3+1 Short Paragraphs: The Bubble

2022, Judd Apatow (This Is 40) -- Netflix

Still writing posts during rewatches of Dune and The Batman, and getting nowhere with my latest Spider-Man movie post, which probably means a rewatch is warranted as well*. Its weird that I feel I should rewatch the movies before I write about them, because I want to give them what is due (but really, do I ever?) and yet here I am filling in the gap with a movie I watched pretty much before all of these (Dune is the exception) and I am just going with it. I guess that says something about how much I care about it.

* I used to think that having a (usually strong) beer late in the evening was lending itself to forgetting everything about a movie three days after watching it, but of late, I think its just stress-brain.

This movie was all about the teasers that came out EVERYWHERE long before the movie was released on Netflix. These teasers were for the movie that is being made in The Bubble which is about a group of actors and supporting crew cloistered in a country estate hotel in Britain during a pandemic, desperate to make a movie despite all the challenges. Said movie is the latest in a popular monster adventure franchise called Cliff Beasts. These are terrible, Asylum level movies but based on the energy the cast, crew and producers are putting into making the movie, I would hazard it is more akin to Jurassic Park in this world. Nobody wants this latest sequel but the producers are desperate to make money during a pandemic, even while they vacation off-camera in locales utterly unaffected by any pandemic restrictions, more likely because money.

I am now pretty sure that movies from and about the pandemic are going to have a very very short shelf-life in our movie watching legacy. This came out at the (fingers crossed) tail end of our own very real pandemic but already it seems so out of touch. It wanted to poke fun at the protocols and lazy restrictions put in place, and all the hoops actors and crew were forced to jump through just so the money grubbing production companies (the studios) could continue to make money, not giving a rat's ass about humans getting sick. But all the trappings around it just fell flat for the most part, reminding me why I don't watch more Apatow flicks. 

That said, there were some pretty good performances by pretty great people. Iris Apatow, Judd and Leslie's daughter, is great as a vapid social media star cast in the movie purely for the youth demographic -- she does a Tik Tok style dance with a dinosaur, which we also get to see depicted by a couple of wry guys in terrible green mocap suits. Pedro Pascal is Dieter, a method actor who spends most of the movie under the influence of one thing or another, desperate to get into anybody's pants. David Duchovny, Peter Serafinowicz, and Leslie Mann also put in some fine performances, i.e. I had nothing to complain about their characters, but they did nothing more than what they were paid to do. And Karen Gillan is Carol, the closest thing the movie has to a main character, not really interested in doing the movie since she left the franchise, but needs the money and exposure after some disastrous choices. Gillan is Hollywood, and ... well, she left me feeling flat, much like the movie did.

KIMI

 2022, d. Steven Soderbergh - HBO Max

Soderbergh took a sabbatical from making films in 2013 leaving Side Effects and Behind the Candelabra as his last releases.  He cited fatigue and dissatisfaction as his reason for leaving film, but it didn't take.  He promptly returned with the TV series The Knick in 2014 and Mosaic in 2015, both for HBO.  In 2016 he announced he was working on Logan Lucky, and since it's release in 2017, he's made at least one film per year, if not more.  

His turnaround, his re-invigoration is a result of the drastic shift in filmmaking technology, simplifying the filmmaking process for him.  Soderbergh has always had an experimental bent, and has always been prolific, but since return he's been pushing his limits, seeing how much ambition he can pack into a quick shoot and low budget.  Unlike many directors, he's not shy about the medium of delivery, his last five films appearing on either Netflix or HBO Max, and it's clear that talent is still very keen to work regardless of the medium. Meryl Streep, Benicio Del Toro, Antonio Banderas, Gary Oldman, Don Cheadle, Candice Bergen, Jon Hamm among others have all appeared in these recent films.

His latest stars Zoe Kravitz in a classic-styled thriller that plays like a cross between Rear Window and Blow-Out, with Saul Bass opening credits and a Hitchcock cameo seemingly the only things missing.  In the film a Google Home/Alexa alternative, KIMI, is about to launch its initial public offering.  Their differentiating point is that rather than using an AI to refine its system it uses people to resolve errors in understanding.  Kravitz is Angela, one of those people, working from her Seattle apartment, which, we quickly learn she confines herself to due to crippling anxiety.  While processing her daily log of errors, she comes across a partial recording, a troubling clip that seems to indicate an assault in process.  The film then follows her as she tries to figure out what to do next.

Despite the fact that Angela has confined herself to her apartment, there is a whole microcosm around her.  In the building across the way is a guy whom she's been having a dalliance with, but is frustrated with her agoraphobia. Her upstairs neighbour is renovating his apartment so there's some friendly conflict there.  Another neighbour is always in his window looking out.  Angela talks with her mom, her therapist, coworkers and consults with her dentist on video chat.  In the background, the COVID pandemic is still in effect, but later stages where people can be in public but with masks.  And there are protests, in this case revolving around caring for the homeless, but invoking Black Lives Matters.  All of these elements come into play as Angela uncovers the truth behind the crime.

It's not a complicated film.  The "conspiracy", if you will, is fairly straightforward and obvious, given the set-up in the opening moment, but it's more about how Angela, an atypical protagonist, handles the situation she's in, using her wits, and her anxiety, to survive. 

Soderbergh bring his visual flare to the piece, really embracing the natural light in a way that is somehow very lavish, but real.  His camera is playful with how it represents Angela's emotional state, and, as ever, a master of sound as a real controlling aspect of the story.  It's a rare sub-90-minute film that presents a familiar tale but with modern surroundings, not life changing, but a engaging watch.

Rewatch: WFH: The Happening

 2008, My Night Shyamalan (Old) -- Disney

As mentioned during my post about Awake, there is this spate of apocalyptic movies out there, where we get to watch an inexplicable event unfold. Nothing was more inexplicable in Shyamalan's career than doing a movie where the trees are trying to kill people. But even when I first saw it, I got what he was trying to do, in a style only he seems interested in resurrecting these days, a classic slow-paced thoughtful approach to horror most often attributed to Hitchcock. Cinematically, this is still a wonderful movie to see, but now a decade later, oh my, does the acting show through rough shod.

Mark Wahlberg and Zoey Deschanel are a couple going through a rough patch when an event hits the American north east. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the populace begins killing themselves in mass numbers. They are in NYC, and with little coaxing, hop on a train west, to head to a house in the country. If a terrorist bio-attack is happening, then hiding away from the cities should help. But soon it becomes clear that this deadly event is happening everywhere, urban or otherwise.

In a time when impending dread is a trigger for me, I was wondering how I would react (re)watching this movie. Given that the WFH tag forces me to watch in small doses, I was up for it, and also I have seen the movie a few times before. What I was surprised with was not being able to get past the two main characters. I am fine with Wahlberg's acting when he's playing an action hero, but here as a high school science teacher, he is entirely out of his element, not at all believable. And Deschanel's doe eyed stares and whiney lack of emotion quickly gets annoying. I get what Shyamalan was doing with having the event unfold around an incredibly mundane couple already in the middle of their own entirely mundane circumstance, but OMG I was boooooored by them. And that boredom killed the tension for me, for the most part.

The mass casualty, once introduced as the premise, happens entirely in the background. In other movies, this shock appeal would continue throughout, but Shyamalan narrows it down to the people travelling with or encountered by the main couple, until it is whittled down to ... just them. And then, once its determined the event is actually over, we pick up months later, and life just seems to have ... resumed. I guess, like what we are going through now, people who survive an ordeal are just determined to get back into the patterns defined as "normal" no matter what happened.

WFH: True Grit

 1969, Henry Hathaway (Prince Valiant) -- Amazon

This was to be the first of many Western movies to be watched in the spurts & moments that WFH allows me. I intended to watch some Spaghetti Westerns, but the Amazon and Netflix selection is scattered at best, and my completist brain just doesn't want to start somewhere in the middle. To support that desire, a brief amount of research said the Django and Sartana movies sound like a blast, especially considering they were coopted almost immediately after they became popular, basically because a character's name could not be copyrighted in Italy. Also, Italian authorities just didn't care. With Django for example, there are only two "official" movies, and more than a dozen unofficial. Imagine that being done today, where Neo from The Matrix stars in a dozen (probably terrible) movies after the Wachowskis finish their run.

Anywayz, I had always liked the Coen Bros remake (I did not remember that) and I actually have an excuse for not reviewing it on the blog, considering it came out in 2010. But its still weird that I recall writing about it, owing it to a moment of me blathering on to Kent about the movie, the type of blathering that inspired this blog. I specifically recall really enjoying the period dialogue that comes out of Mattie Ross's mouth, a stern, educated and very intense tone of speech that is her weapon against the rough & tumbles of the Old West. I was happy to find that this was inherent to the original, and not just a Coen Bros typical quirk.

Mattie's father is shot down by a ranch hand whom he has befriended, despite everyone's misgivings. The drunken, violent man runs off with her father's money into the "Indian territory" where few of the law can follow. So Mattie is forced to enlist a US Marshal, and she wants one with "true grit", basically that legendary level of dedication and violence she believes is required to catch the dastardly fellow. The marshal she goes for is Rooster Cogburn, played expertly by an overweight, past his prime John Wayne. Rooster is known for shooting first, bringing home most of his quarry dead. But nobody doubts his ability. Interrupting her choice is LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger played by Glen Campbell, yes the country & western singer -- he is a "dashing" rogue, making immediate advances on Mattie, despite her young age, but just as quickly comes to dislike her for rebuffing him and choosing Rooster. That said, both men end up on the hunt.

Westerns, for me, were always like a D&D Adventure set in the wilderness, something I always looked forward to, as Player and as DM. The land they travel is wide, and mostly empty of settlements, with only the occasional safe spot. And it is utterly glorious to behold. Rooster, an accomplished tracker who knows the land, and the man he is hunting, quickly picks up the trail, chasing the man & the scoundrels he rides with (including a young Robert Duvall) to a dugout (basically a logs & thatch hut dug into the side of a mud cave) where he wounds some, kills others. The outlaws escape, but Rooster gives chase. They eventually catch up, but mainly due to some folly of Mattie's.

Rooster is a drunk, falling down and foolish. LaBoeuf, who is played much straighter than Matt Damon's clownish ranger in the remake, is both loyal and consternating. He despises Mattie, probably mostly because she doesn't fall prey to his charms. He despises Rooster even more because the man is capable without even trying. He is on the hunt for his own reasons, but in the end, as Rooster puts, he saves Rooster's skin twice, once after he was already dead. In that LaBoeuf redeems himself, but at the cost of his own life, and Rooster shows his true grit, racing to save Mattie from a snake bite's doom.

I need to add this movie to my shelf, which only contains a few westerns. I might do both versions. There is a charm, in the dialogue and in the unabashed love for the wild land it is shot in, that I cannot resist. Oh, like most westerns of the late 60s/70s it is overly melodramatic in the score, and I hate the theme music, but the style is crisp & gritty, and showing true grit.

Rewatch: WFH: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

 2001, Simon West (Con Air) -- Netflix

The Jolie versions of this video game franchise adaptation are not very good, and really meant only for the 14 year old boys who played the original games and were somewhat fixated with the "bumpers". Both the remake game, and the movie of such, were slightly better, in that Lara is better dressed, and more realistic. That said, I should rewatch the Vikander one, and post my thoughts. I believe the original post was lost in the Great Deleting.

The plot of the first Jolie movie is a weird one. Lara Croft, daughter of a famous, wealthy archeologist who disappeared years ago, is left with her toys, and a large estate staffed by two, just two. She is a dilettante, known for "tomb raiding", i.e. not even as noble as Indiana Jones was, but likely for profit with little care for the artifacts or the cultures. But she is our not quite likeable protagonist.

The plot is also ludicrous. Her father tasked her with protecting a great secret, involving The Illuminati and a celestial convergence that happens once every 5000 years. Given her father asked her to Not Let It Happen, she does everything but stop it from happening. While its not really her fault she let The Illuminati know she had a key component, which they promptly steal, but given a chance at actually stopping it, during a fight in Cambodia with magical statues, she completes the ritual instead. Why? No real reason but that she wants to see what would happen. And prove she is smarter than them. And she pretty much destroys this hidden tomb temple in the progress.

Think about it; if she just let the ritual fail there, they would have to wait 5000 years. Alas, a tomb raider has to raid, so off she goes joining the Illuminati and their betrayer on a journey to the top of Russia where an ancient city has the last tomb to raid, a city not unlike the pyramid under the Antarctic ice in Alien vs Predator. This time she almost seems ready to end the ritual, but instead completes it YET AGAIN, allowing her to turn back time, and save her Daniel Craig, her ex-BF also betrayer. After that she beats up The Bad Guy and saves the world. Finally. And we even get one more shower-thoughts bouncing bumpers scene to end off the movie. 14 year old boys.

Why did I watch this again? Admittedly, I really wanted to see if it was as bad as I vaguely remembered, and I was remembering correctly, and also... *blush* ... my inner 14 year old boy.

One final amusing note. Jolie, an American, does a terrible British accent. And Daniel Craig, a Brit, puts on a even more terrible American accent. Not sure why.

n Paragraphs: Godzilla vs Kong

2021, Adam Wingard (Blair Witch) -- download

OK, let's do this. 

I had to rewatch because, while I viewed it when it came out (the wonders of piracy, while it still exists) I didn't write about it. I blame COVID brain. It will continue to be the Great Excuser even when the media consumed was not during the weeks I actually suffered from COVID. The Pause pauses much.

Also, I made notes as I rewatched, as I was not as much concerned by regularly pausing and continuing. I have noticed that this leads to a less-than-overall-view-of-the-movie writing style, and lends itself more to a chronological run-through or recap. Not that interesting, but interesting to me.

Anywayz, I liked it again. But not as much as the first time round, where I turned my brain off and just enjoyed the pretty colours and monster knife fights. This time was more tainted by the "OMG the dumbs!" interfering with the fun. This is not a smart movie. But wherein I disliked the second movie so much for being Dumb Dumb Dumb, and I got very little Fun out of it, with this one I got loads of Fun. Fun trumps smart, I guess.

We begin with Kong, Kong on Kong Island (OK, Skull Island) waking up, scratching his butt like the old man he has grown into since the get-this-monkeyfucking-monkey-off-my-monkeyfucking-plane movie that introduced him. But it's NOT Skull Island, it's a compound built on what remains of the island after the storms took it over, probably killing everyone and everything. He's Under the Dome, a dome with holographic skies and a dome that he knows is there. And he don't like it. But nice scientist lady (Rebecca Hall, Iron Man 3) and little deaf girl take care of him, so he's OK.

By this time we are supposed to assume Kong has grown up from 100 odd feet to 300 odd feet, so he matches the height of Godzilla, who will be known affectionately as GZ from now on. But really, I am not convinced. He doesn't look that much bigger based on his surroundings. We are expected to ignore that.

Next up we get the Attack on Apex Cybernetics. They call it a robotics plant, but it looks more like an oil refinery meets a nuclear plant. You would think a robotics plant would just be lots and lots of boxes housing science labs and manufacturing floors. But that's not interesting enough for GZ to stomp or lazer blast. Yes, lazer, not laser. GZ's atomic blasts are frickin' lazer beams. When the dust settles the news claims only 8 died. Yeah, not buying it. Considering the lazer beams and explosions and fighter jet crashes, dozens if not hundreds should have died. Speaking of fighter jets, quit flying so close guys -- you just know he is going to swat ya like an annoying bug.

During this point in the movie, I realized I am kind of watching a Michael Bay movie. There are big exciting set pieces, lots of explosions and an annoying, comical character whom I don't like. I get, from a screenplay point of view, why these characters exist -- lighten up the situation, bring it more to the ground so we can get plot exposition. But as a tie to bring Maddie (Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things) back to the story, its incredibly weak.

So, GZ is attacking, they don't know why, but Evil Tech Guy (Demián Bichir, The Bridge) is likely causing it. His plan is to convince people that they have to go to the Centre of the (Hollow) Earth where they will find a power source that can protect them from GZ, and other titans. Nobody knows the way there, but Kong is probably drawn by genetic memory. Skull Island is supposed to be Hollow Earth come to the surface. So, Evil Tech Guy (and his sexy Asian Evil CTO) need to convince Hollow Earth Dude (Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood) to convince Nice Scientist Lady to convince Kong to join them in finding the way to Hollow Earth.

I have seen this movie twice now, but I am not sure I catch what Evil Tech Guy is using as leverage. I said power source, but I not convinced that is the reason. Why do they think a power source is at the centre of the planet? And how will it help them?

And speaking of the Hollow Earth, we get Hollow Earth Dude. He's an AUTHOR, an author on a pseudo-science topic that has to be more speculation than anything. But they are using HIS theories as a source, along with some magnetic imaging of the centre of the planet that show a big hollow sphere. Hint, when they get there, THERE IS NO HOLLOW SPHERE. I would think they used that "magnetic imaging" as a ruse to get Hollow Earth Dude to join them, but I don't know why they need him. Its not like all his crazy books add any air of authenticity to his theories. But still, they do convince Nice Scientist Lady and pack everyone and Kong up on a bunch of ships to sail to Antarctica where the best entrance to the Hollow Earth likely is, according to his theoretical books. And he also gets to school them on how the journey will go, gravitic inversions and such, and The Veil, which allows them to travel quickly to the centre, some thousand miles below. Again, he cannot KNOW this, he just theorized it.

So, sailing on big military boats on routes they don't expect GZ to go, with a drugged up Kong while they play Elvis music. Why Elvis, I thought. Oh, The King. Heh. And GZ finds them, of course. I still don't get why a 300' monsters can sneak up on both the military AND Evil Tech Guy's entourage, which includes his Daughter (Eiza González, Baby Driver) [rawr].

The battle atop the ships is pretty exciting, if not exactly realistic. Yes yes, I get it, in a movie about Giant Monsters with Lazer Breath fighting, realism is already out the door. But something has always bugged me about movies set on a larger than life scale. As Kong hops from ship to ship, reaching the aircraft carrier in order to have some more room to fight, I wonder about the structural capability of American sea going vessels. Sure the BOAT is bigger, but that doesn't mean the materials that make it up are equivalently bigger. Shouldn't Kong just punch through the deck until his inertia is absorbed? 

Eventually GZ gives up, and leaves the survivors to escape, using the age old trope of "turn the power off, everything that makes a noise!" GZ is not tracking a submarine, he is tracking a giant ape who is still alive and gasping for life. But I assume GZ has made his point as to who is really King, so he carries on carrying on. 

Once he is gone, they need to continue to the Rabbit Hole, so they pickup Kong in a big ol net carried by a bunch of helicopters and vertibirds. But where did they come from? The aircraft carrier, and half the other ships are sunk, so ... OK, stop Toast and just keep on watching.

Back to the sideplot where Maddie and her sidekicks, including wonderful Julian Dennison (Where the Wilder People Are) are off to Hong Kong, via the magic maglev trains that travel 260 mph, so they can transport SkullCrawler eggs to ANOTHER secret Apex base. Shouldn't our side story side kicks be tossed against the back wall of the train car? Its not like that have starship inertial dampeners. Once they have arrived they find the real reason Evil Tech Guy needs the Centre of the Earth power source (still don't know how he knows about that stuff), so that he can power up Mecha GZ ! Yup, he has built his own Titan to fight the other titans and become King of the World. Also, Evil CTO is its pilot. You would think he would hire people to do that stuff.

And now back to going down the rabbit hole in their own versions of Apex maglev trains, the H.E.A.V. ships, modeled like one of their engineers saw The Core. They convince Kong to swing his way down the tunnels from Antarctica to the Centre of the Earth by having the little deaf girl lie to Kong. Oh, did I mention Kong speaks American Sign Language? Heh. 

But with Kong swinging, they all follow until they reach The Veil. What? Why? How? Apparently there is a magical barrier between the surface and the Centre that will allow them to "travel thousands of miles in seconds." I guess something had to be done, as the movie couldn't waste hours if not days as the group travels to The Core. So, magic space warp veil thingie hand wavey science that somehow crazy book author was aware of.

Once they are in the Hollow Earth (which is not a sphere, but a PLANE -- the only thing I can think of is that the core of the Earth is still further in, but the "Hollow Earth" is an open shell around it all, which has magical "gravitic inversion") it looks incredible. Who knows where the "sunlight" comes from but all those mountains "above" and "below" look incredible. I felt I was back watching one of those Journey to the Centre of the Earth movies from the 70s that I loved so much. If only we had got to see lizard people! Perhaps they were the carvers of the realm that the Kongs ruled over? 

This underground jungle is full of trees and water and breathable air and blue rocks and other monster fauna. I do so like the Quetzalcoatl ! Kong is running and swinging towards... something. Evil Tech Guy's Daughter assumes it is the Secret Power Source that ... Kong just runs towards, just because? But no, he is actually heading towards the Kingdom of the Kongs, a hollow mountain fortress where Kong discovers his legacy and his ... THRONE !! Yep, Kong, King of Cimmeria! Its all so wonderfully grand and silly and incredible. By now I stop complaining internally and just enjoyed the batshit insane choices they were making. Kong has a BATTLEAXE that charges up !! Back in sidekick story, the Skull of Ghidora used as an uplink to MechaGZ!! And MechaGZ roars, because THAT is something you need programmed into a Giant Robot!! 

Now, GZ is drawn to Hong Kong by the Apex blinkey blink that... powers MechaGZ ? But he is also aware (???) that Kong has reached the throne room. Evil Tech Guy's Daughter didn't need the actual bue rock power source, and just scanned a bit of it, to send back to daddy so he can power up MechaGZ. That upsets the rest of the team, who see it as a corruption of why they were travelling to the Centre of the Earth. But really, why did they think they were going? And how is a simple scan going to really affect anything? Anywayz, as I was saying, GZ is aware Kong is "down under" and blows a hole all the way to the Centre of the Earth. Yup, you read that right. A HOLE FROM CHINA TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. I am pretty sure by now that this script was written by having a producer sit with a room of 8 year olds describing what they want in the next GZ movie. Or Reddit; same difference.

So, now Kong has to climb all the way back to Hong Kong (they mention but don't depict The Veil) so he can battle it out with GZ, now that he has his new POWERED UP BATTLE AXE ! Is Hong Kong really that colourful ? I do enjoy they had to recreate the Pacific Rim battle scene in a bright city because that movie still stands as my fav kaiju flick. Anyone notice the archology on the mountain at the centre of Hong Kong. Is there a mountain at the centre of Hong Kong (city, not island) ? 

GZ and Kong have to battle it out, so GZ can prove (again) that he is truly King. So squash squash, smashy smashy, thousands die (there was no time to get to the shelters) and once Kong seems down, MechaGZ emerges from the mountain to kick GZ's ass. MechaGZ has rockets, rocket propelled punches and his own red Lazer Beam to counter GZ's blue beam. And just when we think all is lost (no we didn't), Hollow Earth Dude flicks a bunch of switches, and taps a bunch of buttons and turns the HEAV into a defibrillator. Kong gets up, powers up his axe again and the two (now) best buds rip MechaGZ limb from limb. OK, maybe we can both be Kings, thinks GZ.

I love that lone helicopter that flies past after Kong takes care of MechaGZ. 

I did rather enjoy watching this movie again, but recapping it was almost as much fun as you get to say the looney things that happened out loud and make them sound awesome as well as looney. I still wish they had kept the tone of the first movie, making things more dire and scary instead of looney, but the "fans" did complain so that room of 8 year olds had to be convened.

n Paragraphs: Tom Clancy's Without Remorse

 2021, Stefano Sollima (Sicario: Day of the Soldado) -- Amazon

I used to be That Guy, that guy during the VHS & DVD days that wondered why people would rent such standard Action Flick crap instead of seeking out good, "proper" movies. Why digest pabulum when you can get so much more from a meal with substance and flavour? Of course, I was a hypocrite as I also enjoyed own fair share of crap, because it fit my desired genre. But these days, even more so during The Pause, and yes, I know I have already said this, I find easy-to-digest is usually crap. Oh, there are exceptions, but in general, when I click (press a button?) on an action flick or adventure movie or thriller, I am usually getting something I know I will easily understand, and I am not all that offended if its bad.

But then you get something like the latest in Amazon's Tom Clancy love affair (they also rebooted Jack Ryan into an international terrorist hunter) with Without Remorse. It has a pretty decent production budget, has some recognizable faces, including one of the most currently bankable actors Michael B Jordon (The Wire). And they waste him on a not just "jingoistic" (to quote Kent; its such a great word) but also an extremely murky (morals and lighting) flick that, also as Kent said, is really just meant to pander to the Republican gun-loving crowds out there, but not TOO obviously, so people like myself, who enjoy heroic action flicks, can enjoy.

But at the heart of the movie is the cliché and rather empty "plot" that another war has to be started, that the US needs another easily identified enemy. Only then will the economy be rebooted, will America divided become one nation again. So, despite Jordon's John Kelly actually figuring out that, and coming down hard on the (American) Bad Guy who orchestrated all of this, you get the idea that at least part of the audience is expected to agree with his tactics. Kelly remains the boyscout who does what is "right" but many Americans will agree that manipulated murder of Russian citizens is fine, as long as it benefits the US in the long run. And in many ways, we kind of know that is how some Americans feel. From drone bombs on civilian targets to anti-mask movements, we know some Americans are OK with innocents dying, as long as they get what they wanted. Well, as long as they don't have to do it themselves; and not always then.

From a production view, the movie was fun to watch, when you could actually see what was going on. Like the Call of Duty FPS video games I play, the load-out of gear and weaponry is tightly depicted, and mostly realistic. The attack by the waiting snipers with high caliber weapons, was particularly tense and exciting to watch. But part of me kept on wondering where the movie would go, as it couldn't be going in the incredibly obvious direction it seemed to be. But it was, and that was entirely a letdown.

So, while it wasn't just another Straight To (again, not sure that term applies anymore) flick starring Bruce Willis or Frank Grillo or Nic Cage, it definitely was not solid in the least.

n Paragraphs: Devs

2020, Hulu - download

I could probably do a whole series on the rewatches I have blown through during the numerous Lockdowns or Stay At Home Orders we have had here in Ontario over the past year plus. But, as I have done so in the past numerous times, I created an imaginary line between that which I watch for the blog and that which I watch for my own no-agenda viewing pleasure. Or distraction. I find it odd that my brain does this, the separating of two groups, given that this blog is not a requirement for anyone or for any reason. But its my brain, and I have to deal with it. 

But one thing that stood out in my Lockdown viewing, and I have mentioned this already, is Ease of Viewing. I choose easy things, like my ongoing rewatch of Castle or Enterprise or Person of Interest. There are many shows I could be watching, and by could I mean shows I know I want to watch but for one excuse or another, I don't. My looked back at Devs and Westworld S03 and decided to actively choose them, to break my "easy" streak and wake up my brain. I am so glad I did with this series by Alex Garland (Ex Machina).

On the surface, Devs is about our fear of technology, more precisely the fear of big technology companies. Facebook is stealing our private data. Google is listening to us. Microsoft is putting trackers in our vaccines. These massive tech companies have access to mass amounts of money and technologies and we can only imagine what they do with those resources, in order to expand the mass amounts of money even further. Devs deals with one such company, Amaya, whose area of expertise seems to be smartphones and search engines, i.e. Google, but really it all seems to be funding their quantum computing research.

Most of these type of shows suffer from an economy of plot progression, but this shows dives right into the plot, as Serguei accepts a job in the inner circle of Amaya, the DEVS program, where in he discovers the Faraday Caged workspace, air gapped and in a maglev floating programming chamber all excruciatingly beautifully designed and mysterious. Serguei is not told what the project is, but almost immediately he sees something in the raw code that leaves him in awe. But Serguei is not who he pretends to be, and steals said code with his James Bond watch. The security head of Amaya, Kenton (Zach Grenier, Law & Order), and the head head of Amaya, Forest (Nick Offerman, Parks & Recreation) murder him for the act. His GF Lily (Sonoya Mizuno, Maniac) is shown evidence he committed suicide, but she doesn't accept it and begins her own investigation. This is just the first and second episodes.

In Garland's typical slow and deliberate manner (and no, this doesn't contradict what I said above, he doesn't rush, but he also doesn't supplement the space between plot points with filler content), we are exposed to what is actually going on inside DEVS and why it was so important, a software company would murder to protect it. They have used the ultimate in "big data" to create a predictive model of our world. And by "ultimate big data" I mean, the relational information that each and every single particle in our universe has with the next particle. It means they understand the entire universe down to its smallest component. The revolutionary quantum computer they created had an application that surpassed even their wildest dreams.

The simplest way to see what they have done, is that they can see the past, they can see the future, and they can see the present, in that they can also see any physical location. They can see everything. But it assumes that the universe is ENTIRELY deterministic, in that it is entirely based on the relationships between particles and everything we think of as free will or random is an illusion. In theory, what they see is the "simulation" of the time & place based on the relationships between the particles from now/here to there. This revelation/technology revolution utterly terrifies the members of DEVS but also excites them. Forest feels the need to control what they have unleashed, setting guidelines and rules. But of course, team members break the rules. But even then, in his mind, he accepts that it had to happen, as there was no choice.

Lilly represents the world of free will. Forest, and his assistant Katie (Alison Pill, Star Trek: Picard), represents a die-hard belief in determinism. Lilly is throwing all caution to the wind to find out what happened to Serguei, even when it presents more danger to her and those she loves. Those in Amaya "let" it happen because they know it will happen, and Forrest even seems at peace with it. But he has to be, as deep in his heart, if the world was not deterministic than a seemingly small variable took his wife and daughter from him, a variable he instigated.

I loved everything about this show, right down to what had to be a very controversial ending. This is Big Brain pondering about the capabilities of technology, but also about the philosophy of how our universe might be. Besides the ideas presented, the acting and pacing are just top notch. Sonoya Mizuno is just incredible, but then again, she is a stand out in everything I see her in. An amusing side-bit was that two of Sonoya's sisters, and her niece were also involved in the making of the mini-series. Of course, Nick Offerman is spectacular, and boy has Alison Pill come a long way from Sex Bob-Omb (sorry, rewatched Scott Pilgrim not so long ago). 

The post in Kent's universe is here where he also covers Westworld S3, which I will be covering soon, as well.

n Paragraphs: Nobody

 2021, Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) -- download

So, here I am about three weeks later, two of which were weeks of lying on the sofa or in bed fighting fevers, body aches, fatigue and a cough, two weeks of not being allowed outside. While social media is full of people having booked their vaccine, I left my social media feed empty of my own news -- having tested positive for COVID19. And showing symptoms. I didn't need to drive that sort of viewership. But I need to write about it, so here it is as I relate some of my viewing habits while on the sofa. Some, not all.

There hasn't been a lot of New Content being absorbed by me when the only thing to do was to absorb content. My brain hasn't allowed for much of an absorption factor. TONS of rewatching has been going on, but easy stuff, best-loved stuff, stuff I won't be writing about. But I knew this action flick, which I runs down the lane of John Wick with Bob Odenkirk was coming soon, and would be generally easily absorbed. And I was pretty much correct.

"There’s a long-dormant piece of me now awake that wants so very badly to play this out...."

Its a line that stood out for me, in the teaser, from earlier this year. Odenkirk's character Hutch is relating it to a bad guy. He's more talkative than Wick but they both share ultra-violent pasts which they tried to bury. And both of them are driven to pull that person they once were out for another spin. At least Hutch doesn't see his dog killed, but they do threaten his family, the family he obviously has built a life for, even if that life has begun to suffer the doldrums of suburban mediocrity. His kids don't respect him, his wife sleeps with a pillow barrier between them and he does the same boring bus commute every single day. And every week, he pretty much forgets to take the garbage out. Then some barely capable burglars attempt to rob his house, getting nothing but they draw his ire... almost. Just when he seems capable of exploding, he pulls back and his son takes a punch. The last straw for Hutch's family. And for Hutch.

Hutch is not only a man suppressing a violent past, but also a man suppressing a very violent now. Its coiled up inside him and he is very adept at keeping the lion at bay. When he lets it go, his wrath is visited upon some Russian gangsters who blunder onto the bus Hutch is riding. Some bone crushing moments later, most of the gangsters are unconscious and one is dying, despite Hutch's effort to assist. He went too far. He assaulted the wrong Russian gangsters. We know where this goes next.

There are some beauties of ultra-violence in this movie, but there are also some very farcical scenes. While this movie is not the stylish ballet of bullets and death that John Wick was, it does have its own sense of working man style. Being shot in Winnipeg really helped out here, as this looks like no movie you have scene, like no city we are familiar with. I see a grand role for the Peg to play in future thrillers. Unfortunately, the tenuous grip the movie has on style is entirely dropped in the third act, much as Hutch himself drops any pretense of having been a mere suburban working man. The movie degrades into a body count mirrored in 80s muscle bound action flicks, making as little sense as they did. But for the level of focus I had at the time, it was a perfect choice, somewhat fever driven, somewhat easy to digest but with a lot of impact.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: I Think We're Alone Now

 2018, Reed Morano (The Rhythm Section) -- download

This one has been sitting in my downloads folder for ages, at least two years. It was constantly skipped over, in favour of the latest Big & Shiny, or a rewatch of something easily digested. I could probably do a '31 Days of...' of the rewatches I have consumed in 2020-21 in favour of seeing something new, or more importantly, something more challenging for my brain to consume. I should have, but we both know I won't, at least used the rewatches to make posts for movies I had not yet posted here. But is this blog about completism or just about writing when the whim hits. There are arguments in favour of both.

Even during these Plague Years, I am still drawn to plague fiction. Surprisingly, not much more (or less) than I am during non-Plague Years, as I was always drawn to plague fiction, especially, the apocalyptic kind. I Think We're Alone Now picks up after a world ending plague has stripped Del's (Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones) small town of life. But likely in order to do more than just survive, Del has given himself a mission, a routine, an activity that keeps him sane (?). He goes from house to house, wrapping and gathering the dead, cleaning their houses and collecting the pictures of their happy family lives. Eventually he buries the remains in a mass grave at he edge of town. He then returns to the library where he lives, heats a meal, opens a bottle of wine and eats in front of the large windows with a lovely view. A routine centered around finding a peace of sorts, I would think.

And then he finds Grace (Elle Fanning, Maleficent). Her car has crashed in(to) his small town. Not only is someone else alive, but someone from somewhere else, who has ended up in his small town. Unlikely, and not easily trusted. And she breaks his routine. At first Del is upset she is around, and then he learns to be upset that she might not be around. And then the movie derailed itself, using that oft suggested aspect of the third act, where you make things go wrong for the main character(s) and then you make things go REALLY wrong.

Grace is from a community on the west coast that gathered many who survived, and not being satisfied with being a pleasant, powered, thriving place of post-apocalyptic peace, they decided to mess with people's brains, so as to never return to the world that was all but destroyed. Its this wonky, out of place, stretch of the imagination danger for Del to deal with, so he can rescue Grace and the two can return to his small town. To do what? We don't know, but I imagine it has to do with cleaning more houses. Once the introspection of being the last man (and woman) on Earth was dispensed with, I had no idea, nor any desire to know where it was going to go.

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: A Long Look Back: C (Saw)

 I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  2020 bad.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. But what else was 2020, and 2020-Extended (2021 on the calendar) about? Well, beyond baking bread and not cutting hair. Didn't do much on the former, and only one cut in one year, on the latter.

A is here. B is there. 

C is for Binged, because I am not clever.

If any show is more "what we needed for 2020" than Ted Lasso then I don't know one. And this is from someone who has no interest in sports nor any interest in fiction about sports. I may even say that this is the best show I saw in the last year or so.

Ted Lasso spawned from a TV commercial, about an American football (football) coach who comes to the UK to manage a football (soccer) team. Problem is that he knows very little about football (soccer). Why is he invited? Because he has a reputation for pulling terrible teams out of the gutter, and because the new owner of the team, who acquired it in the contentious divorce from her philandering husband, actually wants the team to fail miserably, destroying what her husband loves dearly. Ted is amiable, unflappable and seemingly a loveable American buffoon. But there is something there behind his bright smile, something few see, and thus he and coach Beard (his co-coach) begin to shape the team earnestly.

Ted has some die hard ideas on what a team should be and do and act like, that remind me of those "everyone wins" mentalities in pre-school "sports" teams. Or at least that is how we are meant to see it, I gather. I know very little about sports and sports teams, so in a way, Ted's approach means more to me. But really, the approach he takes is not what makes the series so good, but Ted himself and the way people end up reacting to, and eventually supporting him. Along with Ted, I was entirely surprised by the stand-out performance from Juno Temple, whom I know mostly playing ditzy girlfriends, which is exactly what she is here, but again, like Ted, she is so so much more.

And then there was the show I liked a whole lot more than I expected to, even though it was right down my alley, starring & created by people I like a lot, but I just wasn't expecting Truth Seekers to be any good. 

And then I enjoyed it. Immensely so.

Nick Frost is Gus, the best installer at the nation-wide UK broadband internet service provider Smyle. Gus's boss is David (Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead) who trusts Gus implicitly, and wears an astoundingly obvious toupee. Gus lives with his grumpy father-in-law (minor joke, he calls him Dad and it takes a few episodes to learn he is dad-in-law) Richard (Malcom McDowell, The Mentalist). Gus's new partner (Samson Kayo, Timewasters) Elton John (yep) has a mysterious past, which connects to Gus's real passion -- investigating supernatural events for his podcast/YouTube channel.

It begins as a simple "let's investigate a ghost" show, half-hour run, amusing but unassuming, and that is all I expected. But then it digs deeper, adding plot layers and conspiracies and intricacies not just to the story, but the characters and their connections. Frost deftly plays the lead, but really it was his supporting cast that allowed it to rise up higher. You would think McDowell would be wasted in a role like this, but no, it really is one of his best, TV-wise. And the brief appearance by Kelly Macdonald (Brave) is just hilarious.

I liked it more than I expected, and more than Kent, I guess.

Utopia is another one of those shows which suffered from unfortunately being released during a pandemic, but even if it hadn't, probably wouldn't have done any better. Also, being a remake of a British cult classic, didn't help.

I admit, I went into this version of it, expecting it to be all meta, as in, an American remake of a British cult-series, wherein the new version was referencing the original British series, sort of a reboot-meets-sequel. Alas, it was just a run of the mill remake. Even saying that, I did enjoy it while also being simultaneously utterly disturbed by it. It was not a good viewing choice for the heart of the 2020 pandemic paranoia "what could happen next" mindset.

The plot begins with a bunch of geeks dedicated to an old, beautifully illustrated graphic novel attending a CON where they believe they can purchase the latest issue, or more precisely the original artwork for a never published final issue. Meanwhile the emergence of the new issue also spawns two assassins working for a shady figure, who.... well, kill everyone involved with selling the issue. It gets very dark very quickly, not fun & quirky like a nouveau Dirk Gently as I was hoping. 

The central plot, and yeah I am spoiling something which IMO was pretty obvious, involves a megalomaniac corporate visionary (self-styled) and cult leader manufacturing an epidemic, so after which he can also become the heroic purveyor of the vaccine, wherein it will contain something that sterilizes most of the world. So yeah, antiVax support on steroids. 

The graphic novel is the coded ravings of a scientist who worked with the cult leader, and who created his own pseudo-cult, centered around his own daughter who would fight the BBEG. The geeks are obsessed with the codes in the comics, but let's say, while they end up the central heroes of the story, very little works out for them. It is bleak, bleak bleak bleak, so yeah maybe not the best viewing for the Spring/Summer of 2020. But the performances were good, and the beats of the story were solid. So, skillfully crafted if somewhat unfortunate timing.

Meanwhile NEXT was just not very good at all, not in skill nor craft nor ... well, anything, beyond being solid, mid-grade thriller TV. But I am always charmed (that's a weird word choice) by an Evil AI story, so I persevered, just to see where it was going. It never really ever went anywhere.

John Slattery (Mad Men) is our eccentric tech mogul who Ted Talks about the need for cautions around AI. But when he speaks about AI, he does not mean Machine Learning, as we IRL know it, but big, spooky, self-aware computers that always want to wipe humans out. His own company, he himself in fact, created some code that he worried was going to become Eeeevil. So he shelved it, but now, after he has been ousted from his own company by his brother and a shady Board of Directors, have resurrected it.

This idea was done well in Person of Interest but that show took its time laying out the probability and outline as to how an advanced program could... evolve. This one just throws it into our faces by episode two, as people and systems are manipulated to death, and the code quickly talks back to us in a HAL9000 style voice. Note to coders, choose disarming voices for AI's, and no, not Alexa which the show ALSO obviously alludes to.

Anyway this paranoia-as-entertainment show was setup to be a series initially but rolls along at break-neck speed implying mini-series, as only the tech mogul and the FBI cyber-squad who believes him try and isolate the AI, or destroy it. There are some fun bits, some decent tension but for the most part the drama is ludicrous and the technology references laughable. The season ends with the AI seemingly destroyed and the world saved, but we know better don't we?

If 2020 was horrible and going to be remembered for The Pause, someone will also have to remind future historians that it was also the era of The Mandalorian. The show began in late 2019 (despite the incorrect air dates in IMDB) emerging almost at the same time someone in Wuhan, China ate a bat, regurgitated it in a lab and made the super-flu we have all come to know and love. I was able to get my 3D printed Baby Yoda before we donated the work 3D printer to a PPE coop, and we all went home. Since then, we have had the boon of a second season, a welcome respite to the bleakness that was 2020.

I unabashedly love this series. I love the central story of a Mandalorian obsessed with honour, going all Lone Wolf & Cub with a child creature that can only really be called a baby Yoda. I love the western stylistic approaches to many episodes, and in saying that, the trope filled choices for all the episodes. I love how it plays with the canon, taking place between Episode 6 and Episode 7 of the movies. I love how it ties into the other properties that Dave Filoni was central on. Mentioning this show deserves its own long post or series of posts, as Kent did, but I am not going there. Suffice to say, even if I don't call this one of the best things on TV throughout 2020 (and we rewatched S1 at least twice) it was one of the things I enjoyed the most. I mean, c'mon it was Star Wars on TV !!

Star Trek Discovery S3 came, and went, with far less enthusiasm on my part than I hoped for. While I loved experiencing the series, I felt this one suffered for what it seemed intent on doing, as if they had a Story Book they had to ascribe to, where they were supposed to end up by S3, but didn't really like any of the plot notes, so only gave them a passing nod.

S2 ended with Michael Burnham and the Discovery, crew included, being tossed into the far future, some 900 years. They hoped by dragging the "sphere data", which was embedded into the computer core of Discovery, into a far future, they would change their era's fate from being destroyed by an Evil AI that would make of use of the sphere data to become all powerful. As we know many years of Star Trek after this series, chronologically, we can only assume they succeeded, even if you consider the Kelvin timeline. 

Not sure if this was brave or foolhardy, because .... Time Travel !! Anyways, dramatic choice that actually makes use of an idea that Gene Roddenberry wanted to use, but actually ended up butchering via Andromeda, in that they are so far into the future, the Federation has collapsed and everyone is barely surviving... galactic scale.

It starts interestingly enough, in that Burnham is alone and makes her own way in a world that not only has no cohesive Federation but also a severe lack of warp travel. Many many worlds are isolated by a catastrophic event called The Burn, wherein pretty much every warp capable starship exploded simultaneously because of something to do with unstable dilithium. This is a weird world of newer tech, but also more chaotic and dangerous, as different factions vie for control of what is left. So Burnham has to find out where Discovery is, what happened AND CAN SHE FIX IT. Because, what else is her purpose but to make everything alright. She really thinks she's a main character in a YA novel.

Alas, the series reunites her and Discovery and the Federation faaaar too quickly and the season devolves into just another run of Burnham breaking ranks, doing her own thing, damning the (photon) torpedoes but always saving the day despite it. There are some great new characters, so great episodes and a lot of fun to be had, but I was still left inevitably unsatisfied, as Kent was, but for other reasons.

Oh, and I finally found a copy of the French/British War of the Worlds. I had seen the (period) British series, titled The War of the Worlds (notice the lack of 'The' in this one?) after the source material, which is set in Edwardian times, so 10 years after the original? But I never wrote about it, because it had little impact on me. I also had trouble finding this other series, until sometime in 2020 when it appeared on CBC. Set in the current era, it was also ultimately unsatisfying as it is obviously a setup for a longer series that never came to be.

The premise is rather horrific. The martians (or aliens, to be precise) send down orbs but these ones emit a signal, that once it reaches a peak, basically kills everyone on the planet, but for those fortunate few who were underground, or those with an altered brain chemistry of some kind, which protected them for unknown reasons. We are introduced to a few key families, some in France, some in the UK, who eventually end up having some connection.

It was a rather bleak, death filled show that again, I wondered why I was watchin during the height of 2020, and while I liked the intense drama of the series, as well as my usual (yes, weird) attraction to empty cities, in the end I was again left without much attachment to the series. So many final survivors being assholes to each other. The show was leading to a reveal, one that fell flat with only a minor because it only revealed that the "aliens" were somehow connected to us, but it didn't go any further. Were they from our own future? Were they capturing and manipulating humans? And given that it is never to have another series, we have no idea. The end.

Finally, a small CBC series Trickster, set around indigenous mythos, but recently marred when it came out the creator gained support and funding by identifying as Indigenous. She is not Indigenous. But the show she left behind was pretty decent.

Jared lives in small town/reserve BC with his talking-to-people-not-there mother, barely attending high school and making & dealing E (MDMA? I am not up on my street drug terms) on the side. Like Blood Quantum, the story is not afraid to show us the underbelly of Indigenous Canadian lives, a little on the seedy side, a lot below the poverty line. But like Taika's Boy, they get by. That is until Jared starts seeing and being exposed to the supernatural.

Like many coming of age supernatural stories, Jared learns of his heritage only after it comes calling for him. It's not much of a spoiler to learn that his mother got mixed up with a Trickster, and Jared is the progeny of that coupling. And the victim. Tricksters are mythological immortal beings, not quite bad, not quite good, but definitely trouble, and they can shapeshift. Jared's dad tells him he is only there to reconnect with Jared, teach the boy who & what he is, but really, he is there for himself only. Jared's mom won't have any of it. But she is dealing with her own demons.

I found the show really compelling, both for the characters it created but also for the not-entirely-myth mythology it presents. These are beings that have been around for a long long LONG time, and just happen to be tied to the Indigenous folk of North America, well, because they were here as well, when the white men bulldozed their way in. This show doesn't shirk away from the damages done, but also doesn't dwell on them, letting the stories and the characters stand for themselves. Too bad it had to be marred by someone pretending to be something they weren't, weirdly much like the Trickster in the story...

And finally, finally The Stand 2020, as I finished watching it while this post was sitting in drafts mode, after having forgotten entirely of its existence and pretty much binged watching it over a week or so.

During my King days, The Stand was my favourite, an ensemble quest story of Good vs Evil in an empty world. I have always had a post-apocalyptic fascination; apocalypse as well, for that matter. Captain Trips was terrifying and overwhelming but the story that followed was completely in my wheelhouse. I even read and enjoyed the 90s retrofit King did, despite it not being entirely successful. Those were the days when publishers thought King could do no wrong.

And then there was the 90s TV mini-series which I don't really recall too well, but do remember disliking and loving it in equal parts. I just didn't feel the book could be portrayed in the PG world that TV allowed for back then. So when it was announced that a new series would come around, I was enthralled. Then we got our own pandemic and I was less enthused. Again, bad timing, dudes.

That said, having powered through it, and surprised they actually did as much ending the world plague story as they did, I am once again in the "liking some bits, meh about other bits" boat I was for the first series. All in all it seemed to suffer from being a mini-series of its own, as vast amounts of characterization and plot seemed washed away to further moving the story along. King's characters have always been his main strength and while the portrayals are great here, especially the casting of Amber Heard as Nadine (which allowed many to immediately dislike her) and Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg, the actual presented characters lacked incredibly. Its like we were just given enough of each character to know their place in the story, and that was about it. I just felt... nothing for any of the characters. In the end, it all felt rushed and not very committed to the horror and awe (magic, religious or otherwise is real) it was supposed to depict.

Locked Down

 2021, d. Doug Liman - hbomax

 Toasty already wrote about one mediocre 2020-year-of-our-COVID movie, so how about another?  We're bound to see many, many, many of these crop up this 2021, I wonder if it will be like our Hallmarkies where we have to gauge them against each other because otherwise they're not real movies...?  Well, here we have a "romantic-comedy-drama-heist" COVID picture.

 So, yes, you heard right.  There is a "heist" (that's actually just a theft) in this film that is so ridiculously set up that it winds up being not some big orchestrated plan, but rather a crime of opportunity where puzzle pieces absurdly start placing themselves together so obviously...I mean it's got to be meant as satire, right? But satire of what?

This film is also one of opportunity, where it seems like "hey, we have access to Harrords of London for one night during this COVID shitstorm, what can we do with it?". The "heist" seems so inorganic to the rest of the movie, which itself is a light drama -- or quasi-comedy -- about a divorcing couple forced to lock down together. 

The first two acts really get into the Marriage Story meat of their relationship, and I love how both Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor play it out, teasing the backgrounds of these characters and how they wound up here. There's some zoom cameos from the likes of Ben Stiller, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling and Ben Kingsley (in great form) that remind you that a lot of talented people got bored being stuck at home. It's fun, actually, in a weird way, if you're not triggered by all the COVID stuff.

But that third act...you know I was thinking I'd be there for it...but it kept pushing the level of absurdity, and kept raising stakes that didn't need to be raised, and I couldn't get fully on board with it. All the drama/tension/humour should have stayed in the will they/wont they (both steal the thing and get back together), but no, they had to just start putting dumbass barriers in their way leading to a postscript which seemed to imply that no one was checking up on this very weird scenario that was largely caught on camera. It's as if they were just winging these Harrods scenes and didn't have time to reshoot for logic or consistency.

My limited research (aka Wikipedia) says : (from)a screenplay that Steven Knight had written that July (2020) over a dare....(t)he film was shot over the course of 18 days. Due to the limited resources and short production window the order of several scenes needed to be adjusted". It's a professionally made movie, but these seams show through.

Ejiofor making bread though during the credits kind of brought me back around. 

Didn't hate it, kida liked it.

3 Short Paragraphs: Songbird

 2020, Adam Mason (Hangman) -- download

Ahh the rush to make a movie about the events of the COVID-19 pandemic! Ah, the rush to make movies about the dystopia that follows! Ah, the rush away from being directly associated with all the other absolutely terrible mockbusters (without anything to actually mock beyond the actual pandemic) about the same topic. Ah, the slight avoidance from being seen to cash in on the Pandemic? Nahh. The ambiguously titled Songbird is, without a doubt, a dystopic COVID movie, set in 2024 and they are dealing with an extremely deadly variant of COVID-23. The US is perpetually locked down, only "munies" are allowed outside, and infected (or suspected) people are rounded up to be crowded into Q-Zones where they are pretty much left to die.

This is an ensemble cast, with most being isolated from each other, both by plot and by good faith film production, despite us knowing that shooting one guy in a room means at least a half-dozen other people surrounding him while he is being shot. Anywayz, we get Nico (KJ Apa, Riverdale) and Sara (Sofia Carson, Descendents) - star-crossed lovers who I don't know if they ever met. Nico is immune and passes his day as a bike courier travelling around an empty LA, well empty as he is outside the Q Zone. Sara hides inside her apartment with her grandmother. That is, until Grandma begins coughing. Lester (Craig Robinson, Brooklyn 99) runs the courier business, alone in his warehouse. Emmett (Peter Stormare, Private Dicks) is another "munie" who was once a garbage man, but now fills another role in the Dept of Sanitation -- jackbooting his hazmat suited thugs into the homes of those suspected to be infected, and dragging them off to the Q Zones, or killing them, depending on his mood. This is a peak Stormare character. Meanwhile William (Bradley Whitford, The Cabin in the Woods) and Piper (Demi Moore, St. Elmo's Fire) Griffin run a business of black-market immune bracelets (with appropriate fake credentials) while trying to protect their immunity compromised daughter. Meanwhile William is holding an illegal physical relationship with camgirl May (Alexandra Daddario, Baywatch) who also has a platonic relationship with wheelchair bound drone pilot / vet Dozer (Paul Walter Hauser, Richard Jewell). May is the songbird of the title, but has very little to do with the main plot. They might have just called the movie Artist Trapped.

*deep breath*

This lovely cross-thread of dysfunctional interactions & relationships gets thrown in disarray when Sara's grandmother, who chooses to ignore the lockdown and socializes in their apartment building, comes down with The Covids. It is only a matter of time before Emmett shows up at her door with his guns and pen knife. So Nico has no choice but to get a black market bracelet for her, so they can both escape. The primary thread in this story, is even the people who are careful and understanding about what is going, well they don't seem to care about anyone but themselves -- even the sympathetic leads. This might even, with a bit of a stretch, be seen as an anti-lockdown movie, as any good dystopian movie has nothing good to say about the measures take by the govt. The performances are as tight as they can be, and to be frank, I didn't even recognize Nico as Archie Andrews. Is there a lot to say here? No, but it does get all wrapped up in competently done drama and thriller paper, with a good dose of smudge & soot for a close-to-post-apocalyptic world.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Greenland

 2020, Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen) -- download

I have to clean out the last few of these pre-Xmas movies before my stream becomes inundated with unrealistic optimism. So, considering it feels like End of the World Lite these days, why not a Disaster Movie for The Pause. For The Pause, you ask? Well, Production disarrays being what they are this year, this movie almost seemed like the indie genre version of a disaster movie, in that it was light on the disaster, and more on the people. But not in that cheap looking Straight To way, where the disaster always happens off screen while everyone looks up aghast, more that this movie was about the End of the World, and not so much about all the World Ending things that happen on the way to the End. You know what I mean -- most of these movies rely on a few (some, like 2012, more than a few) key scenes where the impending disaster causes pre-emptive destruction, like a few stray rocks fall from the sky, or the catastrophic weather wipes out a city or two. Oh, that does happen here, but the camera stays with our main characters, and experiences it through their eyes, remind me more of scifi indie dear Monsters than anything.

We get right into it. John Garrity (Gerard Butler, Gamer) is an engineer -- he builds skyscrapers -- on the outs with his wife, and coming back to their suburban home for a neighbourhood BBQ. The tension between his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin, Firefly) is tangible, but they hold it together for the sake of their son, and to make nice-nice with their friends, during the news coverage of a comet bypassing the planet, which will be spectacular. Alas, not the kind of spectacular they are looking for, as Emergency Alerts start ringing on phones and TVs, and its the Garrity's only. They are deemed essential, while the rest of their friends, are not. The absolute sense of dread in these initial scenes is heavy, a feeling we are all now very personally familiar with. What's going to happen next? As a disaster movie viewer, we know, but the sinking feeling on the faces of everyone on screen is heart breaking.

The idea is pretty much the same as the aforementioned 2012, in that the leaders of the world must have been aware that this comet could lead to the End of the World and have prepared for it. But through the eyes of the Garrity family, we learn how frantic and unprepared the whole endeavour is. It should be easy; get on the planes and fly to Greenland, to safety inside the bunkers. But this is people we are talking about, and (again!) this year is showing us all how even the most straight forward initiatives to Save People can be easily derailed by the selfish, greedy and panicked. 

I rather liked this movie, as it sidestepped the thrills and rollercoaster ride of most disaster movies, and focused more on the people. It is rather speedy and very narrowly focused on this family, and this family only, finding their way from Atlanta to Greenland, by any means possible. Of course, this is all under-stress acting and situations, which can only lend to so much in the way of dramatic appeal. But it all felt very genuine to me, dispensing with a lot of the typical tropes of disaster movies, in return for the human element.

Memories of the Lockdown: Satisfactory

It was only this spring. It was only about six months ago. But it feels like forever ago. I never really got fully locked down, still heading to work (via Uber as TTC was scary) on occasion as the CEO and Executive Staff were still coming into the office on a daily basis, hiding behind their glass wall but still occasionally having computer issues. Why me? Two fold. The VC setup is my baby so I continue to make sure it is working, and since EVERYONE else was working from home we needed to make sure we could handle it. Also staff needed extra stuff from work, to take home, so me and a few others facilitated that. Also, I just needed to get out of the house. I am terrible at WFH; I am not motivated and it's far too easy to get distracted. I need the structure of Getting Up and Going. But for a few months, there were days on end where I, like much of the world, got up, sat at my desk with a cup of coffee and did my best to work. Showers? Occasionally. Going outside? Irregularly. Physical activity? Much less than I usually do, which was not much to begin with. It was a weird weird time, those rides home from work via Uber, driving down empty streets, few pedestrians and almost no drivers. And everything closed. It was eerie to say the least.

Coping mechanisms? Alcohol of course. I did stock up the bottle shelf with some whisky and rum, but just up the street was The Granite Brewery so I bought regular amounts. I wasn't drinking all the time, like some people claimed, but a cocktail or beer after supper was common. And there was TV, multitudes of ReWatches and some movies, already somewhat covered here. Actually, I had to delete the TV listing, as there was just too much to cover, and it was all beginning to blur into one. I know I finished off one series of Watching at the beginning of The Pause, but there was so so so much after.

If I was more focused, more able to allow myself to be drawn into things, I supposed I would have been playing a lot more video games. TV rewatches were easy but new games always seemed like a chore. But a few did catch me, especially one that was relaxation therapy -- Satisfactory.

Building games, sandbox games, with weakly defined end-goals and wide open spaces, are tonic for me. Even when I replay Fallout 4 I always find myself plugging in a ton of mods that expand how and what I can build, what I can do with my settlements. Early Access Satisfactory has a simple premise -- you are a corporate employee dropped on a strange alien planet with a small toolset and a simple goal -- start exploiting the resources on the planet to further the Corp. You mine & gather resources, build some basic factory structures, which allows you to expand & speed up production, which allows you send the processed resources back to the mother company. And then you are rewarded with more tools, more factory parts, more goals and ... so on. All the while there is a big beautiful planet to explore, dangers to avoid (or kill) and more resources to discover & exploit.

At the heart, this is a nasty idea of a game -- you are a miner destroying the beautiful environment for the sake of a faceless corporation. But meh, ignore that, you have conveyor belts to build !!

It was so relaxing just gathering enough resources to expand into the next thing, to setup efficient manufacturing lines, to store stuff for later, to find rare resources (coal! oil!) so you could increase your power production, to design & layout new factories in new locations and to connect it all. Sure, the hardcore players of the game were all about the math, the how-to's of maximizing production, and efficiency stats and whatnot. But me? I liked the spaghetti. Pipes and conveyors winding here and there, eventually reaching my Home Base and being added to the mix. As things got bigger, I tore down some and rebuilt others, but generally I just had fun adding onto what I already had. And I was always wondering what was next around the corner, what new tool I would get, what new resource I would discover and what new toy I would get to play with. 

There is something entirely satisfying (thus the name & pun) about Fake Productivity, especially in a time when it seemed nothing was getting done, that everything else in the world was On Pause. Every day, I would go from working until 4-5 (depending on what was going on, what time I got up and sat down in front of the computer) and I would switch the monitor inputs from my Work Laptop to my Home PC, and just begin playing. A few hours later, it was time to Attack the Kitchen, either cleaning up from the day before, or beginning supper. Then some hours of TV, and then just before bed, some more pipes to lay. Heh.

Eventually time At Work ramped up, the Early Access stuff completed (the game is actually yet to be really, truly released) and I was onto a new schedule. But to be honest, without that mindless, focused (non)productivity, I am sure my anxiety in those early months would have been MUCH higher than it was. Or my alcohol intake higher.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Tax Collector

2020, David Ayer (Suicide Squad) -- download

I am usually pretty loathe to say these posts are "reviews" and usually stick to just calling them "blogging" or "blog posts" to be more accurate. But even that seems off these days, given that the term has evolved long past that personal anecdote concept it started as. So... "one sided conversations", given the comments are few and far between, and that the things presented are rarely thought through before I pick up the keyboard (i do do that, as I have a Work Keyboard and a Personal Keyboard shared via docking station) and begin typing.

I know I said this before, but somewhere down the road, I guess I became a fan of David Ayer. Sure, Suicide Squad was a shit-show, but I have the distinct feeling he just stopped arguing and went with whatever flow the suits wanted that day. I have pretty much enjoyed everything he has done, to some degree, with a hearty acknowledgement of the flaws. At the very least, I applaud him for sticking to a distinctive tone & style, one that doesn't shrink back from the violence that men can do. Glorifies it? Maybe, probably, but as I said, "fictional violence is fun, real violence is entirely a different beast."

Ayer's second straight-to-alternative-source-because-The-Pause movie is a micro focus on gangs in LA, zoomed in on one gang leader Wizard having established himself as the highest of the high, collecting taxes of fealty from all others. David (Bobby Soto, Narcos: Mexico) and Creeper (Shia LaBeouf, Fury) are Wizard's tax collectors, steeped in the power they are provided, and Creeper's legendary status as a man not to be fucked with. The movie spends much of the time establishing these two men, from David's tight connection to family and how he separates that very Catholic part of his life from his work, to Creeper's straight up scary status on the street. And then someone comes along to show them he can be scarier, he can out creep the Creeper, and what happens if you say No.

The New Norm never has me watching a movie straight through, entirely in one sitting, unless it's a re-watch (and I am skipping posting those this season, as they out number all other media) where I can wander around the apartment doing things as a movie plays in the background. So, over the three acts of watching, the movie sorted itself into two acts, one very tight and one ... lacking. The establishment of David's family and his torturous separation of them from his work is finely craft lending itself well to my current fascination with how people live in LA. He's a good guy, you like him, but you know What He Does. Everyone in his extended family is involved in The Business, they are his Crew. When that all comes tumbling down, we see how David is something else entirely when it is taken from him, and to be honest, that all comes to an end far too quickly. The action of the third act of the movie quick, tight but drops a lot of the emotional weight the first two acts carried. I found myself marveling at exactly how small David's world was given we were told they controlled all LA. I also found myself re-writing the third act, having David seeking out real monsters to replace Creeper, who died far too quickly, far too easily to warrant his early movie rep. Real monsters who would make the cartel connected New Guy's scare tactics pale in comparison. I liked my ending better than Ayer's, and since we were all Davids, why not.

Of note, one of the scenes, where David's niece has her Quinceañera, I was struck that it all seemed familiar. Then I was reminded that Ayer had directed a couple of episodes of Deputy and it made sense, as the show did its best to shine another light on Latino culture in LA, while not dodging the reality of the crime controlled neighbourhoods. This movie also deals with the paradoxes inherent, from the simple beauty of a young woman coming of age, and her family celebrating it together, to the deep seated familial ties of criminal legacy.