1-1-1-KsMIRT: April twice around

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (or twice each month?!?) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  These are shows I finished (or was finished with) in the past two-ish weeks. 

This Month (part 2):
Shogun - Disney+/FX/Hulu
Fallout Season 1 - AmazonPrime
3 Body Problem Season 1 - Netflix 
Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent - CityTV 

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Shogun (10 of 10 episodes watched)

The What 100: In 1600 Japan, the Taiko is dead, and his heir is too young to yet rule. Five regents rule in his stead. But Lord Toranaga sees the machinations of the other regents, the power they lust for, and the Catholic religion starting to hold sway over decisions being made for the county. He is targeted, impeached and marked for death. He retreats to his lands, but with sophisticated cunning. At the same time arrives Protestant English sailor John Blackthorne, with a warning of the ill dealings of the Portuguese Catholics. He too makes immediate enemies but finds an ally in Tornaga. Catholic Mariko, hailing from a disgraced family and married to an abusive but revered samurai, is assigned as his translator by her Lord, Toranaga, and the two find connection. Things get complicated. Very, very complicated. For everyone.

(1 Great) One great thing about this show is...this show. It is thoroughly great from start to finish. Every aspect of it works, and works well. I cannot think of a wrong step it makes. Visually it is pure allure, just a feast for the eyes. The costuming, the sets, the landscapes all are so evocative and apparently the dedication to accuracy is there in recreating Japan on the British Columbia coastline. It is an epic story but managed tightly and efficiently. It features a sprawling cast of characters, all who are managed so, so well. Even among the dozen or two seemingly minor players, they still get their own arcs.  We see who they are to start with and where they wind up, and how they've changed is evident. Each character gets enough moments to have an impact (with the exception of our sailor pal played by Nestor Carbonell who sets asea in the second episode). 

(1 Good) It cannot be understated how brilliantly this American show manages to divorce itself from western standards. That it has a white character who is important to the story, but cannot be called the lead character, and who appropriately disappears into the background, or off-screen altogether for long stretches while the other performers deliver long sequences of subtitled Japanese dialogue, it's pretty unreal. But it feels more natural than had they tried to force Blackthorne into being The Protagonist.  Equally good is the way the show throws the audience into the deep end of Japanese politics and culture, largely without turning Blackthorne into a expository gravity well.

(1 Bad) If I need to nitpick, it's that I wanted more Nestor Carbonell. But the show in no way needed more Nestor Carbonell. As well, I didn't think a lot of the fighting sequences (and there weren't many) were exceptionally well choreographed...but then most of the fights that happen were about the story impact and not making an impressive-looking fight sequence.  The CGI was decent (used largely for boat scenes or rendering 1600's Osaka, but still was very CGI. One can't expect too much out of the CGI on a TV show of this sprawling scale, so it really didn't bother me

META: I have not read James Clavell's novel, nor have I seen the 1980 TV mini-series adaptation, so I don't have those as frames of reference. What I do have is the recent experience of watching 30+ Japanese Godzilla films and some history with samurai movies.  As such, I wasn't really prepared for this, in terms of the culture and traditions being so foreign to me.  However, like Blackthorne, I quickly came to respect it if not always understand or embrace it.  Blackthorne is unkindly called "barbarian" throughout the show, but himself sees aspects of Japanese culture as particularly barbaric. But eventually he see the culture of honour and tradition as something admirable and sophisticated, as does the audience (and it's not all through his eyes).  And will I see a more likeable character on screen than Kashigi Yabushige, even when he's being utterly terrible. I don't think so. I hope we get more Tadanobu Asano all the time, everywhere.

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Fallout Season 1 (8 of 8 episodes watched)

The What 100: It's over 250 years in the future of an alternate reality where the asthetics of the 1950's never abated. The world got nuked and a small number of people went underground in corporate-built-and-sold "Vaults" where society has persevered with one mission in mind...outlast the radiation then return to the surface to restore order to a wild land. Of course, the surface has other plans, an irradiated wild west show full of mutants, the chemically undead, and a lot of desperation. The surface invades Vault 33 and take Lucy's dad (Kyle McLachlan), the beloved Vault administrator. Lucy (Ella Purnell) ventures to the surface, against everyone's wishes, and finds tenuous allies in The Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a centuries old bounty hunter, and Maximus, a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel, all equally seeking a severed head Maguffin that might be the key to saving the world.

(1 Bad) I have to say I wasn't certain how I felt about the show after watching the first two episodes.  Show creator/director Jonathan Nolan (Person of Interest, Westworld) in the first 10 minutes delivers a flashback sequence that ends with nuclear bombs going off in Los Angeles, and then about another 10 minutes later, now in the far-flung future of the late 24th Century, delivers a massacre within a very pop art-styled "Vault". These two scenes are not played for laughs and there's a sort of stone-seriousness to them that, when the show tries to pivot in to archness, it clashes. For both of Nolan's opening episodes the tonal shifts are abrupt and hard to reconcile. It's not until the third episode, in which the characters from different worlds start to really crash into each other, as well as take on some delightful side quests, that the show finds its rhythm (with Nolan still at the help). It's kind of crackling fire from there.

(1 Good) Like Westworld there's a lot of mystery to be untraveled over the past and present timelines, and in the different territories. They are tantalizing mysteries.  Lucy's brother Norm, seen early on as a wimp and coward becomes the bravest person in Vault 33 as he starts asking questions (and finding answers) about the connected Vaults 32 and 31. On the surface, there's so much mystery around how this reality and civilization functions, and it seems like there are competing controlling factions. But Michael Emerson's head contains the salvation of society and everyone wants it. Why?  We find out. It's not an endless puzzle box of mysteries. It seems pretty evident that the show is confident in its abilities to answer the big questions but also give you more to think about.  There's so much to explore.

(1 Great) The greatest enemy in the world of Fallout is not gigantic fleshy mutated beasts, or desperate bandits, but rather the inescapable crutch of capitalism. In flashbacks that double as both the origin of Fallout's post-apocalyptic reality and The Ghoul's, we learn how corporate interests were clearly the motivating factor for the annihilation that happened, and how the very same corporate interests continue to drive, motivate, and collide even in a toxified wasteland.  I should have known Nolan wasn't going to just be delivering an oddball romp for oddball romp's sake.  Not only is it anti-capitalist, but it's anti-establishment and even cocking a eye towards blind faith religion.

META: I've never played a Fallout so I cannot attest in any way, shape or form how well it adapts the video games, nor can I say how fan-service-y it is. I assume it's very fan-service-y. Even I know, through osmosis, the image of Vault Boy, with his gleeful wink and wildly gesticulating thumbs-up gesture, and I delighted in the origin story of this image, as I did with so much of the show. I really want to see the deep dive from a black culture critic looking at the world of Fallout examining the shape of blackness in the wake of the very white-centric culture of the 1950s being the dominant template for life for the next 340 years.  I noticed how the black characters in this spoke in a very over-enunciated, proper midwestern tone, and I really wonder how much the show's creators put thought into it.

[We Agree]

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3 Body Problem Season 1 (8 of 8 episodes watched)

The What 100: Amid Mao Zedong's cultural revolution of China, fervent pro-communist youth beat an prominent astrophysicist to death before a fervent crowd, only his daughter, his greatest protege, protesting. She finds herself at first interned into a work camp, then conscripted into working on a deep space communications program. When she gets a response from an alien civilization, she receives a counter-message not to answer it. Angry at the world, she answers it anyway. Half a century later, this is what happens as a quintet of science nerds in their 30s all find their way into the inner circle of the defence against this alien force. 

(1 Great) There are a lot of Big Ideas in 3 Body Problem and I was really engaged with how liberally the Big Ideas were just tossed out and thrown around the show. What could have easily sustained a 20+ episode season makes for a pretty breakneck 8 episodes of television that, while neither powerful nor perhaps even all that memorable, proved quite entertaining.  

(1 Good) If the show ultimately proves unmemorable, what will no doubt linger is The Boat Scene. If you've seen the show, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't yet, well, you'll know it when you come to it. Speaking of The Boat, it's clearly an analog for Scientology and the Sea Org, right?

(1 Bad) I could lay out a laundry list of things that the show could have done better with.  It's not that they were all bad, just perhaps needed more time to breathe and explore concepts and characters more than they had time to do in 8 episodes. What did start to get to me was the lack of orientation in time. With the exception of the flashbacks, which were very clearly flashbacks, from scene to scene we never really knew where we were in relation to the prior scene. Is it hours since the last scene? Days, weeks or months? The show moves for rapidly through its timeline without truly signifying that it's doing so. Where Shogun was a show that approached its audience as intelligent adults capable of keeping up, 3 Body Problem seems to think its crowd is a gaggle of dumdums who would only get more confused in some numbers popped up on the screen.

META: 3 Body Problem is the first scripted product from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss in their reportedly massive deal with Netflix. Having experienced HBO's Game of Thrones I was both optimistic and wary of what the end product would be. These two guys proved that under their guidance they could create a hell of a series when following the template and story of a book, but equally proved that when the source material runs dry, they are about as focused as a deflating balloon zig-zagging around a room. I think 3 Body Problem works but it's almost in spite of itself. If it weren't for the novel laying out the template who knows how great a mess this would be. As it is, I don't have any great emotional attachment or affection for most of the characters, except those played by Benedict Wong and Liam Cunningham who are just unique and charismatic performers.  That said, there weren't any characters or performers I disliked so that's also a feat on its own. 

I hadn't read Liu Cixin's 3 Body Problem novel (because we know I don't read) but I has heard of its successes and, for some reason, equated it to more speculative fiction (eg. extrapolating present scientific or tech breakthroughs into how they might shape a future reality) than wild science fiction about aliens, unbreakable microfibers and weird virtual reality shit (that seems so important, until it's not, which is the show in a nutshell). 

I liked it, reservedly.

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Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (7 of ? episodes watched)

The What 100: It's Law & Order, but in Toronto. No, not that Law & Order, but rather the Criminal Intent flavour from the Baskin Robbins of Dick Wolf's hyper-extended franchise. 

(1 Great) Lady Kent and I just get a kick out of watching the show navigate Toronto, and we try to fact check it for its locales and timelines getting from point A to B.

(1 Good) Aden Young as Detective Sgt. Henry Gaff is the quintessential erudite police detective. The guy just knows everything about everything. He'd be the guy doing a three-week undefeated run on Jeopardy until he got bored and let someone else win. He has no perceived life outside of police detecting (in true L&O fashion) and yet he seems so cultured that he must constantly be traveling the globe visiting art galleries and reading every biography ever written about anyone ever.  He's a ridiculous person but that's what makes him fun to watch, and Young, with his thick, vague Canadian accent really makes a meal of every scene.  It's all to the detriment of, well, every other cast member who seem like they don't really need to be there, because Det. Sgt. Gaff has it all under control.

(1 Bad) Let's face it, Law & Order is straight copaganda through and through, overvaluing and sensationalizing the capabilities of the police, solving crimes and getting confessions within days, mainly by outsmarting the perpetrators.  It's bullshit that perpetuates itself.  

META: I wanted Law & Order Toronto to be the Law & Order structure, not whatever this Criminal Intent business is. It's a novelty, but I don't know that it will sustain as regular viewing. There's no meat on them bones.

ReWatch: Suicide Squad

2016, David Ayer (Fury) -- Netflix

Apparently I didn't dislike this, as much as I recalled, the first time round. And in this post-Snyderverse world, I actually have very few issues with it. But, this is also the This Guy universe and he is much more forgiving of stuff.

So, yeah, it does work so much better in the post-Snyderverse world. What exactly do I mean by that?  First, let's define The Snyderverse; my definition. It was the incarnation of DC Cinematic Universe that began with Zach Snyder's Man of Steel, completely ignoring what Zach Snyder considers the Snyderverse himself, i.e. only his three movies. So, any of the movies that spun off this Superman movie are included, with some debatable films. So, the Justice League movies are there, for sure, and Wonder Woman but the Shazam! movies are questionable. THIS movie hinges entirely on the Death of Superman and the rise of metahumans becoming an issue in the future, so I would include it. And, as Amanda Waller's prediction pretty much proves true (a Superman goes bad), she is lucky her worries are contained by the rest of the Justice League taking care of a Big Angry Superman.

That said, it kind of bugs me that nobody even peripherally involved in the other movies shows up in this one, when a Big Evil Witch almost destroys an entire city, slaughtering many of its inhabitants. All that is left are the Suicide Squad that Waller sends in? I get that Batman is probably containing his rage to Gotham, but what about Wonder Woman? Or Cyborg? And if there is a long list of second string villains, there must have been at least a few second string heroes hanging around? If not metahuman, at least ultra-skilled humans like Deadshot (Will Smith, I Am Legend) and Boomerang (Jai Courtney, I, Frankenstein) are depicted as? Maybe if it had gone on for a few more days, someone else, someone more heroic would have arrived?

Furthermore, in this post-Snyderverse world, I am less annoyed by the emergence of a villain teamup as I was when I first saw the movie. That dislike is probably what I recall having for the movie as a whole, but that was mostly pre-judging it before actually seeing it. I no longer have any skin in the game as for what they will do nor any displaced hate-on for the chosen Cinematic Universe's tropes.

Re-reading my original post, this elicits a chuckle:

"In fact, that is exactly what I was expecting them to do, to have a fun run with a stand-alone movie with only some tenuous connections to the coming movies. Alas, no."

Of course, we do get the stand-alone movie, removed from the continuity of anything Snyderverse, and as a movie about super-villains sent to their death, it is nigh perfection. You would think that the Gunn movie would make me dislike this movie, in comparison, but no, I still kind of liked it. In fact, I almost wish that we could have received an untampered version, let's call it a Ayerverse copy, and seen how these followup movies would have gone. I think it would have made for a much more interesting DC Cinematic Universe than we eventually got.

Favourite bit? The emergence of a godlike being from Diablo (Jay Hernandez, Magnum PI), giving him more weight than just being a pyrokinetic with rage issues. 

And again, I still like this version of Joker (Jared Leto, Morbin' Time) for all the reasons the purists (Kent included) do not. I don't need the classic be-suited Joker, and if you are going for dark & gritty, a sleazoid, drug dealing, violent psychopath with cartel tattoos works well for me. And I believe this was also the first appearance of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, Babylon) in this definitely-not-the-animated-series look & feel? IIRC it was an adaptation of the more sexified version of her in the the Injustice: Gods Among Us video game. Whichever, they work for me.

All in all, still enjoyed it, but still disappointed it was not more.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Don't Worry Darling

2022, Olivia Wilde (Booksmart) -- Netflix

Kent didn't really spoil it for me. I mean, it was obvious from the trailers, that the movie was of the "everything is not as it seems" ilk, so it was just a matter of the how. Was it a simulation? Was it an experiment in control, but very very real? Who are the captors? Are they aliens? Mad Scientists? Is it post-apocalyptic outside the walls of the idyllic Palm Spring-ian community? Are they vault dwellers?!?! There were many possibilities, so the accomplishment comes not from the reveal, but from the depiction. And it was depicted incredibly well.

Alice (Florence Pugh, Black Widow) and Jack (Harry Styles, Dunkirk) live in a perfect pseudo-50s world in a supposed experimental community called the Victory Project. Each day the men drive off if their shiny cars into the desert. The women stay at home, cleaning, shopping, lounging around pools, visiting with friends, cleaning, cooking, making everything perfect for the return of the men. Of note, a lesser movie, one that would have been a straight-to scifi thriller that would end up with car chases & shootouts in the real world, the lives of the women wouldn't have mattered. But, here, we do see they do live happy, albeit rather unfulfilling, lives. Sure, they are cooking & cleaning for their men but they also get a lot of what can be boiled down to spa time. And isn't that the conceit of modern living? That women want nothing more than a nice home, a great husband and time at the spa?

Yeah, makes me cringe too.

The initial happy life is pretty convincing. Its endless sunny days, drinks by the pool, dancing and drinks at night, frolicking and sex at night. Good sex. Great sex. Sex between the prettiest of people. Knock all the dishes off the table kind of sex. Except, very quickly things seem off. Even if Alice hadn't seen a plane flicker in and out of reality, hadn't gone into the desert like she's Not Supposed to Do, things seemed ... strained. Once they do, the perfect life seems a little frazzled, threads coming loose, perfectly coifed hair coming undone.

Fragile Male Egos. The movie is smart to go light on the MRA overtones, the incel aspects that men deserve a perfect cisgender, hetero, sex slave world because they are men. Through Alice, the movie is more about her, instead of them. The movie was lazer focused on the experience by way of Alice. And, while I am biased, Pugh was incredible.

One final comment, on something specific. Alice briefly escapes, but is grabbed and reconditioned and shoved right back into the world. The next morning, Jack says goodbye, and Alice is seen in that ultra male fantasy state, standing on the front doorstep, wearing only his shirt, cuz if anything, the incel mind is so fixated on stereotypical "look, we have sex!" male gaze fantasies. The scene was (insert chef's kiss emoji) perfect. And chilling.

We Agree.

Watching: Renegade Nell

2024, Disney

We are also watching The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin set roughly in the same period and roughly about the same thing (British Highwaymen) and both feature a highwayman named Nell. But they are very very different shows.

Very.

In the early 1700s, as the monarch is Queen Anne, Nell (don't call her Nelly) Jackson (Louisa Harland, Derry Girls) is just recently widowed, her soldier husband killed in war, the same battle that supposedly killed her. She returns home to her father's Inn, but on the way she bumps into the dandy highwayman Isambard Tulley (Frank Dillane, Fear the Walking Dead), is possessed by a Tinkerbell-liked spirit and thoroughly trounces Tulley & his highwaymen -- basically she is embowed with superpowers.

Not long after actually getting home to her welcoming family, her father is murdered by the local nobleman's son and she is framed for murdering said nobleman. She has to grab her sisters and go on the run, for who will take the word of nobody woman, and it doesn't help that Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn, The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself), the nobleman's son, is being supported/manipulated by the Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester, Hustle), using black magic against Nell. Thomas proves too weak for the responsibility, and his sister Sofia (Alice Kremelberg, The Sinner) is more than happy to step into the role of family protector, and black magician.

Nell gets embroiled not only in a need to clear her name, but also in the Jacobite conspiracy led by Poynton, and whatever otherworldly agenda the sprite Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed, Ted Lasso; doing his usual Mr. Swallow routine) has. You would think an adventure show about faeries and political conspiracies would run roughshod over the women of the show, especially considering the time period, but much of the show is focused on Nell, and others, recognizing and attaining their own agency. 

There is a lot going on in this show, and while only occasionally uneven, you can see the skill with which showrunner Sally Wainwright navigates not only the Disney landscape (PG! family focused!) but also her own legacy (she is known for British shows Happy Valley and Gentlemen Jack which I have seen neither, but everyone raves about them being smart smart smart) as she writes a balance of quippy, snappy dialogue but also works to provide a proper story for each and every character. Complexity is usually death knell (ba dump, pssssh) of swashbuckling adventurer shows but it works rather well here. 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Baker

2022, Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal) -- Netflix

The second in the Darius Films Cayman Island production movies available on Netflix. I really hope that all the films produced in the deal are about older men of violence hiding out on the islands. Except, this one doesn't even try to be set on the islands, unless they are pretending the nameless skyline depicted is not Miami? But maybe the deal is just about pumping money into the island economy by making movies there, and not so much about being set there. 

Anywayz, Peter (Joel David Moore, Avatar) is picking up someone at the airport when he witnesses an altercation between two groups of Bad Guys, something concerning a small pink satchel. The two end up killing each other, and initially Peter starts to call 911 but, of course, he picks up the pink bag instead. At home, he tries to do right by his adolescent daughter, who he has a contentious relationship with, but that doesn't go well. So, he drops her with his estranged father, a retired absentee dad who runs a small bakery. Pappi (Ron Perlman, Hellboy) doesn't like the idea but Peter doesn't give him much of a choice. Buuuut Peter's plans go awry, as is the way of stupid people who try to con the Bad Guys. They kill Peter, but not before he alerts his dad. Delphi, the granddaughter swapped out the contents of the pink bag for her own junk -- the Bad Guys want it back.

This is not a very good movie, but it was leaps & bounds above the last one. Sure, its pretty much the same plot, of a retired dangerous man, at odds with his adult kid, getting tied to a grandchild he has no connection to, but being forced out of "retirement" to take care of things. But this one had some style, a tone about it, and it has Perlman being his usual huge, scary self. I won't deny this is sort of my schtick, but I won't call it a Man with Guns (or guns tag) category movie, as its not really about the guns. They don't try to do the barely thought through ex-government assassin gimmick of the Nick Cage movie, just show a man who is used to violence, but very aware he's been out of the game for a while.

The weird thing, in this being one of the Darius deal movies, is the shared actors. In the Cage movie, Perlman was the supporting, oafish thug who dies too soon, and here he is the titular baker. His son Peter, played by Joel David Moore was the double-crossing government agent in the Cage movie, and is probably wearing the same suit in both. And there are a few other lesser know faces re-used here. Its an odd, but interesting dynamic.

And there was one other small, not fully explored aspect of the movie that made me respect the director more than I expected. The primary Bad Guy, played by Elias Koteas (Exotica), is the typical second-ringer in a criminal organization, but Koteas plays him rather fatigued, not completely invested in what he is forced to do, not all that surprised when he dies at the hands of Pappi, for killing his son. It could have been in the script, or it could have just been Koteas exploring his character's motivations, but he wasn't phoning it in.

What about the baking?!?!

And no, the baking is not really any part of the movie. We do get a Hallmarkie level opening sequence but you can see that Perlman only learned just enough about baking to shoot the scene. Once again, the baking shots are all afterthoughts, illogical and there is no way a single man could do all that, without any employees.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver

2024, Zach Snyder (Suckerpunch) -- Netflix

Did I rewatch Part One before watching this? Nope.

And surprisingly, though likely mood is to blame for this, but I really didn't enjoy this one. I guess that means I kind of sort of maybe enjoyed myself watching the first one? Part Two just irritated me, and mostly for all the reasons the first one should have.

Quick recap: The Seven Samurai in space. That's it. That's all you get. Except that the Good Guys think they have defeated the Bad Guy and return to the small village, hoping to find peace. That delusion lasts about ten seconds.

So, before i get into it, I just need to get this out. Why is the movie sub-titled as The Scargiver? Yes, its because people are now calling Kora (Sofia Boutella, Star Trek Beyond) such, but why?!?! You would assume she was given the moniker after she betrayed her adopted father during his coup, maybe .... giving him a big ol nasty scar? But nope, its because the Bad Guy, Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein, Game of Thrones; oh wait; BOTH Daario Naharis actors are in these movies?!?!? tee hee!!) who she initially assumes is dead, is resurrected by the Space Nazi Priest Scientists and chooses to leave a scar. But that happened like, ten minutes ago, not long enough to establish a legendary label.

It is this first minor, admittedly quibbley detail that gives me a hint that Snyder kind of rushed through this part, tweaking the fuck out of it for some unknown reason. Its not like there can be any Purple Suit futzing with his vision, as anyone who would now give Snyder gobs of money to make his petulant Star Wars replacement must be entirely onboard with it? So, did he get bored between one and two? Did he just not feel satisfied with the response to the first movie, and just want to rush this one to completion, and move on?

I don't have answers; just frustration.

So, given The Seven Samurai we know that the gathered weirdo vagabond heroes have to prepare the village for the attack by the Bad Guy and his forces. The Bad Guys want grain, cuz, reasons. I am still not convinced they would commit this much effort to one small moon, for grain. If they need food, why not just resort to their SOP which is taking over entire worlds? I am sure if they just resisted the urge to bomb the planet into dust there would be plenty of food for the taking. But, no, need excuse for Seven Samurai ripoff, so ... grain laden moon Veldt. 

And training, lots of training. It always strikes me as odd in these training sequences, where they have a limited number of weapons and ammo, but use up a fuck ton of said ammo shooting at badly made dummies or bottles, so at least one straw sucking village can prove an aptitude with a big gun. At least the movie removes the "go to Providence and buy more weapons, and hire thugs" element by saying, "the Bad Guy will return in ... five days!!"

Five Days. That's how long they have before the Bad Guys return to the moon, for their grain. The trope requires us to speed run the grain harvest -- at least this movie is built upon the movie that established most of these kinds of tropes. I won't dig into whether Kora and Friends have been gone long enough for the grain to actually have grown while they were gone. The dusty fields were just being plowed in the last movie. But no, they need to condense weeks, if not months or harvesting all those fields spread all the way to the horizon, into THREE DAYS. And then leave two days to the training sequence and DIGGING TUNNELS. Also, they feel a need to mill the grain into flour. The whole point of actually getting the grain out of the fields is to build a barrier between the village and the Bad Guy's guns. Not a physical barrier but a, "If you need this grain so badly, we dare you to destroy our village from orbit!!"

So, being the movie that it is, and we have collected a bunch of weirdos to defend the village, they feel a need to explain them to us. So each character gets a flashback moment. General Titus (Djimon Hounsou, Seventh Son) betrayed the Space Nazis and his own men were blown up in front of him, as punishment. Nemesis (Bae Doona, The Silent Sea) came from a peaceful village whose people had a dark past (that's different, not her dark past but her entire village's) and she cuts off her arms so they can be replaced with murdery robot arms that can weird the lightsabre replacement lazer sword. Tarak (Staz Nair, Game of Thrones), despite never wearing a shirt, does not come from a Conan the Barbarian primitive world but was quite the floppy hat wearing dandy, until his people all died. And Milius (Elise Duffy, debut) was just another victim of the Space Nazis, no real big backstory, but that she was saved by The Rebels -- the same rebels that was the whole point of the first movie, but who (well, those that chose to come to Kora's assistance) were all killed in the first movie; all but Milius. And that's the bunch of weirdos. The backstories, albeit standard-fare Snyder pretty-to-watch, are boring AF.

I guess that is what irritated me most about the movie. As it has to rely heavily on the format we have seen time and time again, it does nothing really interesting or new with the plot structure or tropes. And the plot holes and plot blunders just pile up, one after the other. 

For example, Nemesis is supposed to be the ultimate in bad-ass warriors, using swords when everyone has brought a gun to the fight. But she has one fight, gloriously (*extreme eye roll*) defending the village's elderly and children and women (?!?!?) against a small force of blue lazersword wielding Bad Guys. Sure, this Bad Guy force gets a name, implying they are likely an elite force, but there are about five of them. She kills a bunch but dies. One battle. Swords. Dead Bad Ass. And let's ignore that there is no fucking good reason the women of the village are holed up in there, and you can clearly see in the final scene of that fight, that there are a few young, not children, strapping lads hiding out in the barn. 

For example, the Bad Guys have spider tanks. They drop a bunch of them on the battlefield at the beginning. The farmers destroy one with a rocket launcher (do they? or was that a drop ship?) and Jimmy the Robot (WTF is up with that stupid name) destroys one, during his extremely brief appearance that entirely undermines his cool establishing scenes in the first movie. But the movie forgets the rest of the spider tanks exist until the final WAH HOO (!!!) Millennium Falcon scene when The Rebels finally appear and bomb the shit out of the remaining spider tanks. I guess they were just out standing in the fields, awaiting orders.

But there is one fun sequence, when Kora and Gunnar (Michiel Huisman, Game of Thrones) sneak onto the Big Ship to blow it up from within. Her presence is detected so that leads to another stand-off between Kora and the now resurrected Admiral Noble. She plants her bombs, they go off, but Noble intercepts her before they escape, so the battle in the crashing ship is pretty cool. It is after the destruction of this dreadnought that The Rebels arrive to just do a mop up, fly by, and yet it is considered a saving grace scene.

I don't have any strong, definitive reason why this part, as in Part Two, the entire movie, bugged the stuffing out of me, while the admittedly terrible first part got two (enjoyed) watchings from me. Maybe I like establishing stories better than closing ones? Or maybe I need a ReWatch (shudder) in order to get a better read?

That said, while it has not been stated out loud, this movie did setup either a third part, or more likely, a spin off series that is totally not going to be a Seven Samurai ripoff. I wonder whether we will even see that, as we still have to get some extended, super duper, R rated, Snyder Cuts. Yay?

Watching: The Gentlemen

2024, Amazon

Yeah, this is going to cause a problem. As the not-currently-being-pasted preamble paragraph to Watching said, we (I) watch way too much TV, as in, I should probably get off the sofa more often and go for a walk, level of TV watching, the dishes-can-wait level of TV watching. I admit its a problem. But now I have added to the problem by plugging in a bunch of stubs for series or seasons of shows I have watched recently (RECENTLY!!) and the sheer number of them is already starting the anxiety sweats. I may have to go back to either shoving them all in multi-part giant posts, or go back to Not Writing About TV. 

This is why this is more about blogging than it is about the media being written about; do you really need to endlessly hear about Toasty's anxiety over wasting his time all time?

Guy Ritchie is a prolific fucking guy. OK, looking at IMDB, really not so much, but it was the release of both Guy Ritchie's the Covenant and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and almost a movie a year before that which gave me that impression.

You know, a normal guy, a Media Review Guy would just delete that paragraph and write a new one, once he Had Facts.

*cough*

The Gentlemen was a fun little, classic Guy Ritchie movie. I had hoped that he was taking the premise of the movie and just literally reworking it into a TV series, but this was more taking the idea of the movie and.... reworking it into a TV series. As in, the inspiration, the general concept. Really, just the point about weed being grown on a posh British estate.

Seriously??

Edward Horniman (Theo James, Bedlam) is an officer in the UN Peacekeeping force who is unexpectedly called back to England, because his father, The 12th Duke of Halstead, has passed away. That should make Eddie's brother Freddy (Daniel Ings, The Marvels) the new Duke and heir to the estate, except Freddy is a major fuck-up. Eddie does not want to be Duke nor does he want to know about the sorry state the ... estate is in. And Freddy owes 8 million quid to a drug dealer (Peter Serafinowicz, The Tick). Just when Eddie about to sell the whole kit & kaboodle to a posh American (Giancarlo Esposito, The Mandalorian) who wants his own piece of nobility, he learns what dad was really doing -- growing weed for the Glass crime family, under the watch of Susie (Kaya Scodelario, The Maze Runner) while her dad is in (posh) prison. She does not want the arrangement sold, so she agrees to help Eddie out with the Freddy situation.

Posh posh posh (Spice!)

Then Freddy fucks up by killing the drug dealer he owes the money to.

Thus begins a Guy Ritchie style convoluted plot involving multiple crime entities and families and people with colourful accents and backgrounds and clothing. And the whole thing was a blast!!!

Kent already covered it in his useful 1-1-1 style. I was more enthusiastic than he was, so we mostly Agree.

Theo James is just great (and so tweeeeeedy!!) as the British aristocrat who would be happy to be done with his whole messy family situation, but is not afraid to step up when he is needed. That he still loves his brother after the many many MANY ways Freddy fucks up is astounding. He seems to have his own demons that he won't forgive himself for, and as the series progresses, circumstances seem to want him more invested in the crime world than he intends to be. His turnabout by the end should have been more expected, but I was flabbergasted, and more than a bit disappointed with him.

Kay Scodelario is wonderful as the posh-not-posh (a wee bit chav), smart, fancy, impeccably dressed, always in control crime boss. She's harsh, she's tough, she can be cruel because she has to be, but she also betrays what all crime leaders must feel --- a bit of fear that it can so easily come crumbling down around them when just one small thing goes wrong. I rather liked that the two of them kept a working relationship, that the show was able to keep such between two main leads without it all being about the "when will they have sex?!?!"

Giancarlo Esposito has established himself as the smart, capable, well-spoken, control-freak style Bad Guy. Here he is so enigmatic as the American who just wants his part of British aristocracy and will stop at nothing to buy it.

Bonus points for Guz Khan as Chucky, the money launderer who just wants his hotdog food gimmick to be acknowledged by Eddie.

All in all, love the show, cannot wait for another.

Watching: Fallout

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching, or now shortened to Watching, for what is life but for Change, comes from when we, admittedly, spend too much (almost all?) time in front of the TV. This time round, I will catch up in reverse-chronological order as I finish seasons of a show, as individual posts, not the usual kaiju-post broken into Parts. There are likely to be some collective posts, where I comment on incomplete seasons, or British panel shows, or whatnot. Herein ends the explainer paragraph. It will be resurrected only for said collective posts.

First up... 

2024, Amazon

Of course I watched this series, and pretty much binged it, against our better judgement. I usually try and stretch these things out a bit longer. I love the game, and I like what Jonathan Nolan does so I didn't have many worries this show would satisfy me.

So, a bit of background that you would glean from the show but also may be a bit confused by. Its an alternate reality, one where atomic power took off but all the other 50s style and technology became stagnant. Its not trying to make a lot of sense, but atomic power, robots, suits of power armour, old timey music, pinup posters, gelatin desserts, vacuum tubes, etc. And a Big Bad -- China. And China does Drop the Bomb all but devastating the US and the world. But people survived, both on the surface and in deep underground vaults, which were large scale fallout shelters meant to house entire societies, who would emerge to take back the world once the radiation levels had diminished.

Lucy McLean (Ella Purnell, Army of the Dead) lives in one such vault -- 33. Her vault trades goods and people with Vault 31 and Vault 32. After 200 years isolated underground, you have to spread the blood around or... well, you know what happens when cousins fuck. Lucy is perky, has high test scores and is the daughter of the leader of her vault, Overseer Hank (Kyle MacLachlan, Sex and the City). I was really disappointed her father's name wasn't John. 

The show begins as Lucy is meeting her husband to be, so you know, they can have sex and make babies. Exceeeeept, the people who come through the vault door are not vault 32 folks but raiders from the surface. Vault 33 is decimated and Hank is stolen away. Lucy has to get her father back, against the wishes of the interim overseers. So yeah, the entire show is her quest to rescue him but is also wrapped in a mystery to Uncover the Truth (!!) a truth Lucy doesn't know needs uncovering.

On the surface, pretty much everyone Lucy meets is trying to kill her. And her perky, all about manners, be polite and friendly and helpful demeanour is not helping things. She meets The Ghoul (Walton Goggins, Maze Runner: the Death Cure), a 200 year old man (from before the bombs dropped !), essentially a wandering cowboy with a big gun and the face of a desiccated corpse. And she meets Maximus (or Knight Titus as she thinks he is for much of the show; Aaron Moten, Emancipation), a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, militaristic zealots in power armour. And she briefly meets a scientist (Michael Emerson, Person of Interest) from some society or another that seems to have weathered the apocalypse rather well, considering his technology and white lab coat. He implants himself with a rice grain sized macguffin which has everyone chasing him. I said briefly, because he almost immediately dies, and Lucy ends up either carrying or chasing after his head. What's in the head is important to everyone.

Its a rather fun show, full of violence, gore and black comedy galore. The lore is probably basted on pretty thick but there is enough exposition to explain things to non-game-players, and soooo many easter eggs to make fans (real fans, not the whiney fanboys who will debate every inconsistency that comes with adaptations) squee. Of course, the entire season is setting up the world and the characters, with a juicy amount of pre-war background establishment, so the real meaty stuff can take place in later seasons. That is the way of TV these days.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Only God Forgives

2013,  Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) - Netflix

The new fangled word all the movie kids are using these days is vibe. As Patrick Willems says, quoting Tenet, "Don't try to understand it... feel it." We will ignore the fact that he uses the word vibe as an acronym for guys-in-suits movies, he still hangs it on the idea there are movies where plot & story are a step behind the feel of the movie.

Only God Forgives is a movie where the visuals, and the mood, and the pink/red colour spectrum are far more important than the violent, seedy revenge flick being played out on the screen. Scenes are constantly presented, frozen in motion, more photographs than moving pictures. We are gazing at art, striving to understand what the artist meant by it all.

The movie is set in Thailand. Julian (Ryan Gosling, Barbie) and Billy (Tom Burke, The Lazarus Project) run a Thai Boxing club, but we know its a front for something. Billy goes looking for underage sex, and ends up killing the girl. For whatever reason, he doesn't leave the room when discovered by police. The chief, Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm, Thirteen Lives), allows the girl's father to beat Billy to death in return for having an arm cut off, for making his daughter a prostitute. Julian and his thugs track down the father, but let him live, as he understands why his brother was killed. Then their mother (Kristin Scott Thomas, Mission: Impossible) arrives, enraged at Julian's lack of retribution. She sets in motion a plan to have not only the father killed, but the police chief Chang as well. It doesn't go well.

That's the plot, a rather simplistic revenge thriller, but that doesn't matter. Refn builds visual after visual, still lifes of colour and mood to elicit an emotional response. Pristine beauty is juxtaposed with ultra violence, wealth with poverty. Nobody is a hero here, nobody leaves the movie unscathed. 

In watching Poor Things, I commented on how I appreciated the movie but was not quite sure I enjoyed it. The same hesitance sits here with me. But I can say that I was moved by this movie, the right emotions were drawn from me by the visuals and colours: revulsion, admiration, rage. I know I wanted to see this movie when it first came out, knowing full well how much I loved Drive. But I think, even then at the beginning of the blog, I was moving away from That Guy and I waited, ten years, trying to recapture him.

ReWatch: GeoStorm

2017, Dean Devlin (Leverage) -- Netflix

The post for the original DL and watch was eaten by the Great Hiatus of 2018, cuz I guess it came available early in the year after it was released in ... cough ... theatres.

This is not a good movie. Disaster movies rarely are. This new blend of scifi actioner and disaster even less so. But, of course, it elicits the squee's out of me with its silly, bombastic, explodey heroism. This Guy has That Guy sitting in the corner shaking his head.

A few alternate realities ago, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were a producing team behind most of the last three decades of disaster movies. In this reality, its mainly Emmerich, but Devlin was there for Independence Day and Godzilla. But obviously he still has the bug for watching the world die.

Interesting how both those posts start with, "I hated this movie when it first came out." I think That Guy may be doing more than shaking his head with you days. I think he may be distancing himself from you entirely.

The fun thing about this movie, as it is with all scifi flicks, is that it was done in the 2017s, but is set not long after, when the world begins to suffer true disaster from Climate Change (foreboding music). The world comes together to fight it, and builds Dutch Boy, after the fictional kid who fingered a dyke. Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler, Reign of Fire) is the magician scientist engineer cowboy who brings it online, but only after pissing off all his bosses, cuz said cowboyisms. He is replaced by his brother Max (Jim Sturgess, Heartless) who has a government job, so that qualifies him to run a high-science space station and satellite network, amiright?

Then, when the US was handing off control to the world (not sure how they were in control considering the "multi-nation coalition" that built the thing, but sure, Go USA) things begin to go wrong. Weather Satellites begin freezing people and blowing shit up. And Max traces it back to a conspiracy. The only person able to fix it is his estranged brother, cuz reasons. 

Jake goes to the space station, which in this near-future is absolutely MASSIVE having actual hangar bays that a space shuttle can land in, to bring these nerdy scientist types in line with his cowboyisms! Rah rah, Go USA! Yes, they do make a comment that he is British, but no matter, he lives in a airstream trailer in the Florida Keys, so Go USA !

He and Max do uncover said conspiracy, but still, have to blow up the space station in order to stop a GeoStorm, a mythical phenomena where all the world's bad storms will come together and DESTROY THE WORLD ! Max and his Secret Service GF (Abbie Cornish, Sucker Punch) find out it is the vice-POTUS (Ed Harris, West World) behind everything because he's salty that the US of A had to hand over power to the rest of the world. Together they blow shit up and shoot people as Jake is blowing up the space station, eliminating the GeoStorm but escapes along with tag-along the German nerdy scientist hottie (Alexandra Maria Lara, Rush).

Rah rah, world saved, Go USA!

I cannot say for sure why these movies thrill me. They rarely strive to make any sense. Maybe part of me wants to watch the world burn. Maybe part of me wants to applaud big dumb heroism. But obviously someone in a purple suit (not Devlin or Emmerich; they have normal shiny suits and are still producing from a certain kind of passion) knows they fill a niche in the human psyche cuz they will always be made, they will always make a certain amount of money (just enough, I guess?) and will continue to find an audience of people like me.

1-1-1-KsMIRT: whatever times five

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (ha!) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  These are shows I finished (or was finished with) in the past four-ish weeks.

This Month:
Doom Patrol Season 4 pt 2 - CTV SciFi/Max
The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin Season 1 - AppleTV+
Girls5eva Season 3 - Netflix
The Gentlemen DNF - Nflix
Hijack - AppleTV+

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Doom Patrol Season 4, part 2 [6 of 6 episodes watched]

The What 100: The Doom Patrol are fractured, again. They've lost their immunity from aging and they're not dealing well. Rita's starlet egocentricity can't handle the rapid aging. Cliff's Parkinson's is only getting worse. Larry is so petrified not of aging, or dying, but being alone that he pushes everyone away, including Keeg. Jane has lost touch with all her other personalities in the underground. Rouge fears she can never redeem herself. Victor wonders who he is, and what he can contribute, if he's not Cyborg. And, of course, weird shit and lots of swearing.

(1 Bad): It feels like so, so long ago that we watched Doom Patrol Season 4 Part 1, because it was. We put off watching it for months after it aired, wondering if we even cared anymore. With the DP it's not even superhero fatigue, because it's not really even a superhero show. It's just a show about weirdos facing even weirder threats that grounds itself in deep rooted issues of mental health.  No, it was just that sense of everything falling apart, which, with the Doom Patrol, has been from episode one. This is a dysfunctional family. And after a while, especially when everyone is keeping to themselves and not interacting except with hostility, it's not fun to watch.  So it was hesitation that put off watching this last batch of 6 episodes. I think the worst of it was stepping back in, because Episode 7, the first episode back, picks up directly from Episode 6 and, like I said, it had been a minute, and to be honest, I felt that same sense of fatigue.

(1 Good): While overall Season 4 pt. 2 was a mixed bag, more than a bit of a rollercoaster for each character (and the viewer), it had two incredible highlights, the first of which was Episode 9 "Immortimas Patrol". As has been the thing for genre shows to do since, oh, the late 90's and "Once More With Feeling", "Immortimas Patrol" is a musical episode, and in Doom Patrol's weirdest of weird ways, their Christmas Episode (with nary a hint of Christmas).  It was watching the Oscars back in 2022 when performing in the ensemble for Encanto's best song nomination when I saw that Diane Guerrero was not only a cast member of that film but could sing, and yeah, she gets to show that off here. Also, Oscar winner Brendan Frasier sing-talks his way through a song about trying to masturbate without interruption.  And there's the chorus of Sex Ghosts that keep popping up.  The songs here are written by Aliza and Talia Berger with music by Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner (just an incredible duo handling scoring chores this entire series), and they are all really, really fun while also being story and character-centric.

(1 Great): The thing about the Doom Patrol is they were doomed from the beginning. The original team Larry, Rita and Cliff, were on borrowed time to begin with. So that they each meet an end is only fitting. But holy shit, do we ever get some closure. Rita passed away, and it's so sad, until her ghost emerges to orchestrate her own funeral. Larry and Keeg find beauty in endings. Jane finds a new path forward as a whole person, and with Casey, who isn't even really a person.  Victor continues to make his mark, his way. And Rouge decides to embrace her dark side, but possibly used for good? And Cliff spends his final days with his family leading to one of the most beautiful, tearjerking, and abrupt endings of any TV show ever. I still get weepy thinking about it.  For a static robot face, the Robotman head has been so incredibly expressive for 46 episodes and the hold on it for the final frame as the light in his eyes goes out is just a little bit of magic given the moments preceding it.  This show, while not always great, was always something special. 

META: Yes, I cried multiple times during the finale. Shut up. Stupid show.

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The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin [6 of 6 episodes watched]

(The Plot 100): Dick Turpin wants nothing more than to be a glamorous highwayman. He's not been much else in his life. He certainly does not want to be a butcher like his father.  So he sets out on finding a gang, and then gets to robbing stage coaches. But as a gentleman.  He leads with compassion and robs with kindness. Things don't always go well for him, but he can always hold his head up for being his authentic self. This attitude gets people's attention, and a scribe starts writing brochures of his adventures making him a celebrity.

(1 Great): Where each of the first four episodes was pretty much a stand-alone adventure, with a little continuity of world and character building, the latter two episodes are a two-parter, in which an even more decadent, charming, congenial, fancy highwayman, Tommy Silversides, turns up and out-Turpins Dic Turpin in every way possible. While almost every character in Dick Turpin is really fun, Connor Swindells who plays Silversides gives a next level performance. He's clearly dastardly, and up to something, but he is also incredibly charming and irresistible. It's not just the show telling us these things, but Swindells showing us them.  And then, in the second episode, there's the turn, and it's hilarious, giving Swindells yet another layer to his performance.

(1 Good): This feels like a sister show to Our Flag Means Death, as both are period-set comedies about relatively hapless, but good-natured men who want to participate in what are commonly seen as ruthless and violent criminal activities. Steed Bonnet from Our Flag... and Dick Turpin here are both in over their heads in their quests for excitement and adventure, while also retaining a positive outlook on life, and enforcing their own moral codes of gender and sexual identity positivity and inclusivity. They just want everyone to be their best selves.  It's hard not to be charmed by these shows ... unless you're one of these "anti-woke" toolboxes who can't see anything beyond their own limited perspective.

(1 Bad): I found Dick Turpin to be great fun. Solid cast, whimsical production, fantastic earworm of a theme, but it's a little...tame.  It's not trying to be edgy, and I get that, but it is rather... fluffy.  Where Our Flag... had some heft to it that grounded it in something tangible and emotional, Turpin is just a silly light comedy. I like the characters, but I don't feel terribly invested in them. 

META: I know Our Flag... has been canceled, and that it was on HBO/Max and Turpin is on AppleTV+, but I really, really, really would love a crossover between these two shows. They're so complimentary, it only makes sense. It won't happen, but I wants it.

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Girls5eva Season 3 [6 of 6 episodes watched]

The Plot 100: A pregnant Dawn, a starved-for-attention Wickie, a newly empowered Summer and a very horny Gloria have forged out on their own, with all new material, really trying to will a resurgence into existence. But they find a tiny modicum of success in Fort Worth (singing a song about Fort Worth) and are nervous to leave even that glimmer of stardom behind. A bold move, Wickie takes all their money and books Radio City Music Hall as their big tour finale...a finale for a tour that hasn't even been planned.

(1 Great): Renee Elise Goldsberry as Wickie is a freaking force to be reckoned with. While all the cast are enjoyable, Goldsberry is next level, all the time. She's best know for being a key player in Hamilton but she's got incredible comedic chops that she shows off non-stop. The energy on screen doubles every time she's in a scene.  Wickie is reliably self-involved -- a generous archetype for comedy -- but Goldsberry plays Wickie's ego as a mask, and she's aces every moment she comes out from behind it (and nails even hard the mad dash recovery to get back behind it).  The spotlight episode of Wickie returning to her supportive, upper class family home is the season highlight.

(1 Good): Like the Tina Fey/Robert Carlock-produced 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt before it, Girls5eva is a joke machine. Just densely packed joke-after-joke-after-joke in such a manner that it's hard to take them all in. I find myself still processing one joke when two others have flown past me.  My favourite joke is the Mariotte Divorced Dad Suitelets as a setting and all the delicious comedy nuggets within (like the last minute, pre-wrapped birthday present vending machine and the "#1 Weekend Dad" coffee mugs). It is a show that begs rewatching for all the comedy nuggets.

 (1 Bad): I'm not going to complain about Netflix resurrecting Girls5eva after it seemed like two seasons, 8 episodes each, was going to be it. But I will complain about only giving it a 6-episode order, and what looks to be an extremely tight budget.  It's not necessarily the stripped-down sets or even the sparse extras casting (no crowd ever feels like a crowd), as a sharp director and production staff could definitely make it work. It's clear that the budget limitations extended to the shooting time, and there wasn't enough to do more elaborate camera setups to hide the flaws, or to do more takes and edit the scenes tighter.  This season, frankly, doesn't look very good. It looks like...Hallmark...just with dirty jokes.

META: I don't know enough about the production of this Netflix season, but it just doesn't hit as hard as the prior seasons. One of the key things is the songs just aren't quite up to the same bar as the previous two seasons. Where I would actually listen to the soundtracks to Seasons 1 and 2 on Spotify (oh, I'd do the Splingee) I haven't even been tempted by Season 3. But maybe upon rewatch I'll start getting "Inside My Sweater" stuck in my brain.

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The Gentlemen Season 1(?) [4 of 8 episodes watched]

The Plot 100: UN Peacekeeping officer Eddie Horniman is called home after the death of his father. He inherits his father's title of Duke of Halstead, much to the chagrin of his complete fucktwit of an older brother. Eddie learns that his father had leased out the property to criminal organization, and now he's also in bed with them. Eddie endeavours to get them off his land and out of his life, but seems to just get more entrenched the more he does to try and get them out.

(1 Great): Kaya Scodelario as Susie Glass. She's the "handler", the "fixer", and the woman-in-control (but not in charge) of the weed operations. She's ultra-competent, calm/cool/collected at all times, and perfectly styled without being showy about it. It's a ridiculously charming and enjoyable performance, which makes it all the more sad that I didn't enjoy the show enough to stick it out for more of her.

(1 Good): The show looks good. Like, real good. It's got the same feel as any of Guy Ritchie's films about cheeky British criminals, which have, since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, all had a visual pinache. Ritchie directs the first two episodes, and you can tell. Surprisingly, when Nima Nourizadeh steps in to direct the next two episodes, you can't really tell it's not Ritchie behind the camera. So cudos to the production team for maintaining a consistent sensibility. 

(1 Bad): Honestly, there was nothing outright "bad" about The Gentlemen, but it just wasn't clicking with me. Okay, maybe when they introduced Peter Serafinowicz (nailed it on the first try) as a very distinctive character only to promptly [spoiler for the first episode], I was quite deflated by that. That was bad.  Part of my lack of enthusiasm is Eddie is a bit of a nothing character. He has one goal, which is doing whatever it takes to get these criminals off his land, so there's not a lot else to that character. Everyone else seems to have something going on but Eddie's just this stoic, handsome, rich, military twat who isn't particularly skilled at anything. He's not exceptionally intelligent, or a great fighter, or quick on his feet, and that should make him a compelling lead, but Theo James plays him with a sense of authority that the show seemingly backs up, rather than it being the misplaced authority of a man in over his head. I also wanted more flirting between him and Scodelario, but it all stayed weirdly businesslike in the first half.

META: I loved Ritchie's first two films, then stepped away from his Swept Away vanity project and never really came back to him full time. Sure I saw the Sherlock Holmes movies and enjoyed them enough, and I did see Aladdin (a real "why bother" film), and I do really love Man From U.N.C.L.E.  but the thing that drew me to him in the first place, his stylish British crime flicks I've avoided completely. Rocknrolla, Revolver, Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune, and event the show's disconnected namesake The Gentlemen I haven't seen... but Toasty has... and it seems like he enjoys them.  I dunno...maybe I'll do a Director's Set on Ritchie and go through it all. 

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Hijack [7 of 7 episodes watched]

The Plot 100: Idris Elba plays Sam Nelson, a guy on a flight from Dubai to London that gets highjacked by British nationals for unknown reasons. Elba's background is as a high level mergers and acquisitions closer, so he's used to high pressure situations and talking to/manipulating people. On the ground, meanwhile, is a series of people, including Elba's family and various officials, trying to discern if there is actually a problem.

(1 Great): This show is seven episodes of intensity. It's the first show in months that we just flat out binged out of a need to know more, tossing aside other, better shows, just to get through this compelling story.  It takes place in nearly real time, but never, ever calls attention to that fact. It very capably negotiates at least three, maybe even four dozen characters both on the plane and on the ground - passengers, flight crew, ground control, Sam's family, police, and government officials.  It's probably in no way accurate to real life, but it's an immensely engaging journey.

(1 Good): The show has one mystery, which is the "why". Why are these people hijacking the plane? It's a good mystery they tease out over the first four hours before the list of demands are revealed and then we spend the next half of the series being very aware of the additional threats posed beyond the airplane. As if things weren't intense enough. 

(Good 1.5: I liked that Sam is a guy with "a particular set of skills" but in this case it's not the answer to this problem. Sam is a negotiator, a talker, and he uses that skill a LOT to insert himself into the situation, sometimes unbelievably. But I like that Sam's negotiating skill is just as often not the solution as it is, and that he's not "the guy in control" of the situation, really, ever, and the real fact is no one is. It's just kind of chaos.)

(1 Bad): Peril fatigue. That thing when the main character is put into too many life-threatening situations and the audience starts to check out of the idea that he will actually be harmed. The final act goes maybe two unnecessary steps too far with Sam and the flight, and then there's additional perils happening on the ground. It's all a bit too much, and unnecessary. I think an epilogue as opposed to the additional bits of danger would have been better, even if it kind of broke the "real time" structure.

META: Famous handsome man Idris Elba is not just known for being famous and handsome, but also being incredibly charming and a pretty good guy. He's likeable, and I like seeing him in things. I don't see everything he's in but I am certainly drawn to things because he's in them.  This came out mid-2023 and didn't really move the needle on anything, but it went on my lengthy "to watch" list. I put it on to be background while working on the 2000th Post Spectacular, and got sucked in and distracted quickly.  

It's not a completely successful show, but it moves briskly and is very, very engrossing.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Retirement Plan

2023, Tim Brown (Treasure Hounds) - Netflix

This utterly terrible movie is a product of a Darius Films signed deal to make movies in the Cayman Islands. It is an action comedy about a retired hitman / assassin / govt stooge hiding out, drunkenly, in the Caymans until his estranged daughter comes to him, wrapped up in a problem with Miami mobsters. The entire movie comes off like a Hallmarkie purple suit made a crime thriller. But in a beautiful locale. I fully suspect it will be rolled into the recurring dream I have where I am a caretaker of an estate who lives in a shack on the beach. Maybe that's a good cover for a retired hitman?

Anywayz, Ashley (Ashley Greene Khoury, Twilight) and her husband run afoul of Miami gangster Donnie, and Ashley sends her daughter head to the Caymans to hide out with her estranged father Matt (who also has another name to add comedy, and make his character seem well-rounded; he is not) but she is caught before she can follow. Donnie sends a pair of goons, who Matt kills one of, while the other runs off with the granddaughter. So Donnie sends more guys, who also die, so Donnie and the rest of his goons fly to the Caymans. Meanwhile... oh never mind, suffice to say that the movie attempts to add in a double-cross and triple-cross sub-plot that just falls entirely flat. Eventually all goons die and family is reunited.

This movie is so bad. In other hands, non-Hallmarkie-directing-style hands, it could be a serviceable cookie-cutter thriller, but the movie does nothing with nothing. Sure, it has Nick Cage and a handful of other "that guy(s)" character actors who at least try not to phone it in. Nick Cage is even dialled back a 100-fold so you don't often get to see him just being his bug-eyed, rambling self.  There is nothing worth watching in this movie other than looking at the drone & copter shots of the Cayman Islands.

KWIF: Wonka (+3)

 KWIF = "Kent's Week In Film", so...stuff he watched in a week, or so. Just not this week.

This Some Week:
Wonka (2023, d. Paul King - Crave/Max)
Extraction 2 (2023, d. Sam Hargrave - Netflix)
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1996, d. John McTiernan - DVD)
The Hunt for Red October (1990, d. John McTiernan - DVD)

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I have yet to find the person who wanted Wonka to happen.

Seriously, who asked for Wonka to happen?

We, Toast and Kent, know this answer: The Purple Suits.

Wonka is a result of Hollywood's IP-driven landscape, where origin stories for popular characters are seen as a necessary vehicle to both perpetuate a property and potentially reboot it while providing the opportunity to recast a role or three or ten.  

It's happening all the time (a trailer for Transfomers One, which tells the origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron has just dropped the day that I write this) and I don't know if audiences are as cynical about it as the more cinephilic are (as I am) but they just seem so tired.

But, lazy film idea doesn't have to mean lazy film. And Paul King, poached from a plum Paddington gig proves the point with Wonka. I had a surprisingly good time. All it takes is putting the right people in place.

My review for Paul King's Paddington 2 lives over in Letterboxd, as it was a film from The Dark Year of the blog (what, you didn't read all 7600 words Toasty and I just spilled about our 2000th post?) but I, like many, had my pants utterly charmed by that movie. I have not revisited Paddington 2, despite the pants-charming, and my stab at watching the first Paddington was interrupted and I never returned to it, but King's thumbprint is clearly very prominent on the two films. I only just learned that King's TV work includes some directing of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh, two very arch and weird series that I wished I had spent more time with in my younger years, because I don't have the time now. Both Darkplace and Boosh are the product of their creators, and not necessarily a result of King's guiding force, but that's not to say that King didn't bring anything to the table, and also not to say that things didn't rub off on King.

Much of the same magic of Paddington is found here. There's a timelessness to the storytelling, not that it's set in a specific time period, but that there's a lack of era-specificity that unmoors it from our specific reality. Thought there's a wide-eyed naivete to the characters of the world, it also contains a message about class structures and capitalism-gone-wrong, and even about police and how they really only protect property and the wealthy. Well, it's in the subtext, anyway.

I don't love the Gene Wilder Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I've seen it enough in my life, and I like it okay (the Johnny Depp one I haven't seen, but from what I recall of the trailers he was playing Wonka by way of Michael Jackson), so I'm not necessarily hung up on any specific interpretation of the character or needing anything specific out of this film.

Timothee Chalamet, I have to say, I was wary about. I hadn't hopped aboard the Chalatrain up until this year, but between Dune Pt. 2 and Wonka, I am sold on his star power. Can he believably be a cult leader/warrior/politician as a wistful, fanciful chocolateer? Yes, indeed he can. He brings an unending hopefulness to Willy here that echoes Paddington without the bumbling. Willy is hyper-competent and utterly creative, but he's not without his flaws which see him set back more than a time or two.  Especially when three rival chocolateers, in secret collusion with one another, seek to drive Willy out of their very locked-down marketplace.

It's not a full-on musical, but there are musical numbers. It's Mary Poppins-esque.  It's a film meant for everyone, frowning only on the selfish and greedy.  That bite of darkness that Wilder had in his performance is not at all present here, and while some bemoan its absence, it's a more uplifting film without it. 

I don't know why Paddington, just as much an IP-driven movie as this one, was given such leniency but Wonka so severely scrutinized (I could guess at length but I have other films to write about), but under King's guidance the flavours are not as far apart as one would suspect.  It was a surprising smash success, given the scrutiny, and I suspect a sequel, but not likely another direct Dahl adaptation. 

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Tyler Rake, Rakestraction himself, is back!!

He got shot a whole heap back at the end of Extraction 1: In Which Tyler Rake Does A Rakestraction, but he's not dead, just severely wounded. He fell into a very gross looking river, and likely got sepsis. Good thing he's got gobs of money and Chris Hemsworth's good looks otherwise he wouldn't have made it. But he did make it, but he's become a sad, wounded puppy, retires to his Austrian(?) cabin and sulks about his dead son some more. 

I shouldn't be pithy about the dead son bit... Hemsworth brings a genuine emotional center to Tyler Rake as a traumatized man but it's got nothing to do with his physical wounds.

Rakestraction is approached by fellow handsome man, and Hemsworth's good pal from the Thor movies, Idris Elba to do him a job. Rake's handler and business partner in Rakestractions Inc., Nik (Golshifteh Farahani), is not happy that Rake has accepted the job, but she will be by his side wherever he goes. Rake does his Rocky 4 training montage and gets back into fighting shape. No long-term side-effects for him!

Farahani does an awesome job at playing a badass mercenary as well as Rake's best friend. She straddles the line very well of never telling the audience exactly how she feels about rake, whether it's a deep platonic love or something more that she knows he's unable to reciprocate.  A romantic side-plot is not part of this action-heavy (action-only?) series, but Rake's personal life is really drawn out when his ex-wife, Olga Kurylenko, makes herself known.  It's her sister and her kids that need extracting from a very, very bad situation.

Rakestractions Inc. gets everyone out in loud, violent, pulse pounding, anxiety-inducing long-take sequences, first through a prison riot, then a car chase, then on a train. But then, when seemingly resting comfortably in Vienna, only for the very bad people to come hunt them down. It gets really messy.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say I liked Rakestraction 2 more than Rakestraction 1, but, if I'm being honest, both of these films kinda left my brain the moment they were done. They are thoroughly engaging in the moment, but they're so light on character and plot that they don't have a stickiness to them. Hemsworth is a very likeable and attractive presence to follow around and his physicality (and physique) are very impressive to see in action... and these are action-centric showcases, spinning out of the John Wick mold. Unlike Wick, which was a series that built a world around its killing-machine-of-a-central-character-who they-barely-explored-over-four-films, Rakestraction drops its character into a setting, has him fight his way out, and gives a bit of space for the character to breathe in the middle, drop some character nuggets, then continue fighting.  It works, but it's not enough to really sell us on Tyler Rake as our next John McClane or whatnot.

But boy, those action sequences are amazingly well orchestrated and look intense. I wish they would just do a G.I. Joe movie in this vein, a tactical force of specialized individuals dropped into a situation fighting their way out, showing off their stuff.  But I digress.

The only thing I don't like about the Rakestraction films is the unacknowledged collateral damage. Because you know there are people everyone just taking bullets or having their cars flipped unexpectedly (does anyone ever have their car flipped expectedly?).  I just can't help but think about what might be going on just out of frame and in the world outside that the extraction is just plowing through.

[we agree, toasty's take)

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Speaking of John McClane, it's been at least 20 years since I last watched Die Hard with a Vengeance. I watch Die Hard every so often, because it's a stone cold classic (and a Christmas movie) so it gets play, but DHw/aV doesn't get the same treatment because it's juuust *that* much a derivative product that it doesn't beg for revisiting as much.

But it remains and incredible action movie and the only worthy sequel to Die Hard (I rewatched Die Hard 2 recently, and while it's enjoyable enough as an action movie, Willis' performance could have been any character...this feels like John McClane).  What works so well is, well, everything. The premise, the casting, the directing, the action, the twists... they all collude so perfectly...right up until the end.

The final moments of DHw/aV are kind of unmemorable. There's a Canada/US border town and a helicopter, and you would be excused for mistaking it for the much better sequence in The Long Kiss Goodnight. There's a quick action beat, some gunfire, then it's over. It's so abrupt. It's not unsatisfying, but it's not totally fulfilling either.

Samuel L. Jackson is the perfect pairing with Willis, in that golden age of the 90's when, well, Sam Jackson was the perfect pairing for anyone (see also The Long Kiss Goodnight). That man knows how to deliver every time, all of the time.  The racial tension is far from ignored, which is surprising for the 90's era of supposed "post-racial harmony" that was sold so hard to sweep uncomfortable conversations under the rug, never to be seen from again...until someone moves the rug.  I like the addressing of it head on and the two men finding that they're both just men.  Jeremy Irons is not Alan Rickman, and he doesn't get to be as tricksy and weasely, but I like the facade he puts on. Is it strange that he delivers a better performance over the phone than in person?

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A second John McTiernan film, because, well, podcast coverage of the direct had me intrigued.  I had intended to do a "Series Minded" on all the Jack Ryan movies, but I don't think I have easy access to the Chris Pine or Ben Affleck ones. And I'm not watching the TV show.

I honestly can't recall if I've ever seen The Hunt For Red October before. I think I have, but I may be mistaking my recollections for Crimson Tide. All submarine movies look the same to me.

Based off the Tom Clancy novel, this is a very 1990 movie but set as a period piece in 1984, really only because Russia got decommunismed (for a time anyway) in the time between the book and the movie.  The film posits that an experimental Russian sub, with the ability to move unseen by radar/sonar in the water, and armed to the gills and able to decimate the Atlantic coastline with nuclear warheads has been stolen by a celebrated Russian naval captain, played by Sean Connery.

Jack Ryan, played here by Alec Baldwin, is not the action hero he will be known as, but instead an competent analyst for the CIA. He suspects that Connery's captain is trying to defect. Elsewhere there's another American sub led by Scott Glen, where their sonar operator Courtney B. Vance is obsessed with an errant signal they picked up then lost. Meanwhile, on the Red October, Connery has a small subset of the crew loyal to him and his plan to defect, but the rest of the crew aren't entirely aware.

The genius of the film is in planting the seed that Connery's captain, having suffered a devastating personal loss, may be suicidal and intent on taking the world down with him.

For a film that largely takes place around consoles or tables, it's absolutely gripping. Set as a period piece, it still holds up as a period piece, and McTiernan's direction, with some ace editing, has the feel of an action movie even though there's very little actual action. It's pacing, and timing, a similar magic trick pulled off by Oppenheimer. 

There's a genius trick on McTiernan and co.'s part, where it starts off with the Russian crew speaking Russian, but after a little time with them, McT does a pull in-pull out of the camera in between a beat of Connery talking and it switches from subtitles and phonetic Russian to English. Even Connery's accent can be explained away as being different from the crew as he's said to be Lithuanian. That facade only comes apart in the final moments of the film when Connery has to speak with the Americans and still just speaks like Connery, but at that point in the film, who really cares.