Watching: Dead Boy Detectives

2024, Netflix

What 100. I don't remember the characters from the comic, but that they were 12ish and dressed in British boarding school uniforms. In this TV series adaptation of the Neil Gaiman comic characters, they are older, teens, but played by people in their late 20s, at the very least. Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew, debut) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri, The Lodge) are ghosts living in London, making a "living" investigating things for other ghosts, mainly helping them find their locus, and pass into the beyond. That means they often have to avoid Death (Kirby, Sugar), as she comes for these ghosts, and that single scene directly connects the series to The Sandman.

1 - Great. The character mix. If there is something I like, its quirky characters. Here you have the dead boarding school kid, killed before he "came of age" so not really sure of his sexuality. And the "punk kid", always happy and irreverent. And Niko Sasaki (Yuyu Kitamura, Expats), the perky displaced Japanese girl who is all bubble gum & anime amidst an entire show of drab grays and blacks. Bespoke butcher shop owner Jenny Green (Briana Cuoco, The Flight Attendant), classic sourpuss goth chick annoyed by everything and everyone. Tragic Mick (Michael Beach, Third Watch), a walrus cursed to live as a man, who runs a curio shop -- his jean jacket is covered in barnacles! A pair of dandelion faeries as belligerent as the comments section of a recipe site. A witch (Jenn Lyon, Claws) who looks like she runs Portland, Oregon dive bar. Alas, the least interesting character is the main character with the bestest name, Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson, Hollyoaks) the medium with memory loss.

1 - The Good. I like me some episodic shows. Each episode is a case, but there is always the under running main plot of them trying to find out what happened to Crystal Palace's memories, and to keep the boys from getting picked up by the Underworld's truancy officer, called the Night Nurse (Ruth Connell, Supernatural). There is a ghost driven time loop, a side trip to Hell, Niko's faeries kept in a jar, fighting the witch's giant snake under the kitchen sink, the creepy predator vibes of the Cat King, etc.  It was light but dark, if that makes any sense. And always quirky. 

Record Scriiiiitch. The Night Nurse, and the Dead Boys, first appeared in an episode of Doom Patrol ?!?!? So, that officially ties that series to The Sandman?!?! I really have to rewatch/finish that series!

1 - The Bad. For me, I never got over that these were all supposed to be kids around 16. They present as 20sumthins, in action and maturity and independence. Sure, there are reasons why each and every one of these "kids" are by themselves, without parental control, but it all felt like after-the-fact purple suit meddling where someone said, "Wait, aren't these all supposed to be teenagers?" and they scuttled to do some post-shots to add in some of said supporting details.  Sure, we live in a world where 20sumthins play teens all the time, but here it felt like they were playing 20sumthins but had cast 30sumthins. 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Drive-Away Dolls

2024, Ethan Coen (True Grit) -- download

This is the first non-brothers for Ethan Coen. Its still very Coen-ish, which then lumps it squarely into That Guy territory. Do I need a tag for That Guy?

No sir, no you don't.

That said, I just did a search for the combination of words, and it has two distinctive uses on this blog: one is the painfully repetitive reference to a time period when I considered myself a movie buff, and also a reference to those recognizable faces in movies, whose names often escape memory. Even if I don't do a tag, it might be fun to do a ReWatch series of That Guy movies. And maybe find some movies from the same time period that I should have seen, but didn't for one reason or another?

Anywayz, enough rabbit-holing.

Yeah right.

This was a weird movie, a quirky little thing that was both off-putting and very charming. But other than No Country for Old Men that pretty much describes all Coen Bros movies, no?  So the same and different when lacking one Coen?

In an alleyway outside a bar, Santos (Pedro Pascal, The Great Wall) is murdered for the briefcase he has chained to his wrist, and he is beheaded in the attack. Kind of extreme. Meanwhile Sukie (Beanie Feldstein, Lady Bird) kicks girlfriend Jamie (Margaret Qualley, The Leftovers) out of her apartment for cheating on her, so Jamie  decides to join her friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan, Blockers) on a trip to Tallahassee, Florida in a drive-away rental car -- the idea that a rental car has to be driven from A to B, so you get... a reduced rate? The thing is that the car was supposed to be picked up by a representative of some shady characters, but the girls showed up instead. Something is in the trunk of the car and the shady characters want it back.

Of course, that's the bland story bit. The real Coen (brother) thing is the characters. Marian is repressed, sedate and nervous. Jamie, with her over-the-top hillbilly accent, is the opposite -- free, excitable and all about the casual sex. The girls are friends only. The gangsters are loquacious and constantly badgering each other. The rental agent is peak Coen mumbly. What's in the box ... er... trunk is hilarious and off-putting.

Don't you want to tell them?

I do want to tell you "what's in the box", and you can probably guess... half of it. You see, there is the wrist-chained briefcase and there is a head hat box. The former is key to the story, the MacGuffin everyone is chasing while the latter is just incidental. But...

Just go ahead and tell them!

OK, the case is full of dildoes! Big rubber schlongs! You see, there are these weird transition pieces in the movie, all 60s psychedelia and ... is that Miley Cyrus? Apparently she was some crazy lady who slept with emerging people of power, drugged them just enough so she could do a casting of their members. And that case of dicks has been used as currency (Santos was a collector) and blackmail evidence against the now powerful said people, including right-wing Xian Senator Gary Channel (Matt Damon, The Great Wall). The goons chasing the case are his goons and he wants his facsimile penis back before it can be revealed to the world, which would no be good for his Whitehouse run.

Of course, the girls now ... cough... empowered by the use of the senator's manhood foil his plans and reveal him to the world. And run away with the bribery money. And another copy. Marian has finally admitted she is attracted to Jamie, despite their opposite end personality spectrums, and is very forthright about her fondness for the instrument of pleasure. Jamie is willing to explore the idea of commitment -- insert joke about moving in together. There are some weird things being said here, such as, why are all the "men of power" so well endowed? Why is a realistic penis replica so attractive to a pair of lesbians? But the entire movie is sex-positive, and doesn't judge anyone, and is also sort of a commentary on the foibles of repressing who you really are.

It was OK, not as ground-breaking as the Bros used to be, but fun, and quirky, and well done.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Safety Not Guaranteed

2012, Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) -- Amazon

I admit, I am entirely disappointed that the magazine ad, upon which this movie is based, was only a joke. I was hoping it was still a mystery to this day, or at least, had inspired some reporters to actually investigate.

So, the movie is about an ad in a newspaper that some low graded "reporters" (really, two interns and a loser) are sent to investigate. Jeff (Jake Johnson, The Mummy) and the two interns, Darius (Aubrey Plaza, Legion) and Arnau (Karan Soni, Dead Pool) are sent to a small coastal California community to unravel the story. They start by staking out the PO Box, but Jeff has other ambitions, essentially to hook up with the girl of his fondest high school memories. He tasks Darius with infiltrating the world of Kenneth (Mark Duplass, Creep), the owner of the PO Box, and finding his story and/or time machine. Arnau sits in the background looking uncomfortable. 

Darius succeeds, gaining Kenneth's trust, becoming his co-conspirator in his time travel escapade, which is to go back only one year to save his dead GF's life. But, as it should be, everything about his story is circumspect and not very believable. No matter, Darius finds kinship with this lost weirdo, as she is one herself -- duh, its Aubrey Plaza. But the story is complicated by the fact that men in black are following him.

Its a charming little movie, weird, quirky, small, endearing ... all the hallmarks of indie film making. And people loved it. I have been hearing about it for years, and there was a time when I would have fallen for it completely. Alas, I am old and jaded. It's a fine movie, it's fine. The performances are great, the stories played through well enough but ... well, I am the first to say that a movie doesn't have to always make bold statements about things, but I kind of felt this movie ... should have ? The time travel is a backdrop, more a macguffin to motivate the situation than anything. And yet... If anything, its another from the list of movies I felt I Should See.

We agree?

Last Looks

2021, Tim Kirkby (Brockmire) -- download

This post continues the tradition wherein I have another post sitting in drafts that requires more thought and likely a rewatch because I loved its subject matter, and because I likely have a lot to say about it, but will most likely end up saying, "uhh... movie good." In the meantime, I can distract you the reader, and my brain, with a quick post about a movie that I enjoyed, but didn't leave much of an impression one way or another.

Last Looks, originally called Waldo, after the main character Charlie Waldo, a disgraced LAPD detective who leads a couple of crime books by Howard Michael Gould, is a classic post-noir detective story set in and around Los Angeles, completely dependent on the city & environs as one of its characters. Waldo is hiding out, off the grid, in a trailer in Idyllwild possessing only 100 things, including a chicken named Chicken when his ex Lorena (Morena Baccarin, Deadpool; yes, a movie starring Charlie Hunnam playing a character named Charlie, and Morena Baccarin playing a character named Lorena) shows up to convince him to come back to the city to help her on a case, seeking to keep perpetually drunken Shakespearian actor Alastair Pinch (Mel Gibson, Fatman) out of jail for murdering his wife. Waldo says no, but circumstances, and the violent interventions by two different criminal parties who already think he is working with her, drag him into it, because of course they do.

Long sentences entirely intentional, as the standard convoluted plots and sub-plots of the pseudo gritty detective stories always seem to lend themselves to trains of thought running on and on and on.

I suspect the writer & director don't like LA people much, but love the city. Every character is quirky but most often unlikeable, but even the likeable characters possess traits that would sour most people on them. Pinch is a pompous ass, always drinking, dismissive of his wife's death (not even sure he didn't actually kill her, as he was blackout drunk at the time), constantly looking to get into fisticuffs, but utterly (and charmingly) devoted to his utterly cute daughter. Waldo doesn't really seem all that capable and spends most of the movie getting punched and/or kicked, but he does have a knack for putting all the details together. But the movie is not a whodunnit, as it doesn't dole out the details our way except in the most peripheral manner, so the end reveal is a leap of faith. But the weird, almost mythical nature of Los Angeles and the people within it is always fascinating.

I think about whether I would recommend this movie, and I am not entirely sure. For those who like the paperback style private dicks in LA, it is passable entertainment. For fun, quirky performances, it fills a back tooth. But as a movie, it struck me more as something to be consumed, rather than entertainment. This is one of those movies that people who watch a lot of movies will reference at some point in the future, more as a footnote in comment on some other movie with Charlie Hunnam or Mel Gibson in it. Or in a conversation about the city of Los Angeles and the entertainment business that makes it.

New Year's Countdown...of Excellence: 3 - Chunking Express (1990's selection)

3
Chungking Express
1994, d. Wong Kar-wai - Criterion Channel

The Story (in two paragraphs or less)

He Zhi Wu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is a police detective in Hong Kong, suffering from heartbreak after a recent split with his girlfriend.  He purges her memory after 30 days of collecting expired pineapple tins by eating them, and then vowing to fall in love with the next woman he sees.  The woman in the blonde wig and sunglasses (Brigitte Lin) is secretive, tough-as-nails, and in deep trouble after her Indian drug mules run away on her (and in tracking them down she shoots a few people).  At the end of her limit, she prepares to leave the country.  They meet in a bar with his newfound objective and her standoffish, fatalistic sense of her future.  He really does not want to be alone, and she's too tired to reject the company.  After an uneventful night together, she leaves him a birthday message and then goes out and kills her drug source, shedding her wig and life as she knew it.

Cool and casual Faye (Faye Wong) is just started working at the snack bar (owned by her cousin), and she is immediately intrigued by regular customer, handsome, charming police officer (Tony Leung) who is heartbroken after having just been dumped by his stewardess girlfriend.  When the ex stops by and leaves a letter for him, everyone at the place can't help but steam the letter open and read it, only to find it contains the apartment keys.  She starts spending time at his place when she knows he's not there, cleaning it up, decorating it, watering his plants, stocking up his fishtank.  It would be creepy and sinister it it weren't so damn innocent.  Things progress from there.

What did I think I was in for?
 It's from Wong Kar-wai, a masterful director of limited resume.  I've seen a few of his works (In the Mood for Love, Happy Together, Ashes of Time Redux) all which I remember enjoying well, but, well, don't really remember much about.  If I know anything from my limited exposure to his oeuvre, it's that he's both a visual craftsman and a romantic.  So while I may have wanted that, I wasn't certain that's what I would be getting.  I intentionally avoided reading too much about this when I selected it as my 1990's choice.

What did I get out of it?
Surprise, given that I didn't know there were effectively two separate stories here. The opening at 40 minutes, is fleeting, almost over before it began, like some relationships.  Kar-wai is more experimental in his filming, going for something more hard boiled with his production, heavier shadows and neons.  It's more dangerous and sad than romantic.  There's a technique he uses here, sort of a semi-slow-mo/motion-blur effect which he uses to open the film and introduce our two leads for the initial story, and does it again whenever there's something approximating action. I did not like the effect much at all, but I found the path to the two leads meeting each other intriguing enough, with just enough quirk, that I was disappointed when it crossed over into an otherwise disconnected second story.  

The second story, is a precursor to every turn-of-the-millennium 20-something romance movie which, were it made today, would seem like an upending of the manic pixie dream girl trope.  Faye is certainly pixie-ish in both appearance and attitude, but rather than being the ethereal object of affection for Tony Leung's Officer 663, he's almost completely oblivious to her incursion on his life and mindset. It's utterly charming in a way that I kept expecting to turn dark but never does.  Something about modern storytelling, perhaps the Black Mirror effect, is that anything sweet ultimately has something sinister underneath it... we don't trust that anything can actually be earnest.

I loved Tony Leung's recurring bit where he talks to things in his apartment as if they were alive, even so much as thinking that they have evolved on their own after Faye has swapped them out.  It's so cute.  The recurring use of "California Dreamin'" could have been grating, but it's constantly used with purpose, and clearly informs Faye's character so much.  It takes on additional relevance each time it's played.  I also loved Faye Wong's Cantonese rendition of "Dreams" by the Cranberries (which I didn't realize was by the actress until looking it up)

Do I think it's a classic?
Where certainly In the Mood for Love is a classic, I don't think Chungking Express gets classic status because of its less than satisfying first story.  The second story, though, is wondrous, and certain to be memorable.

Did I like watching this?
I did.  The first part, somewhat, the second part completely. 

Would I watch it again?
I'll likely watch the full thing whenever I get around to doing a Wong Kar-wai marathon...but I'll probably go back to the second story itself many time before then.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: A Simple Favor

2018, Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) -- download

So yes, I am that guy who constantly questions why the fuck he is doing with this page. Is it a review site? Is it a personal blog? Is it getting better? Is it getting worse? I occasionally Google "how to write a movie review" to see if there are any snippets of wisdom or gems of insight that will magically lift my writing from struggles of apathy and mundanity into crystal clarity views of my soul, and its connection to film. Alas most of those hits are so mundane, they make me read like Tolstoy. At least I know what I am not as bad as, despite how clumsy this sentence is. One article I came across claimed I should never write about any movie I don't have great passion for, positive or negative notwithstanding. But if I did that, I would never end up writing at all, as passion from my stress addled brain (and strained heart) is a rare beast.

For example, Paul Feig (who to be honest, I enjoy more as a supporting cast member of Joel McHale's Netflix-d The Soup) releases an enjoyable little movie that didn't inspire any passion in me, but definitely entertained me. Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a crafty v-blogger, single and rather introverted. She bumps into fellow mom Emily (Blake Lively), who is pretty much the polar opposite. But a play-date and many martinis later, the two are ... friends? No, not quite. But they have... something.

Their relationship flows quickly as Emily's vodka & gin (tee hee! Aviation Gin) and is never easily defined, especially after Emily disappears. The revelation of what happened to Emily goes from weird & quirky to the realm of murder-mystery which actually stymied my guess-the-Hollywood-formula game. It's not exactly Shakespeare going on here, but honestly I would (and do) watch Anna Kendrick update her Twitter account, so I was enjoying myself.

So, not passionate but entertained. And I am recording that. I am relating what I am watching, because if I don't relate it to someone, then it will be lost, right? Someone has to validate all this time I am wasting on dross. So, if you leave Like or a comment (hint hint) or Kent returns from his idyllic Letterbox'd to leave a contrasting review, then my life will be complete. No, not really, but ... moved along.

P.S. Not from Kent, but from a review from a Kent ?

P.S.S. This poster is wonderful ! Take a gander at IMP Awards for a bunch of wonderful posters. So, OK a bit of passion for the poster!

Wes Anderson Twofer: The Grand Budapest Hotel / Moonrise Kingdom

d. Wes Anderson, 2014/2012 -- in theatre/netflix

Some people find Wes Anderson movies far too twee and way too calculated to be enjoyable.  His characters and films have a surreality to them that can be hard to buy into if you're unprepared, or not otherwise in a position to concede to his nuanced charms.  Each of his films exhibit a universe all their own, rife with a colloquial patois that's overly eloquent and verbose, old-worldly and out of step with the modern tongue.  At the same time, his characters are soft-edged, living in a fantasy world that's not entirely divorced from reality, but still quite distanced.  A lot of his pictures are period pieces, but even those are separated from the truth of their times by a layer of nostalgic wish fulfilment. Yet even as Anderson specializes in escapist entertainment, a getaway from normalicy, he always always seems to provide hints at exactly what his work is escaping from.

It's been over 2 months, a trip to NYC, a cruise through the rocky mountains, and hours of other entertainment/alcohol consumption since I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel, but facets of that film still linger strong in my memory.  From the very first moment of that film you know you're in a Wes Anderson picture, but then the same could be said for all of his films since The Royal Tenenbaums, so strong is his creative vision.  The Grand Budapest Hotel is set in a fictional hotel at the top of a mountain in a fictional land, and this film is the story if its most notable concierge.  Or rather, in true Anderson fashion, it's the story of a girl, reading the book of an author, who listened to the story of the owner of the hotel in 1968 telling the story of the concierge's most daring adventure in 1932.  As we eat our way through this convoluted but utterly amusing layer cake at the start of the film, Anderson switches cameras, film stock and aspect ratios, creating his own weird little Inception-style story-within-a-story-within-a-story-within-etc.

The concierge is Monsieur Gustav H (Ralph Feinnes, in a career-best performance), an apparently flawless dapper man who has sight over the entire hotel, its staff, and its guests at all times.  He lives modestly, but he expends his energy lavishly, loving more than a few of the hotel's elderly patrons, including one Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe und Taxis (Tilda Swinton under piles of ageing make-up) who dies a short time after our story starts.  Monsieur Gustav is willed a priceless painting, which infuriates Madame Céline's thuggish children (including Adrian Brody and Willem Dafoe) and they set out to make Monsieur Gustav's life a miserable one.  Meanwhile, Monsieur Gustav has taken on a new protege, in the form of young Zero (a bold introduction to Tony Revolori, who most assuredly deserves a best supporting actor nod), whom he reluctantly learns to rely upon and in turn benefit him with his own good charity.

The film is a sprawling epic of whimsy, the likes of which have not been made in decades, and even then, were never made like this.  I dare say there's barely another director out there who can come close to touching Anderson in this department.  A film like Amelie or The Brothers Bloom have the feel, but those directors don't have the consistency or interest in consistency across their works.  Every single object on display in a scene, actors included, seem purposefully placed in this film, and the 1:33 aspect ratio of the main story creates a wonderful  boxed-in frame to attempt to examine it all.  This is easily Anderson's most ambitious and rollicking story (The Fantastic Mister Fox included) with an exceptionally game and in-tune cast to execute it.

There's such a joie de vivre to this picture, even the menacing evil of Willem Dafoe, the harsh undercurrents of war and regime changes, and even the harsh bandaid-tear of the characters' ultimate fates once we revert back through the layers can't sully the overall good-timey feel.  Beyond that even, there's a particular sadness to Monsieur Gustav H. that always threatens to rear its head, but never does...but you see it there in Feinnes' performance.  He's a man revelling in life almost desperately, clinging to the almost inconsequential status he has as concierge, but even when that's gone, he never loses his ability to pick himself back up and make something of himself.  There's such unabashed delight throughout the picture that Anderson's subtle insertions of cold, harsh reality only server to make that delight even more delightful.  This may well be Anderson's masterpiece, in a career that's been somewhat defined by them.


Moonrise Kingdom, on the other hand, is a lesser effort, but only in comparison to what came next.  Having just watched this days ago, rather than months, it should be fresher in my memory, but there was a cloud of Grand Budapest over this film as I watched, and it couldn't live up to it.  Oh, I can take it and accept it on its own merits, but it's such a smaller-scale picture in comparison, and it's not as outrageous.

Anderson has a bit of a fascination with youths and their parental/authority figures.  Rushmore is the story of a boy's crush on a teacher, and his relationship with a mature, much older rival. Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited, and The Life Aquatic are all about the affect parents have on their children, especially once they're grown.  The Fantastic Mister Fox was Anderson's wry way of presenting a grown-up story (despite being based off a children's novel) forward as a children's film, exposing them to adult themes, worries and conflicts but in a palatable presentation.  Moonrise is his most direct effort at tracking the life of children and their somewhat helplessness living in an adult world.

His protagonists here are Sam Shakusky, age 12, and Suzie Bishop, age 12, young, disenfranchised outsiders who have found kinship and solace in one another.  The film is set in the early 1960's on a fictional New England island where Suzie's lawyer parents maker their home, Sam is in the vicinity thanks to participating in a Khaki Scout summer camp.  But Sam "resigns" from the scouts and disappears into the wilderness, having plotted with Suzie who wishes to escape her own troubled existence.

Anderson mounts a sweet romance between Sam and Suzie, as well as a wickedly entertaining manhunt as his scout leader (Ed Norton), the local sheriff (Bruce Willis), Suzie's parents (Francis McDormand) and his old scout troop scour the island to find him, all with the spectre of an incoming storm looming (thanks to Bob Balaban's foresight-filled exposition).  Eventually the kids are found and torn apart, but in the process, exploring these troubled children's past, there comes a greater sense of understanding, a reason to why they run.

There again is the undercurrent of sadness and pain that frequently find their way into an Anderson picture.  Sam is an orphan whose foster family have turned their backs on him, meaning he will be lost to Social Services.  Suzie has her issues and has found her parents' book on dealing with a disturbed child, but it's obvious she's reacting to her mother's infidelity and her father's depression more than anything.

It's not that Anderson sweeps these things under the rug.  They wouldn't be there at all if they didn't have a purpose, but they're such subtle background elements to the events on screen.  They shape the characters but barely the story at hand, and I can see how some might have a problem with this penchant of Anderson's.  The events of the story pull the characters through, but how they handle them is as a result of the people they are.

Moonrise is probably the least opulent of Anderson's movies, in that he strips things down more on screen with more basic imagery and style.  The camps are designed with minimal details (though each detail has its place as always) and the film spends most of its time outside, in fields, woods, on the water and beaches.  Even still, some of the outdoor scenes seem so surreal in the Anderson way that they seem more of his design than mother nature's.

The summer was filled with a tremendous amount of highly entertaining blockbusters which satisfy my "geek tooth" so sweetly, it was indeed a year of riches.  And even though it came out far earlier in the year, I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel in late June and it beats out every nerdy summer movie by some margin as the one I enjoyed the most.  Moonrise Kingdom I sat on for far too long in watching, and had I sat down to watch it before Grand Budapest I would probably like it even more than I already do, but comparatively it just isn't on that same scale, but it's more than worthy, a genuine great movie that precedes an even greater one in the director's oeuvre.

---
Supplimental:
For those who care, Wes Anderson's films in order of appreciation:
1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2/3. The Life Acquatic With Steve Zissou/The Royal Tenenbaums (it alternates)
4. The Fantastic Mister Fox
5. Moonrise Kingdom
6. Darjeeling Limited
7. Rushmore
8. Bottle Rocket

(It think Bottle Rocket is the least Anderson-esque, while Rushmore I just didn't *get* when I watched it)

What I Am Watching... Summer '13

Fringe Season 4 - Revisiting Fringe from the beginning has proven an exceptionally rewarding experience, particularly in seeing how the first season really set up everything else that was to come. While they didn't quite stick the landing, the build up to the final season makes for pretty incredible watching.  Fringe did a lot of things well, but it's their character and relationship building, destruction, and rebuilding that centers the show.  By the end of the third season, Peter and Walter had reconciled and secured their father-son bond, while Peter and Olivia managed to overcome the Fauxlivia scandal and connect as lovers only to conclude the season with Peter blinking from existence and restructuring the show's entire timeline.  It made for fascinating viewing the first time around, but I'm finding the second time around to be a little frustrating, since three years of the show stories are made somewhat irrelevant, at least for a little while, and the just established status quo is so frustratingly obliterated.

The first few eps of the season find Olivia, Walter and Astrid as the Fringe division team under Broyles, with Earth 1 Lincoln Lee brought into the fray.  Walter is afraid of society without Peter to ease him back into it in this timeline, Olivia being his guardian, and Nina Sharpe has somehow become Olivia's foster mother.  It shows a "what-if" aspect to the show, but, as I did the first time around, Peter's absence from the first few episodes is all too palpable.  Equally the minimal use of Earth 2 remains supremely disappointing.  Earth 2 was a fascinating place and if season 4 fails it's in not utilizing it enough after making it so integral in season 3.  When Peter does finally come back, though, the show starts crackling with great energy and tension again, as Walter refuses to acknowledge him, and Peter is all too aware that this Olivia is not the one he loved (not falling into that trap again).  How they reconnect the time-lost lovers, though is brilliant.  Season 4 also carries the Observers masterplan forward a little more consistently than season 3 did.

Season 3 was easily the show's apex, but season four is quite solid, if perhaps a five episodes overlong.

Young Justice Season 1&2 - In Canada we tend to miss a lot of great cartoons since we don't get the Cartoon Network up here.  If we're lucky our Canadian cartoon station, Teletoon, will pick up the domestic license, or perhaps YTV.  But even if they do, unless they're really, really popular, they get run once, never to be seen again.  Young Justice ran on Teletoon on Friday nights at 7ish, but as it wasn't appropriate for a 3 year old, we never watched it.  I honestly didn't think I was missing much.

When it was cancelled earlier this year there was quite the stink in the comics community because, apparently, people thought it was pretty awesome, and it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger introducing Darkseid as the big bad of the series (erm, spoiler I guess...it didn't hurt my viewing of the show one bit).  We picked up the DVDs to see what the stink was about and within three or four episodes, my wife, my stepson and I were completely invested.

DC Comics are built for cartoons: brightly colored, highly visual characters, wildly impossible powers, completely unbelievable scenarios, big concept action.  There have been a lot of great DC-derived cartoons: Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, Batman: Brave and the Bold, and honestly, I think Young Justice is the best of them.  Young Justice has everything I've always want out of a superhero cartoon, which is that it acknowledges a history and a larger superhero universe.  It doesn't confine itself to its team of heroes, it has mentors and elders and young allies, and piles and piles of villains to contend with.

Still quite unique to American animation, Young Justice runs with a tight continuity featuring an ongoing major arc that serves as a throughline throughout the series, as well as continuing character arcs which sees not just the major character growing, but a lot of the minor ones advancing as well.  Season 2, even when you're prepared for it, is a bit of a shock, as it jumps forward five years into the future, advancing the central characters from the first season dramatically, and introducing a whole new cast, most of which we don't get to know quite as well.  But season two ups the hero ante immensely, and it's glorious how many costumes and capes we get to see.

Aqualad is easily the breakout character from the show, with an insanely cool and visually impressive power, a distinct personality - the product of a foreign culture, and where he winds up in season 2 is bewildering at first.  The character designs, by Jerome K Moore and Dusty Abell, both veterans of the 90's comic scene (and personally, much missed) are sleek and modern, but also don't stray too far from the classic look and feel of the characters.

It's an amazing series, by the fourth or fifth episode I was already angry knowing that it was cancelled (apparently because the toys weren't selling well), having hit its stride very early.  By the end I was even more upset, it's 2 season run not nearly enough to satisfy my excitement and enthusiasm for the characters, their journey, and the epic storyline they didn't get to finish.  We can only hope for a comic book or direct-to-video movie finish.

Axe Cop - I don't know why I didn't think Axe Cop would work as a TV show, but I was wrong.  The idea of a 5-year-old "writing" a comic strip/book and his professional cartoonist older brother translating his script into something not only readable, but genuinely charming, frequently hilarious, and thoroughly entertaining was a winning idea.  Moving that all into a cartoon setting, I don't know, I guess I just thought it would be too surreal. But the creators of the Axe Cop cartoon weren't looking to temper the whims of a young mind into something a general audience would want to watch, instead they looked to the Adult Swim model of 12-minute episodes and embracing the utter absurdity of it all akin to Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job.

Audiences these days, after a steady diet of Spongebob in their youth are ready and prepared for absurdity, and Axe Cop satisfies any craving immensely.  With brilliant casting, the show crackles with the comedic energy of its voice talent. Nick Offerman as the titular character is the perfect choice for a nearly-psychopathic seemingly omnipowerful individual.  Offerman's reserved delivery plays into the mental instability of the character (which is completely the result of trying to rationalize a child's storytelling whims into a coherent continuity), but also his dominant alpha male nature and his absolute egocentricity.  The core cast is rounded out with great comedic actors Rob Huebel, Ken Marino and Patton Oswalt.  A short six-episode test run on Saturday nights this past summer made for perfect 11pm stuck-at-home-on-a-Saturday-night viewing  (as part of Fox's Adult Swim-inspired Animation Domination block.  The block's follow-up show, High School USA  employed a wonderful Archie Comics-inspired animation style, but leaned too heavily on supposed taboo topics as a humour mine, resulting in painfully unfunny material.  If you want a great animated high school cartoon, look back to Clone High).  Axe Cop, is proving great in every medium so far, (web comic, traditional comic, card game, animation), a video game would be incredible, and a film (with Offerman in the lead role and directed by Tim and Eric) would be mind blowing...

Pushing Daisies - Years ago, when it first debuted, I watched the first two episodes of Pushing Daisies and thoroughly enjoyed them, but for some reason never went back to them, though with every intention to return, some day.  Both episodes were directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (Addams Family, Men In Black, the Tick) and established a rich visual aesthetic to the show, filled with vibrant, primary colours that are contrasted with elaborate fabric patterns or cleverly constructed (if often impractical) sets.  It's about as close to the 60's Batman style as any show has ever come, without intentionally trying.  There's definitely an outmoded sense of whimsy to the overall structure that hasn't really been employed with any regularity since the 1940's, and it's extremely rare to see shows or movies with continual third-party narration.

Daisies is the product of death-obsessed showrunner Brian Fuller (see also Dead Like Me, Hannibal), here employing the filter of whimsy and humour to the concepts of mortality and murder, but also overlaying themes of family, friendship and romance.  It is, in actuality, a romantic comedy with just a hint of supernatural elements and and surreality.  Lee Pace is perfectly cast as Ned, the pie maker, who has the ability to bring the dead back to life with a touch, and take it back with another, but if they live for more than a minute, someone else in the vicinity will die instead.  Ned's carried the secret since childhood with only his dog knowing, until Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) a private eye, accidentally witnesses a resurrection.  Cod blackmails Ned into helping him solve crimes, which adds a detective narrative to every episode.  The first episode finds Cod and Ned investigating the death of Charlotte Charles (Anna Friel), who turns out to be Ned's long-lost childhood sweetheart.  Ned can't bring himself to de-resurrect Chuck, as the emotional connection and now romantic sparks fly immediately and intensely.  But how can people be lovers when they can't touch?  The final facet of the show is Ned's employee, Olive Snook (Kristen Chenowith) who has long held a crush on Ned, just to add a romantic triangle to the mix.

The show revolves around it's of-the-week case that Emerson draws Ned into and Chuck, with nowhere else to go, tags along.  It carries the continual narrative of Ned and Chuck's complicated romance, Olive's wariness of the new girl, and Emerson's exasperation.  Olive and Chuck's childhoods, both their shared history and individual development, play an integral role in their adult lives and the formation of their somewhat unusual characters.  I was worried after rewatching the first two episodes that I would find the intentionally sweet and off-beat nature of the show to wear thin quickly, but the counterbalance of morbid humour keeps it in check.  We blasted through season one rather quickly, but a lot of distractions hit in the past little while to keep us from getting through season two as swiftly.  But the season 1 closing reveal has so far provided a lot of ammunition to keep season 2 interesting.  It's a unique show that perhaps could have enjoyed a longer life, but equally I think got a life just long enough.  Rumours have circulated about a Pushing Daisies movie this year if it could get funded via Kickstarted (but then every cult show has had the same rumour since Veronica Mars pulled it off).  It'd be nice (especially Brian Fuller's idea of making it a zombie movie), but not getting my hopes up, though I would definitely put money into it.

Low Winter Sun - We got two or three episodes into this AMC translation of the British mini-series about a police detective who is manipulated into murdering a fellow detective, and then quickly learns of his manipulation and must contend with a corrupt police department, a brewing drug war, and internal affairs investigating his victim's murder.  It should be a more compelling watch than it actually turns out to be.  Mark Strong reprises his role from the British series and is incredible to watch, so obviously comfortable in the role, but as much can't be said for the rest of the cast.  Lennie James as the manipulating detective being investigated by IA is solid in the role, but his character is tossed into certain scenes without clear motivation (or any understanding of the stakes) making for some less than engrossing viewing.  The B-plot of the series involves a group of small time drug dealers making a push for their own slice of the city, but the actors involved in the role aren't up to Strong's scene commanding caliber, their characters are generally unappealing, and their storyline seems unimportant and unnecessary.  They try to dovetail the two lines together early, but it feels awkward.

The use of Detroit is perhaps its best feature, with the set decoration of the police precinct about as grimy as I've ever seen.  The technology the cops are working with is antequainted, the plaster is falling off the walls, the paint is peeling, the desks are beaten... it's obvious that there's no money being invested, moreover there's no money to invest.  The city looks like it's falling apart at the seams, neighbourhoods are abandoned where wild dogs have taken roost, the show's producer are keenly aware of their surroundings and the part they can play.

There are some great elements to Low Winter Sun, but they're overshadowed an overwhelming amount of tediousness, and nothing really propelling the show forward other than will Strong's otherwise respectable cop get away with murder, and whether he really wants to.