Watching: The Cleaner

2021, Amazon/Brit Box 

This awkward British comedy series is one of my walk-in, walk-out series that Marmy was primarily watching, but caught my attention enough, for most episodes. It concerns Paul "Wicky" Wickstead (Greg Davies, Taskmaster), a crime scene cleaner in the west of England, but technically he cleans up what's left behind from any death scene, crime or not. Makes sense; someone has to do that work so why divide the expertise? Natural death and be just as horrific and messy as violent death.

Each episode has him bump into someone who is not entirely happy for his presence, them interrupting or delaying his actual cleaning. And most of these antagonists are foot-stompingly frustrating, which is usually the cause for me to stop watching any given show, but this time, I surprisingly endeared to the idea.

Wicky is not without his own faults and there probably a lot of reasons he is suited to this mostly solitary work. He is awkward, stuck in the past, and doubly stuck in a routine that is going nowhere. I work in technology, probably the training ground for being awkward, and being stuck in routines? Nooooo, not relating to that at all.

😐

It turns out that this show does what I like best about British comedy. It gives you weird characters doing awkward things, some long drawn out conversations (almost all the situations are dependent on the talking, less so on the physical comedy), a dash of the ludicrous and a heavy dose of heartfelt revelations -- after all in every episode he is talking to someone who has lost someone.

Best ludicrous scene? In the first episode, the murderer (Helena Bonham Carter, The Crown) shows up and takes him captive - kind of. She's ... in need of a Number 2 (what are you, 12?) and demands Wicky be in the room with her (horrified emojii) and it evolves into them both singing "It Had to be You" and the scene switches to a musical number depiction, but with toilet.

Best conversation? Terence the writer (David Mitchell, Peep Show), whose grandmother died in her favourite chair (spontaneous combustion???), just wants to write his scene and everything Wicky is doing is just interrupting his work, and more importantly, his delicate emotional state. David Mitchell is peak David Mitchell here -- pedantic, insulting and outrageously angry about the littlest of things.

Weirdest one? Yeah, that's debatable as all of them are weird situations, but The Influencer who has someone he knows die while recording himself becomes a rather surreal episode. Wicky is not at all an empathetic person but seems to always empathetically understand these people in pain. This disconnected (but always connected) non-binary 80s obsessed kid (Layton Williams, Bad Education) pushes even Wicky's boundaries and yet, he deals with the situation with sympathy and caring. We are meant to hate influencers; I don't think Wicky understands hate. Sure, he dislikes most people but hate... ?

Like The Detectorists before it, I found this weird little show about weird (not little) people endearing, charming and full of snorts out loud.

👍🏼👍🏼

Alt Media: Far Cry 6

2021, Ubisoft

This was a replay, as the last one was. Sometimes I just want to shoot bad guys... 

Unlike all the previous games in this serious, you are not given the choice -- the Bad Guy is a monster and you acknowledge it down to the last second. But, you also have to acknowledge that you also are one. But isn't every main character in video games that has to slay hundreds if not thousands of people?

The island of Yara, Cuba analog but with a Spanish-background dictator ala the Reagan era action movies in tropical places. He is the son of the last dictator deposed in the 60s revolution. A few years before the game takes place, the son Antón Castillo is democratically elected and soon after, his Yara becomes more like the one his father ran: a rift between the Outcasts and the True Yarans, disappearances, conscripted work in the country's tobacco fields, an overreaching military present in all aspects of life, etc, etc, You are Dani Rohas ("fútbol is life") who are initially trying to escape the island but watch Castillo kill everyone onboard the boat, except his own 13 year old son who was trying to escape as well.

Dani is now forced into a role in the revolution. They (you can play either gender) are themselves ex-Castillo military, an antisocial natural killer who was ousted for assaulting an officer. They are the perfect pawn for the leader of the revolution -- Clara Garcia, and her supporter, Juan Cortez, a classic Far Cry sociopath trained by the Americans and sporting a manifesto on how revolutions are to be fought. And a knack for kludge-ing together fantastical weapons. Dani is tasked with meeting and uniting three diverse factions of anti-Castillo forces, because only united under Clara can Yara hope to be free.

The tropes of the franchise are present. Castillo has invented Viviro, a wonder drug, said to all but halt cancer. He intends to sell it to the world, so Yara can enter the First World as a saviour. The drug is "grown" in Yaran tobacco, which is fumigated with a bright red gas that encourages the Viviro to form within the plant. The gas is also a poison and a hallucinogen. Castillo conscripts people to work his fields. 

The islands are covered with military bases and outposts, which you are expected to liberate and bring to the revolutionary cause. They are also littered with poverty stricken villages and the dead his soldiers leave behind as they intimidate, murder and torture indiscriminately. 

As you progress your legend grows, one of skilled and ruthless killing and more than once you are called out for being as much a monster as Castillo. You don't deny it. But you are not heartless, for a number of key points in the story, you are presented with chances to kill Castillo's son, but you don't. He is only a boy, and still has a chance to learn right from wrong, to not become his father, and not become  you. 

Castillo is a classic dictator, convinced he is doing the best thing possible for his country despite racking up countless dead as he strives for "progress". His propaganda machine is everywhere, his speeches constantly play from speakers and radios. His key allies are his psychotic generals, scientists, public security minister, PR manager, and an amoral "yanqui" investor, a Trump analog who happens to be Canadian.

Of course, the game is beautiful. The tropical island, with a number of ecosystems, is lush and vibrant, full of animals (which you can hunt for resources) but it is also decrepit and shows its poverty stricken state. The radio is playing a wide variety of Latino music, from Mexican traditionals, to Cuban rap, to folk songs, Caribbean dance music, to Ricky Martin, Camila Cabello and Pitbull. You can listen here. By mid-way, I was humming along, while my character would actually sing along to the radio.

Unlike previous games, you know there is no point to thinking Castillo might have a point. Oh sure, he might have a cancer wonder drug, but you know these games, you know their misdirection, you know he is playing a shell game, and while it delayed his own cancer, by the end of the, the ravages show on his face. Not even he can lie about his own failures. He leaves only ruin, and death, and thousands of dead bodies at your hands.

Why do I play these? Because I like action movies, I have nostalgic recollections of the simplistic plots of the 80s, and sometimes, after a rough day at work, I just need to shoot someone.

Watching: The Lazarus Project

2022-2023, download

I binged watched this over the Xmas time period of 2023-24, during the time I was not writing about TV.  I was also not sure I wanted to write about it as a TV Show when it is pretty much built from the tropes that drive our Loopty Loo project. But since started back-tracking on that earlier decision, and Kent pointed out I had not yet done so, I might as well add it to the Watching list. Once we resurrect the LL, I might even re-write the post in honour.

So yeah, it is an entire series based around a time loop agency. That has been done before, but not quite like this. You see, this agency doesn't necessarily time-loop but constantly reset to a prior date until they undo whatever apocalyptic event  they are trying to fix. And if things go right, nobody even notices that the event was undone. Unless you are a member of the agency, or one of the poor sods with the natural capacity to notice the time loop happening.

But I get ahead of myself. Waaaay ahead. Well, not that far ahead. You see George (Paapa Essiedu, Genie) woke up on July 1st. Six months later he woke up on July 1st again. It feels weird to him, like people are fucking with him. He sees life if he chose differently. Then, six months later, he wakes up on July 1st again. This is the basis for all time loop stories, this is the key to it all. Then Wes (Caroline Quentin, Jonathan Creek) appears and tells him they know its happening and asks him to join The Lazarus Project, and explains why they exist. She does not explain how it works, only that when horrible events take place, the kind that can lead to the end of the world, they make a call and the world resets back to July 1st. 

They've been doing it a while. There have been a lot of July 1sts. If they let the world go past the July 1st date then there return date is updated by another year. That means, if something happens and they cannot find the way to fix what happened, they keep on repeating attempts until they fix it. Then they let the world go on until the next time a turn-back event is required. Also, it takes a world-ender to initiate it, so the death of a loved one doesn't count. Also, having children is not advisable, as you can imagine how things could go wrong if you turn-back to before the conception date. Any factor can undo your child as you remember it. The rules suck.

It is those rules, the basis of many of the tropes of time loops, that the show explores while having fun with time "travelling" adventure thriller plots. One of their number, Dennis (Tom Burke, The Wonder), loses a child and ends up becoming a world ending terrorist in order to influence a turn-back event. And then George, the new guy, the main character of the show, the nice guy, loses his girlfriend Sarah (Charly Clive, All My Friends Hate Me). And they won't reset things just for him. So, suddenly George is not so nice a guy.

One of the questions we ask in our project is, "Do you see other people trapped in the time loop as real?" In the primary timeline you knew them as people, but if you are looping a long number of times, then what does it matter if you fuck with then, what does it matter if you kill them -- after all, things will reset and they will not know. Unless they are one of your fellow agency folks, who will remember.

And what about messing with the loops, what about messing with people's lives within the loop? Sure, that is the point of the agency, but they are saving the world. What if you just want to make that cute girl like you? Let it happen naturally or make a few notes during the time loops and up your chances. Ends up being kind of creep factor nine, even if it has always been treated as one of the fun, playful tropes in all the comedy movies. Is increasing your chances unethical? You decide. The show just plays them out and lets the viewer decide if they like the characters after all that.

That's season one. Season two adds in multiple timelines, doppelgangers, competing agencies all turning back time, all fucking creating their own time loops, doing as they please until.... well, until they break the universe. The ante is up, the scale is increased, the mind-fuckery up-ed by the nth degree, paradoxes abound and unforeseen consequences are around every corner.

I loved the show even when it made me queasy, even when characters made terrible choices, even when things were just going to hell in a handbasket. I love shows that present to you the consequences of your timey wimey hijinx.

Can't wait for a Season 3.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): New Life

2023, John Rosman (debut) -- download

Thoughtful, indie, scifi thrillers are my bag. A coworker, whose English is probably her third or fourth language, has commented on how everything I say involves idioms, most of which she doesn't understand. When I try to explain further, I just add on layers of idioms. My brain is wired that way. See? My brain is also wired to be a better communicator via text than via spoken word, probably the primary reason Kent won't get his podcast via me.

I cannot imagine how I would properly communicate should me primary methods be taken from me, my ability to type or speak. What else would be left? Motion command speech engines? Even they take some amount of motor skill.

Elsa Gray (Sonya Walger, Flashforward) has ALS, early stages. But they already affect her way of life, causing tremors and forcing her to walk with a cane. She knows she only has a little time but her line of work needs her, at least one last time. She's a fixer, that scary mix of off books investigator and assassin that does things for the government when they can't use traditional means.

Her current focus is Jessica Murdock (Hayley Erin, General Hospital), a young woman on the run. We first meet Jessica covered in blood, sporting a black eye. Abused woman fleeing her spouse? So think the nice people who feed her, clothe her, give her a drive. But when Elsa tracks her to the farm of Frank and Janie, we see the real reason -- Jessica is a carrier, of something deadly, something horrific, something the government wants contained; something apocalyptic.

This is a small movie, the kind I like. Jessica was a normal girl camping with fiancé, who was nice to a dog with fleas. The flea bites didn't take long. Elsa is a hard woman, dialed down emotionally, connected only to her work, fleeting friendships with the people she works with regularly, people she knows over phones and texts. This is probably her last job, and she needs it, not just because of the consequences of Jessica getting into general population, but.... well, you know.

Was this a plague movie? A zombie movie? A conspiracy thriller? Yes, all of the above (debatable on the zombie, but who knows....) but also more. I am not beholden to movies with themes, artful structures, I generally gravitate to the story and/or the style. But I did enjoy the movie's themes -- that Jessica wanted nothing but to start a new life with her fiancé, to travel and see things outside her small town. Elsa has had a new life forced upon her, one that probably won't last long but she is too stubborn to give into it. And what new life was Jessica carrying in her blood? The big stories happened in the background; your own stories are generally smaller but arguably more important?

KWIF: Furiosa (+4)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week Kent has a spotlight movie in which he writes a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else he watched that week, he just does a "quick" (ha! ahahaha! ha!) little summary of his thoughts. 

This week:
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024, d. George Miller - in theatre)
Point Blank (1967, d. John Boorman - Criterion Channel)
Purple Noon (or Plein Soleil, 1960, d. René Clément - Criterion Channel)
The American Friend (or Der amerikanische Freund, 1977, d. Wim Wenders - Criterion Channel)
Paprika (2006, d. Satoshi Kon - the shelf)

and, go!

---

Following Mad Max: Fury Road, about as beautifully artistic and mentally and viscerally stimulating a post-apocalyptic action movie as we're ever to get, I was keen to say that Warner Bros. should just cut George Miller a blank check and make another one, whatever way he wants.  I believe it was during the press junket for Fury Road that Miller intoned he had written a full backstory script for Furiosa, the character played by Charlize Theron in the film.  I was more than ready for that.

As time passed, the realization dawned on me that Furiosa's back story would have to be a pretty bleak one, given how in Fury Road she was headed to The Green Place from which she was abducted as a child. Was that something we really wanted to see? The abuses set upon a young girl in a very toxic and masculine society?  We're aware of Immortan Joe and his harem of "wives" (barely more than breeding livestock as far as he's concerned) so it could get real, real dark. Did we want that?

What we really wanted was more Fury Road.

And you know what? That's almost exactly what Miller delivers with his new entry in the "Mad Max Saga".

In this nearly two-and-a-half hour extravaganza, told in five parts, we first meet Furiosa (Alyla Browne) in the fabled Green Place, a beautiful crevasse in the dead center of Australia (for the first time in the "Saga" were given an actual birds eye view, confirming, yes, this is Australia). A couple of marauders from the wastelands have found the place, and Furiosa, along with a younger sibling or friend raises the alarm. She attempts to sabotage the marauder while help comes but finds that, more than anything else in this lush refuge, she is the most valuable prize.  Our first chase begins as Furiosa's fierce mother (Charlee Fraser) pursues the kidnappers through the desert, and yeah, it's relatively bare bones, but also completely intense. Furiosa is no hapless victim and finds her own ways of sabotaging the marauders.  

Furiosa's story is one of tragedy, so things don't go so well against the vast forces of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call). Furiosa is charged with protecting the location of the Green Place, while she is lobbed between Dementus and Immortan Joe.  Realizing what fate has in store for her in Immortan Joe and his creepy family's care, Furiosa (now Anya Taylor Joy, The New Mutants) hides herself, disguised as a mute boy and a mechanic, she listens and learns. She observes the creation of Immortan Joe's first war rig, and sees the glory of its driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, The Lazarus Project [@Toasty...where's that review?]).  Through a series of events, Jack becomes her new mentor. He's a hard, but kind man who wants nothing more than to help Furiosa be fully capable of surviving their horrid reality.  As the two plot their long-term plan for escape from Immortan Joe, the two get swept into an increasingly urgent and brutal war between Immortan Joe and Dementus, which leads to more and more loss for Furiosa, but gaining an all-consuming thirst for vengeance.

If we look at the prior films in the overall Mad Max "saga" they are all structured differently. The original film is pretty much a series of vignettes, while the second film attempts a more conventional three-act structure (that I can recall). Beyond Thunderdome is more two distinct stories, and Fury Road is basically one long act. I like how Miller keeps you guessing with this series and the only thing you can really expect is to have an epic time with some crazy stunts.

While there was some themes to Thunderdome and Fury Road, Furiosa is pretty much a straightforward action movie. It maybe juxtaposes how different people deal with tragedy differently, but it's certainly not the driving force of the movie. Each of its five acts captures a day or so in Furiosa's life that shows her resolve and willpower in the face of intense combat and overwhelming odds against.

The acting is all exactly what it needs to be. Browne playing young Furiosa for the first hour of the film was unexpected but she was incredible. By the time we meet Joy's Furiosa she's been keeping herself hidden for years so her toughness is very quiet and reserved, until it shows itself in a very raw, emotional form. Praetorian Jack teaches her to control her rage and enhances her skill set, with Burke making Jack a very welcome reprieve from all the letcherous, vainglorious, egocentric and ugly men of the various worlds she's forced to inhabit. 

Furiosa has about as much dialogue in this as Max did in Fury Road, which isn't much at all, so both Bowne and Joy's performance of the character is all in the physicality and the eyes. Conversely, Hemsworth is all words. While Dementus is a dangerous man, he's also a charismatic fool. He leads his people to ruin, but he has the distinct capability to always sucker in more people under him. Hemsworth's charm factor is so high, even when playing this despicable man. He has more dialogue than I think every other character combined, including a riveting monologue in the final act that is the flailing desperation of a thoroughly defeated egomaniac.

I liked how Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris side-stepped a lot of the world building. Rather than shift its lens off Furiosa, it held tight with her throughout the film. It didn't spend more time with the society of the war boys, and didn't provide an origin story for "Witness Me" or even recycle any of the catchphrases from the prior film. Certainly they are a part of the story, but there is no character there to explore their culture through like Nux from the last film. Been there, done that. We really don't spend time with Dementus' crew as well because, as we learn, Dementus' crew is mercurial.

I found Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to be a highly invigorating experience. I wanted to throw my arms up and cheers so many times, and I clapped with glee to see the war rig manufacturing process. It's a worthy prequel to Fury Road even if it is not quite its equal. I doubt anything can be.

---

One of my ongoing viewing projects is to watch all the various adaptations of Donald E. Westlake's Parker novels (written under the "Richard Stark" pseudonym). Though I've never read any of the novels, I became a rather immediate fan upon reading Darwyn Cooke's loving graphic novel adaptations.  To date I've only managed to catch the awful Jason Statham-starring Parker and the director's cut of 1999's Payback, starring Mel Gibson.  Of the eight adaptations of various Parker stories, arguably the most famous is the 1967 crime thriller, Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin.

Based off the first Parker novel The Hunter, it finds Marvin's "Walker" (as Westlake notoriously refused anyone using the name without committing to multiple pictures) trying to come to grips with how he wound up in a prison cell with two bullet holes in his abdomen. The answer: betrayal. He got pulled into a job by Reese, a man in desperate need of money to pay off his debts, but the job wasn't a big enough score to pay Walker the split he was promised. Reese, having seduced Walker's wife, Lynn, sets him up for the fall. His only mistake was in making sure Walker was dead. Walker pulls through his injuries and sets out to not so much get revenge as collect what he is owed by any means necessary.

"The Hunter" is the same story Payback was based off of, and the rhythms of the story are almost exactly the same. Some of the characters shift in their personality and story, but inconsequentially. The real difference is in style. Payback is a very 1990's production, Cooke's comic adaptation is very firmly in the 1950's, while here it's so very 1960's Los Angeles, and it's glorious. I have to think everything Quentin Tarantino was trying to achieve visually in Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood stems from this film. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but the aesthetic of this film, from the streets of Hollywood, to every hotel room, office and mansion homestead are so exquisitely of the era, and it all just sings beautifully.

If I had to place the aesthetic it's that in the 1960's technology was just starting it's advancement into commercial sales, hi-fi stereos and phone intercoms, and doors that open and close with the press of a button. The ostentatiousness of the 1960's resulted in such heavy investment in electronics and mechanized devices that there wasn't the same sense of investment in making everything gold or highly ornate. Environments were very much wood framed with the brushed chrome of technology as an accent. Colours were pastel bases, muted, yet still vibrant.  The buttoned down suits of the 1950s gave way to more mod suits in the 60's and the women adopted patterns and colours galore.  There are times when I watch the film and wish I could tour around the setting more. This is a film where I wish I could just dive right in and live there.  

I was about to say Lee Marvin as Walker was maybe a decade too old to play the character, but I just looked it up and he was 43! Five years younger than I am now. And he looks like he's cresting 60 in the film.  Man that era of sunbathing, heavy drinking and smoking was hard on one's looks.  That said, he's almost perfect for the vision of Walker, a big, broad man who can stop you dead in your tracks with just a look.  There's a weird flashback where Lynn talks about when she met Walker, and it shows Marvin being playful and smiling with her, and oh, it threatens to undermine the entire image of the character. It's early enough on in the picture that Marvin has time to rebuild his image, but it takes a bit.  The most immediate thing about Marvin's Walker that seems to deviate from Parker is his code of ethics. It seems at first like Walker is really trying to get revenge, it's not for a while where he really starts hammering it in that he's actually just after his money.

Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) is in the film as Lynn's sister, Chris, and she is everything to this film. She is a love interest for Walker, but definitely not the conventional "love interest" role. She is versed in working hard and doing what must be done, and as much as she wants to resent Walker for asking her to do so, she can't help but see a guy who very much does the same...only he's kind of an emotionless automaton. He frustrates her so much (as witnessed by the incredible scene where Dickinson goes full ham on Marvin until she's utterly exhausted and collapse to the floor) and yet it's clear she's got an incurable thing for him in spite of herself. She plays it so well. Her roles seems beefed up from other versions of this story, but maybe it's just that Dickinson does more with it. She has presence, and her character feels lived in, in a way maybe no other character does.

Boorman and his editor (Henry Berman) do weird collages throughout the film, mostly as flashbacks, which are not unwelcome but seem so ...primitive as a storytelling vehicle. Sometimes they work very well, acting as Walker's inner conscience or a dreamscape, but sometimes they feel like too much.  There's a magnificent scene of Walker walking down a hallway, his ADRed footsteps "clop-clopping" away, setting the rhythm for Johnny Mandel's score to kick in, paired with some of that collage editing and it's just an masterful senses-grabbing scene that has been cribbed so much since, but probably never bettered.

---

Another kick I've been on is watching any adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series. I just did an obscenely long look at the 1999 version of The Talented Mr. Ripley in comparison with the new Netflix series, and this drew me to re-subscribing to the Criterion Channel so that I could catch up on two earlier adaptations of Ripley stories.

1960's Purple Noon (not Purple Moon as I keep wanting to say) is a very French adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring notoriously handsome actor Alain Delon (Le Samourai) in the title role of Thomas Ripley. I could go into a very detailed list of "differences" between this and the other adaptations of the novel, but I'll spare that in favour of just the broadest strokes.

The first big shift is how the film begins in media res, with Tom and Philippe Greenleaf (changed from Dickie) already best buds and hanging out in Rome. Philippe  is already aware that Tom was sent by his father and Tom seemingly doesn't hide the fact from Philippe his criminal ways. The two are very boys' boys as they horse and pal around and fuck with other people for their fun. They pick up a woman and both make out with her (well it's more Philippe making out and Tom trying to get in on the action). Did I mention this film is so French. Marge likes Tom just fine but her relationship with Philippe seems strained by his cladding about with Tom. Tom covets everything about Philippe, his wardrobe, his carefree lifestyle, and his women.

Obviously this is the second big change. Tom's intoned homosexuality is completely absent from Delon's performance (and the script). When he kills Philippe, takes over his life, kills Freddie and returns to being Tom, he heads back to Marge and they start a relationship, and Tom seems genuinely happy. He has Dickie's life and he doesn't have to pretend to be him.

But as much as the story and performance are absent of any gay undertones, the lens in which we view the film is very queer indeed. The camera isn't in love with Delon, it is obsessed with him. Where in other productions the camera provides us largely Tom's point of view of events, lets us understand the story through his very warped eyes, here the camera is very disengaged from Tom's point of view and instead just ogles him. Though Tom is clearly covetous of Philippe's life, through the lens we see Tom as the ideal. He's much more attractive than anyone else on screen (and Maurice Ronet is not a bad looking guy, but pales compared to Delon) and we can never forget it.

Remember that old Late Night with Conan O'Brien bit "If they mated" where they would take two celebrities and show us what an adult offspring would look like if they shared their DNA? In Delon's case, he would be the "If They Mated" of Zach Efron and Jared Leto in their primes. Just the most piercing blue eyes and carefree floppy hair and fit-but-not-buff body. Just total ah-ooh-gah.  I don't know what makes the lens gay male gaze as opposed to female gaze, but it's definitely feels like one and not the other.

The final big distinction of the various versions is the ending, in which Tom doesn't get away with it. And it's kind of clever and unexpected how they did it. Innocuous, sudden, and yet logical. I understand why in such an era they needed crime to be punished on films, but it does lessen the story, but so does the removal of the homosexual undertones.  It's a very good production overall, but of course it is. As I stated before, the source material is one of the greatest, sure to be adapted over and over.  Yet, it's the lesser of the three productions for not even daring to challenge the norms of the time.

---

I like the story behind The American Friend (not My American Friend, as I keep wanting to say) - the late 70's German-French production from noted auteur director Wim Wenders - almost as much as I like the film. As Wenders tells it, after his first few films were road stories largely improvised from loose scripts, he was looking for a fully scripted story for his next film. He became obsessed with Patricia Highsmith's novels and attempted to option every one of them, only to find they were all unavailable. This caught Highsmith's attention and she met with Wenders and clearly, as he says it, he "passed the test", and she offered him her new manuscript for her third Ripley novel before she had even sent it to the publishers. This was Ripley's Game.

A coup for Wenders, in a way, but also a consolation prize of sorts. Wenders had approached actor-director John Cassavetes for playing the role of Tom Ripley, but he was busy. Cassavetes suggested Dennis Hopper (Super Mario Bros.) to Wenders, and Wenders came to like the idea. But when the time came to shoot the picture Hopper was still sidelined shooting Apocalypse Now. Hopper came off the set of that feature a practical zombie, drinked and drugged out of his mind, barely able to engage with the material and his co-stars.  Bruno Ganz (The Boys From Brazil) was a popular stage actor who had only one screen credit, but Wenders convinced him to take the role. Ganz prepped endlessly and was very invested in the part. A few days into working with Hopper, who was very laissez-faire and freewheeled his lines, the men came to blows. Wenders let them fight it out, which led to an evening of drinking and a mutual understanding with Ganz softening his over-prepared stance and Hopper committing to starting each day prepping with the director.  

It's a wonderful story in a way, I just wish it paid off on screen. Hopper's Ripley, wearing a stetson and cowboy boots most of the time, is certainly not the mind's eye view of Thomas Ripley, not akin to any other interpretation we've seen on screen. But aesthetics aren't everything.  My chief complaint is that Hopper's performance just feels like he's in a completely different movie every time he's on screen. 

Thankfully (I guess) in the first hour of the film, Ripley only has two or three short scenes which seem quite outside the main plot. Ganz plays Jonathan Zimmerman, a framemaker whose wife works at an auction house where Ripley peddles his illicit art wares. When the two are introduces Jon slights Ripley which causes him to spread a rumour that Zimmerman's rare blood disorder is terminal and that he's having money problems. 

This catches the attention of some criminal types who are in a feud with other criminal types. They start to gaslight Jon into believing his disorder is terminal, and convincing him that he should be doing what he can to ensure the stability of his wife and son after his passing.  All he needs to do is kill someone.  It's very Highsmith in a Strangers on a Train but in a fun house mirror sort of way.

The job is done, and it's an intense set pieces that is wonderfully shot (no pun intended). There's a dangling thread of Jon having been caught fleeing the scene on camera but it's never picked up (and I'm not sure why). Ripley later encounters Jon at his frame shop, perhaps to taunt him, but Jon apologizes for his behaviour in their initial meeting and is very friendly. Ripley feels guilty. When he finds out the goons are trying to force Jon into another hit, Ripley tries to stop it before it starts, but ultimately can only intervene and help out. It's a very clumsy, blackly comedic, and similarly intense sequence on a high speed train.

Jon's secrecy with his wife and the weight of his deeds starts fracturing his marriage, but Jon thinks it's all too late. Ripley notes that the bad guys will try to clean up any loose ends, and they're going to have to go on the offensive. The film's final big piece once again plays out unexpectedly, with some irreverent turns that carry just as many nerves.

If not for Hopper, this is otherwise an really great film.  It's not a terrific Ripley story, as the character is largely absent from the first half, but at the same time, given what we see of Ripley in the various adaptations of the first of Highsmith's novels, the character profile of an art dealer with criminal connections seems absolutely fitting. I just wish almost anyone else was playing him, but I think a 15-years-later Delon would have been perfect, as the film ventured between Hamburg and Paris.

---

Paprika is the final film made by Satoshi Kon, and what many regard to be his masterpiece. Having just seen all four in the past month, it's hard to not say they are all his masterpieces.  He was such a thoughtful, incredibly curious and inventive storyteller, and as very much a latecomer to his career, it's still resonates as a huge tragedy that he died still quite evidently in his storytelling prime.

That all said, at least in first watch, Paprika is my least favourite of the quartet. It is so primarily because of my typical reaction to typical anime, which is a flinching revulsion.  Where Kon's prior films seemed to defiantly break from typical anime styles and forms, Paprika seemed to be a sudden dive right into them, as if Kon just caught up on the prior ten years of anime that he had missed.

It's probably an unfair assessment.

And yet I kept wincing as I watched this. It started very simply with the character Paprika's haircut. Something about it screamed so loudly in my face, the way the curl of the hair covers over the cheekbones to both accentuate the jaw and highlight the eyes...almost more helmet than hair. It was the visual equivalent of chewing tinfoil or fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Just set me on edge.

A lot of anime (not a genre, I know, but...) has this thing where its action scenes or often entire stories operate in a stream-of-consciousness manner, because you can do anything in animation. But should you? The stream-of-consciousness side of this entertainment shouldn't bother me (I like Twin Peaks after all) but it's often just nonsense.  Of course, I have limited exposure and so limited experience, but that is my experience and it does not appeal to me.

So when Kon's movie opens with a very intentional stream of consciousness-style dream sequence I was getting itchy, despite being obviously wowed by the director's continued masterful control over transitions, here rapidly transitioning between different dream realms.  I basically bought into the film by the end of the incredible opening credit sequence, but my seatbelt wasn't securely fastened the entire journey.

Paprika doesn't really hold your hand. It may grab you by the shirt sleeve and give you a little tug from time to time, but it's not laying it all out for you, and it never establishes any sort of rules to what you are seeing. It's all very mercurial, dream logic.

Yet the story is nearly quite straightforward. In a near-future world, a company has invented a technology that can record people's dreams, but there's an exploit where people can actually enter those dreams using the technology.  Paprika is Dr. Atsuko Chiba's alias when she enters the dreamscape, her very superheroic alter ego. Except someone else has stolen the technology, entered the dreamscape and is doing some real harm.

As Atsuko and the other heads of the project work with a police detective to try to suss out who is poisoning people's dreams, people start losing their minds in the real worlds and killing themselves.  The news is bad, and the chairman wants to shut the project down, which would leave anyone using the dream recorder exposed to the psychopath.

This is a generalized summary and definitely not 100% accurate...as I said, it's a film that doesn't hold your hand.  I found it difficult to embrace this world without understanding it first. The film talks about the newly developed "DC Mini" but doesn't really set us up for understanding the world as changed by the dream therapy technology that seems more widespread. Maybe they're both the same thing but it doesn't make sense that they are. I dunno, I probably need to watch it again.

The film toys with dreamscape logic, which means that often characters seem to wake up but are still in a dream, and then wake up from that dream to still be in a dream etc. It is a trick dream-based movies have been using for decades before and since. It's as effective as it is annoying.

There's this whole angle to Paprika that's about filmmaking and storytelling and camera perspective and collaboration and regret that seems very personal and personally appealing to Kon, but also is verrrry inside baseball for animators and cinematic storytellers. It's a side trip that ultimately has some leanings into one of the character's back stories but it also feels like an unnecessary tangent that stalls the mid-point of the film.

The character designs in this film in general feel more animated archetypes than in Kon's previous films (as Griffin Newman pointed out, it seems like three of the main doctors were visually designed after Professor X, Toad and the Blob from X-Men, something I picked up on as well, but was likely in mind after a binge of over 100 issues of X-Men comics and the 13 episodes of X-Men '97).  I don't feel like I understood our main protagonist, Atsuko and her altar ego Paprika all that well. I don't really understand why Atsuko was doing call girl-style illicit meetings with patients where Paprika invaded their dreams. It somehow made more sense when the dream world was invading the real world and Paprika became an independent being from Atsuko, but I'm not sure why that made sense.

This wasn't a mind-twist, so much as a mind hurt. Again, maybe upon rewatch it will reveal itself more, and repulse less. I mean, there's an abundance of fat jokes and denigrating of an obese character in this so, cultural biases, along with my own anime biases, all got in the way.

Watching: True Detective S4: Night Country

2024, download

We never really watched S1, the rave review season of this "series", primarily because of Hannibal fatigue. Oh, that show wasn't the only one doing serial killers with artistically horrifically set murder scenes, but it was the epitome of that serial killer sub-genre. We tried to go back a few times but... well, you know us. Remember, we have never been able to commit to Broadchurch either.

I heard rave reviews about this season as well, and because we like Fortitude, and its murder in a cold, isolated environment, I suggested we watch this. To be honest, much of its style and mood and theme borrows from the Svalbard set show. As it starts with a unique location, the vibes of being set during the "30 days of night" time period, and has a lot of interesting, challenging characters in this remote town of Ennis, Alaska, a mix of mining folk & local indigenous people, centered on the utter asshole Chief of Police, Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster, Contact).

But in the end, I didn't find any pay-off. It ended as all these creepy, psychological, pseudo-procedural crime thrillers do -- with a bunch of possibly supernatural, possibly extraordinary crimes hinted at and jump-scared out the wazoo, but explained via (admittedly satisfying) mundane human murder.

So, on the first day of night, we are presented with a bunch (I get you are embracing the You of being You, but someday you should consider the vocabulary you choose to use) of scientists isolated in a self-sufficient lab outside town. They are going about their activities when one does something weird. Cut to a time period later where a delivery man finds the place empty, the classic "they left in the middle of everything" scene. Danvers is called in, tense situation, find the missing scientists. Secondary character Eve Navarro (Kali Reis, Asphalt City), all tattoos, piercings and MMA fighter body, is introduced as a state trooper with a beef with Danvers. 

The missing scientists, who are later found dead, in a "mountain of frozen flesh". They are naked and their faces depict shockingly terrified deaths. Also, at the lab, a severed tongue is found, the tongue of Annie Kowtok (Nivi Pedersen, Borgen; fascinating! a Greenlandic actor/director), an indigenous woman who was murdered but the investigation never went anywhere and Navarro blames Danvers. So now there is a new, horrific case and they are seemingly connected.

As these shows do, much of the time is spent establishing the characters and the setting. And as these shows do, there is constant eerie imagery such as the ghosts that Navarro's mentally unstable sister Julia (Aka Niviâna, Borgen; also Greenlandic) sees, or the scarred polar bear who calmly wanders through town or Navarro's flashbacks to her deployment overseas or... its a technique that ten or more years ago I loved, but tire of easily these days. I want this imagery to have distinct meaning, but all too often it is played for cheap jump scares and "cool scenes" which generally don't pay much into the plot. And as usual, season closers dismiss almost all of them.

If anything, the show excels at the characters. Chief Danvers is a damaged almost sociopathic cop. Navarro is a damaged distinctly loyal woman trapped in two worlds. Captain Hank Prior (John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene) is a damaged, sad father who wants nothing more than to have Danvers gone. His son Peter (Finn Bennett, The Nevers) is smart but is on 24/7 duty due to Danvers and his marriage is suffering for it, and yet he trusts her more than his father. Even all the secondary and supporting characters are interesting and incredibly well played.

Don't forget to mention the minimal role of Christopher Eccleston who also played a role in "Fortitude". And Issa López, the showrunner who was responsible for writing and directing many of the episodes, and did a brilliant job of keeping the tone and visuals consistent. And the setting, shot in Alaska and Iceland being actually authentic cold, but still falling into the usual "cold environment" folly of "if its's -20 C why can't I see their breath?"

I just wish I got more out of the show as a whole. If this had been my first rodeo, with season long murder investigations in cold climates with unending damaged main characters, I would have revelled but...

Kent's view. I agree with pretty much everything he said, but he was more impressed than I was.

3 Short Paragraphs: Dollman

 1991, d. Albert Pyun - Tubi

Back in the 1980's and 90's sci-fi and superhero stuff was on such a downswing in spite of successes like Star Wars and Batman that the major Hollywood studios didn't really invest in that "nerd shit".  Instead, if you were a sci-fi and high-concept action movie nerd, you had to look to the low-budget, direct-to-video end of the spectrum for your entertainment. There were whole production houses, like Canon Films, Roger Corman's (RIP) New World Pictures studios and Full Moon Entertainment that were more than happy to fill the void with thrifty genre pictures that were generally hastily written and even more hastily shot and assembled.  A fan at the time would have to invest their own brain power into filling in details and dream of bigger, more grandiose adventures and bigger, more grandiose set pieces.  Because most of what you would get would be thrifty shit like Alber Pyun's (RIP) Dollman.

I remember seeing this for rent at my local comic shop that doubled as a Laserdisc and B-movie videocassette rental place. I was always intrigued by the cover, but just knowing that it was not the DC (formerly Quality Comics) character Dollman (of the Freedom Fighters team), it greatly lessened my interest. Like watching Nemesis last week, I'm pop culture touring through a bit of Albert Pyun's filmography after listening to a podcast about the director, and, so far, two films in, I'm not at all impressed.

This film opens with some matte shots of an alien world, and then some poorly constructed sets that merely hint at being another planet, where a criminal on the run takes hostage a family of fat people (and they cannot stress enough that they are fat, dozens of references from seemingly every character) in a laundromat. Suspended cop Brick Bardo (Tim Thomerson, Nemesis) walks on the scene to do his laundry (that's about the closest the film ever gets to clever or funny) and Dirty Harry's up the place. Then his floating-head nemesis escapes from police custody with an anti-matter bomb (or something) and he gives chase in his cruddy-looking spaceship. They wind up on earth where they discover they are 1:6th scale beings. Bardo rescues a neighbourhood watch organizer from being murdered by some drug fiends, and then becomes embroiled in stopping the drug gang altogether (led by Jackie Earle Haley, A Nightmare on Elm Street) despite being 12-inches tall. With a big ol gun and a big ol attitude he stops them all dead, all by hisself.  This is a dull, boring, unadventurous movie. I was hoping all these years it would be a low-budget Honey I Shrunk the Kids or even somewhere close to on par with the classic Incredible Shrinking Man. But no, it's more interested in aping Dirty Harry than anything sci-fi oriented. Bad!

(Rewatch) The Talented Mr. Ripley (a comparison)

 1999, d. Anthony Minghella - the binder

I've seen the Matt Damon-starring Ripley movie a few times, but I sussed out with Lady Kent that the last time I watched it was likely around 2006 or 2007 when we were still dating and I was still in that awesome  phase of "here's a thing I like that you haven't seen so we're going to watch this" that guys in new relationships go through.  So it's been some time.

Partway through watching Ripley on Netflix (a clear passion project from writer/director Steven Zaillian) I started to get the itch to rewatch the 1999 film again. My pop culture tourist brain gets that way, and I'm in full on "Ripley" mode in my brain right now (a re-subscription to the Criterion Channel is likely so I can watch Purple Noon and My American Friend, a couple early Ripley adaptations).

This isn't so much a review of the film, but a sort of comparison to the show, and my vague, vague memories of the novel.  

I will, however, state unreservedly that the film is great. It takes the Patricia Highsmith novel and distills it down to about 140 minutes both retaining much of the same spirit and structure of the novel while adding its own highlights which are definitely not unwelcome.

The biggest difference with Minghella's version is the addition of three new characters to the story. Somehow, even with their inclusion, they don't get in the way of anything, and in a few small respects help the film maintain its pacing and intrigue.  

The first new character we meet is Meredith played by Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age). She's an upper-crust American who encounters Ripley at the landing port in Italy. Ripley, having already prepared to fake his way into the life of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law, The Young Pope), tells Meredith he is Dickie Greenleaf, likely figuring he would never see her again. I wonder if you can ever go wrong with Cate Blanchett, even creating a whole new character for a beloved property or story to slot her into. Like, if they made her Captain Kirk's estranged wife in the next Star Trek movie would anyone complain? Meredith comes back again once Tom has killed Dickie and tries to hide away in Rome. She's the consummate high society armpiece and seemingly a good egg to be around, but she just represents complication (Minghella speaks to how the relationship between Tom and Meredith is meant to mirror Dickie and Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow, Shallow Hal), and it does in a cracked mirror kind of way).  Tom lets Meredith down easy after a close encounter with Marge and Peter (Jack Davenport, Coupling), who we'll get to in a moment.  Meredith makes one last appearance, which we'll also get to in a moment.

The second new character is a real peripheral one, but Silvana (Stefania Rocca) lurks in the backgrounds of early scenes, her fetching short, mod haircut making her stand out.  She's Dickie's side-piece. In the story, traditionally, Dickie is with Maude quite committedly. They are a unit, but here, Silvana shows that Dickie has a more...free-flowing lifestyle, that he's not buckled down.  Silvana kills herself when Dickie rejects her (it's not until after we find out she was pregnant) and it wrecks Dickie, who starts to reexamine his life which means less time for Tom Ripley.

The third new character is the aforementioned Peter. He's a gay friend of Marge and Dickie who Tom meets originally at Dickie's place in Mongibello, but runs into again in Rome with Marge during intermission at the Opera (which Tom-as-Dickie is attending with Meredith). Peter's gaydar certainly pings wildly when he's around Tom.  Peter lives in Venice, so when Tom-as-Dickie finds the heat in Rome too much following Freddie Miles' murder, he returns to being Tom and starts building a life with Peter. 

Much how Tom-as-Dickie's relationship with Meredith is meant to be a cracked mirror of Dickie and Marge, Tom and Peter are yet another mirror. Being a mostly closeted gay man means having to pretend with Meredith, amid all the other pretending he is doing. Being Tom, and being open with Peter, about his sexuality at least, liberates Tom, except for his dark secrets which he can only allude to. But even as much as Tom and Peter mirror the other male-female relationships in the film, even more it holds a mirror up to the relationship between Tom and Dickie.

These new characters are all part of the nature of duality that Minghella is exploring in the movie, and the duality is layered. There's the duality of living in different class structures (Meredith speaks to the behaviour of those who grew up with money but try to shed the image that they care about it at all), and of course the duality of stealing someone else's life, and the duality of being a murderer, but then there's also Tom's sexual identity, of which, it's called out, homosexuality was illegal in Italy at that time the story takes place. Tom's not necessarily hiding his sexuality for criminal reasons, nor out of any sense of religious or social shame, he's really just trying to fit in to his surroundings, to be unnoticed wherever he is. Where the Tom Ripley of Zallion's TV series struggles with his ego, and having people recognize and praise and think well of Thomas Ripley, Matt Damon's Tom couldn't care less about protecting his name, he wants a lifestyle that he doesn't see any other way of achieving, but even more important to him is acceptance.

Silvana is a gateway to Dickie's dual nature, the guy who seems so carefree, nothing will tie him down. Jude Law's Dickie is into free jazz and free love and free time, he explores his passions at his whim without a lot of consideration for others. And yet, he's troubled by the spectre of commitment, to his family, to his girlfriend(s), to his friends, to what he should be giving back to the world for all that it has gainfully given him. Tom fits into his life so easily, because Tom wants that very free-wheeling life in the lap of luxury as well, so Dickie is happy to have a "yes man" to keep the good times going. It's Silvana's death, and the revelation that she was pregnant that causes him to reassess it all, to have his priorities flip. He commits to Marge and in doing so he needs to set his "yes man" free. And it gets him killed. Johnny Flynn's Dickie, in the Netflix show, is a lot more chill. He's not the radiant beacon of charisma that Law's Dickie is, nor is he as judgmental (Law's Dickie is mockingly cruel towards Tom on their first encounter), and rather than Jazz, it's art he's into. Flynn's Dickie is looking for something, something he can contribute to the world (writing and art clearly aren't it) and it's evident that, in both cases, the talents of one Mr. Ripley are greater than those of Dickie Greenleaf.. the difference is Flynn's Dickie is aware of it where Law's Dickie is not.

Peter is primarily a vehicle for exploring Ripley's sexuality. The book, if I remember correctly, doesn't keep it quiet but doesn't have the language to really explore it. Far more than I recalled, Minghella's script puts it right out in the open without being 1990's blunt about it. In Zallion's TV show, Andrew Scott's Ripley is far more taken with Dickie's lifestyle than Dickie himself. Becoming Dickie is a means to an end. In Minghella's version, Tom wants to be with Dickie, and if he can't then he will become him, as a consolation prize. Scott's Ripley is much more of a sociopath, while Damon's Ripley is much more emotionally driven.  Hence his relationship to Peter. It was as much sharing the lifestyle with Dickie that Minghella's Ripley loves, and so, with Peter, he's able to get the reciprocation that Dickie couldn't give him, and together they can share in the luxury in a way that it wasn't ever going to happen with Dickie.

Until the very end, a completely new story element devised by Minghella, where, on a cruise with Peter, Tom runs into Meredith. Meredith is kind of the last person who knows Tom as Dickie, and when they meet on the boat it's in a crowd of Meredith's family and peers. Tom is stuck. He cannot chuck her off the boat (as it's so evident in Minghella's direction that it's what he wants to do), it's far too exposed, but Peter...well, there's not really anyone else who knows they're together because of the very, very quiet lifestyle they're forced to lead. And so killing Peter is Tom's only out of this tense pickle.

One of my few complaints about 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley is that Tom winds up coming off more like a serial killer than an opportunistic grifter. The intensity of his dispatching of Peter (which is wonderfully done in voice over while Tom sits with his regret) signifies much darker impulses than the more kick-your-heels-up ending where Tom kind of gets away with everything (Andrew) Scott free, with a pile of Dickie's money freely given to him by Dickie's father, and a brand new identity to travel the world, although Zallion's direction there hints at Tom resisting temptation to panic every time he sees a cop or constantly look over his shoulder.

There are a great many differences between the two productions, while still working within the same story housing... same number of rooms, just more guests. As noted in my prior review of Ripley, it's a very decompressed show, very methodical, patient. Minghella's ...Mr. Ripley is breathtakingly brisk, but in being so brisk there are quite a few bits of shorthand that, in comparison to Zallion's show, seem blunt, such as the opening narration from Tom (never to be repeated throughout the film) or the clunky way in which Tom tells Dickie that he's able to mimic people, copy their handwriting etc. (though it does lead to its own smart way of showing Dickie's acceptance).  The shorter runtime is actually more appreciated, but the depth and time spent in the longer production has its own rewards.

Minghella's film is very, very well directed, and it's not a bad looking movie by any means, but it looks like a jar of mustard exploded in a sandbox compared to the luscious black and white, the exceptional wardrobes and flawless lighting of Ripley. 

Marge, played by Dakota Fanning in the Netflix show, is pretty wildly different than in the 1999 film. Paltrow's Marge is immediately friendly to  Tom, and, in bringing Peter into the fray, Minghella speaks to Marge being an early ally to gay men. It seems like Damon's Tom and Paltrow's Marge are friends, something you never even get close to in the show. Fanning's Marge is immediately skeptical of Tom, leery even. She really dislikes him, and he dislikes her. But he tries to put himself in Dickie's headspace and fakes his friendliness.  Once Tom starts posing as Dickie is when Paltrow's Marge starts to doubt him. Fanning's Marge starts to become even more wary of Tom as he tries to juggle being both roles of Tom and Dickie.  But it's in the finale when things really deviate. Andrew Scott's Tom's has woven such an extensive web of lies, Fanning's Marge is completely caught up in it. Tom doesn't know if she's strong enough to break the web, but she is not, and eventually fully concedes to the lies about Dickie. Paltrow's Marge, in the end, is in hysterics, with not a fraction of a doubt about Tom's guilt in Dickie's disappearance, something Dickie's dad hand-waves away.  It's a very interesting inverse character arc for the same character in the same story that yields almost no different result.

There's obviously other differences, particularly in casting. Freddie Miles, as played in the Netflix show by gender-neutral actor/musician (and Sting's kid) Eliot Sumner and by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film. Sumner carries Freddie with a quiet dignity and a defiantly wicked sense of style. Freddie is alluring and mysterious and attractive, and the plentiful queer vibes just radiate off them. Like with Peter in the film, Tom *should* be attracted to Freddie, but Scott's Ripley detests his very interloping presence.  Here's another man that has a relationship to Freddie and it makes Tom very, very jealous. Plus, Freddie seems to "see" Tom, and tests him with innocuous probing questions that discomfort Tom greatly.

Comparatively, in the film Hoffman's Freddie is a braggadocios American who just slides into Dickie's life and sucks all his attention away from Tom. Freddie, in Hoffman's hands, is the life of the party, but also the guy who sucks up all the energy in the room for himself. He is the epitome of the entitled asshole, and unlike Dickie or Meredith he has no reservations or distaste for his second-hand wealth. He seems like the kind of guy who would consume the whole world if it would give him a moment's pleasure.  Like his TV show counterpart, Hoffman's Freddie picks up on everything that is wrong about Tom and taunts him mercifully for it. He's not shy about it. Where Sumner's Freddie was discrete, Hoffman sees Tom as a parasite and wants to pop that tick right off Dickie's back. The big difference between the two is how with Sumner, you love his Freddie right away, and you don't share in Tom's view of him as a bad guy. His assessment of Tom as something unsavoury is just saying what we've been thinking all along. But Hoffman's Freddie...oh, you just want him dead, and Tom is more than happy to oblige.  Freddie's death in Ripley is a tragedy. His death in The Talented Mr. Ripley is a mercy on us all.

The last thing I'll say about this at this point is Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley has revealed itself as one of the great stories in fiction. Just between these two productions the vast differences in perceptions of the characters, their mindsets, their portrayals... it's a dark, tragic crime story that can be adapted over and over and over again and not feel the same way twice. I'm absolutely itching to get to Purple Moon and, in advance, I apologize for what will likely be a very similar post comparing the three productions.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Breathe

2024, Stefan Bristol (See You Yesterday) -- download

Kent saw his previous film, which is on My List. Kent spoke very positively about it, but I have a feeling he wouldn't be as generous with this one. When I was downloading the movie, a po-ap thriller about the planet after all the oxygen goes away (by way of apocalypses, that is not new, but usually they are far future, not "20 minutes from now") and focuses on a single family living in Brooklyn with their oxygen generator, the first comment I came across complained about it being a black movie. The family is black, and the Bad Guys are white. That's all the commenter saw, and that made it a terrible movie. There are lots of reasons to dismiss the movie but.... really, white fragility? Come on Racist Internet, make more effort.

Yes, this a "black movie", in that it takes a bit more care in presenting the characters -- they are not just generic Americans living an interchangeable life with any other (non-black) generic Americans. I am not going to comment too much on what that says, but the creator does create these characters from their own experience. And yet, its clear enough that is not all that the movie is about. I mean, its pretty fucking obvious this is a post-apocalyptic movie about a single family trying to survive a terrible existence against untrustworthy foes. The problem is that aspect of the movie is so very very generic and mundane.

The movie starts with Dad (Common, Wanted) and Grampa out hunting for supplies, and Grampa ducks into bookstore to grab something for his granddaughter. The world outside is not only absent of oxygen but something else has happened leaving everything under a dusty, burnt umber coloured sky, buildings crumbling, all the water gone as well. Meanwhile Mom is planting seeds and arguing with her Daughter -- they have a contentious relationship refereed by Dad. Unfortunately Grampa falls through the floor of the bookstore and dies, and Dad wants to deliver him to Grandma's grave. He never returns.

Months later, Maya (Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls) and Zora (Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild) are still constantly arguing, while Zora spends her evenings on a ham radio talking to Dad -- she misses him intently. And then the Bad Guys show up -- other survivors in their oxygen masks, carrying guns, demanding to be let into the hidden, well enforced shelter. They claim to be from another shelter in nearby Phily where their oxygen generator is breaking down, and their spokesperson Tess (Milla Jovovich, Hellboy) knew Dad, and is asking for his help. From the get go, there is no reason to trust their yelling, gun toting, threatening asses. 

There is a brief hint we could be sympathetic to these crazy, desperate people, but nope, they are just trope-driven antagonists. This is where the movie just falls flat, as all the characters are very cardboard. Only Zora seems to have any chance on coming out as a real character. She's smarter, probably smarter than Dad the Genius Engineer. But she is still a teen and always fighting with Maya, suffering isolation and loneliness and probably more than a little defeatist depression. But Maya is a classic hardass helicopter mom, and it takes the violent interaction of three interlopers to understand the need to be more connected to her daughter. 

There is very little world building, no idea of what happened to it, and yet, also not enough real character driven elements to make this movie compelling. In the end I am not sure what was driving it, what was motivating it, what did it hope to accomplish other than the effort of making another movie, telling another story, and apparently, I am OK with that ?

Fuck, what I am not OK with is the fucking terrible movie posters than are completely focused on "recognizable faces". I chose this one for the colour pattern, but not a single poster even had Zora's face, and all of them made Milla's the biggest, even though her role is next to nil. I think, technically, she might have more lines than Bad Guy #2 (Sam Worthington, Simulant) but nothing significant. And its depressing that she ended up being the name for the movie.

Watching: Dark Winds

S01 2022, download

This is another one that probably should be relegated to a I Saw This (!!) post, as I barely remember it. I am sure I will recall more as I re-read more, starting with the One Episode style post from when we first attempted, and failed, to watch the first season. I also swore Kent wrote about the first season, but that must have been in an alternate reality.

I won't repeat what I said in that older post, but suffice to say, we really like Zahn McClarnon (Doctor Sleep). We really liked the idea that he both got to play a familiar character AND be presented, finally, as the Main Character. I was less jazzed by it being set in the 70s, as I would rather explore our current tumultuous (if getting better?) relations with indigenous culture, and surprisingly, also less interested that it had supernatural overtones. But we gave it more time, and it was worth it. I really enjoyed the series, and its about time we downloaded the subsequent season.

So, Joe Leaphorn, head of the Navajo Tribal Police, is investigating a murder of an elder in a hotel, as well as the daughter of an old friend, a girl his own late son used to date. The sole survivor is an old, blind, traumatized woman. Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon, Blood Quantum), who we know is an undercover FBI agent, is assigned to the reserve as the new deputy. Chee is university educated and hasn't been back to the reservation since leaving to go to school. Chee has been sent into the reservation to find bank robbery money.

There's a lot going on in the show. The show is not afraid to tell the stories happening on the reservation, not as individual episodic plots, but intertwined into everything as life is. Leaphorn's wife (Deanna Allison, Accused) has taken in a young pregnant woman, afraid the clinic (where Emma is a nurse) will sterilize the young woman after she gives birth. The father of the murdered girl is at odds with Leaphorn because he was shot during an altercation after an explosion at the mine where Leaphorn's son was killed. Leaphorn's deputy Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten, Tribal) is not fond of Chee as he dismisses her strong connection to her people's spirituality -- you see, there are witches about and Chee mocks the idea. Money from the robbery is being cleaned through a local gift shop and cheesy used car sales lot, and a visiting Mormon family runs afoul of the robbers. Yeah, a lot is going on.

But yet, the show still excels better than most of pulling it all together without seeming far fetched. I like my murder mystery shows, the ones that involve pulling at multiple threads, but I also like being exposed to a world I am not entirely familiar with. I have already mentioned my great fondness for Longmire, which McClarnon is a part of (similar role, but Leaphorn is more sympathetic if less complicated) and it was my original attraction to the show, but they are two very very different shows, only connecting through the lead actor and an exposure to the challenges of Native Americans just trying to live their lives.

Of note, I might try to give "Tribal" a shot, a very Canadian crime show also set on a reserve and starring Jessica Matten but... I expect it to be so very very Canadian. There was a time when Canadian scifi dominated the small screen, but had a very very distinct style and production level which had it dismissed by most. I kind of feel that way about Canadian crime shows now.

Watching: Sugar S1

2024, Apple TV+ / Download 

Going into the show, I knew it was going to be a stylish, noir nodding, detective show set in modern LA starring Colin Farrell and just that had me sold. What I didn't expect, but was an added bonus was the twist.

Kent just wrote about it. I didn't even expect him to be watching it.

This is squarely in my wheelhouse. Everything about it fit what I wanted right now: a noir setting, LA, a tough, capable, mysterious but kind main character. There are few shows out there where people are kind. We just turned down the latest relaunch of British crime character Rebus because all the main characters were thoroughly dislikeable. 

John Sugar (Colin Farrell, The Batman) returns from Japan to pick up a case his handler cautions him against taking. He is a private detective who specializes in finding people. The granddaughter of a famous movie producer has gone missing. John is really into movies, and you get the idea he has built his identity around noir film characters, but choosing to be better. The granddaughter has gone missing before, but Grampa Siegel (James Cromwell, Star Trek: First Contact) feels this is different. Her father, his son (Dennis Boutsikaris, Law & Order: SVU; is that what his name is? I have seen him in dozens of roles and, I guess, did not know what his name was), seems less than happy Sugar is looking for her. Add into the messiness is her half-brother, a child star trying to resurrect a career but is under a sexual assault investigation where one accuser cannot be paid off.

This is Hollywood seedy. Sugar seems at ease here not letting their darkness touch him. Until it does.

Like all noir, there is a lot going on here. There are layers to everything going on. But this show has an additional layer, an even more mysterious secret that it hints for much of the show, and actually reveals near the end. It all centers around who John Sugar is, and who is the cabal of multi-language speakers he associates with. Much of the show's hints let you have fun positing what they are. The reveal is not the point of the show, the noir detecting is, its just a fun additional layer. And as Kent pointed out, there was an additional layer to the reveal that is... well, kind of annoying, feels kind of shoe-horned in, introduced solely to setup further seasons and motivations.

But still, I loved every moment of the show. There is a key scene where it established how much I would like this show, and this character. John is direct, forthright and attentive to people. He is kind. He acknowledges a homeless man, with a dog, not just interacting with him but making an active choice to help the man, encourage him to mend his rifts with family, get off the streets, feed himself and his dog. Sugar is a better man than me, better than most. The scene set a tone for who the show wants us to root for, and it was nice to finally skip past the usual "troubled man, troubled past" of crime fiction. And the show doesn't toss away his kindness after one establishing scene; he handles each and every person he interacts with, with the same fairness and kindness, until they give him no choice but to be unkind. And then he is, regretfully, very very violent.

1-1-1-KsMIRT: May I have another...

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (or mebbe 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 few weeks.  

This month:

Ripley Season 1(?) - Netflix 

Sugar Season 1- AppleTV+ (8 episodes)

X-Men '97 Season 1- Disney+ (13 episodes)

Extraordinary Seasons 1 & 2 - Disney+ (8 episodes each)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 - Disney+ (15 episodes) 

Star Wars: Tales of the Empire - Disney+ (6 episodes)

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Ripley Season 1(?) (8 episodes)

The What 100: A new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, set in the 1950s, finds small-time New York con artist Thomas Ripley sent to Italy to try and convince Dickie Greenleaf, son of a shipping magnate living the life of leisure, to return home to his parents. When Tom presents himself, Dickie finds Tom curious and brings him into his life. Tom becomes entranced by both Dickie and his lifestyle, and eventually takes both for his own. But some people find Tom totally suss....

(1 Great) Holy crap does this show every look capital g Gorgeous. Shot in black and white, every single scene is lit perfectly to accentuate the light and the shadows. The night scenes have a particularly ethereal quality to them, with a backdrop of light seemingly far in the distance that makes everything so crisp. Or the scenes of Ripley on a ferry between Italian islands, the images of the water are mesmerizing in their inky blackness. Plus the costuming is such finely tailored Italian 1950's leisure wear, and oh, those Italian villa settings, even all those stairs. It's all just so sumptuous.  I don't have a background in Fellini or the other Italian new wave directors who seemingly inspire so many filmmakers to venture into black-and-white endeavours in the country, but I've never seen it look this good. It's all around a pretty good series, but the filmmaking, the style, the look is what makes it so worthwhile.

(1 Good) I've read the book and seen, a few times, the 1999 Matt Damon-starring version of this story. I don't know that the story needed to be padded out to the roughly 8-hour running time of this show, but it all still works. It's what I'd call "patient television", or even "patient cinema" as it is extremely cinematic. It is a change of pace, it is methodical, it is very interested in composing a scene and living within it for as long as possible. What the pacing does is really ratchet up the tension as we know, very very early, that Tom Ripley is a fraud, not a good guy, and that sense of danger that Maude senses in him is what attracts Dickie to be around him (and us to watch him). He is an cunning parasite, Mr. Ripley is, and, what's more, he's not particularly that charming. He truly is an off-putting person (Andrew Scott, despite playing a character at least 10 years younger than his actual self, inhabits the role and is brilliant in his very controlled mannerisms) and yet, the amazing feat of the show is how it makes you both despise him and root for him at the same time (it's something inherent in the story but still a challenge to pull off). You know a person like that needs to be stopped, he needs to be found out, and yet, you also want him to get away with it. You want him to develop, to become more appealing, to become almost superpowered in his ability to get away with things. It's a nasty trick to play on an audience. 

(1 Bad) I would have to say that it is, indeed, too long. Especially since the tone of the series, which is really foreboding and intense for the first four episodes, starts to lean into Highsmith's jet black humour in the second half. Both Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn are really good in their roles (Fanning, particularly, as Dickie's girlfriend Maude, is so great at making Maude so average as to be inoffensive, but her spot-on distaste for Tom somehow makes her very unlikable...it's a crazy tightrope she walks flawlessly) but the show ignites when Maurizio Lombardi playing Inspector Ravini arrives in episode six and it's the very flame that the show was clearly missing all along. It really needs to compress the first half to get to Ravini faster.  The pacing won't be to everyone's liking, and may be the reason many bow out, but wow is it ever a rewarding series.

META: We watched the first two episodes in a row, then watched the next five week-to-week, because I really couldn't take the intensity of pacing more than one episode at a time.  That is, until Ravini came on the scene.  I am 100% on board for more Andrew Scott as Ripley if Netflix should consider further seasons adapting the other novels, but, man, oh man do they ever need to spin off Lombardi's Ravini into his own series. What a charm machine that guy is with a sense of humour so dry you need to apply lotion afterwards.

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Sugar Season 1 (8 episodes)

The What 100: Henry Sugar is a private detective who finds missing people. He is brought on board a case where a Hollywood mogul's granddaughter has gone missing. She was an addict in the past and had disappeared before, but this time is different, her grandfather says. So why does the rest of her Hollywood Elite family not seem to care, and in fact seem to be working against Sugar's investigations? 

(1 Great) I have to say, I think Henry Sugar is a wonderful character. The first episode of the show I was absolutely floored by how decent a human being Sugar is. He's just the most grounded person, a guy who connects with people, who looks them in the eye, and listens when they talk. He thinks in film noir, as if they're his frame of reference for life, but as much as he admires movies, they sort of teach him how not to behave. Sugar's last resort is violence, and more than anything tries to avoid it, but when he must, well...he certainly can inflict it. Colin Farrell has gone from being someone I reluctantly appreciated for his talent to someone I greatly admire for it. He is such a deep performer, one of the best of his generation, quietly so.

(1 Good) The tone of the series is modern noir, and it works within that milieu quite well, until....

(1 Bad) The ending, if you were ever in doubt, has Sugar finding the missing girl. But with the investigation seemingly wrapped, there's still one thread left untugged. And once Sugar starts tugging on that thread, the show starts falling apart for me. It's the end of the series and things should have wrapped up, but no, they have to start connecting the case to something much more personal to Sugar and it is so ham-fisted how they just smush in the setup for a second season. It was perfectly poised to have a sweet ending with a sense of closure, but they blow it wide open with a Kool-Ade Man level of energy busting through the wall that the show did not need at all.

META: Neither good, nor bad, at least for me, was the secret revealed in the sixth episode. I was forewarned by another TV critic (ha! like I'm a TV critic) that such a twist was coming, and so I was prepared for it. In fact I had already sussed out the twist by I think episode two, or three at latest.  As such I wasn't surprised, nor put off as many people had been. The clues were all there.  It's not a successful reveal and I definitely understand why viewers were kind of repulsed by it. But frankly I found the sort of Shyamalan-esque twist in the finale much, much more off-putting. 

One other really off-putting aspect of the series is its woozy handheld camera style that leads to some really abrasive edits and whole sequences which are kind of repulsive to watch. I really greatly dislike this style of film and/or television production, and when paired with that ending, I'm not really looking forward to any more of the show, despite liking the character.

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X-Men '97 Season 1 (13 episodes)

The What 100: X-Men was a cartoon that ran five seasons from 1992 through 1997. X-Men '97 picks up where it left off, as if it were the very next season of the series. Charles Xavier is dead, and mutantkind has received a sudden burst in sympathy because of the sacrifice he apparently made. Cyclops is burdened with running the school (which isn't really operating as a school) and leading the X-Men. He's being a total whiny baby about it. He was plotting a life away from both with pregnant Jean and now he's stuck, and upheaval after upheaval follow.

(1 Great) Episode 5 has an absolutely Earth shattering moment of undeniably nuclear superhero animation proportions that left I, along with many other fanboys and fangirls with their jaws on the floor. It was a brassy storytelling move that will probably upset any children that might find their way to this continuation of a 90's kids' programme.

(1 Good) I really hated the animation of the old X-Men series. It was taking Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Marc Silvestri, and Rob Liefeld's very detailed and line-heavy art and designs and trying to simplify it to repeatable animation with clunky and disastrous results. I found it borderline unwatchable. But this series, the animation is so much cleaner, crisper, tighter, and the action sequences are so dynamic with a touch of anime thrown in.  At times you can tell different animation studios were handling chores of different sections of the episode as certain segments get so much more dynamic than others.  I even think the animators for the first episode or two tried to replicate the clunkiness of the old series and ease into the newer animation style.

(1 Bad) Holy crap does this series ever burn through storylines at a breakneck speed. It doesn't spend any time lingering on any event or plot for much longer than an episode. It feigns interest in the idea that these stories have some sort of impact on the characters, but it never explores them to any satisfactory degree. It's all American animation shorthand and platitudes. It's like it's trying to race through the past 25 years of X-Men stories from the comics as fast as they possibly can, like they need to get through them all or they're doing something wrong.  What has made the X-Men such a popular entity for 60-ish years isn't the action, but the characters and their evolution as a result of the drama and the melodrama. I'm not sure this show captures that effectively.

META: As I said, I really couldn't stand the old cartoon. Lady Kent and I, for a lark, watched a random selection of episodes of the series one evening, and after maybe five or six episodes, around two hours worth, we tapped out. What we liked the most were the episodes that didn't really feature the X-Men at all, the ones where the story detours into a different era and focuses on characters other than the main ones.  The main cast of this series, to me, are an utter drag.  I find Cyclops, Jean and Xavier to be insufferable characters, and I roll my eyes at almost every spoken line of dialogue they have. 

The vocal performances are, somewhat, stuck with what came before by and large, and I always disliked the voice work on the old show. Comparing the voice work of X-Men to the Bruce Timm animated DC series (Batman, Superman, Justice League, Batman Beyond) is like comparing pop music to elevator music. Both are made by skilled professionals, but one has a power the other just does not. One had Andrea Romano as casting director, and the other did not. The voice work here is not terrible, but it's not great either.

Is this better than the old X-Men series? Absolutely. But did I enjoy watching it...? I found it to be a curiosity. I turned in week to week to puzzle over the decisions made and the many, many, many opportunities lost for dramatic interest. Yes, the action is pretty wild (and so fast-paced!), but I found myself yelling at the TV far more often than clapping with excitement or joy.  A hearty "not for me".

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Extraordinary Seasons 1 & 2 (8 episodes each)

The What 100: It seems everyone in London (and maybe on the planet) was granted superpowers...well, almost. Jen is one of the few who either does not have a power, or it has not revealed itself. She is roommates with her best friend, Carrie who can channel dead people (including Jen's father), and Carrie's boyfriend Kash who can turn back time a brief amount. Demure Carrie is trying to establish some authority in her life, while unemployed Kash wants to start a superhero team. Then they take in a stray cat, whom, for reasons, they dub Jizzlord, who turns out to be an amnesiac shapeshifter.  Season 2 delves into Jizzlord's past, Kash and Carrie (ha!) start new lives, and Jen goes to therapy.

(1 Great) In a time of superhero fatigue, something like Extraordinary comes along to remind you of the pliability of superpowers as a storytelling vehicle. Not being beholden to any specific property, or shared universe, or expectations allows the show to just do what it will. And what it does is character-based comedy with a few very sharp bits of personal and interpersonal drama. But there's also the sly bit of world building that circles it, that shows all the weird side hustles that people set up using their powers, and the way that some other jobs, and dating, and relationships with friends and family and whatnot change as a result. It's a show that's not afraid of being foul or gross but also has a pretty deep heart as well.  So, what's great is this show. Not perfect, but greatly enjoyable.

(1 Good) I really like all the performers on here, most of whom I'm unfamiliar with (though Jen's mom is played by Derry Girls' Siobhan McSweeney, and her dad is voiced by Father Ted's Ardal O'Hanlon) but it should be Carrie performer Sofia Oxenham who gets the first spotlight. The character of Carrie is so mousy, reserved and unassuming that it's easy to dismiss Oxenham's performance, but when she channels the dead, often a very specific person for a legal case at her law firm, her whole mannerisms change to the nature of the character, and it is transformative. It's not showy at all which is what makes it so effective. The first big spotlight is a Halloween episode where she channels a 1950's cinema sexpot who then completely takes over Carrie's body, but there's usually a new example each episode.

(1 Bad) I honestly have no complaints about the show. They even get most uses of superpowers right (at least right enough for a comedy program). I guess if anything I just want more of it. Two seasons of 8 episodes each was just too easy to consume.

META: There's so much to like about this show, but it does character development very well. There is definite growth to every main character of the show from the first episode to the end of the second season. The story arcs are pretty fun and they're more full-bodied in the second season. Jizzlord's ____ entering the picture leads to a lot of wild sitcom moments, while Jen's therapy visits in the second season are conceptually very stimulating.  Jen is a difficult person, which can be off-putting to some when starting the but it is a series that's endeavouring to show her potential to be better, while still letting her darker nature get the better of her for comedic effect.

Each season also ends with a pretty ripping cliffhanger. The first season was easy enough to deal with as we already had the second season on tap. The second season, though, is a big "woah" and we're going to have to wait for...whenever it is a new season is coming (not likely until next year, boo).

Also, I love to just say Jizzlord in Máiréad Tyers's Irish accent, just at random for no reason... "jizz-lahrdh".

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 (15 episodes) 

The What 100: Omega has been captured by the Imperials, in the same protected facility as Crosshair. Together they escape, but now she is perhaps the most hunted person in the Galaxy and nowhere is safe. Crosshair and his Batch 99 brothers have an uneasy reunion, and reestablishing trust proves hard. The team's objective is to keep Omega safe, but Omega insists that they find the uncharted planet of Tantiss and go back to the facility to rescue all the other imprisoned clones and force sensitive children that are there.

(1 Great) I have to say that the coda of The Bad Batch season 3, episode 15, was maybe my favourite moment of the series. It's not just that it takes a jump forward in time to show a few of our surviving characters where they are when the Rebellion against the Empire is in full swing, but it let me know that I really care about these characters, and really wanted to know what happens to them in the Star Wars time line going forward and what role they may have played in, or around future events than depicted elsewhere in the series.  I think the path for the 99 crew did run its course, those soldiers deserve their rest, but Omega has become such a unique, creatively cunning and talented character that she should definitely have a place retrofitted for her in later Star Wars adventures.

(1 Good) I think Star Wars, in the wake of Marvel's success, fell a bit to hard into the self-referential, shared-universe side, and in the process many of its stories and series lost site of the trees that make up the forest. The first season of The Bad Batch maybe traded a bit too much on being a Clone Wars spinoff, but certainly this, it's third and final season, it found its lane where it really had a story to tell and an objective it wanted its characters to achieve.  Even with a cameo from Governor Tarkin or Assajj Ventress, they're not overshadowing the overall story or character journey, but flow into them and help them progress.  Even if the backdrop of this show was around cloning and potentially tying into the stories of The Mandalorian  or even The Rise of Skywalker it never got specific about it, it never fully tied those threads together, because it wasn't what it was ultimately for. 

(1 Bad) This was the tightest scripted season of The Bad Batch, much like how Star Wars: Rebels got increasingly tighter as it progressed through its four seasons. If anything I think this season is the tightest of any of the Star Wars animated series so far, which just makes me wonder why the prior seasons needed to be so much looser, why Filoni has this strong desire for so much table setting that's as much navel gazing as it is establishing characters or environments.  So, the "bad" is not really about this season, but what it reveals about prior seasons and Dave Filoni's show construction in general.

META: There needs to be a Rebels prequel movie that doubles as a Bad Batch crossover

Why is the Bad Batch action figure situation such a shit show? Hunter and Crosshair were the first Bad Batch figures released in The Black Series back in the early pandemic times, in a wave that was short shipped due to such disruptions. I eventually got a Hunter (thanks to GZ for finding it for me at an American convention) and I had to settle for Crosshair in his second release Imperial costume. Then the other Bad Batch lads (and Omega) were seemingly everywhere, easy enough to get. But then newly designed costumes for season 2 came out only as Wal-Mart exclusives except Omega who was available everywhere. The hell was that all about?

And with the Vintage Collection, they released a Hunter figure last year...and that's it. It's baffling to this toy nerd how they decide these things.

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Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (6 episodes) 

The What 100: Star Wars: Ahsoka villain Morgan Elsbeth gets an origin story set during the Clone Wars when the Night Sisters were massacred. Then Morgan finds herself tested by Admiral Thrawn, before landing in place where we found her in The Mandalorian Season 2. Plus, former Jedi turned rogue assassin turned convict, Barriss Offee is recruited to the fledgling Inquisitorus, where she has to fight to the death other disillusioned Jedi to earn her place. But she finds the job she is tasked with well beyond what was called for, and seeks her own form of redemption.

(1 Great) I know not everyone has been as hot on the Inquisitors as I have (as many as stuck on the idea that Vader himself tracked down every remaining Jedi or force sensitive creature and killed them), but I've been a fan ever since they debuted in Rebels. I've been trying to track who all the Inquisitors are (as I know there are at least 14 brothers and sisters) and this Barriss Offee tale just provides more insight into them and their culture, but, like Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn't necessarily mean they are all completely Dark Side force users, and many have their own motivations. I can't say I was itching to find out what had happened to Barriss after the events of Season 5 of the Clone Wars, but I really, really, really like her journey here. In fact, I think Episode 6 of this series (the third in Barriss' arc) is an incredible piece of Star Wars storytelling, right up there with some of the best animated stories Filoni has produced. Kevin Kiner (with Sean and Deana Kiner), of course, doing stellar work as always.

(1 Good) I like this Tales of the... "series" as a construct. Tales of the Jedi came out in 2022, highlighting Ahsoka and Dooku but was less structured than this. Here it's taking a smaller-exposure character and using three quick (less than 15 minutes each) episodes to step them through their journey from either what happened after we last saw them, or what their journey was before we found them.  It works so well, an improvement upon Tales of the Jedi for sure.

(1 Bad) Because of timelines, Tales of the Jedi felt more disconnected, where Tales of the Sith seems more closely tied to The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian (and Rebels), but it just highlighted that these Tales of the... stories so far have mainly been playing in the Filoni-verse of Star Wars characters (Dooku being the only character to begin life as a live action). I would like to see Original Trilogy and Sequel characters get the treatment.

META: Why is this only 6 episodes covering these two characters? Why not 12 episodes covering four characters, or 18 episodes covering six characters? I would love that they do this with...well, any character of any significance. Give us a Lobot story or a 4-LOM story or a Balen Skol story or a Pelli Moto story or a Holdo story, or. or. or.... It's enough for these tertiary characters to just give them a little spotlight like this, ones that can both help with character building and galaxy building.