3 Short Paragraphs: The Colony (Tides)

2021, Tim Fehlbaum (Hell) -- download

Earth has been destroyed; the waters have risen, radiation and pollution abounds and she cannot sustain us. The elite escape to Kepler 209. How they reach a distant star and establish a colony is not important but generations later the colony is barren in its own right -- unable to bear any more children. They must return to mother Earth and see if she is once again more habitable. The first expedition was lost decades ago, and now the second expedition crashes into the sea, a sea that soon dissipates leaving them on a silty shoal. But as the tide returns the lone surviving colonist is attacked by locals; obviously life has survived on Earth, but in what form? 

With a certain sense of style and forthright execution Fehlbaum delivers something above middling, something definitely worth watching.  They should have stuck with the name Tides because the mood of the choice, basically a worldbuilding element, sets the tone for the movie. Everything is mud and water, a short clock that influences all subsequent actions. The water rises, and then recedes. Actions are paused, and then resumed. 

This is what Liman should have wanted from his less than middling movie Chaos Walking. While the stories are comparable in many rights, with familiar retread topics, Tides makes takes paths that leave many scenes in memory. Without relying on any CGI laden gimmicks, usually just scenes built in muddy water, or abandoned freighter ships, or on the muddy shoals, the world has weight and character. And so do the actual characters. Our lone colonist has to recognize what she has come from, the colony and the legacy, and make a decision to encourage the return of her nice clean white forbears, or recognize the value of the descendants of those they left behind.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Ice Road

2021, Jonathan Hensleigh (Kill the Irishman) -- download/Netflix

Yep, Ice Road Truckers the movie. Liam Neeson (Rob Roy) returns as yet another aging man in a difficult situation who rises to the call. Mike McCann is a long distance trucker in North Dakota who loses yet another job, because his brother Gurty, beset with PTSD and verbal aphasia, draws the ire of fellow truckers, and Mike responds with fists. We are supposed to think of Gurty as mentally challenged, but the underlying plot of challenges with his recovery and the American veteran system is muddy at best. With nothing left, Mike takes a call to join a convoy on a dangerous but critical trip to northern Manitoba, to deliver equipment that will be used to rescue miners trapped under a collapse. The clock is ticking and the truckers will be forced over the Spring thawing ice roads.

That Mike can drive from North Dakota into Manitoba to take a job is weird -- does the idea of cross border truckers just exist? Either way, they know its going to be dangerous but the insurance company is going to shell out $200k to be split between Mike, his brother (trip mechanic), a young woman named Tantoo (whose brother is one of the trapped miners; Amber Midthunder, Legion) and the leader, Jim Goldenrod (Lawrence Fishburne, Hannibal). And a company actuary joins to monitor the trip. Weird flex, but OK. But, twist! Twist because just the excitement and danger of traveling the ice road is definitely not enough, despite there being an entire TV series dedicated to it. No, there is nefarious intent at work here, and the actuary is actually an Evil Thug sent along to make sure things go wrong. Evil Mine Executives have cut corners and caused the collapse, but if nobody is rescued, it will all be washed away in the tragedy. 

This was straight-up straight-to-tape level action and intrigue with melodramatic action and overtly melodramatic deaths, especially with the quick death of Goldenrod, but I guess that is the point of Big Names taking terrible roles, in that they can get in and get out quick with their money. The rest of the movie, once Jim dies, is about getting to the mine on time, despite Evil Thugs and his Mooks and lost trucks and constant danger, but not from the ice so much. Everyone puts in their best tense faces and shouts in anger, but even Neeson is just along for the ride. This was not a good movie.

P.S. I love how terrible that poster is, Neeson with a gun, implying he is once again the man with a particular set of skills, which he is, its just that they are Driving a Truck, not shooting a gun.

3ish Shortish Paragraphs: Chaos Walking

2021, Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) -- download

For some reason, just typing Doug Liman's name starts the Moby song Extreme Ways playing in my head.

I am hoping that Space Colonization is the replacement for the troublesome Earth-bound colonization & exploration genres. Chaos Walking, based on the young adult series by Patrick Ness, is one such story, set on a planet recently colonized by settlers, and expecting a new wave. But something happened during the establishment of a settlement, a conflict with the locals (the Spackle) killed off all the women of Prentisstown. When they arrived a new condition arose where all the thoughts & emotions were constantly portrayed to the world in a cacophonous colour spray of sound & image, called The Noise. Todd (Tom Holland, The Impossible) is the last youth of the town, a teenage boy coming into adulthood and at odds with the toxic masculinity that is his home. His Noise often betrays his feelings. And then a scout ship from the coming wave of settlers crashes, with only Viola (Daisy Ridley, Murder on the Orient Express) surviving. And she doesn't have The Noise.

Immediately upon Viola's arrival, Todd begins to feel something is off. Not only is she the first woman he has seen since he was a toddler, but the men of Prentisstown, including the always furious preacher Aaron (David Oyelowo, Selma) with scarlet tinted Noise, and the charismatic and intimidating Mayor Prentis (Mads Mikkelson, Rogue One) are angered by her arrival, and fear her. Something is not quite right. Todd is drawn to Viola, as all adolescent boys (note, I could not buy the buff Tom Holland as a teen boy) but realizes something about her presence is important. So he decides to secret her away, and is led by his father Ben (Demián Bichir, Kong vs Godzilla) to a neighbouring community, to find shelter and protection. But even there they cannot escape the Mayor and his fanatics, and again have to flee, which brings them to the remains of the first colony ship, in which Viola hopes to find the technology that can assist her.

There is an incredible world introduced here, unfortunately saddled with a pedestrian story, not really well told. So much of this movie just speaks to sloppiness in the production, the script and the story choices. And not surprising considering the dragged out production that dropped the original Charlie Kaufmann script in 2012, jumped around with a room of writers, considered Robert Zemeckis for director but went with Limon, did most of the shooting in 2017, and then dragged until 2019 to have Fede Álvarez (The Girls in the Spider's Web) to direct the reshoots. Its not surprising it shows.

Despite this, I still enjoyed watching the flick. Holland and Ridley are more than decent performers who I enjoy watching work. And of course Mikkelson is always riveting. But so many bits just irritated me, none more than the patchy depictions of The Noise, where some scenes they would have it dancing around in the background above every man's head, and then in other scenes, they just dropped it entirely, like the forgot to finish some post production world. Major Prentiss is supposed to represent a grand evil in men, but comes off as a bland B-western villain who never really seems something to be feared. And the toss away mention of the indigenous alien race, The Spackle is just ... confusing. And despite my desire to see the evils of colonization dispensed with, that is really what the movie's core ends up being about.

3 Short Paragraphs: Jungle Cruise

2021, Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) -- download

Hoping to bank on the same formula as Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney produced yet another adventure movie based on one of  their resort attractions. Funny how nobody complains about these movies as being bad adaptations of the attractions, but we will forever be pointing out that it wasn't as good as Pirates. We will be doing that forever, because I doubt they will ever again recreate the perfect storm of genre mashing that those movies were -- adventure and comedy and horror and CGI and nostalgia.

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt bring a boatload of charm and charisma to a movie, that I am surprised even exists in today's "woke" world. Adventure movies set during late colonial period of English history are generally in bad favour now, given all the overt cues of abuse. Completely not self-aware, this one just leans into the period, where upper class British folk who believe they know better make their way to the Amazon with too much luggage, to find and pillage the indigenous culture's treasures. But in an Emily Blunt nice way. Don't get me wrong, I am very fond of the trappings of this genre, one of the last times when the culture I am part of (western, white, predominantly male) would go boldly forth and explore an unknown world. I enjoy the fish out of water aspects, but mostly just what the genre is - adventure and exploration. I wonder if we could carry these aspects to outer space colonization genre stories and avoid the whole dark nature? Doubt it. We do us.

So, Emily Blunt runs to the Amazon, with her gay brother, luggage and gumption. They are trying to find the legendary tree of life. She believes a single flower bloom from the tree could advance medical research in England. Meanwhile the Evil Germans are chasing her for... other reasons. She bumps into Captain Jack Skipper Frank and coerces him into leading her to the location of the tree. But behind the journey, fraught with dangers such as piranha and fake hippos, and the adventure there is a more magical story, which frankly (pun intended) I just didn't buy. In the end we get a competent tale with all the magical and bombastic stunt filled elements of the Pirates movies but nothing pulls it together.

3ish Shortish Paragraphs: Kate

2021, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (The Huntsman: Winter's War) -- Netflix

There was a point in this movie, about a female assassin in Tokyo, where I said out loud, "This is the movie Gunpowder Milkshake wanted to be." But no, that was being a bit too facetious to the screen and to Marmy sitting next to me. This movie, which will have most people saying it is John Wick but a woman given the connection to stunts coordinator Jonathan Eusebio (worked on all three of the Wick flicks) who also worked with the star Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Birds of Prey, is less dependent on an otherworldly style, more so relying on the inherent otherworldliness of Tokyo. In Kate Winstead plays the titular assassin who fucks up a hit after being surreptitiously poisoned, giving her less than 24 hours to figure out who poisoned her, before she succumbs.

The scene I mentioned was just after she flubbed the shot, and is being immediately chased by the Yakuza thugs who work for the Oyabun she failed in killing. The entire movie takes place in Tokyo, but for a brief interlude in Osaka where a hit orphaned a teenage girl; it was Kate's one rule -- no kids. Kate runs into the street, up to a couple of slick kids next to a stylish car, which she takes and launches off, in a scene reminiscent of Speed Racer (which I really have to finish my rewatch of), full of colour and blurred lines of speed and excruciatingly sweet style. It just looked so good, so unnatural, so video game, until it abruptly comes to an end. Afterall she is poisoned, and not all that in control of her body. But for that brief moment, we see what Kate used to be, the clean lines of utter skill, before being muted by the poison. The rest of the movie is that muted tone.

Of note, it is also time for the two The Hunstman movies to be rewatched, as part of my ever desired series from The Shelf.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is not without style, but that may just be our western eyes seeing the unfamiliar back alleys and streets of Tokyo during what is mostly a foot chase. No more cars for Kate. I am not as familiar with recent Japanese crime drama as I should be, considering my Japan-o-file nature, but these narrow alleys full of small bars, pachinko parlours and kiosk restaurants are utterly foreign, pun intended, to the western eye. Kate seems at home though, smashing through doors and falling from heights, taking out thugs one by one, controlled but brutal. You can see the toll it takes on her, even if you miss the dark lines crisscrossing her poisoned body.

As Kate kills her way across Tokyo seeking the final kill, her revenge against who she believes poisoned her, we get more hints that things are not what they seem, to Kate. Varrick (Woody Harrelson, ) is her mentor, her booking agent and creepily, her father figure. This is a trope that I thought this movie was trying to lift from the western adaptation of  Kite, considering the single letter difference, but Marmy points out, it is a common enough trope in Anime, and therefore likely in Japanese fiction. Given the trope, V is likely as much her creator as he is her ... end.

Along the way Kate picks up Ani, the teen age girl from her past, the girl who's family died before her eyes, and is now somewhat raised, somewhat protected by her grandfather's organization, the same one run by Kate's prey. Kate sees her as a tool, but also the single note of regret in her past. Eventually we see a new Kate being created in this world of manipulative men. 

I don't often read fantasy novels for new structures and styles; I prefer reading more of what I am comfortable with. I guess the same mostly goes with my Women With Guns sub-genre, but with film I am less adverse as new and innovative, but I am mostly not expecting it nor disappointed if I don't get something novel from the genre. Kate gives me what I want, with tons of gunfu, an admirable main character and some style to boot. But don't expect it to break any plot or character barriers. It doesn't take advantage of the myriad of plot points to expand on the characters, unfortunately almost everyone is just a trope, not a person. But as I say, I was here for the tropes.

3 Short Paragraphs: Blood Red Sky

2021, Peter Thorwarth (If It Don't Fit Use a Bigger Hammer) -- Netflix

Even before I was the Movie Guy, which I am most definitely no longer, I was the Vampire Guy. Or more accurately, I was the Vampire Girl's BF. While never into vamps as much as Marmy was (Twilight nailed the coffin for me) I enjoyed, and really still do enjoy the genre, especially when reinventing the monster. You don't always have to bring something new and fresh to the genre, to be good, but it helps with the tired ones. Technically, vampires have been played out for quite some time, but I still think many genre fans are rebuilding their tolerance.

This German movie begins with a mother & son entering an airport, her wearing a very obvious wig. We see her in the terminal washrooms injecting herself with something, while her son amuses himself outside, talking to an obviously middle-eastern man. This is movie cue for "there will be a hijacking and the middle-eastern man will be blamed". To be honest, I knew exactly how the movie was going to play out, as the trailer gave everything away, and I mean everything. Plane is hijacked, Wig Mom gets shot, later waking up with scary eyes -- vampire! Vampire Mom proceeds to take out the terrorists, saves son. But not many passengers.

Despite the facetious nature of the previous paragraph, I actually rather enjoyed this flick. It took some notes from later vampire fiction, where the exponential growth of vampires becomes the greater danger than the terrorists hijacking the plane. Vampire Mom is constantly fighting her nature, one she kept in check with the drugs she was injecting, but has to let the beast free to protect her son, especially from one of the terrorists who embraces the change. While nothing was particularly novel nor innovative, it was a strong, tense movie with some solid performances, and a decent addition to the genre. But really, only for Vampire Girls and their BFs.

Double Dose: Sparky Music Bios Go-Go-Go

(Double Dose is two films from the same director, writer or star...or genre or theme...pretty simple.  Today: two music biographies)

The Sparks Brothers - 2021, d. Edgar Wright - rental
The Go-Gos - 2020, d. Alison Ellwood - HBO

There seem to be an endless supply of music documentaries proliferating.  Does every musician have a unique story to tell?  By nature, a successful singer or band will have achieved success through their  uniqueness, and any even modestly popular artist will have fans who are interested in their story.  But what about the people who aren't fans?  

Is a successful music documentary one that can entice viewers even if they don't really care about who is being profiled?  

And should be the objective of a music documentary?  Is it to tell a unique story, or is it to "sell" the audience on the band, or both?

The Sparks Brothers is, hands down, the music documentary of the year.  This is not to say it is the best music documentary this year, just that it's the highest profile, and by far the one I've had the most conversations about. 

There's a singular reason for that: Edgar Wright

The director of Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim..., and Baby Driver is major figure in both the world of cinephiles and indie music.  His films always feature music heavily (often with scenes built around songs) and his soundtracks make for a great mixtape.  That he's actually dipped his toe into documentary filmmaking is a bit of a surprise, as there was never any indication the inkling was there, but then, it's the subject matter that clearly elates him.

Presented to me as "the new film from Edgar Wright" I saw the trailer for The Sparks Brothers and I immediately thought "mockumentary".  I thought this was Wright's stab at a modern This Is Spinal Tap.  I also know I was far from the only one who thought this.

It is remarkable that the subject of  The Sparks Brothers, the band Sparks, has been around for over 40 years, produced 25 albums, has been a huge influence on a multitude of musicians, artists, filmmakers etc over the years, and still toils in a niche obscurity.  The list of talking heads here, musicians, writers, actors, directors  -- Beck, "Weird" Al, Flea, Mike Meyers, Patton Oswalt, Fred Armisen,Amy Sherman-Palladino, Neil Gaiman, Jason Schwartzman, among many many others -- could be mistaken for the exact type of people you might find in a mocumentary about an obscure, eclectic band, but it makes just as much sense that they love what Sparks is all about.

The California-born brothers Ron and Russel Mael are a very dryly humoured duo, with sharply angular faces, one that for the better part of his life aligned with the conventions of beautiful androgyny, the other for decades sported a Hitler (*cough* Charlie Chaplin/Michael Jordan[?]) mustache (and in more recent decades a pencil thin lip-topper ala John Waters).  Stylistically they had a visual schtick, Ron was the pretty, fashionable one, Russel was the odd one with the "schoolteacher" garb who would stare down the lens of the camera, eyes bulging.

Their musical style constantly evolved, year over year from british invasion to poppy psychedelia, to proto-punk to early eurotronica, often in advance of those waves catching on.  Whether they were the influence or just ahead of the curbe is hard to say, but they did produce 15 of their 25 albums in a 15 year span, an incredibly prolific output.

A key element of their music, as pointed out in the film, is the playful lyrics and song structures.  If there's a reason why they're perhaps disregarded by the masses, it's this.  The masses treat humour in music as "novelty", but it's clear from the sheer breadth and volume of output that Sparks is anything but novel.  

The film is very focused on the music, the output and the trials and tribulations of assembling.  Its opening minutes give a quick and dirty recap of Ron and Russell's upbringing and family life, but very quickly it dovetails into what, clearly, Wright is interested in: what influenced their music, and the influence their music had (or didn't have, as it were).  It's a very specific focus, that cuts out any real manipulative band drama in favor of just reveling in the tunes, man.   It goes album-by-album, which, when covering 25, really accounts for the 2 hour and 20 minute run time.   

The film also examines the near-misses and regrets, as they had the dream gig of working with Jaques Tati and David Lynch (real artsy filmic types) on separate film projects, only to have them fall through for one reason or another (this year they finally got their movie in the form of the Cannes-lauded Leos Carax-directed musical Annette).

The talking heads all seem enthusiastic to discuss Sparks (Wright even puts himself on camera, obviously at a point where he's just not getting the quote he wanted) and there's just an infectious energy to the whole thing that is as much Sparks as it is Wright's directorial skill.  It's a playful documentary, full of chuckles and a few big laughs.  It may not make every viewer a fan but at least now you'll know Sparks by name.

Knowing The Go-Go's isn't really a problem unless you're a Millennial or Gen-Z'er, but even then it's hard to think that even they haven't encountered "Our Lips Are Sealed", "Vacation" or "We've Got The Beat".  As the documentary reminds us a few times, the Go-Gos were the first, and only all-female band to have a number 1 debut album on the Billboard chart, but their story begins years before their 1981 debut "Beauty and the Beat".

I had no idea that The Go-Go's formed as a punk band in the burgeoning L.A. scene.  An all-girl act of teen punks was a novelty, but beyond that factor they also clearly had...something.  Talent was not it, at least not at first, but it came rather swiftly.  It took some band member changes (definitely some hurt feelings along the way) but their success showed the power of commitment.

They wound up being local-famous on the punk scene, but it was opening for Madness and The Specials and other UK acts that brought them out to England in 1980 for a punk/ska road tour that battle hardened them, but also became their proving ground that, in a sense, prepared them for stardom (as much as you can ever be prepared for such a thing).

As their fame grew, so did the pressure.  During a grueling tour opening for The Police, their album topped the charts and the attention they garnered intensified.  A hastily made music video on nascent MTV exploded, and the demand for a follow-up album, amid touring and press, meant their follow-up, 1982's "Vacation" wasn't quite as well received nor as well regarded (within and without).  

The doc has a wonderful narrative arc charting their rise but also their all too typical calamitous fall.  Egos, money, credit and drugs all played a hand in their sisterhood becoming acrimonious. Dividing lines fell between those who were the songwriters (thus getting the largest royalty stake) and the band members without credit.  The management decision to force shared credit across the who band caused soft-spoken Jane Wiedlin to loudly quit the band in '84.  Within ayear the band was done, Belinda Carlisle going solo, bringing Charlotte Caffey and Kathy Valentine with her.  

The talking heads mostly consist of the band members (including former band members) and associated talent from their early days.  It's the involvement of the band members that bring the doc to life, as they narrate over volumes of old footage and photographs.  By far drummer Kathy Valentine is the most winning personality on screen, no bullshit and fully sardonic.  Love her.  But all the members were very engaging in their own right.  Caffey's battle with drugs is a very prominent throughline but it's shocking how it took a newcomer to the band (following Wiedlin's departure) to basically intervene and point the way for her to get help. 

The story after they broke up in '85 is glossed over pretty quickly, with the perfunctory look at their various short-lived solo projects and ultimately their nostalgia-capitalizing reunion(s), and maybe new material (Club Zero, released in 2020, is their first track since a 2001 album "God Bless The Go-Go's - tellingly omitted from the doc - itself their first album since 1984).

It's a solid and entertaining doc, even for non fans.  The punk connection may be a surprise to most, considering how modern day they're considered to be farily prototypical saccharine 80's pop.  But upon closer listen those punk edges can be found all throughout their music.  Did they sell out?  Of course they did, and the doc leaves the question lingering "what if they didn't?"  There's a strong case that had they stuck a bit more to their punk roots they would have had a longer, more prolific career.  But even though they blazed bright and burnt out fast, it's hard to deny what they contributed to music, the culture of the era (Carlisle single handedly made shrug-shoulder sweaters a thing), and to female performers who have come since.

What I Have Been Watching: The Chosen Few (Pt3)

What I Have Been Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV, especially during 2020 the Extended Version. But this time, I don't even barely attempt to tell you EVERYTHING I have been watching or we would be here all day. 

Pt1 is here. Pt 2 is there. 

Lucifer, S5, Netflix

I watch Lucifer now because Marmy watches Lucifer, and because I still like some of the characters & the actors playing them. But, as a show, it has devolved into a series of fandom-churning ludicrous memes. The show is now basically fanfic come to life, and despite its charms (which are plenty) it more annoys me than anything. But I have no issue with, "I am going to bed, you keep watching" types of shows.

I don't have the energy nor investment to do a proper series recap, but here is what I got, without explaining the premise. You can read my One Episode for that. 

Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis, Miranda) and Detective Decker (Lauren German, Hawaii Five-O) whom he just calls Detective (oh FFS call her by her name, you wanker) have been fighting crime and introducing the world to a host of celestials for a few seasons now. They moved through pretty much all the angels, some bad, some good but all of them arrogant as fuck. One by one the humans in their lives became aware of the divinities in their midst, usually with annoyingly understated reactions, once they get past the initial trauma. 

Mrs. God (Tricia Helfer, Burn Notice), who had been banished to Hell for supporting Lucifer's rebellion, pops back to Earth, inhabits a human body for a time and causes tons of havoc. Her time on Earth ends tragically. Detective Dan "Douche" Espinosa (Kevin Alejandro, Arrow) rightfully despises Lucifer for always being such a prick to him, an annoying gag that never seems to bother anyone but Dan, and me. Dan can be a douche but he doesn't deserve that level of Hellish (pun intended) treatment. Dr. Linda (Rachael Harris, Suits) begins as Lucifer's therapist, has an affair with Lucy's brother Amenadiel (DB Woodside, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and they end up having a baby, Heaven's first half-angel progeny. Lucy's sidekick and bodyguard demon Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt, The Librarians) is jealous (of everyone) and behaves badly most of the time -- she is a demon afterall. Eve (Inbar Lavi, The Last Ship) shows up for a short season, giving Maze some hope at a happy future. Detective Decker learns who Lucifer really is, AND why she was born (to be Lucifer's foil) and it doesn't go down well. Cain (Tom Welling, Smallville) makes an appearance as a Bad Guy pretending to be a Good Guy. All the while, the show does a meagre attempt at being a police procedural with Lucifer as the consultant who helps Decker, while seducing suspects with his Devilish wiles. This is classic genre TV, but trades making sense for being cute.

This season was about God, Lucy's dad, coming down to Earth. Played by Dennis Haysbert, best known for selling insurance on TV, who has a really good voice which makes him a respectable Voice of God. God is tired of Heaven and Creation and a bit distracted, so he comes to Earth to make amends to his children, with all the usual antics of an utterly dysfunctional family. Lucy despises Dad, which has been a gimmick since season one. As the All Powerful, he just seems ... odd. Sure, this whole show has been about Biblical figures coming to Earth like so many fish (and loaves) out of water (or wine) acting more like humans in need of a lot of therapy (thus Doctor Linda), but having the most powerful being in the Universe acting like a clueless father figure was just ... too much for me. Eventually his real agenda, giving up Heaven, is revealed, and Lucifer ends up going to war against a bunch of the arch-angels, and his twin brother Michael, for the right to claim the throne of Heaven. Lucy wins, Decker accepts that they will step away from Earth and Maze accepts rulership of Hell, along side Eve.

It was an incredibly weak season, but so many have been. The stand-outs for me were the terrible things happening, such as Ella Lopez (Aimee Garcia, Dexter), the lone human on the crew still not being informed of what was going on (she is not in on the premise) all the while professing her strong Christian roots and being somewhat disillusioned because of the disruptions God on Earth is causing. Also, God visits a bit of Godly Wrath upon Dan (after all, Dan slept with his wife) who is also a good Christian, by obliterating him, and then resurrecting him. Dan is, of course, traumatized, and to add insult to injury, the show fucking KILLS HIM and banishes him to HELL because he still feels guilt over some of his past actions. That had me yelling at the screen like my grandmother. If there ever was a reason for Lucy to take the Throne in the Silver City, it was to save Dan. But no, we need some more torturous drama (literal considering Hell) for next season. Oh, and they tortured us by having a song & dance episode, which should have been grand considering Tom Ellis is quite the performer. No, it was terrible. So, so terrible.

And yet, I will again return for this season.

Sweet Tooth, Netflix

Meanwhile, I was not expecting to like Sweet Tooth so much. I had middling feelings about the comic, and went back to binge it, again, with pretty much the same results. But the series, done by Jim Mickle (Stake Land) was surprisingly full of heart. Of course, it is a PoAp series full of horrible situations and horrible people, but it diverged enough from the comic to focus on the Good in people, on people choosing to do better when presented with the worst.

Sweet Tooth, the character, is born into a world suffering a pandemic. He is born with the horns and ears of a deer. MANY more children are born human-animal hybrids with no explanation and the collapsing world doesn't allow them to find out why. Gus, or Sweet Tooth, is brought to the wilderness of a national park by his father, to hide him from those who would blame the pandemic on the strange children being born. As Gus comes into adolescence, his father dies, forcing him to leave his safe little home and enter the dangerous outside world. Gus has one goal -- find his mother, whom he knows only from a photo.

So, PoAp Road Story --- I am in. 

Along the way, we encounter Good People, Bad People and more hybrids, and learn more about the pandemic that ended civilization and hints of the role the hybrids played in it. Gus is portrayer unabashedly optimistic despite everything thrown at him. His protector, Big Man, is an ex-football player who hides that he was once one of the Bad Guys. He, at first wants nothing to do with Gus, but given the kid's perseverance, he more ends up tagging along for the ride, eventually becoming his greatest protector.

The show is so beautifully shot, we sometimes forget the world has ended all around them. Mickle loves his world building, and presents a place of colour and sublime state that has had time to grow back. Of course, the darkest aspects of human nature abide, but there is always a message of hope and Good underlying all the episodes. There are only 8 of them, so a lot of story has to be jammed into them, which of course is all leading to a cliffhanger conclusion, for season two. 

I am in.

[Kent wasn't sure]

Loki, Disney+

This was the first of the three Disney Marvel series that I was unabashedly into. Everything about it hit all the right notes with me, with very little disgruntles. Until the last episode.

So, Loki is dead, right? Neck cracked by Thanos, right? Right. But this is the multiverse and that Loki we saw in End Game, the one who grabbed the tesseract? Well, this is show is about him. But wait, you ask, isn't that the same Loki who later gets his neck snapped? If Steve restores the timeline, as he said he would, things should shift back to what they were, right? Well, technically Steve only returned the infinity stones to their original locations in the timeline; any reverberations in the timeline are left there. And THAT is the premise of our show, folks! 

Almost immediately after escaping, this variant version of Loki is taken by the TVA (no, not the Quebec TV station) - the Time Variance Authority. Their job is to prune variations in the timelines, retaining the integrity of the "sacred timeline", the prime timeline. So... no multiverse. Multiverse bad. Why? Because three mystical entities called the Time-Keepers said so. And this wonderfully Terry Gilliam-ish organization exists to do their will, which essentially comes down to obliterating variances and alternate timeliness. But not before they are assigned an advocate and given a sham-trial.

Loki is assigned Mobius M Mobius (Owen Wilson, ) who tries to convince the rest of the TVA that this Loki can help them with another issue -- someone is killing their agents as they pop around other timelines trying to prune and minimize damage to the sacred timeline. But first Mobius has to convince Loki to do it.

The charm of this show all weighs on the shoulders of Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson, and they carry the weight amazingly. Humour, deceit, anger, arrogance, regret, glorious purpose, [smarm, cattiness, wickedness, vainglory; to steal from Kent's writeup] etc. -- all the various aspects of Loki's makeup play out as the two spar verbally with each other. Meanwhile Moebius is armed with the history of having faced off against many many Loki's previously, including the one that is causing all the issues for the TVA. He comes off as somewhat naïve but he is anything but. If he has one failing it is that he has faith - faith in the TVA, faith in his best friend Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu MBatha-Raw, Doctor Who) and faith in what Loki can become. Afterall he has seen the entire timeline of Original Loki, right down to his death.

Like Kent said, you would think the show would be mostly a chase series. But almost immediately, Loki Variant actually bumps into the adversary, who turns out to be another Loki (duh) but this one is Sylvie, a female Loki. And she was treated very badly by the TVA, and is taking revenge on them. Loki Variant wants to do right by her, but also has his own agenda (of course) but actually ends up caring that he betrays Moebius.

I was entirely on board, with all the romping about, in timelines, and variant Loki lives, and the mystery that was the TVA. Until the end. I am still not sure what to do with that episode. It was all exposition and Next Season plot building, but I barely got how it tied into the rest of the show. As a climax, it was anti for me. As a cliffhanger, it just left me... hanging. But I will forgive the show, as we were given not only Richard E Grant as "Classic Loki" but also Gator Loki, which makes no sense at all, but is glorious nonetheless !

I loved this series.

Loki Season 1

 2021, d. Kate Herron - Disney+

I've found the conversation around the Disney+ Marvel series, as a collective, fascinating. Each of the three major shows we've received so far - Wandavision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and Loki - have their champions, but also their detractors.  I think each show is received with a lot of fanfare initially, and there were always those multitude of enthusiastic episode-by-episode breakdowns on youtube, but as a show progressed the criticisms and complaints began to pile as expectations weren't met (expectations often fueled by nerdy speculation within those enthusiastic episode-by-episode youtube breakdowns and other fan forums).  In hindsight, after time has passed, the lasting impression a show leaves is probably its biggest marker of success or failure... and it seems subjective.

Wandavision I thought was phenomenal in its ambition until it lost its sitcom pastiches, and ended with a big dud of a boss battle that failed to really tie the series together as a whole aesthetically (emotionally it resolved well).  The Falcon and The Winter Solder was wildly uneven not just from episode to episode but within each episode (although it did come together for me in the end), but a few frustrating decisions along the way make it a rocky, not very uniform piece.  

Loki is not as high-concept a production as Wandavision, and not as burdened with world building/world updating as TF&TWS, although it's plenty ambitious, and it has its own world/reality building it works with.  

Of the five leads of the Disney+ shows so far, Loki is by far the most established character with the most facetime in the MCU.  The role made Tom Hiddleston a star, and it's clear he relishes playing the character...why wouldn't he?  He gets to be pithy, vainglorious, ambitious, conniving, wicked, catty, arrogent, smarmy, callous, but most of all, charming.  I think the charm is all Hiddleston, as in other hands Loki could very well have been a stock villain.  Hiddleston elevated the character to, very nearly, co-lead of all the Thor films to date.  A solo spotlight television isn't necessarily the most expected decision for the character, but it certainly is not an unwelcome one.

All the D+ MCU shows are burdened with having to pick their stories up from where they were left after Avengers: Endgame, although Endgame being the most successful film in cinema history, it's possibly not that big a burden.  Loki, the character who we know from the Thor movies and  Marvel's The Avengers was killed by Thanos at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War.  However due to time travel shenanigans in Endgame the Loki from Marvel's The Avengers, managed to escape, thus creating a branching timeline (as also explained in Endgame).

At the start of Loki on Disney+, it's this Variant Loki we follow, as he is promptly hunted down by the Time Variance Authority ("TVA") and his new timeline deleted, as is their mandated.  The TVA and its operatives, it is explained, is tasked with maintaining the one, true "sacred" timeline.  All variants and variant timelines are to be deleted.  However, in some cases, as with Loki, Variants are give the option to sign up with the TVA, rather than be eliminated.  Turns out there is another version of Loki jumping between newly branched realities killing TVA Hunters, and they want this Variant Loki's help bringing the other Variant Loki in.

Owen Wilson plays Moebius M. Moebius, Loki's guide,interrogator, and defender at the TVA.  Moebius is a crafty figure who has seen enough variant Lokis to know how to communicate with one.  This one variant in particular, he knows where his soft spot is (family - Odin, Thor, Frigga) and pokes at it.  He wears down Loki, the villain of Marvel's The Avengers until he more resembles the softer, friendlier Loki from the end of Thor:Ragnarok.   Wilson excels in the role, his relaxed demeanor the perfect companion to Hiddleston's playful intensity.

The first episode of Loki is a stunning feat of set design. The TVA headquarters are steeped in an early-1970's wood-paneled and/or subway tiled deco. The costuming likewise is a 70's-style futuristic vision.  There's a lot of earth tones happening, and I couldn't be more dazzled by it all.  It's a very warmly lit set with a lived-in feeling.  The episode shows us the technology the TVA works with, and the hierarchies they operate by.  It's an effective establishing space that sets us up for the adventures of Loki as a TVA employee, and his multi-episode hunt for the variant.

The second episode puts Loki and a team of TVA hunters (including the great Wunmi Mosaku from Lovecraft Country as series regular Hunter B-15) on the trail of the murderous variant Loki who's hiding out in a Wal-Mart-like department store as it's about to get hit by a tornado.  Surprisingly, rather than dragging out the chase longer, we meet the murderous variant Loki (who seems far more adept at being a Loki than our Loki), and at the end, both disappear together.

The unexpected turn is that the murderous variant Loki they are chasing identifies as female and prefers the name Sylvie (played by Sophie Di Martino).  This reveal, in episode 2, I have to admit, was initially underwhelming.  Marvel has been so good at casting, that I was expecting to find a familiar face playing this female variant, some immediate sense of stardom to glom onto.  Instead Di Martino has the unenviable task of proving herself to a legion of Marvel geeks, and going toe-to-toe against Hiddleston in practically the same role that he created.  The remarkable, very divergent third episode is a big blockbuster two-hander with Loki and Sylvie forced to rely upon one another for survival on a planet that is about to explode, with little options before them.  This episode is magnificent at establishing Sylvie as a distinct character from Loki, as well as establishing a bit of a warped, fraught love connection between them. Di Martino definitely proves mettle in the role quickly, and the dynamic that she has with Hiddleston takes no time at all to establish.  It's a highlight, but the show has other highlights still to come.

One slight downside is this episode doesn't just take us away from the TVA, it destroys the never-quite-established status quo of Loki-as-TVA Agent. It's also ends with an amazing faux-single shot tracking sequence that is very tense and chaotic.

People would be forgiven if they came out of the the first episode expecting a series-long venture of Loki and the TVA hunting the other Loki,  culminating in a big conflict between the two.  I can see there being disappointment with that not exactly happening, and perhaps the show needed at least one more "chase" episode of Loki getting into a groove with the TVA while persuing other Loki before usurping any sense of "format". 

We come back tot the TVA in Episode 4, which is what I'd call a spinning wheels episode, except it's there to really demonstrate the relationships that have formed, key among them the Loki and Sylvie bond.  It's important we believe that maybe their pairing is worth destroying the sacred timeline for.  The episode deconstructs the TVA by exposing their overlords as a sham, though the search for the person behind the curtain (Wizard of Oz-style) becomes the next thread to follow.

Episode five is a delight with Loki winding up in "the Void at the End of Time", where he encounters many different Loki variants (including the new meme sensation, Loki-gator) who have managed to survive in the void for some time (including a hilariously comics-accurate Loki played by Richard E. Grant).  This is a marvelously (no pun intended) playful episode that is kind of beyond explaining, and certainly an adventure that is joyously comics-like, the type of uber-nerdy scenario you never expect to be put in front of the masses (I keep forgetting a decade of Marvel films and superhero saturation has made the world receptive to this uber-nerdy content).

Episode six is the big climax, and it's all talk, no action, for better or worse.  It reveals the aforementioned person-behind-the-curtain, and it's Jonathan Majors (also from Lovecraft Country), a damn welcome sight to any production. It's a nearly episode-length exposition-dump from Majors who commands the screen, though director Herron (who has otherwise brilliantly managed every episode of this series) struggles for the first time with what to do with the camera while this is happening.  This final episode has proven divisive, with some relishing Major's performance, and others wishing there was more show, less tell.

Pulled all together, Loki is most heavily influenced by Doctor Who, more than I think anything else, with the added benefit of a huge budget per episode that would likely fund a season's worth of the good Doctor's show.  There's just a generally playful sense of "timey-wimey-ness" to it all that worked for me but most definitely didn't work for some people.  The show struggles with needing to establish two separate relationships for Loki, first his friendship with Moebius, and second his budding romance with Sophie, and it's disappointing that they didn't manage to work this all into some form of relationship triangle.  Moebius is kind of left to his own devices for at least half the episodes (a lot of which is interacting with Gugu Mbatha Raw -- a TVA judge and Moebius' superior, but also his friend - who has her own ulterior motives) and it seems like fans are divided on who Loki should have been spending his time with.

It's the first of the Marvel shows/movies to take advantage of the Volume effects stage created for Star Wars' The Mandalorian, and with exception of the opening desert sequence which doesn't look great, it all works very, very well.  The show and effects all look pretty great.

Hiddleston, for his part, rules this whole series, and gives us everything Loki and more.  It's hard to not be charmed by the trickster god.  While the season finale effectively broke the MCU, it's mercifully not the end of the story, as the credits announce a Season 2 is coming (the first Disney+ Marvel show to confirm a follow-up season).  Even those that were maybe disappointed with the show will be back for a second season because of the strength of Hiddleston and all the other major performers who created very likeable, watchable characters.

(we agree-ish) Gunpowder Milkshake

 2021, d. Navot Papushado - netflix

This is a rare film that has a pretty weak first act but gets far better in its second and third acts.

I've had a wee li'l crush on Karen Gillen since her first scene in the first episode of the Matt Smith run on Doctor Who.  She's charming.  Toast, in his review, questions if she's a good actress, and I don't ever doubt that (and it's not crush goggle blindness, she's very talented.  I think her performance as Nebula is probably the best in the very stacked Avengers: Endgame).  But she has comfort zones and sometimes it takes time for her to find them.  

The first act here needs to establish her character, Sam, as a ruthlessly efficient hitman/hitwoman/hitperson, one who is completely able to disassociate herself from her violent actions and the pain they cause (including the injuries she sustains).  Sam suffers from abandonment issues after her mother, a top tier hitman (let's just say "hitman" is a gender agnostic term), killed the wrong person and went on the run without her when Sam was a teenager.  I'm not sure that I buy it, not at this stage, and certainly not in how the film sets her up with an off-screen fight and too, too many hyper-stylized shots that look like cut scenes from Sin City. 

But on a character level, Sam's abandonment completely informs her.  Perhaps in trying to understand her mother, Sam dove into the same profession, and worked to be even better than her mother was, and succeeded.  But tasked with recovering a bag of stolen money for "The Firm", she gets a little too trigger happy and kills a desperate man who is just trying to save his daughter after she had been kidnapped.  Sam takes it upon herself to rescue the kidnapped 8 1/2-year-old, in the process losing the Firm's money.  Also unknown to Sam is she's killed the son of a mob boss, an associate of the Firm, and they cut her loose.  Suddenly she's able to relate to her mother's predicament.  But it should be noted the "killing the wrong guy" is independent of her losing the money, and it's one layer too thick in the story.  These should be connected, like maybe one of The Firm's mooks is the mob boss' kid instead of being a part of an unrelated arc.

The first act doesn't really start working until Sam meets Emily (Chloe Coleman), the young girl.  Coleman is a very intuitive young actress, while not always note perfect, reads her scenes well.  Gillen has good interplay with her and Sam's connection to the girl she orphaned is palpable.  The connection between Gillen and her handler, Nathan (played by Paul Giamatti), isn't well met.  We're meant to understand that after she was abandoned, Nathan took Sam in and raised here, but their familiarity is very loose, and it would have worked more had they played into some form of emotional bond (especially when there's betrayal).  The film really gets clicking at the start of the second act when Sam meets her mother again for the first time, and the interplay between Lena Hedy, Gillen and Coleman is especially sweet.

The first major action set piece in the bowling alley (as immaculately lit in neon as it is) is really, really bad.  It was a dire portent of things to come, which, thankfully never manifested.  Visually the sequence is awful to watch.  There's speed ramping used to make it look like the fight is happening faster than it is, but even still the clunky choreography is all too exposed.  I'm not certain why it was allowed to be in this film in its current state, execpt for the fact that it fully informs the next fight sequence which is quite entertaining.

In this second sequence, Sam once again meets the goons she beat up in the bowling alley, only this time they're in the underworld hospital.  The doctor, working with the battered goons, numbs both of Sam's arms so she can't hold a weapon, and once she's semi-incapacitated the goons can set upon her.  Sam has Emily tape a gun in one hand, and scalpel in the other and she sets about fighting a guy on crutches, a guy in a wheelchair and a guy in an arm cast in a ludicrous hallway action sequence.  If this doesn't play to its fullest potential, it's because the performers playing the goons are...well, too much like human versions of the Mon-stars from Space Jam.  Just unbelievable even for this over-the-top reality.

The Library is a setting that is meant to be a world unto itself.  Each book on the shelf contains... something other than words.  Guns, gold, money.  It's impractical, an the film doesn't do the best job at defining what its role is in this world-at-large, but if it's awesome, it's because of who runs it... Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino and Angela Bassett... and, wow, are they styling highly, yes!

[Let me just pause and restate that this film has Karen Gillen, Lena Hedy, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino and Angela Bassett in it...together, and they all get to kick some ass.  Is it the best possible use of this quintet of Kent crushes from across the past 30 years?  Sadly, no, but I can't help but be enthused by what's here.] 

The big battle in the Library is completely perfunctory, but it's an absolutely highlight, if anything showing that Michelle Yeoh is still a phenomenal action star.  But the opening moment of the fight with Hedy leaping over the reception table, flinging two guns forward, is utterly badass.

The narrative weight  put into the estranged mother-daughter relationship, as well as the guilt Sam has over Emily's father's death, but unable to ignore the connection she has with both of them fuels the film in the second and third act.  I was very much invested in these connections, and could see how they were reshaping Sam (it is a good performance from Gillen).  The characters (and performances) really connect, and the themes of parenting and abandonment are unexpectedly resonant.  I wasn't expecting any emotional core of of this all-girl John Wick knock-off.

Now, that all said, I do want to like this more than I actually do.  I wish Gunpowder Milkshake were firing within me the desire to rewatch it over and over, but it doesn't inspire me much.  I wanted more out of this, particularly more out of Yeoh, Bassett and Gugino.  I mean, I think we got more out of them than just the glorified cameo I had expected, but even still I want more.  It's a little muddy but I think that Bassett and Hedy were in a relationship before Hedy disappeared, and that Yeoh and Gugino are partners as well.  It's there, but it's not there enough.  I want these characters and their relationships to be more developed.

 Perhaps one of the key elements it was missing was a score that I would want to listen to apart from the film.   What we have here for the score is a spaghetti western pastiche that really, really didn't work for me.  It felt like Dollar Store Morricone, and didn't fit the vibe.  As well, some of the music cues were too on the nose, although some are kind of inspired, like a surprise Stereolab insert.  

(we disagree-ish) Black Widow

 2020, d. Cate Shortland - Disney+

It's funny that both Toast and I needed a second viewing of Black Widow before we could write about it (Toasty popped his review out unexpectedly the same day I planned to write mine). We both certainly agree that the quieter moments of the film are its greatest strength, and we both agree that the necessities of being a Marvel Studios production make it more generic rather than enhance it, but I think where we disagree is strictly a matter of how the film resonates with us, and there's not really anything to debate there. How it hits us is how it hits us.

It's possible that it resonates more with me being that I'm in a seriously pro-Black Widow household (the wife is a big fan of Natasha, her third MCU favourite next to Winter Soldier and Captain America), but I'd like to think that I can be quite objective despite her enthusiasm (see my Falcon and the Winter Soldier review).  

But in trying to think about Black Widow, there's first a lot of noise that one must work past:

-- Natasha's death in Avengers: Endgame is still a sticking point for many fans (shoulda been Clint)

- It's a film that story-wise takes place between Captain America:Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War which, in its retroactive insertion into the timeline, makes it a bigger ask for the casual Marvel filmgoer to make sense of.  Old school comic book nerds are used to having to think about continuity, but casual viewers who aren't investing in watching youtube breakdowns or having extensive nerdy conversations or writing blogs may find this frustrating.

- This solo movie was long, long-overdue (Natasha was the only original Avenger besides Hawkeye not to have his own movie [if there was still any doubt a recent What If...? episode confirms The Incredible Hulk is considered canon ]).  The character has appeared in 7 films prior to this, almost all of them in large ensembles as a featured player, only once as a co-starring character (in Captain America: Winter Soldier) though having only nominal arcs of her own.

- It was delayed due to the pandemic for over a year.  I don't know if that increased expectations or decreased them, as pre-pandemic a film being delayed over and over again was usually a sign of poor quality, and people were kind of trained to expect that a long delayed film would not be very good.

- It did debut in theatres but also on Disney+ as a premium purchase.  A lot of people are skipping the theatres for safety reasons and watching these massive-scale movies (Wonder Woman 1984, F9, Godzilla vs Kong etc) at home and I think much of the awe and wow factor is lost as a result.  We're watching these massive scale productions for the first time on the same screens as we watch Sportscenter or The Bachelorette or Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

- ScarJo filed a lawsuit against Disney for lost share percentage because of their decision to do day-and-date streaming.

- Scarlett Johansson has said some pretty dumbass things in the year-plus leading into this release.

Whether we want it to or not, all of this baggage weighs on the film, and will continue to weigh on the film until people are able to come at it, and the MCU films, cold.

If I pack all the meta baggage aside, what I have left is a pretty fun movie.  Is it the movie we should have about a superspy who hangs with superheroes...?  I'd say about 80/20 in favor of yeah, but it's also film that "fits" with the MCU.  As much as I would have liked a sterner, more severe espionage thriller, I can't help but be pleased by the candy coated action flick we received.

Natasha Romanov's story has been dispensed in very small nuggets over her previous films, but here all of those threads are wrapped in a bow.  The Red Room, where Black Widows are trained, has been hinted at in the past, but it's cruel, deplorable, misogynistic practices and ethos are laid bare.  

The film opens decades earlier with a young Natasha three years into a seemingly normal American life in Ohio with her "kid sister", Yelena, and "mother", Melina (Rachel Weisz).  When her "father", Alexei (David Harbour), comes home, their placid, suburban existence is upended as they race to escape the feds.  Upon reuniting with their Russian countrymen the girls are torn from their manufactured family, and each other, and placed back into the Red Room program.  The opening credits roll to a haunting rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit, and a horrifying montage of some of what the Red Room subjects the girls to, some evidence of their manufactured
American family life, and hints at the patriarch (Ray Winstone) of the Red Room program and the tendrils that connect him to politics across the globe.  

It's hard, as a 40+ person, to not have a wincing reaction to this re-imagining of Nirvana's biggest hit (although Tori Amos did a very similar rendition 25 years ago).  The song carries too much context to be effectively used.  I think it would have been more exciting had they went for a more Bond-esque original torch song.  That said, the imagery of child abuse is pretty disturbing.

An unfortunate consequence of Natasha dying in Endgame is they had to place her story between appearances, which leads to an introductory sequence that, rather than introducing you to Black Widow as a character, introduces you to the chronology of the story, setting it shortly after the events of Civil War.  Is it essential to know what went on in Civil War? Not really, the film tells you what you need to know, basically that Natasha is on the run, no longer an Avenger, no longer an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., she is on her own.  But what it does reveal is she's set up to be on her own, she has contingencies, Nat is a planner (but as we've seen previously, as well as later in this film, also quite a resourceful improviser).

Meanwhile we also catch up with her "younger sister" Yelena, who is working with a team of Black Widows to take out a rogue Black Widow.  In the process we find out the Black Widows are being chemically controlled (as a result of Natasha's defection years earlier) and Yelena is exposed to the antidote.  Yelena, like Natasha, is now on the run.

Yelena draws Nat to her, and they fight, unsure if they can trust one another.  What's evident is that Natasha's more resilient where Yelena is a more precise fighter.  The two women, now on the run together, are haunted by their past familial relationship.  The subtext of their relationship -- both having been brought into the Red Room as infants, torn away from their lives as all Widows were, subjected to mutual horrors -- is there should be an ingrained sisterhood to the Widows, yet, the idea of "family" also seems to be a vulnerability that was unsuccessfully beaten out of them.  The fact that Yelena and Natasha had 3 years of "normalcy" together does bind them, but they've both been well conditioned to ignore it.  For Yelena, it's a much rawer nerve, having felt abandoned by the only family she ever knew.  For Natasha, she had already been through some Red Room training, she knew their time in America was fake, but she still succumbed to it.  The pain of having it ripped away was so great that she effectively shut down all sense of connection to it.  

Toasty isn't the only one to comment that Natasha's seems a secondary character in her own movie, that the need to establish Yelena as the new Black Widow of the MCU was perhaps a greater drive than giving Nat her own major arc.  I think these comments are wrong though.  Yes, Florence Pugh is outstanding, and she dominates her scenes.  She's skilled, driven and tough, but vulnerable and emotional especially with her family connection reestablished.  She gets to have the wild emotional arc.  Natasha, though, is the center, and her story is all subtextual, for better or worse.  

Nat, the world's premiere super-spy, has had a long time to develop her calm, cool, collected demeanor.  Her characterization here is absolutely on point with what we've seen of her before.  There's still a sense that she wants to be unknowable, unconnected.  Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Age of Ultron were jobs.  Even her relationship with Bruce Banner was less about intimacy then about Nat controlling her fear (confronting the Hulk was the one thing that terrified her, so she sought out a way to control him).  But he left her.

Her tightest connection, to Clint Barton, is still a very chilly kinship, one that still has layers that need revealing.  She's "Aunty Nat" to his kids, she's fiercely loyal  to him and will go to any ends for him, but still it's more comrade-at-arms/endebted affection (same that she has with Steve Rogers) than familial.  And Clint has a home to retreat to.  She doesn't.  So at a certain point the Avengers became something she had to take care of, a group of individuals who might not otherwise cohere without her.  In Age of Ultron she's talking motherly to them, and by the time Endgame begins has completely adopted the matriarch role.  But in the time Black Widow, her manufactured Avengers family has fallen apart, Tony has thrown her away like her faux Father and Mother figures did years before, so she shuts down again.  Subtext.

This film is still all about Natasha's journey, from being cold and closed off and wounded and resentful, to embracing the people that want her love, and to love her.  At a certain point she convinced herself that those years in Ohio were just a job, a job she may have been too young to handle emotionally, but a job nonetheless.  The lesson she learned was to not get attached.  In rekindling with her family and having their help in destroying both the force that brought them together but also, in a sense, broke them she learns that families remain families even when separated by time or disagreements or ideological differences, and for all the pain that can result from having emotional connections with people, it's better than not having any at all. 

Natasha is the quiet one in the scenes with Yelena, with Alexei, and with the family.  She's the one sitting back from the bickering trying desperately to stay on mission, to not get involved, to not let emotion get the better of her, to not love these people.  It's only upon seeing that Melina, a veteran Black Widow, has kept a memento of their time in Ohio that Natasha starts to think that maybe it's okay to have connections and feelings and a past worth remembering rather than regretting.  

Johansson at the time of filming Black Widow had played the character for 10 years.  While it's possible that she was on autopilot in playing Nat, to me it's more a skin she's comfortable living in.  She knows Nat, what she's been through and what the effect it's had on her.  It sure would have been a different movie had we had it in, say, 2014 before Age of Ultron, but I think it would have only been a slightly different performance from Johansson had this come out in 2017 between Civil War and Infinity War. 

The action set pieces here range from good to good.  They're all pretty good.  None of them are mind blowing but none of them are duds either.  Not watching it on the big screen, I don't really know what exactly I'm missing from these action sequences, but I can't help but think that the hovering-in-the-clouds Red Room satellite complex would have been a much more awe-inspiring reveal on the big screen.  

The fight choreography here is smart and well thought through.  The Widows are all fairly evenly matched, having all been trained the same way, so that when they go head-to-head there's a lot of aping.  The Taskmaster, a notch above perfunctory mook villain (the identity of which is meant to be a bit of a reveal is spoiled in the opening credits thanks to a notable actor who was not part of any promotional material), has studied (and had uploaded into their brain) the skills of many different fighters. including the Avengers, which means they know all of the Black Widows tricks, as well as having Hawkeye, Captain America and Black Panther's gimmicks, among others.  

Even without more globe-trotting, undercover, espionage type aspects, the film captures the over-the-top Bond-ness with a big secret base/destruction sequence, the number 1 goon, and the plot to take over the world tropes which satisfy more than enough.  I wasn't expecting so much humour, which is now very much the Marvel style, for better or worse.  Much of the comedy falls at the feet of Harbour, who plays an out-of-shape super-soldier, codenamed Red Guardian, who thinks himself much like Russia's Captain America, only without the international celebrity.  That he wallows in obscurity is as likely a result of being a bit of a goofball vainglorious idiot teddybear as it is that his showmanship of individual exceptionalism is not something Communist governments care much for.

I really quite enjoy this movie.  Its really quite fun, all the inescapable meta-context aside.  The major regret is that it comes after the death of the main character, just when an absolutely fantastic supporting cast and expanded world is introduced for her.  There was potential for maybe a sequel that could take place between Infinity War and Endgame  but given the lawsuit, I'd say that ScarJo's time in the MCU has likely come to an end.

3ish Shortish Paragraphs: Black Widow

Cate Shortland (Lore) -- download

Second viewing now complete, and I am still of two minds about this movie. One, I still pretty much prefer all the non-mega-action aspects of the movie, and two, despite having no key issues with the movie, it just doesn't leave much of an impression on me. 

That last point disappoints me, because while this is an outlier on the MCU movie stream -- set in "the past", pre-Snappening and not being an origin story or sequel -- she is a beloved character by many MCU fans, and I was hoping this would be the first in a series of stand-alone non-origin stories about the characters; that were not sequels. Alas, it this won't encourage that path.

The movie is set just after the Avengers all head in different directions, the fallout from the Civil War Sokovia Accords. Natasha Romanov is on the run, hiding out in Europe but becomes embroiled in a conspiracy from her past. Unbeknownst to her, the espionage  organization she was part of (the Red Room) was not destroyed, but has been active since she defected. And her sister Yelena was deep within it, until recently released from its control (actual mind control) by a chemical counter-agent. She seeks Natasha's help in freeing the rest of the Black Widows from the control of Dreykov, leader of the Red Room.

This plot gave the movie an opportunity to resurrect the style and tone that made the Winter Soldier so popular, even with non-MCU fans. Alas, the movie shifts continually between hints of that tone, and that of a standard action-packed MCU movie. These tonal shifts are likely mandated now, and behind the scenes talk about how these movies are made, tell a story that the directors / screen-writers are often presented with these action set-pieces as required parts. They are created, controlled and inserted by the MCU studio heads, almost as independent components. It must be a challenge making the pure centres of the director's artistic vision come together with the MCU bits. In this case, I am not sure it worked.

But still, I enjoyed Shortland's vision when I could see it. This is a movie about trauma, and the ramifications of not dealing with it. Natasha and Yelena began their young lives in a lie, a lie where they were inserted as a family in Ohio, to infiltrate a SHIELD base. The girls were there to just provide backstory for the infil family. And when the mission was accomplished, they were extracted in the most harsh way, torn from their lives, torn from each other and sent to become tools of the Red Room. Years later, Natasha has extracted herself from that past, and found a new family in the Avengers. But Yelena literally is just released from the Red Room's control at the beginning of the movie, and probably is having the first free thoughts of her adult life. That old trauma, and the awareness of what she has been for more than a decade is still new and raw and overwhelming. Shortland handles it gently and succinctly, peppering it with some of the ludicrous aspects of being in a superhero world.

And yeah, Yelena is the best thing about this movie, even ignoring my very blatant fondness of Florence Pugh (this October, Kent, finally I will see Midsommar). Even while under the control of the Red Room she must have been using humour to deal with her trauma. Her quips, said in that low not-bad-not-great Russian accented drawl, are the observations of someone seeing the world for the first time, or at least in a very new light, and having an opinion on everything.

Meanwhile, Natasha doesn't really seem to be starring in her own movie. Nothing really stands out in any of her actions or reactions, she isn't given anything solid to truly define her. And considering this is the last movie they can do with her, its a real disservice to the character. Sure, she kicks ass and is her usual extremely competent self, but its all by-the-comic-book and almost nothing in the movie expands her character. There was this brief hint at the beginning, which I wish had gone on longer, where she is isolated in the Scandinavian wilderness, where she intends on hiding until the Civil War works itself out. I would have liked seeing this go so far as to give us Natasha without goals, without the Avengers, without that camaraderie with Hawkeye. What would she do with her time? Who would she be? But no, we are literally tossed back into the MCU via the immediate introduction of Taskmaster, the toss away Marvel comics foe assigned to this movie.

In the end, I have nothing against this movie, and nothing about it bothers me in any particular way. Its a competent MCU movie. But given the source character, it should have been so much more.

Breaking News in Yuba County

 2021, d. Tate Taylor  - amazonprime

At once, Yuba County is very watchable and tonally chaotic. It's a modern madcap satire that feels so very 90's, sandwiched somewhere between To Die For and 8 Heads In A Duffle Bag,

The basic plot finds Allison Janney as an ignored but dutiful housewife who thinks her whole world is figured out.  But, on her birthday, as she arranges her own dinner plans and buys her own birthday cake with her name misspelled, she finds her husband at a hotel, mid-coitus.  The shock of her arrival gives him a heart attack and he dies.  She deals with the body and, because it garners her both attention and sympathy -first from her news reporter sister who fails to do any kind of investigating before reporting - fakes his kidnapping.  It's a lie she's not really clever enough to maintain, and it spins out of control.  Her ex-con-gone-straight brother-in-law becomes embroiled with gangsters he thinks are involved with the kidnapping, and Regina Hall (in one of the most atrocious wigs you'll see in film this year) noses around certain that Janney is full of shit, just needing to prove it.

I don't know if I ever got past the fact that Allison Janney and Mila Kunis are supposed to be sisters. When the Amazon trivia popped up with the factoid that Laura Dern was supposed to play the Kunis role, the film seemed to have so much more potential. Kunis is good in the role it, but she just doesn't fit right (even as they explain she's a half-sister).  Their dynamic doesn't really make sense. (Janney tells a story about when they were younger, being resentful of Kunis when walking her to school one day, and the other little kids called her ugly.  Janney was born in 1959, Kunis '83.  Even if we fudge their ages 5 years on either side Janney would have been in her late teens or 20's and feeling the effects of very little kids taunting her?)

Jimmy Simpson, as the brother-in-law, has his own storyline which pairs him with a thrill junky Wanda Sykes (in the second worst wig you'll see in film this year) that runs alongside Janney's story that never feels appropriately integrated into the film, and actually feels like a whole separate movie kind of given the short shrift.  Simpon's wife is pregnant and he's trying to keep out of trouble, staying on the straight and narrow working an honest job at Sykes and Ellen Barkin's furniture store (Barkin for her part is in the third worst wig you'll see this year...there's some baaaad wig work in this film).  He's got some unfinished business with the Chinese mafia (Awkwafina and Clifton Collins Jr. are the heavies shaking him down) and thinks they took his brother. Sykes is eager to break bad and help him out in obtaining the non-existent ransom.

This is a wild, good-on-paper story that really needed the right director (and editor) to bring it to life. It's certainly stacked with a committed cast who get the temperature of the piece, but its a madcap satire that never quite lifts off. Tate Taylor never captures the moments of violence (of which there are many) adeptly. The way they're presented doesn't understand if they're supposed to be shocking or funny or just matter-of-fact. There's no flair to the violence and easily the physical altercations are the clunkiest moments in a film riddled with them.

I like this film, insofar as it features some of my favourite actors turning in some fun performances, but in many ways it feels more like a rehearsal than the final product.

3ish Shortish Paragraphs: Jolt

 2021, Tanya Wexler (Buffaloed) -- Amazon

At the beginning of Kate Beckinsale's career, or even later on when she was Americanized via Serendipity, I would never have thought she would evolve to become a Woman with Guns. But once she became Selene the Vampire, that path was chosen. So, not at all surprised to see her here in another of this sub-genre, some would say exploitative, flicks that focus on a woman taking her vengeance out on men who underestimate her, with guns.

Lindy was born wrong, with a deep seated rage that she cannot control -- intermittent explosive disorder. Her parents couldn't handle her, the authorities couldn't handle her, not even the supposed mental health care professionals could help her. In and out of institutions she somehow ends up in the care of Stanley Tucci (I am amused, in writing about some movies, that certain character names are irrelevant, as it is only the actor that plays them that matters) who provides her with a suit of electrodes and a push-button trigger. When she feels an urge coming, she jabs the button with her thumb and ZAP, a jolt of electricity resets her / calms her down. 

We are introduced to adult Lindy and her predicament as she goes on a blind date. Of course, the stress of dating under such conditions would not be easy, despite being as beautiful as Beckinsale, and she wants to bolt. But Jai Courtney is encouraging, friendly and open to understanding her. Despite a setback with the snooty waitress, they do their date and move on to the dessert without any (well, much) violence, back at her barely furnished loft apartment, where Courtney gently removes the jolt-suit. The next day Courtney is found dead in an alley, and thus begins the vengeance act of the sub-genre. With barely any knowledge of who he was, and some detectives dogging her heels, Lindy is going to find his killers and let the full force of her disorder come down on them.

The first thing I noticed about this movie was its setting. This is obviously shot in the UK but for some reason, they Americanize it, setting the movie in this generic, pink neon lit city of shadowy alleys and rustic bricked locations. The even more annoying thing was that Lindy began her monologue in a flat American accent, but as she speaks more and more, the accent slips and she reverts back to native UK, albeit the cleaned up tones of someone living in the US for a long time. That's just sloppy. 

The movie is not bad, for its sub-genre. It dispenses with the darker tones many of these flicks reach for, instead giving us a light almost comedic romp through bone crunching, throat cutting and gun shots, as Lindy explodes her way through any obstacles to her vengeance. There are some twists, and betrayals, but mostly its just stylish violence and scenes shot like she was doing a cover shoot for a European fashion magazine. And yet, I actually enjoyed it more than the last Women with Guns flick, Gunpowder Milkshake.