yet, I'm still quite in and want more Carol (I worry about Goose overexposure though... there's, like, a Minions level fervor around that cat).

[Avengers Endgame spoilers follow if you're still worried about such things]

We got more Carol Danvers in Avengers: Endgame, but it was in a fairly limited capacity.  She arrives to join the team in the opening act which picks up immediately following the end of Infinity War, but then disappears until late in the third act.  It's one of a few disappointments in an otherwise satisfying "season finale" to the 10-year MCU 3-act arc that started with Iron Man.

Endgame makes some very bold moves for a massive, multi-billion dollar franchise/series-of-franchises, starting with that opening act in which the heroes, having failed to stop Thanos from wiping out half of the living beings in existence with a snap in the last movie, "avenge" those lost souls.  Their avenging, though, serves little purpose and provides little satisfaction.  As a result, in a tremendously ballsy move, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, plus directors Joe and Anthony Russo, jump five years into the future.

This time jump changes the view of the MCU rather dramatically.  What is otherwise a bright, colorful, exciting, daring, adventurous reality is now a gray, sombre, joyless existence.  Everyone has lost someone, (or if you're Hawkeye, everyone).   For a glorious half hour, the MCU feels like it's the HBO series The Leftovers (reviews for Season 1, Season 2, Season 3).  The inspiration is obvious.

The film makes a case that Thanos was right, that reality where populations are halved are much more capable of managing their resources, that traumatized environments can recover from the plague of civilized societies.  And yet, actually living in such a reality, traumatized by tremendous loss, it's difficult to accept and move on. 

This is the crux of the Avengers mission here.  Rather than moving on and just protecting and bettering what's left of society, they exhaust all avenues in finding a way to return what was lost.  The first sign is the sudden re-emergence of Scott Lang, the Ant-Man, who was lost in the quantum realm for 5 years...only, for him it was mere minutes.  Time moves and flows differently in the quantum realm, and if the Avengers can harness it, they may just find the answer to stopping Thanos before he's able to complete his quest.  Of course, playing with time may also result in spawning alternate realities and other disastrous effects to avoid, which of course are going to happen because comic books are like that.

Just like Captain America: Civil War wasn't really a sequel to Captain America: Winter Soldier and yet, it still was, so too is Endgame to Infinity War.  The focus has shifted, and yet it still builds upon what came before.  Where Infinity War had Thanos as its focal figure, this one returns the focus back to the Avengers, most specifically the original roster from the 2011 film - Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye and the Hulk.

Hawkeye, absent from the last film, returns in the opening moments of the film, teaching his daughter archery while his son plays and his wife sets the picnic table for lunch.  Knowing how Infinity War ends makes the weight of this scene immediately obvious, and it's heartbreaking.  Clint descends into darkness as a murderous vigilante, killing crime lords around the globe, deeming them unworthy of surviving Thanos' random selection.  His best friend Nat now leads a global (perhaps even Galactic) Avengers, but Clint's health and well being have weighed heavily on her since the original film.  If only she should find him.  Bruce, meanwhile, has accepted the Hulk as a part of himself, and has found a happy medium between brains and brawn.

Having appeared in more movies than almost any other MCU character, yet without ever starring in her own feature, Black Widow's arc over the past decade has let her down.  It's evident Natasha is a great fighter, an incredible warrior, and intelligent and caring leader (making her head of the 5-years-later Avengers makes perfect sense), but we don't know what makes her tick, what drives her beyond her training as a Russian spy.  As such, when she exits the film, her loss is evident but it's not truly felt. The team has Cap, Tony and Thor all as capable alternate leaders should they need them (although by the end of the film that's all changed too).

The time-travel shenanigans are all about getting the Infinity Gems before Thanos does and destroying them before he can use them.  This involves the team breaking up into pairings (like classic team comics would always do) and retread ground from previous movies (like 2011 Avengers, Thor: The Dark World and the first Guardians of the Galaxy), but from a different point of view.  I love timey-wimey goofballs like this, and the movie has some definite fun with it, while also always aware of what the objective is and what's on the line.

Though perhaps not crystal clear, the rules of time travel are laid down for "Professor Hulk" in a surprise returning cameo, and, with a little help from the internet (or perhaps revisiting the film), do make sense.  To be sure, branching realities are made (and in some cases the writers and directors disagree on which branching realities actually exist) and provide enough dangling threads for future fodder (including the upcoming Loki TV mini-series on Disney's new streaming service).

It's perhaps less of the dazzling high-wire act than they did with Infinity War, since the cast roster has shrunk considerably thanks to "the snap", and yet Marcus and McFeely with the Russos still make a dense and impeccably entertaining feature.  It doesn't stand on its own, as it's got the structure of almost 2 dozen features from 10 years prior as foundation under its feet, yet, they have a satisfying experience overall that pays off the whole idea of the shared universe concept that only Marvel so far has been able to successfully create on screen.  It's an epic 3 hours of cinema that would baffle any newbie (but who is going into the fourth Avengers movie [like, the 7th Captain America movie, the 9th Iron Man movie] as their first entry into the MCU) but this is truly a love letter for the fans who have joined the ride along the way, die hards and casuals alike.

It's hard to see a path forward from here, 11 years of epic slowly building towards one huge climax, and it would be a satiating close to stop here.  Yet, there's no sign of it stopping and there's no reason to.  The quality of the MCU features is really damn high, so high that they're taking up 10 of the top 15 best superhero movies of all-time in my ranking of all superhero movies, and every MCU but one is in the top 50.  There's an attention to both craft and character in the making of an MCU.  It's spectacle but with a mind to making what works on the page also work on the screen.  Every MCU film has been good, if not great, watchable, if not infinitely rewatchable, and, most importantly, entertaining.

Sony, holders of the Spider-Man license for two decades now, have been less capable of creating a consistently entertaining product, less able to balance world building with character, and less able to keep their meddling fingers out of the pot.  They managed two better-than-good Spider-Man movies with Sam Raimi before studio interference damned the third one.  The relaunch from Marc Webb in 2011 saw the studio trying too hard to capture the same magic the MCU had created, with little awareness of the formula (and none of the patience) to copy.  This led to Sony practically begging Marvel to pair up on relaunching Spidey again for a third iteration in less than 20 years... with much improved results.

So chuffed by their success, Sony decided to capitalize upon Spider-man: Homecoming with a Spidey-less Venom feature, bringing the villain-turned-antihero to the big screen for a second time (after the disastrous Spider-Man 3).  Of course, in the comics the symbiotic alien that gives Eddie Brock his "venom" powers first possessed Peter Parker (in Spider-Man's classic black costume period of the 1980's), and it was Peter's realization that the symbiote was nefarious (and controlling) that caused Peter to abandon the creature.  It's union with Peter's newspaper rival Eddie created almost a natural opposite for Spider-Man, and Venom is now perhaps his most infamous nemesis.

But Venom's popularity as a villain skyrocketed in the grimdark/bad girl era of comics, where a lot of pubescent boys were getting fanserviced with busty/leggy women in skimpy costumes and extremely, grotesquely muscled violent vigilantes.  Once they introduced Carnage, another of Venom's alien symbiote species who paired with a human serial killer, suddenly Spider-Man was teaming up with his nemesis, making Venom look like a good guy by comparison.  Since then it's been a steady road to making Venom a casual bad guy, like the Punisher, except with a penchant for biting off heads rather than shooting them off.

I seriously underestimated the mass audience appeal for a character like Venom.  I certainly wasn't expecting the film to pull in almost 900 million worldwide.  Superman could barely do those numbers, and he needed to fight Batman to do so.  Something is seriously wrong with our planet.

Venom, as a film, is pretty nonsensical. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a Vice Magazine-type edgy reporter, who is kept on a leash by the people who pay his salary.  But his bag is extreme "gotcha" journalism, exposing corporate greed and elite corruption... except his latest story, trying to drag prominent technology magnate Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) down in the mud.  Except Drake is teflon and Brock's story gets scuttled.  He hacks his lawyer fiancee's computer to dig up some files on Drake for a case she's working on, his life collapses.  He gets fired and his relationship ends.

We're supposed to believe Hardy as Brock gets down on his luck, but he never seems down, and he seems like a pretty resourceful guy.  Eddie's drawn back into Drake's story when one of his key scientists tells Eddie about the experiments Drake is doing on homeless people (who, of course, Eddie is friends with) trying to pair them with alien symbiotes that reject and kill the hosts.  Naturally Eddie get paired with Venom and hijinks ensue.

It's a tenuous partnership but eventually it balances out.  Venom has its own personality and the two have conversations which are marginally amusing but don't really make a lick of sense.  Eddie's motivations and Venom's motivations seem like two separate and distinct things and not all that complimentary.  Of course, there are other symbiotes out there and Venom, dubbed the loser outcast of the prospective alien invasion of Earth, has decided to help stop them.  Drake pairs up with Riot (yes all the symbiots have edgy "cool" Earth nicknames which they call each other for some bizarre reason...it's very comic-booky but I don't buy into it) and the big gloopy final act begins.

Director Ruben Fleischer is best known for his horror-comedy Zombieland, and with Venom he's really striving for a similar slapstick-action-horror vibe.  It kind of works, except that it's utterly ridiculous.  There are trope subverting things, like Eddie's ex-fiancee, Anne (Michelle Williams) finding a new relationship with a guy who is much better for her, a nice guy to her AND Eddie, and helps out when needed.  It becomes clear by the third act that there's no reunion for Anne and Eddie in the offing, especially when it becomes somewhat insinuated that Eddie and Venom are kind of a thing (not really, but the queer coding is there) and there's no room for anything else (except that Anne becomes Venom for a short bit and that's really weird).

The story structure and pacing of Venom feels completely off, such that the progression of relationships doesn't flow properly, and the intent of characters from one moment to the next never seems certain.  Why is anyone really doing what they're doing?  The movie doesn't seem to care, why should we?

The action in the film ranges from utterly generic to unappealingly ugly.  Venom as a creation looks somewhat like his comic book counterpart, but he's a shiny goopy mess most of the time, and can shoot more shiny goopy messes off himself when fighting.  It looks pretty terrible, like unfinished VFX from the mid 2000's.  Once the film comes to a head and Venom and Riot are gooping all around stuff, it's tedious and kind of gross.  It's just an unpleasant effect...less because it's a CGI blob, and more because it's a terrible and unreal looking CGI blob.

I honestly don't understand how this movie made the pile of cash it did.  It's not altogether unwatchable, but it's barely any better than the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies.  It's Hardy, Williams, Ahmed, and Jenny Slate making this anything close to palatable viewing, but they're all far too good for this.  Perhaps it's just conditioning now.  A superhero movie is released, so people go see it.  Hell, Aquaman made a billion dollars (sounds hyperbolic but it's true).  Then again, X-Men: Dark Phoenix just came out and tanked, so....

John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum

2019, Chad Stahelski (John Wick) -- cinema

I am extremely conflicted about this movie. Enough that I started assuming I would only have Three Short Paragraphs (never short) and deleted that titling immediately after. There is too much to process.

As you know, I am an Uber Fan of the first movie, as uber as I can get with my apathetic brain (also uber hurt that Hayley Atwell doesn't like apathetic people, but who can blame her #randomsegue). And Kent's view of the movie is actually more of a selling point, as a man who doesn't care for Keanu. You see, of late, I am one of the Internet Many's who would likely be labelled Keanu's BF. Or at least BFF ? He is, of Internet Legend, just an uber (at this point, maybe the company should give me some beer money) nice guy and I am of a mind-state of late where Nice Guys are currently just needed. People acknowledge he is nice, confirm he is nice, and even make up stories to expand a legend of how much of a nice guy he is. His Nice has become a meme.

But putting that aside, putting aside why I will return to this franchise, despite my mild disappointment with the last, I am still a Big Fan. You don't get my disappointment from the emotion scraped words I put in that post, but you get the disenfranchised feeling I was left with. The movies depart from Wick himself, and float into the ether that is his world. This one pretty much leaves all reality behind and John becomes even more a caricature of who he was set up to be.

Baba Yaga cannot escape the consequences of what he has done. He killed a connected man's son in the first, he kills a Connected Man in the second. The escalation picks up, again, hours after the first but now John is ExCommunicado, removed from the privileged few (???) of killers for the High Table. The problem, the extreme problem with this movie is that there seems to no longer exist any world outside This World. There are no people other than The Killers. Its as if Neo was tossed into another Matrix, one that he tries to escape from via his actions. That, is probably Head Canon worth exploring.

But fuck, once again, this movie is so beautiful. The opening sequence, of John and a number of chasing assassins through a warehouse / museum of vintage weaponry is so cringe worthy, I pretty much broke my physical response to the thuds, thunks and squelches of John's attacks on his opponents. At this point, I realized that Keanu may get a resurrection of his movies in some distant version of a rep theatre, as interactive movies where people shout out their emotional responses, like we did with John Woo's The Killer.

The beauty carries throughout. From NYC to Casablanca (no, real Casablanca, not some metaphoric location) and back to NY. But story and character are dispensed with for the sake of Whoah. Along with a few hints of sequel-itis, the movie just ends up feeling familiar. We are expected to go along for the ride and not pay attention, but to just revel. And I might be able to do that, if not for the fact that the first movie chose to raise itself above Generic Action movie and make something substantial.

That said, so many elements continue to impress. Halle Berry's dogs are as incredible as John himself. Mark Dacascos's Japanese-not-Japanese character is so spot on, you cannot but mourn his ending. Even the nod to Blade Runner or kiosk sushi, which I doubt exists in Manhattan is so... world building. And every combat sequence is delightful, as it should have been. I just wish I could sit back and think about the movie and just revel, as I did in the first.

p.s. that poster is INCREDIBLE !!! So many are...

Double Dose: Netflix original sci-fi, but with kids

See You Yesterday - 2019, d. Stefon Bristol
Rim of the World - 2019, d. McG

Back in the mid-1980s, there was a tremendous boom in science fiction-adventure films starring kids and young adults.  The Explorers, Flight of the Navigator, The Last Starfighter, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Back to the Future.... Post-Star Wars there was a void that needed filling and Stephen Spielberg showed the way to box office and critical success with E.T.  By the mid-90's, however, these live-action movies with a kid/teen focus were deemed too narrow for mass appeal.  Jurassic Park had proven that you could make big budget entertainment for the whole family... and then Toy Story came along, making CGI-animation pretty much the only successful source of family entertainment for the next 20 years.  Sci-fi adventure that is tailored towards a younger audience has been largely relegated to Disney TV movies in recent years (and even then mainly low-budg live-action adaptations of their popular cartoons).

In the past year, though, there seems to be a resurgence of live action sci-fi adventure (and fantasy) films that try to return to the high-spirited template of the 1980's.  A Wrinkle in Time last spring, Bumblebee in December, The Kid Who Would Be King in February, and these two recent stealth drops on Netflix: See You Yesterday and Rim of the World.

See You Yesterday is based off the award-winning short of the same name.  It's the story of two Brooklyn Academy of Science students -- CJ and her best friend Sebastian -- who develop time-travel technology but wrestle with the ethics of using it.  This comes even further into question when CJ's brother is murdered by a police officer.  CJ's grief leads to plotting to save her brother, only the attempts become more and more complicated.



It's a delicate balancing act writer-director Stefon Bristol (with co-writer Fredrica Bailey) have to negotiate in making a high-spirited sci-fi story with such a grounded, painful, real-world tragedy that is the characters' call-to-adventure. They largely accomplish it, using the first half of the film to set up CJ and Sebastian's trials, and setting the rules for their time travel (how they avoid paradoxes and the fact that they can only be back in time for roughly 10 minutes).  The first half also sets up CJ's relationship with her brother, Calvin, and the supporting cast of friends, family and adversaries.  This time spent is meaningful and purposeful world building, to show family and social life in a predominantly black neighbourhood as something other than what we so often see in mass media.  But from the first pointed moment of police harassment about 20 minutes in, the current of tranquil normalcy is completely undercut by the threat of unintended violence from a public service that doesn't serve the entire public.

That simmering threat eventually explodes when Calvin is killed by trigger-happy cops mistaking him and his friend for the two black youth who just robbed a bodega. CJ convinces Sebastian they're smart enough to jump back in time and save him without causing any negative repercussions but she is wrong.  The first jump is clumsy, the second disasterous.  More jumps are needed to correct the second jump but it's all mucked up, but CJ is undeterred from her initial goal.

See You Yesterday does tread a very fine balance between entertainment and social commentary.  The cast of characters (and performers) are fantastic, and the events of the film have real emotional heft.  There are Ghostbusters and Back To The Future nods (in the form of funky backpacks and a Michael J. Fox cameo, respectively) but the purpose isn't to replicate or reimagine 80's young-adult genre films but to establish a new baseline of what they can be.  The score by Michael Abels recalls the wist and bombast of 80's cinema and does an subtly huge amount of the legwork in making the film feel adventurous and not life-and-death dramatic.  Likewise Eden Duncan-Smith as CJ navigates the balance between grief, determination and hopefulness to make her time travel adventures more fun than intense.  CJ is a strong willed, determined character who owns herself and for better or worse is undeterred from her objective, no matter what mistakes she makes along the way.  Learning and growing from mistakes, and endeavoring to try again, these are heroic qualities, while sometimes her inability to collaborate or heed advice  over her single mindedness are traits that challenge her in her quest for success.

The film is quite successful at everything it sets out to do, and yet, it fails somewhat to structurally tell a fully satisfying story on a few different fronts.  The scope of the film remains intentionally small.  It focuses on CJ and Sebastian and their Brooklyn pocket.  The potentially catastrophic effects of time travel stay very intentionally in this pocket of the world.   Any fallout from this reality-changing technology still remains mostly character focused, centered on CJ and the community around her.  There's no wormholes threatening to suck up reality, no government agents after their technology, and time travel paradox workarounds are provided.  It's not necessarily a bad thing keeping the cause-and-effect so small (the threat is almost always the police and gun violence here, not anything time/space or extra-governmental) but it does keep the film relatively small by relation.  I'm not sure if having larger consequences would make for a better film, or only distract from the indented message.

(:::SOME SPOILERS BELOW:::)

The thrust of the film is the death of CJ's brother, leading to her time travel journeys to save him.  This is what every article on the movie reveals almost immediately, but these events happen so deep in the film that it winds up with a lack of satisfaction to the amount of time travel that happens as a result, especially when the film ends on such an uncertain note as it does.  Which is my biggest issue with the film... it just ends.  It doesn't feel like it should end where it does, with CJ making yet another trip (and 10 minutes left on the running time), and yet that's where it ends.  I was expecting a 10-minute real-time sequence of CJ expertly navigating the past to accomplish her goal, but it just ends with her jumping and a cut to credits.  It's not like Back to the Future -- which ends with Doc and Marty heading off on the promise of another adventure -- this ends with CJ's mission unfulfilled and the question as to whether she's ever successful at it?  The film's final moments posit that she essentially has one more chance to get it right but it denies us the opportunity to see it.

It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too type ending, whereby the filmmakers get to still have the social resonance of a black youth murdered by the police but with the hopefulness of a personal victory for CJ in undoing it.  It's part of the problem with dealing with such heavy real-world issues in a light science fiction story, anything the characters do isn't going to solve the larger societal problem, it's just going to fix one outcome from it.  As satisfying as that might be for the character and the family, it still leaves the lingering dissatisfaction of the societal problem still existing and having no direct answers for it.  By leaving both the personal victory uncertain, it creates less of a disparity against the quite entrenched social issue.  There's really no way for a satisfying conclusion here, but they could have tried to give us the personal with the awareness that the other still exists (with Spike Lee as producer, he knows how to give a happy ending but counter that with a gutpunch of reality, per BlacKKKlansman).  Calvin could be saved, with CJ returning to today only to see that a day later another black youth is killed by the cops.  Personal victory but not a social one.

(:::END SPOILERS:::)

Rim of the World doesn't have any high minded goals beyond telling a retro kids sci-fi adventure film.  This one takes pains to be inclusive, with a multicultural leading cast, but it has trouble breaking out of stereotypes and cliches.  I'm sure it could be argued it's playing into them, but we'll get to that.



The film opens almost exactly the same way as Rampage, as we pan in on a modern-day space station in distress in orbit above Earth, everyone inside is dead with only one female astronaut surviving.  It's very strange the parallels between this and Rampage.  We then meet three kids on their way to first day of camp (which shares the same name as the movie's title).  There's Zach, the timid, loner, NASA nerd whose dad died in a fire.  There's ZhenZhen, the quiet, aggressive, resourceful one who seems to have made her way from China on her own (the thinness of ZhenZhen's backstory [reduced to basically one line: "Let's just say dad wanted a boy"]- as well as making her into a love interest is doubly problematic).  And there's Dariush, a loud-mouthed rich kid with attitude (whose foul-mouthed, sexually charged dialogue is delivered with Nickelodeon-style sit-com rhythm by  Benjamin Flores Jr., who is, unsurprisingly, a Nickelodeon staple).  Camp's not going particularly well for any of them when they take a divergent path where they encounter tuff kid with a heart of gold and a learning disability, Gabriel, just as they witness the first signs of an alien invasion.  They see EMP bombs go off in the sky, they see jets dogfighting alien spacecraft, and they find the crash landed scientist from the space station who gives them the key to possibly stopping the whole thing.  Plus they meet an unstoppable alien, and its less-unstoppable dog-thing.

Effects technology is better, and foul language is more permissible, but otherwise this film runs pretty much on the same template as most 80's adventure films.  The kids are from different background, with different anxieties, and are forced to confront their fears in the process forming a close-knit bond by going on a journey to save the world.  It's not without its charms, but at the same time it also finds itself resting too comfortably with well worn tropes and character archetypes.  At one point as a scene transitions away, two black side characters ask why they're talking like black men from the '80's.  This little meta inflection is meant to hammer home how aware the film is of its cliches, but beyond that one moment it just seems to rest on them, rather than confront them.  Also, it literally sticks a 90-second Adidas commercial smack in the middle of the film.

The young performers are all good, relaxing comfortably into roles that don't challenge them too much.  McG, as a director, is action oriented and does put them (or their body doubles) through their paces.  There's some well composed shots that show how small and out of their depth the kids are, against the backdrop of aerial dogfights or a devastated Los Angeles.  Likewise, McG drops some pretty impressive, and impactful, explosions and crashes involving these kids that are very convincing (and concerning).  But at the same time there's a couple alien creatures prominently on display and they are ugly, goopy, first-generation CGI multi-legged messes that look like they're trying to replicate stop-motion animation and vintage bluescreen effects.  I'm not sure why they wouldn't create something cleaner, more appealing, or take the Attack The Block route and hide the creatures as much as possible (it's very much like this film wants to be Attack the Block, but can never figure out the line between homage and formulaic).

I didn't hate Rim of the World... it feels comfortable, but within that familiarity one only wishes for something new, and it provides very little newness.  People reference how this film is trying to be Stranger Things but that (and It) are very successful at recreating the horror-suspense genre for an adult audience that yanks hard at nostalgia strings while also not making it they're raison-d'etre.  Making this type of adventure for a pre-teen/teen audience but with an all-ages accessibility in mind is much trickier, when there's no nostalgia buttons to trigger. See You Yesterday does dare to do something different, but unfortunately it miscalculates its final moments disastrously, taking the film's reputation down with it.

Looking back on the recent entries of live-action young-adult entertainment, both A Wrinkle in Time and Bumblebee underperformed at the box office and The Kid Who Would Be King tanked.  With these two have barely made a scratch in the realm of online film conversation, I'm guessing these types of films are going to disappear for a while again, which is too bad.  The formula is an enjoyable one, it just requires a willingness to do something creative with it. 

3 Short Paragraphs: Io

2019, Jonathan Helpert (House of Time) -- Netflix

My friend David is writing a novel about an exodus from Earth, or at least a major plot element will be about the leaving. One of my favourite space opera writers, Becky Chambers (really, I cannot recommend her writing highly enough!) writes about a vast galaxy of space faring races where the humans left earth ages ago, and now live as Exodans, a vast fleet of star hips circling a sun that was provided for them by a friendly alien race. Seveneves, a novel by Neal Stephenson, is about the moon breaking up and the coming rain of fragments will destroy the earth, thus everyone has to leave. Exodus is a thing right now, and I rather enjoy it.

Io takes place on Earth after pretty much everyone has already left. Sam (Margaret Qualley, The Leftovers) lives in one of few survivable places on the planet, continuing her father's research into the poisonous atmosphere. She tells everyone on Io Station, where everyone has flown to, that she still assists her father, when in truth he has died. Micah (Anthony Mackie, The Avengers: Infinity War) appears in a makeshift dirigible seeking to reach the last remaining space shuttle, and due to complications has to land at Sam's home. He tries to convince her to leave, she rails against it focused on how important her research is, in that the planet will recover and someone has to be here to prove that.

The movie is not really about the exodus or the apocalyptic planet they live on, but more about isolation and obligation. The commentary on what we are doing to the planet is expectedly heavy handed but the movie has a dreamy, hazy look and feel that matches the smoke & haze of the poisons all around them. In another time, produced by another source, we would not have dealt at all with the outside, having kept the moody movie indoors and only referenced what it was like outside. But Netflix definitely wants their atmospheric (pun intended) scifi flicks to capture a certain audience. The movie is thus only mostly satisfying, not really committing itself to the adventure nor the message.

American Soldiering: Hunter Killer & Triple Frontier

2018, Donovan Marsh (Spud) -- Netflix
2019, J.C. Chandor (All is Lost) -- Netflix


Hollywood is the reflection in the American mirror, with what is being represented reflecting back upon itself ad infinitum. While one side sees what is coming out of the collective film making brain as commentary on what is going on down there, others might see it as the mouthpiece. Its both.

Take the American military. They have been in continuous action in some place over there, since... forever. But when I was a kid, these actions were defined, they were wars, they were things with beginnings and ends. But now, it just goes on and on and the ideal that they are defending themselves from someone seems to have escaped. Its more like these actions represent America stating it is still a power, against anyone.

These movies don't intentionally, at least not entirely, comment on that. But really, they do. Was that unclear enough for you? I think that is how the American heart feels about soldiers these days; entirely conflicted.

In Triple Frontier we have a squad of elite soldiers, all post-deployment. Some are working, some less so. But all are influenced and corrupted by the days when they killed people for a living. Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam) runs classes where he convinces soldiers to redeploy. Redfly (Ben Affleck) is broke and desperate and more than a little lost. Pope (Oscar Isaac) is running consultant on police ops in Mexico. Catfish (Pedro Pascal) is fighting drug charges. And Pope comes along to convince them to help him with a recon mission against a cartel boss. What he pitches is basic recon, a few days and some easy cash, where his old buddies protect him. What he really wants is to kill the druglord and take his massive amount of money. This is the elevator pitch of the movie, the basis for the trailer, but that little conflict of interest (are they now hired killers?) is only a small bit of the movie.

I have been reading a lot about plot these days, as I try to apply some sort of structure to my writing bug. I generally never see structure in anything fiction, but here I saw the "heap some trouble on the main character, and then heap even more" concept from pulp adventures. The recon become robbery/murder goes expectedly south once they see exactly how much money they are taking; greed takes over the time they had allotted. And the rest of the movie is about them escaping, hopefully with all the money.

Now we are in a road movie, an escape movie and the real plot comes out -- the conflict, external and internal, of who they were and who they are now, and what THIS instance in their lives says. They argue, they accuse and they deal with terrible situations. The problem is that most of the actual cruz of that dialogue must have been cut to just deal with the action and tension, because every time these stressor points come up, they seem to fall flat. Nothing really rings true, the characters are more the cutout figures of Tough Soldiers than they are Thoughtful Killers. The movie wants to be more than it is, and despite some great scenes with Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck, there really is nothing deep here.

Meanwhile in Hunter Killer all we have is cardboard. There is nothing here but a desire to depict American soldiers as the action heroes many must believe they all are. This movie is about moral choices and tough choices and the Right Thing always working out. Gerard Butler, who is not even American, comes along as the new captain on a submarine, the sailor who worked himself up through the ranks and not just assigned because of what school he went to, and who his family is. And his first act is to lead his crew into Arctic waters near Russia, to recover another American sub, now missing.

A coup is taking place in Russia and they get mixed up in it. This movie is by the books, so unbelievably straight forward that I was surprised they didn't do a scene where the sub gets damaged and the captain has to allow some sailors to drown, to save the rest of the boat. But no, this movie is about the soldiers (are military sailors soldiers or just guys on a boat?) getting it done. The American government decides to help the Russian Prime Minister survive his coup and send Butler and boat to bring him, and the American special forces team (led by Toby Stephens, also not American) sent to rescue said Prime Minister.

The only really thing I found of interest in this movie was looking at how newer subs must look on the interior. Back in the old days of sub warfare movies, everything was fuzzy green and blurry white screens and lots of buttons & dials. But now, we are digital, so the presence of active screens makes sense. I have been reading a lot of space opera, so what I saw mirrored a lot of spaceship interiors. Except ping, subs always have ping and guys on headphones concentrating.

What did strike me, as I watched the first one night in the hotel (Sault Ste-Marie for work) and the other, the next night following, was how different they presented Americans doing soldier work. And yet both wanted us to feel pretty much the same way about the brave boys -- that they are brave, daring and sacrifice a lot. But is that the current feel of the American public? Or are these movies recruitment drives. The first movie doesn't actually present what they end up dealing with, post deployment, in a positive light but you still get the idea of them Doing the Right Thing and how that is a Good Thing. Both movies are supposed to be just entertainment and NOT social commentary, but I cannot help but feel everything ends up being so even if it doesn't intend on it.

Double Dose: lady spies

Atomic Blonde - 2017, d. David Leitch

Red Sparrow - 2018

The idea of an ass-kicking female spy is not a new one.  The James Bond franchise has been serving up that archetype for most of its existence, although too often as sexual conquests, love interests or damsels in distress and not enough as equals.  Beyond that, however, there haven't been many espionage or spy-action features headlined by women.  Hell, next to James Bond the most popular spy on the planet is Black Widow, and she's only now getting her own solo feature 10+ years after her big screen debut.  The only other female-led spy movies I can think of right now are comedies: Melissa McCarthy in Spy and Mila Kunis/Kate McKinnon in The Spy Who Dumped Me  (and they do not play spies, but rather accidental spies).  A quick google search reminds me that there was also La Femme Nikita, Harriet The Spy, and Salt.  That's not a deep roster.  The spy genre seems tailor made for mid-budget action movies of the Resident Evil/Underworld sort, so it's any wonder why we haven't seen a franchise player as yet.

Television has been kinder, with The Avengers pairing John Steed with no less than three amazing, ass-kicking agents (Emma Peel, Tara King, Cathy Gale), Agent 99 in Get Smart was obviously the superior agent, Alias and Nikita both ran in the early aughts with action/melodrama focus, while Keri Russel in the Americans and Claire Danes in Homeland provided deep critical success for the female-led espionage drama. Killing Eve has reaped the reward for all this groundwork being one of the best reviewed series currently on TV.

Atomic Blonde and Red Sparrow are both concerted efforts at providing meaty, dramatic, and thrilling looks at espionage with women in the focal roles in cinema.  Atomic Blonde is a forthright pinch on the female James Bond model, while Red Sparrow is a more winding, character-focused story.  Both are not original creations, however, with Atomic Blonde originating as the graphic novel, The Coldest City by Anthony Johnston and Sam Hart while Red Sparrow is based on the book of the same name by ex CIA agent Jason Matthews.  Both films also have a Cold War vibe, with Atomic Blonde being set at the end of the era, while Red Sparrow is set in modern times but feels wholly of the era.

Atomic Blonde takes place largely in East Berlin just prior to the fall of the Berlin wall.  Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), a top agent for MI6, is dispatched to recover a list that contains the name of every intelligence agent active in the city, as well as discover the identity of Satchel, a double agent who has been causing problems for the agency for years. She quickly finds herself in a labyrinth of deceptions and partnerships she cannot trust, where her enemies at time can seem more forthright and civil than her allies.

Theron is amazing in the role, filled with steely determination, confidence, composure, shifting between glamour and gritty physicality, and sometimes both (after one fight Broughton proclaims "If I knew, I would have worn a different outfit".  She commits to the role's intense physicality and carries the cumulative weight of each fight with her in following scenes.  The necessity to do anything for queen and country lands her in an intimate affair with a French agent (Sofia Boutella) that starts off as just business but, in spite of herself, is actually something more.

The narrative is problematic however.  The film utilizes a framing sequence, with Broughton debriefing her MI6 superior (Toby Jones) and a visiting CIA agent (John Goodman) about the mission. The film is interrupted frequently by this framing sequence, robbing it of much of the climbing tension. The tone of these framing sequences is largely expository, helping to provide context to the events as they're happening, but it's superfluous.  As well, this robs the film of any mortal danger Broughton is in, knowing that she survives the mission.  The story is a dense and winding one, difficult to follow with a plethora of thinly developed and sporadically seen characters, but that can be said of many a Bond picture as well.

There's a lot of style to Atomic Blond, director David Leitch utilizing the neon-lit shadows of John Wick (which he co-directed) to give a real visual pop, why composing scenes around Berlin using its art deco as the backdrop for many visual feasts.  Likewise the wardrobes of the film define the characters so well, particularly giving Broughton, as centerpiece, standout looks that work so well with both the neon and deco.

The film's biggest detraction is its overwhelmingly, almost omnipresent 80's soundtrack.  So rarely is the soundtrack ambient in the scene, it's just blaring, familiar 80's jams laid over top of the scene.  When the third act begins with an intensely long and winding sequence where Broughton tries to help a defecting agent escape the city and it devolves into a brutal fight for survival and transforms into a car chase, there's a merciful absence of soundtrack.  It lets the physicality shine without interference.   The brutality of the fight and how it wears the combatants down is inspired, Leitch's action choreography experience shining once again.  It's the highlight of the film and well worth spending time in this world getting there.

Word is there is sequel plans, given that Theron is producer and pushed to get the film made (in order to have an action vehicle for her to star in) it's a welcome franchise.  There's also the possibility of connecting the franchise with John Wick which would be a little unusual give that Wick is modern day and Broughton is 30 years behind him.

Where Atomic Blonde is clearly focused on turning Lorraine Broughton into an cinematic action hero in the Bond vein, Red Sparrow seems to want its protagonist, Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), to be more of a spy in the Le Carre model, less action and more intrigue.

Though set in modern day, Red Sparrow feels very deeply like a cold war hold out.  Cel phones are now part of the set, but there's very little else that would differentiate this from a story set in the 1960's, '70's or '80's. Red Sparrow could also be mistaken as a reimagining of the Black Widow story, as Dominika is a ballet dancer who's conscripted into service and trained to use her body as a weapon in a secret Russian spy training school. (Rather than coincidence or copying, it's more likely share their origins in stories of Russian kompromat training schools).

Red Sparrow takes a very unfavorable look at Russian society, effectively damning it as a prison state, where everyone is under the thumb of the ruling elite, where you only have value if you can serve the mother country, otherwise you're just waste.  After an accident ends Dominika's career as a ballerina, her uncle, the head of the SVR, asks for her service in entraping a prominent Russian businessman. She agrees only to be traumatized by being raped and witness to his garroting in short order.  Her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts), needing her discretion, gives her a choice of execution or a future as an SVR agent, a Red Sparrow, trained in the art of seduction for the purposes of extracting intelligence or gaining leverage by compromising their target.

Dominika submits to the humiliation of the training, ecercises designed to force out any sense of self, sense of modesty, or sense of pride.  The goal is to be a tool, a weapon, a body to be exploited in service of mother Russia. Yet she never loses sight of what is really at play, power and control.  She sees the power others strive for, and the control they seek to have (over her and anything or anyone else) and she sees the strings to pull to manipulate that.  The powers that be think it's her training, but it's self-preservation and a big middle finger to everything she's been tought.

She's sent out on a mission to Budapest, to seduce Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), an American agent who has connections to a mole within Russian intelligence.  She's to find out who the mole is.  Along the way she has altercations with her roommate and the Russian station agent in the city.  As she engages with these sources (as well as her uncle and his handlers - Ciaran Hinds and Jeremy Irons) the film plays with the audience's perception of Dominika.  Is she in over her head?  Is she in complete control?  Is she deceiving Nash when she seduces him, or is she actually vulnerable (and is he really falling for it or does he understand the deception?)? When Nash recruits her as a double agent, and she agrees, is this part of the ploy or is it in earnest?  Is she a patriot or a traitor?  Can she be both?

Unlike Atomic Blonde, the intrigue of Red Sparrow is far more personal and intimate, thus much easier to follow, if end result is only clear at the end.  Spy games are just that, games, which play with lives, careers, politics, and balances of power, and there are good players and bad in these games (both in terms of intent and skill).  Dominika, by the end, proves she is a good player but concerned only with her own outcome.

Like Theron, Lawrence gives plenty to the role, a lot of physicality and nudity was requested of them, yet where Theron's sexuality culminated in a steamy same-sex sex scene, Lawrence's portrayal of sexuality is terse, absent and cold, like the training provided to her character intones.  There's an unpleasantness to sexuality, as one would expect when it's used as a weapon.

Likewise with both characters, I find the accents shaky.  Theron's British accent sounds put upon at times, while Lawrence's Russian brogue never rings true (it drops out entirely at times).  In a more action-oriented setting a loose accent is more forgivable, but with such a heavy character piece like Red Sparrow I question the need for accents at all.  They're in Russia, they should be speaking Russian.  If they're not speaking Russian, why bother with accents (it gives the impression they're speaking in English instead of Russian, which would be weird).  See The Death Of Stalin, another Russian-set film, but all the performers speak with their native affectations.

Red Sparrow is good, but not great.  It's a tad overlong at 2h14m but it's always engaging.  It's deeply unpleasant at times, the horrors of violence and violent actions are not shied away from, making for uncomfortable viewing.  Matthews has follow-up novels featuring Dominika which, given the film's modest success, may actually wind up with another franchise for Lawrence to play in.  As with Lorraine Broughton, there's definitely room for more stories with these characters.  I was more visually engaged (and impressed) with Atomic Blonde but more emotionally engaged with Red Sparrow.  Neither needs to compete, as there's more than enough space in cinema for multiple badass female spies (afterall, nobody ever complained about how many male-led spy movies there were).