Three Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Def-Con 4

1985, Digby Cook, Paul Donovan, Tony Randel -- Amazon

I told Kent I was going to do it, and since I don't have the spare brain cells for anything real at the moment, I watched this one over a few days.

Wow, that was bad, but not as bad as I recall judging it way back in Ye Olden Days of VHS. Don't get me wrong, its terrible but terrible in the way most 80s post-apocalypse movies were. And the Canadian-isms of it all, sort of allow me to forgive it much. I also am amused that I recalled two very important details from my first viewing: when I saw the Alexander Keiths stubbie beer bottle being used as a candle holder I knew the movie was Canadian (ignoring the Maury Chaykin role), and I believed the whole movie having taken place in Nova Scotia, based on the map in the Bad Guy's lair.

So, this is Cold War hype at it hype-iest. A handful of astronauts in a satellite space station grumping about how long they have been up and looking to get back to Earth, when it happens -- someone pisses someone else off (oh, say... someone calls The Prime Minister his Governor) and the missiles start being lobbed. They are supposed to launch their own but they argue and, don't.

Minutes later, which I gather is supposed to be weeks, one of them gets a message from his wife. Radiation has caused a sickness, most people are dead, anyone ill is quarantined and his child is dead. The crew argue again and Howe (Tim Choate, Babylon 5) fiddles with the computer, sending them on a landing trajectory. I admit, I was washing the dishes so I didn't catch everything, but I believe they got a signal from Earth, which was weird cuz everything should be all blowed up. Oh, the other astronauts are Walker (John Walsch, absolutely nothing else) the commander, and Jordan (Kate Lynch, Lost Girl) the doctor.

Weird note. There were moments when I thought the movie was going to stray into sexytime. One, it had to be Walker as Howe is married, watches a "blue movie" and Jordan just rolls her eyes. Entirely inappropriate. There are a few other very terribly written sexual scenes, as if the script was done by a 14 year old boy whose only exposure to sex was a bunch of nudie mags in a plastic bag hidden under his bead.

They land. Not sure how, as their space station doesn't actually have a visible lander module. BUT not before they launch all their own nuclear payload. All but one, and it starts ticking down. Its a rough landing and Jordan is knocked unconscious and they are jammed weirdly on a sandy beach. As Walker tries to dig his way out, he is grabbed by unknowns and ... only his hand drops back into the hole. When Howe emerges with a flimsy stick as a weapon, he sees people sawing chunks of meat off Walker -- CANNIBALS !

He runs, but is caught by a random trap put out by Vinny (Canadian royalty Maury Chaykin, My Cousin Vinny) the redneck survivalist, in his best Canadian Tuxedo and kilt. While this movie never mentions its in Canada, and always seems to at least pretend its following American style politics & military structure, it also drops regular Canadianisms. 

Weird note. Its been... what, a few months? They have been revolving up there for the few months and the planet has fallen into complete barbarism? They haven't even landed in an urban area but they have cannibals and bandage wrapped muties, but everything is "The Road Warrior" level PA. Why? Even with mass death and collapse of society, things would hang onto a near-normal for at least years. But, whatever, this wants to do the "Planet of the Apes" thing and have them arrive to a shocking change of affairs.

So yeah, Vinny. He has a pretty good setup with booby traps (I am sure he giggled when he set them up) and land mines and secret tunnels back to his slapped together shack. Again, he should at least have a fortified hunter's cabin, but nope, he's hidden inside hammered & glue sheets of wood and metal, pure PA ramshackle. He has a girl in his basement, and seems to have lost all eating utensils as he forces gruel upon Howe. He has nudie mags pasted all over the wall. How tries to convince him to help, offering half of his space station food supply (months!!) in exchange for some guns and information. Vinny says he will just kill Howe and take it all; fair point. But then he's distracted by an interloper blowing himself up outside, and Vinny heads outside to see what "the kids" are up to.

While Vinny is outside, the girl in the basement, named JJ (Lenore Zann, X-Men '97), crawls out, all dressed in a school uniform. Hmmm, so the kids must refer to a bunch of youngin's that she was part of ? Once again, Howe offers food if she will help, but before the two can escape, Vinny returns. He's taking the pair with him as he checks out the beach where the station crashed, in his Mad Max'd out tractor, complete with armoured cage. When they arrive, Vinny makes some comment about the "lunatics from Fort Blah Blah" and suddenly there is a beached blonde guy with a terrible moustache and a sloppy military uniform. And other guys with guns. Vinny boots it, back to his tractor, but they capture him with hooks and chains.

Back to Fort Blah Blah, I guess. Its just another example of slapped together ramshackle, but there are a LOT of civilians, some in cages, some in holes, most in weird favela box shacks but otherwise looking like filthy normal people. I was left wondering why. There is no world building in this movie; its not smart enough to have such. Sure, we can postulate that the disease, radiation sickness, cannibals and muties (I know they are not radiation mutants, just bandaged survivors, but they present as muties) run rampant in the surrounding landscape, so people have congregated here under the auspices of being protected by whatever military folks are in Fort Blah Blah, but really, they've just become slaves / fodder for his whims.

And who is him? The "kids" turn out to be, and we learn from an exposition scene from JJ, a handful of boarding school kids (college? highschool?) who were in a helicopter with the General Dad of one of them, and it crashed before they could get to safety. So, he, the preppy as Kent called him, is Gideon, a charismatic and ruthless son of the dead General, and he is not entirely stupid, so people follow him. JJ is his ex-girlfriend who doesn't appreciate his ruthlessness, and ran away, only to be captured by JJ. 

The spacestation / lander thing / whatever has been carted back from the beach by slaves, and off camera, they got Jordan out of it. She, and the rest of the prisoners are tossed into cage holes, where they are subjected to the half-eaten Walker. Eww. Meanwhile Gideon and his henchmen are trying to get coordinates of a proper base of survivors, the usual mythical "safe zone" from all the PA movies. They will get that by hacking the computer module from the spacestation. Gideon has a tech guy with a broken back, who he taunts with freedom and food. Together they get the required coordinates, and plan to escape on a boat. Howe has also said he wants a boat, a sailing boat, which should allow him to get to South America where the radiation won't be as bad. Meanwhile, the one remaining nuclear warhead, stuck in its launch tube, is still ticking down, unbeknownst to everyone.

So, the prisoners are to be executed via lots of melodrama and eye rolling on my part. But just as the crowds scream for blood and the hangin' is about to happen, the broke back dude has dragged himself out, somehow got a gun, and opens up. Total Chaos! Gideon is shot! Jordan offers to help but only if they are all freed. When she medically assists him, she tries to convince him that the poison is a pain killer but he turns the tables and kills her instead! Drama! Tragedy! In all these PA movies, everyone but the lone Main Guy and the Cute Girl have to die. Meanwhile outside, Vinny has freed all the average-people slaves and prisoners and convinced them to fight back. In the ensuing chaos, Gideon escapes to the boat, with the coordinates, and JJ. The "fighting back" does not really go well.

Still doing dishes.

Howe and Vinny chase after the boat, only to see it sailing away. Howe jumps in the water, is tossed a rope by JJ, fights Gideon, and the boat is theirs! Gideon and his blonde henchmen Lacey escape back to Fort Blah Blah just as the clock countdown finishes.

Boom. 

Credits roll. 

The final victory has been won. Mankind can now rest in peace.

What? What final victory? A single boom that wipes some part of Nova Scotia off the map? Victory for who? And there are people in the boat, and at whatever Safe Zone they are sailing to, so no final rest for mankind. What does that even mean??

Speaking of not-making-sense, the tag line from the poster, "The last defense. The last hope. The battle for the future of the world has begun." Huh? They were not "battling for the future of the world", they were just ... well, fighting over food and a girl. These are just words on a poster; nothing to do with the movie. Gah.

As big messy productions go, this was all the mess, but in some, mostly MST3K kinds of way, it was kind of fun. Or maybe it was the kind of terrible that I like to write about. Either way, it distracted me.

KWIF: Hope (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. 

This Week:
Hope (2026, d. Na Hong-jin - in theatre)
Is God Is (2026, d. Aleshea Harris  - amazonprime)
The Christophers (2025, d. Stephen Soderbergh - amazonprime)

---

I knew three things going into Hope:

1) it was the biggest budget Korean-produced film ever
2) the opening hour is an epic, action tour-de-force
3) the poor CGI for the film's creatures many say spoiled the film for them.

The first item is just a fact, the other two are subjective statements. What I had heard about the opening sequence, which again, is about a full hour in length, is absolutely true. It is an incredibly paced, beautifully shot, exceptionally well-structured sequence that spends the majority of its time using deft camera positioning and brilliant practical and digital effect to hide or obscure the creature at the centre of the chaos in this small Korea border town of Hope Harbor.

The set-up is phenomenal. Local police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min, providing a believably harried performance) arrives in the very rural farmland scene where hunters point out the very large, dead bovine in the middle of the road. It's been mauled severely, but not eaten. The hunters and the chief puzzle over both its placement (far enough from any grazing land) and the claw marks, which are not bear nor, as suggested, tiger. 

The parties split up with help called for, but unable to arrive due to regional fires being fought. Bum-seok enters the main street of the eerily vacant town and screeches to a halt when he spies a massive, destructive hole straight through the center of a shop, its proprietor dead under the rubble within. And then off in the distance, smoke, then gunfire, and it all pops off. 

Bum-seok races through town on foot, shotgun in hand, witnessing carnage as flung items crush people, people are tossed dozens of meters down the road, roving pickups loaded with ammo and men and women chase, then flee from whatever it is they're attacking. Bum-seok meets people and then separates from them, loses some of them, and generally is overwhelmed and questioning his own bravery.

It's an exhilarating hour of cinema, and, then the creature is revealed, and, even being forewarned and prepared, it's still a let down. In the preceding hour, minute-by-minute, the mind races at the possibilities of what the creature could be. Even knowing beforehand that it would be a disappointment, I still had (ahem) hope that the creature would at least be interesting. 

And you know what...it kind of is. It's definitely not what I was expecting (and I'll save said description for spoilers below), and it did kinda take me aback, both in its composition and in what's best described as excellent-for-2002 CGI effects.

It's clear that Hope Harbor is close-ish to the border with North Korea. There's signage about reporting spies and talk of heavily mined fields to the North. I suspected that there might be some form of North Korean-invasion or panic angle to this film, in metaphor if not literal, but no. It's just backdrop. I guess it explains why everyone has so many guns (or is it just an aping of American action cinema and going intentionally overboard?) 

The creature is taken down, and the second hour of the film cuts back and forth between the fallout of this epic rampage in the town, and what the hunters are discovering out in the woods. Bum-seok and his deputy Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon) independently find out more about what others have discovered in the woods, as Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) and his posse of hunters encounter some pretty fascinating and gnarly scenes in the trees.  

This process of discovery, which also includes a very gooey impromptu autopsy on the creature, is really, really good. It's the appropriate cool-off from the pulse-racing opener, and really gets you invested in the story a very fun, 1980's creature-feature kind of way (and Hope borrows more than a shots from such films throughout). There's not much CGI to speak of in this so the small let-down of the creature starts to fade (especially as it's a big, rubbery, practical piece for the autopsy).

Everything converges in the woods in the third act, and, well, this is where the film loses me. It's not the CGI. We've been dealing with unreal-looking computer generated images for over 30 years in movies and television, I can accept a lot if the story earns my trust...so long as the effects aren't unbelievably awful (which they aren't here, they just don't have Hollywood money to put into them to refine them over and over). No, what loses me in the third act is the tedium of it.

The second act give us enough of we need to know, the creatures motivations seem somewhat clear, providing a path to resolution. But the third act seems to disregard that we have this knowledge, and instead is another hour of shooting guns and chases and ugly cgi monsters crashing through trees and that hoary trope of going into slow motion as something near-misses biting or grabbing as it passes mid-air (we only see this about a dozen times in the film, mostly in this third act, ugh). It culminates in what should be a breathless chase sequence on the highway, Sung-ki on a horse and the rest of the gang in a police car fleeing the creature, but it feels just so staged and pointless and it goes on so long. Where in the first hour, each minute that ticked by seemed to open up new possibilities in your mind, really stimulating the imagination, every minute of the last half hour had me wondering if it was over yet.

The third act introduces that the creatures can talk, but in a language that isn't Korean (or English). But late, late in the third act, we start cutting to the creatures, independent of what else is happening to our main characters, and we start seeing subtitled conversations with them.... WTF!?! You can't just all of a sudden thrust on the audience that these are fully sentient creatures who we now need to invest time into understanding the meaning of what they're saying this late in the film (the creatures are voiced -and maybe motion capture performed?- by Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Cameron Brittan and Taylor Russell). 

And the film just ends on a conversation between these creatures, unresolved. After nearly 160 minutes, and a dire and truly pointless third act, there isn't a resolution, but instead the cliffhanger (but not really a tried and true cliffhanger) for the sequel.

I do not recall the last time I bought into a film so hard and then was so off board by the end. I can forgive overly-ambitious-for-its-budget digital effects, but I really can't forgive poor story planning and even poorer execution.

The cinematography by Hong Kyung-pyo (Parasite) is outstanding from frame one, some absolutely gorgeous vistas of this Korean terrain, and just making the immaculately decorated/destroyed streets and buildings of this town look incredible (I can't help but think of the devastation in Godzilla Minus One and think that, even if it is on a smaller scale, they one upped it here...this town got wrecked, or at least we truly are give the feeling that it's just been demolished). Even the highway chase, as overworked a sequence as it is, still looks incredible.  The score from frequent Jordan Peele collaborator Michael Abels will get your blood pumping. 

There's so much to like about Hope that is could have...it should have been incredible. This could have been next-level Attack The Block even with its middling-looking creatures, but it's clear Director Na has lore and mythology for the creatures that he wants to get into, just in another film next film. I would be fine with that, but finish. this. one. first.

Spoilers at the end of this post.

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Is God Is, directed by first-timer Aleshea Harris, is an adaptation of her own multiple-award-winning off-Broadway play. When you hear that a film is an adaptation of a play, you think more of a chamber-piece, more of a two-hander, or something rather...upscale... meaningful... contemplative... important.  You don't generally think of plays as being revenge thrillers with an elevated grindhouse aesthetic (now that we've finally laid the term "elevated horror" to rest, I'm trying to pomp up a new term to annoy people).

We meet twins Racine (Kara Young) and Anaya (Mallori Johnson), whose first trait we notice is their scars. Anaya, the quiet one, has extensive burn scars on her face, while Racine's right arm is horribly disfigured, carries a fire in her just waiting to erupt. The twins live together and work together and have a sort of synchronized routine to their day, including icing down each other's burns with extreme tenderness. It seems like it's the highlight of their day, despite all it may connote.  They also have a way of communicating non-verbally that is presented in distinctive subtitling on screen.

Their lives, obviously, have not been easy. Racine's rage as much, if not more of an impediment than whatever prejudices their appearance may elicit. One day they receive a letter from their mother, who they've long thought dead (having spent their childhood in a series of abusive foster homes), but turns out is now dying. She summons them and they hit the road heeding her call. Also horribly scarred (far, far more) and tended to by what seem like cherubs-in-disguise, Ruby (Vivica A. Fox) tells the children of their horrendous origin story at the hands of their even more horrendous father (Sterling K. Brown, just seeping sociopathic nefariousness). She then tasks them with but one goal: "make your daddy dead".

And so they're back on the road, trying to track down their father, along the way discovering the impact this despicable human being has had on the lives and minds of the people who have had the misfortune of being around him, including a few half siblings along the way.

The film side-steps any racial violence against Racine and Anaya (in fact, I think there's not a single speaking role not played by a Black actor here) because there's more than enough threats that Racine and Anaya have to face in trying to hunt down their father.  Along the way, Racine's fury, her lust for violence starts to conflict with Anaya's demure sensibilities, and suddely they're not in sync anymore. There is, one more than one occasion, a reason to question nurture versus nature, but also examine the context in which Racine and Anaya were raised. It becomes a complex idea to fully grasp, what's fueling the fire in Racine at any given time.

Is God Is may not have been a commercial hit, but it's a very successful movie. It isn't the naval-gazing, highbrow art that one might thing going into a stage-to-screen adaptation. It's a sprawling, intense, violent, pulpy romp that also has a sense of theatricality and thoughtfulness to it that distinguishes it and, yes, elevates it from typical B-movie fare.  But you can meet it at either, or both levels and be satisfied. Or maybe exploring this kind of darkness, even with the lighter elements and stylistic flourishes, might just be too off putting.

---

A friend attended the world debut of The Christophers at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and raved about what a great movie it was. They had never seen Michaela Coel before and were blown away. 

I assumed, given how critically well-received it was coming out of TIFF, and also it being a Stephen Soderbergh production that it was going to be released in the fall of 2025 for awards contention.  I eagerly awaited its release. And waited. And waited. 

When it finally was released early this Spring, it was not released very wide, and screenings around Toronto, a very movie-friendly city, were not as regular as your average release, nor did it remain in theatres long enough for Lady Kent and I to catch it on the big screen. 

Next think I know it's on Amazon Prime, which I don't regularly subscribe to and which continues to have a pretty user-unfriendly interface (it's designed to sell you stuff, as well as gather data on you, not give you movies to watch). Point being, it took a lot longer to get to seeing The Christophers than I wanted. 

And, holy cow... this is one of Soderbergh's best films in a very lengthy filmography of good-to-great films... it's also one of Ian McKellan's best performances in a very long career of good-to-great acting, and, well, Michaela Coel whom I already liked a lot (while unfortunately admitting I've not followed her career closely enough) is just one of the most captivating performers in film and television today.

McKellan plays famous artist Julian Sklar, a notable painter of the modern age, but who hasn't released much work in decades, and has become more of a media personality in recent years. His most famous works are the two series of paintings of his lover from the 1990s, labelled The Christophers. Rumours have long held there is an unfinished third series that, despite how his reputation may have fallen off, audiences are still anxious to see finished... including Sklar's own son and daughter.

Barnaby (James Corde) and Sally (Jessica Gunning) see the third series of The Christophers as their inheritance. They look to Lori Butler (Coel), an art restorer and former classmate, to become Julian's assistant, and, more specifically, they want her to covertly finish the paintings. 

That's the set-up, but the execution is a complete two-hander between McKellan and Coel as Julian waxes poetic to the sound of his own voice, barely letting Lori get an word in edgewise. He dismisses her and is disinterested in her, until he does a web search and reads her critical think-pieces on him which take on his ego and take him down more than a peg or two. And he is intrigued, and also more than aware of the ploy his shiftless offspring are trying to parlay.

With the jig up, Lori doesn't need to hold back as her already tenuous employment is now obviously severed, and she proves herself to be, at the very least, his intellectual equal, if not artistic one.

With two fascinating characters played by two incredible actors, the script serves them both, Julian with a sharp, self-satisfied, erudite wit, while Lori is reserved but tactical in her words. McKellan gets bold with his body, embodying Julian half-robed, as much for his own comfort as for the discomfort of others. Coel, meanwhile, delivers some of the slyest glances in the film, at times telling more with her facial expressions than with her words.

For Soderbergh's part, it's all about capturing a space, being Julian's London double townhouse, which is the home of a disorganized artist. There's no reason for Julian, who hasn't worked with any proficiency since the '90's ended, to have a home in such disarray, but it's clear he hasn't managed his money well, and that how he lives is of no bother (his sectional corner sofa looks like it's from the 70's and hasn't been used in years, but was very well used at one time). Soderbergh captures and sometimes focuses on the surroundings as his characters negotiate them, making the space a major component of every scene.

I was expecting an almost psychological drama out of The Christophers for some reason, not a surprisingly fun and immensely enjoyable while still emotionally resonant picture. What a true delight with just the most satisfying ending.

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***SPOILERS FOR HOPE***

As I said, you're just not at all prepared for these creatures when you see them, and yes there are multiple creatures, and no they are not the same. The first creature, the one wrecking havoc on the town, is teased so exceptionally well. It is a mystery to us, and we're given clues, like the goopy, goopy blood, the fishy smell, the cut in on fish here and there throughout the chase, the description that it looks like a pile of beans? But also, it's clear that the way this creature is fighting, and the speed at which it's moving around, it's not running on instinct, it does have some kind of thought. It's using tools to kill people, and it seems like its on a distinct mission to kill every human in town. It's like the cow was a mistake, and it learned who its enemy was, and it was going to destroy every one of them. And when it's revealed, it's large (as expected) but shockingly humanoid. It's got green skin, looks a little slimy, a human-ish face, long scraggly hair, human-ish limbs and hands, but triple-jointed legs like an animal. I was thinking that it was maybe a sea hag, hence the fishy smell, and that its skin would be so tough and dense because it has to be able to withstand the crushing depths of the Pacific. But no, it also turns out that it's an alien. We see at least four more alien creatures, and each one is different than the others, still humanoid but their bodies are differently composed. One of them can transform into something that looks like the dog-alien from Alien 3 while another has two massive racks of horns growing out of their shoulder blades that makes you wonder about the logistics of living with those. We also see their space craft, which is a gigantic orb, and it looks fantastic, both outside and in. The interior is clearly cribbing from the Geiger school of ship design, but it has its own distinct feel from the Alien/Prometheus tekno-organic look. Again the discovery process exploring all this in the second act I genuinely enjoyed as much as the hyper first act. It just falls all apart in the third act.  The second act finds sympathy for these creatures, so when the third act just starts shooting them all up again over and over and over again, you keep wondering where the sympathy plays into this. There's clearly been a misunderstanding between species, but nobody is keen to resolve it, certainly not the director, not in this film. Sigh. The only possible route for the second film is to redo much of the first film but from the creatures' perspectives. But that would take beaucoup bucks (or a heavy reliance upon AI-generated effects, which double gross), so I don't think it's going to happen (and I'm not sure I would even see it if it did).

***END SPOILERS FOR HOPE***

We Agree: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu

2026, Jon Favreau (Chef) -- download

Kent.

OK, here I go back into blockbuster land, as they begin popping up on my pirate sites. Oh, did I say that out loud?

In 2019 Favreau did what no one was truly expecting -- got a live-action "Star Wars" TV show off the ground, and made it good. Actually, great. It came out at the end of a series of very divisive theatrical movies, and I include The Rise of Skywalker. This is the first proper movie since that series of, arguably failures, ended. And it was a box-office flop. I never saw it in the cinema, but my forays into those dark abodes are no longer an indicator of anything.

Kent says it well.

I enjoyed the movie... but... I enjoyed the movie like I would enjoy binge watching a season of The Mandalorian, and that's kind of the experience the film brings. It doesn’t feel right.

I watched this for the first time, at home, on the TV, and yet I feel that somewhat of a let-down feeling. As I am wont to say, it's fine. But in only saying that, I am once again kind of pissed off. While I understood I never held the spin-off movies to the same level, what I wanted from this was for Favreau and Filoni to translate their special love of "Star Wars" from the small-screen to the Big Screen experience. I didn't get that; I just got a ... longer episode with more budget?

My mind was a bit muddled coming into this movie. Having just come off some relatively recent rewatches of Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, as well currently ongoing rewatches of Ep. VII and VIII, my brain is lost in the time stream. As I understand it, we are coming into this story post-Ep. VI, just after the events in Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew. So, the New Republic is still in control, the First Order hasn't visibly risen yet, and yet remnants of the Empire are still everywhere. And so, the New Republic has tasked The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal, Wonder Woman 1984; Brendan Wayne, Lateef Crowder), and his side-kick Grogu, with hunting down these remnants. 

The movie opened with a bounty. Its a snow planet, or at the very least, the place on the planet in the mountains, with snow. Imperial walkers, snow troopers, colluding Imperial warlord and toadies. Its all fun and exciting, but then we swing to the opening credits and .... huh. Sure, I like Ludwig Göransson as much as the next person, and his score is probably most exciting "Star Wars" music since the original movie, but this overly bombastic version, meant for a cinema with big speakers, does not fit well with the "American base in the Vietnam war" style opening. By itself, the scene is wonderful, but they should have saved the big sounds score for... the end? I am thinking the score should have been a more sly version, low key and anticipatory.

Why are planets in "Star Wars" always a single biome?

Bounty Hunters are always "bring em in alive, or bring em in dead, I still get paid" and that is pissing off Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver, Alien), who needs the intel a living "Imp" can provide. And yet, despite her annoyance, she coaxes Mando into another job, offering him a newly refurbed Razor Crest, since his last one was blown to smithereens. The problem is that he will have to work with the Hutts, particularly The Twins, who took over Jabba's demesne after his death, and while Boba still rules on Tatooine as Daimyo. The Twins want Mando to rescue Rotta (Jeremy Allen White, The Bear), Jabba's son, from a crime boss named Coin. You might recall that Rotta was known to Ahsoka as "Stinky".

This was my first hint that maybe my super duo might not translate well to the Big Screen, even if I am watching on the Small Screen. The mismatched score, the smaller stakes. Sure, other (cinematic) movies do small stakes all the time, but this is "Star Wars" and following a successful stint on TV, I wanted Big Stakes, not just the rescue of a previously referenced side character, with some complications in tow. Maybe I wanted a gateway into the next (previous) trilogy? Grumblings of the First Order? Shadowy foreshadowing? Some big success for The Rebels-turned-New-Republic-Policing?

But again, what I did get was fine and all. 

Fun things. The transposition of the original movie's holochess into "real life" was smirk inducing, but also... weird? Are these monsters/beasts or are they people? I mean, one was wearing a vest, but some were pretty horrific looking. Also, that whole town was really really well designed, visually. Can't wait for a food influencer to recreate the sandwich Mando was about to be served. 

And the practical effects / stop motion segment as Grogu and the Anzellans (once again, all voiced by Shirley Henderson, Okja) band together to rescue Mando. I swear, I could see the strings on their tiny ship. And the fight between Mando and mega-droids was very very Ray Harryhausen. A whole lot of fun, but also.... jarring and out of place.

Less enthused. The Grogu sitting around in his mud hut (not Hutt) waiting for Mando to heal. Its like they needed to fill a required allotment of Grogu being cute. Also, by now, Mando knows he's not a pet, knows he's not a "child" so.... what's with all the pet / toddler references? The time that had to pass for Mando to get better should have had more impact.

If I had seen this in the cinema, I am no longer convinced if I would have been less annoyed, having had a Big Screen Experience, no matter the film's satisfaction level (remember, we "enjoyed" watching Madam Webb and The Flash), or more annoyed, given expectations vs reality. I am much more annoyed by the box office turnout, and the impact it will have on future Favreau / Filoni projects.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Landscape with Invisible Hand

2023, Cory Finley (Bad Education) -- Amazon 

Amazon has this weird pattern, where they will add movies to their roster, then after an undetermined amount of time, shunt it off to one of their subscription-services, or more accurately, remove access from Prime Video subscribers in favour of the consumer paying more for the additional subscription. Eventually they come back. I get the model with blockbusters -- convince people to join with "free" access to the recently released movie, such as Project Hail Mary, and then drop it for the other licensors to take over. But I don't understand how it works with long-released movies but I am sure there is an algorithm at play, a terribly designed, badly implemented algorithm. This one came and went, came and went, came again and I watched it.

Speaking of Project Hail Mary I cannot help but compare the aliens in that movie to the aliens in this movie. In Landscape with Invisible Hand the Vuvv have come to Earth from another galaxy and while the pretense is that the governments welcomed them due to the technological and economical advancements they offered. And yet its definitely an occupation ... or, maybe more accurately, a Colonization. In the Ryan Gosling movie, the aliens are not really any more advanced than Earthlings, but are entirely alien -- they would not do well in Earth cultures. When the Vuvv come to Earth, they don't give a hoot about the impact they have on the planet and its cultures; they just implement their changes, reap whatever benefits they can and ignore the negative effects. They do not have any empathy for the "lesser species". My comparison between Rocky's species and the Vuvv is more about descriptors (small weirdly shaped, live in dark rocky abodes), as we well know Rocky was very empathetic with his friend Grace but I cannot help but wonder whether a species with more technological advancements might lose that empathy... you know, like we do.

Our humans are Adam (Asante Blackk, This Is Us), a highschooler with a talent for outsider art, and his crush, Chloe (Kylie Rogers, Home Before Dark), whose family has just moved to town. Moved is too strong a term as they, being herself, her brother and her dad, are living out of the family car: homeless, jobless. Adam's own mother, a lawyer, is also without work and seeking a job, any job, but they still have the family home... for now. Adam tries to win favour with Chloe by offering her family the family basement, which does not go over well.

This opening has quickly established that while the Vuvv have offered Earth some offscreen benefits, the average person is not benefiting... at all. Unemployment and homelessness are the norm now. Vuvv efficiency comes with the cost of having to do things their way. But the Vuvv are partial to human melodrama and as Chloe and Adam begin to get close, she suggests they broadcast their "courting ritual". The Vuvv have provided a technology that allows a human mind to connect to a network, visually experience what is transmitted to them, but also return the transmission. Yes, Vuvv TV is just watching humans do human stuff and they really like "love".

At first it goes well. Adam is falling in love and the two are getting to know each other. They make money, a LOT of money, enough to keep the house payments going and eat real food, as opposed to the cheaply extruded blocks of essential proteins that the Vuvv provide to all humans. Except Chloe begins "producing" their relationship, and it begins feeling less real to Adam. And, it becomes pretty obvious to the Vuvv viewers. The two are dragged before a Vuvv executive and sued for faking their relationship. By then, it mostly was. Pay back all the money, or lose everything.

Shit gets weirder. Adam's mom Beth (Tiffany Haddish, Boosters LA), uses her lawyer powers to propose an alternative arrangement to the Vuvv executive. While they are asexual beings that bud instead of give birth, they still have an attachment to their .. offspring. Beth proposes a marriage between her and the offspring, who ends up taking the name Father. They get to experience the human family structure instead of just viewing it. Of course, they are oblivious to the hypocrisy about being upset at humans faking it while having no issue pretending this is all real; it just confirms their lack of understanding of everything human. But, why should they care? They are at the top of the food chain, societally speaking.

Adam doesn't do well with this, angry with his mother, with Chloe, with the state of the world. Chloe's dad, utterly emasculated by his homelessness and joblessness, still tortured by his own toxic masculinity, offers to become the "housewife" to Father's family unit, allowing Beth to keep the job she got at a local fast food joint. Adam and Chloe aren't on speaking terms, when the school is closed down. Everyone will now just "learn" (Vuvv indoctrination) via the mind-view technology. Adam is at wit's end and paints a massive mural of life since the Vuvv came to Earth, on the side of the school.

Our final act has Adam recognized by a Vuvv art critic as a power voice in outsider art, and is offered a residency and a galactic tour worth millions. Except, they need him to alter the art so as to depict the Vuvv as benevolent overseers, come to Earth to make everything better. Whereas everyone else has been making hard choices either to just get by, or to have a better life, Adam just says No. He abandons the money, the recognition, and in turn, the Vuvv just rip the side off the school and take it away.

The End.

This isn't a movie of grand changes, world altering realizations, or anything else so grand, usually found in alien movies. Adam doesn't "save the Earth", he doesn't even do much to help his family. There isn't a resistance against the alien dominators, just people who are impotently angry. This movie is a vignette into lives of some people under Vuvv rule. Exploration of the Human Condition is a phrase bandied about with broad gestures, but like Adam's art which is often primitive and would challenge many people on the idea of what "real art" is, or is not, this movie does have the things it needs to say, but also, in many ways, its just a weird alien movie.

Rewatch: The Adjustment Bureau

2011, George Nolfi (Elevation) -- Amazon

I originally saw, and wrote about, this movie waaaay back in the early days of this blog, some 15 years ago. I am just going to "wow" that, and not psychoanalyse myself over "10,000 hours makes you an expert." 

Technically, based on how often you write, you are barely half-way there, so maybe in another 20 years, you should be objectively "good at writing". Or dead.

I have not rewatched this movie many times, if ever (memory escapes me), and it is not on The Shelf. But I have a nostalgic place for it in my mind's eye, as I do with many of the PK Dick adaptations. It is My Kind of Movie, or "Toasty coded" as Kent has said. Its romantic, plays with the idea of destiny, and it messes with religious paradigms without being offensive or dismissive. When I first saw it, and likely this was because it was a reveal, I wasn't fond of the whole Angels Messing with Us thing -- I was hoping for a more spec-fic explanation for the Bureau -- but I have definitely softened on that. I realize my original desire for it to be less-religious more-scifi was in connecting the hat & suited angels to the more nefarious figures from Dark City.

In case you don't recall, the writings in ReWatches are generally less than "reviews", unless that particular rewatch is the first post about the movie. So, they end up being just a general collection of thoughts I had during and after the movie.

In 2011, Anthony Mackie was probably just a face I recognized (from The Hurt Locker and maybe Million Dollar Baby) but he wasn't a household name. This role did put him forward more than the others in an already decade long career, and not long after this, he became Sam Wilson. Its nice he came back to a couple of Nolfi's later flicks including Elevation.

Also, we are rewatching Fringe (again) and I cannot help but do the comparison against the Angels against the similar attired Observers; I am surprised I never mentioned that in the original writing, considering it was about the same time Fringe was airing. 

My romantic notions have tempered, maybe gone so far as soured, with age. The original black-mark against David (Matt Damon, Oppenheimer) and Elise (Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer) was that their relationship was destined to derail both their lives. Instead of being utterly focused on their own lives, he as a politically ambitious senator destined for the White House, and she an emerging talent in the ballet & modern dance world, they would become subsumed with each other, with their relationship, which would degrade both paths. While I still do frown at the cultural requirements for everyone to have Peak Accomplishment, instead of just living satisfying lives, part of what the Angels were saying is that eventually at least Elise would sour on the idea that she had given up a life of greatness, for David. When the movie ends with The Director re-writing "the plan" I still wonder how much of Free Will will come into play, or was the movie just about abandoning all future potential for the jubilation of The Now. My soured romantic notions have me pondering the idea that even if their lives are not worsened for Choosing Each Other, romance eventually can simmer down, and would they both end up wondering What If in their old age.

I still rather like the way the movie is structured, the World Building and the idea that there are more people who went through this situation beyond David and Elise. They may be the Main Characters in this story, but there are many stories. It was still a satisfying movie to rewatch, but what had me stay away from it originally, stands. 

KWIF: Masters of the Universe (+1)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. The "birthday week" now comes to a close, ending with my most anticipated movie of the year, but also accompanied by so much apprehension. I came here to review movies and eat cake, and I'm all out of cake.

This Week:
Masters of the Universe (2026, d. Travis Knight - in theatre)
Backrooms (2026, d. Kane Parsons - in theatre)    

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Masters of the Universe, the toy line, debuted in 1982. I was 6 years old. My introduction to He-Man and company was probably the TV commercials, but my obsession most likely started with issue 47 of DC Comics Presents in which Superman and He-Man teamed up against Skeletor on Eternia, the homeworld of the Masters of the Universe. I was immediately obsessed. I was as obsessed with "MOTU" (as it's known in the fan community) as I was with Star Wars and DC superheroes.

The toy line would receive more comics series from both DC and Marvel in the next few years, there would also be a fan magazine, and yes, billions of dollars in toy sales of ridiculously over-muscled broad-and-squat characters with ridiculous names like Stinkor (he stinks of patchouli), Extendar (his limbs extend), and Buzz-off (he's a wasp-man). There was an immensely popular cartoon that had two seasons with over 60 episodes each, as well as a holiday special and a spin-off series with He-Man's sister, She-Ra. 

In 1987, infamous schlock purveyors Cannon Films produced a Masters of the Universe live action movie, which, it's absolutely fair to say, was a disappointment to everyone at the time. Cannon sunk over $20 million into the film -- a sizable budget for them, but not nearly big enough to do the property justice -- and so most of the film takes place on Earth with a paltry few characters form MOTU's vast lore appearing, and the majority of the film focusing on Courtney Cox's teenage orphan and her boyfriend. It was a huge slap in every child's face that we had a He-Man movie that did not center on He-Man and felt nothing like what we knew about the property.  As well, the cartoon had ceased making new episodes almost two years prior, and public attention to the property was flagging something fierce. Toys were not selling like they used to. By 1988 the line was basically dead.

MOTU has been rebooted a bunch of times since, and the fan community is immensely supportive of the property, it's just not a huge community.  Likely in the tens of thousands, rather than millions like, say, Transformers or Star Wars.  Even the 1987 film has since become kind of a camp classic, and I personally enjoy it far more as an adult than I ever did as a kid. Still, I've always wished for a proper He-Man movie, and for the past 20 years (at least) there have been teases, over and over again, with false starts at nearly every major studio. It felt like it was never going to happen...and now it has... and... for the most part, it seemed to be what I had been waiting for, a big-budget ($200 million dollar) production that understands both how ridiculous the property is while also understanding why it's so beloved to the die hards.

Director Travis Knight came from the world of animation (as head of Laika and director of Kubo and the Two-Strings) and directed the best Transformers movie of the lot in Bumblebee, an impeccable 1980's-styled adventure in an Amblin pastiche. I had the utmost confidence that he could make a good He-Man movie. The ideal was that it would be as good as Bumblebee, or share the tone of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and that it would be a good introduction to MOTU to a whole new generation, and not just a movie for 50 year olds who can't let go of their childhood.

It genuinely pains me to say that Masters of the Universe is a highly flawed movie. It delivers on being a live-action He-Man movie in ways my inner man-child cannot deny... I had warm fuzzies in my belly often, and squealed in glee more than a few times throughout, but it's still not he MOTU movie of my dreams, and that makes me sad.

The film opens with operatic voices in harmony, "AH-AH"-ing to pulsating synths that made me think a vintage ABBA song was about to play... and the guitars kick in, and I got goosebumps. Composer Daniel Pemberton mixes in his score these elements of 70's Euro-disco with 80's guitar-rock and enlisted Queen's Brian May to provide the guitar riffs. It is most suitably epic and triumphant. If you reach back to the epic rock soundtracks of the 1980s - Queen's Highlander, Toto's Dune, Tangerine Dream's Legend - this is reaching, achieving, and in some cases surpassing those grandiose scores, while also paying homage to them (it borrows at least one track from Highlander - "Princes of the Universe"). It has a few needledrops, which are kind of on the nose in-the-moment, and yet also tone-perfect for the type of film this is, and The Darkness provides the title song "Masters of the Universe".  I was not expecting this acoustic assault, but it was so incredibly welcome, and helped elevate the film where it otherwise would fall a little further down.

The film has an extended prologue, where we meet Adam, Prince of Eternia, as a child. He's forced by his father to partake in battle training, but he's not much of a fighter. The other children in training pick on him, and Duncan (Idris Elba, Luther), the king's Man-At-Arms, is a heavy-handed trainer, though he does find ways to encourage and inspire the hapless young prince. The King, however, wants toughness, strength and determination out of his son, and is willing to traumatically embarrass him to do so. It's a tough prologue when so much of it talks about "being a man" and what that entails, and all of it has to do with strength and being a fighter. This had me perplexed as to what the messaging of the film was to be...(Pemberton plays a piano riff of "Boys Don't Cry" over one scene). It almost seemed to be promoting toxic masculinity.  

The palace is attacked by the forces of Skeletor (Jared Leto, The Little Things) and Adam is sent through a portal off to Earth, his mother's homeworld, alone, with only the fabled "Sword of Power" (there's an even earlier prologue attempting to explain just what power this sword has) to accompany him, which he promptly loses. We smash cut to 15 years later and Adam (Nicholas Galatzine, The Sheep Detectives) is an awkward, soft-spoken dork who works in HR, and has been obsessed with his past life on Eternia. He knows the Sword is his way back, and has been searching for it for a long time. When he finally finds it, it alerts his home world and a literal Beast-Man comes after him, but so too does his old friend Teela (Camila Mendes, Riverdale)

These two stretches of film account for about 40 minutes at the top of the film, and while both are called back to and play a part later in the film, they are each waaay too long. The stretch on Earth feels particularly tedious, especially as there's a nonsensical gym sequence where Adam has a nonsensical conversation with another guy working out who just happens to be Dolph Lundgren, the portrayer of He-Man in 1987. I'm not against fan-service. I'm a fan, I like to be serviced, but subtly. This scene stops the movie dead in its tracks for about 2 minutes, as Lundgren gives the young man advice, which ONLY makes sense in a Meta context, and then what little weight was had in the delivery is undercut by a dumb joke.

And that's a major flaw of this film, it's incessant need to undercut itself with dumb jokes. It's the "Marvel-model" of filmmaking that had played itself out by the time the pandemic hit, so there's no excuse as to why the script is resurrecting it here. Cut out half of these moments where the script undercuts itself with humour and you have a much better, tighter film.

This is, of course, the product of multiple screenwriters contributing to many, many drafts over the years. Four screenwriters are credited here, and it's hard not to blame all the film's weaknesses on the script.  Because, Knight's direction is pretty rock solid. The action sequences all play out quite well, with the super-powers of these characters, or the fighting skills of others all being utilized in really fun ways and not feeling super generic, or, in that sometimes Marvel way of it just being CGI characters blasting each other with laser beams. 

The film really starts moving when Beast-Man and Teela show up. The energy just starts to crackle and these characters are really well translated from toy/animation/comics-to-screen. Mendes' reveal on screen is particularly captivating, as she exudes strength, confidence and charm that I never would have expected from her CW background. She looks and feels like a movie star, and I hadn't expected that from her or this film. 

Teela brings Adam back to Eternia, but not one he remembers. It's been under Skeletor's thrall for 15 years and things have not gone well. Adam's return with the Sword has exposed the Eternian resistance and Skeletor's forces attack, but in the process, Adam turns into He-Man and a new hope for the people of the land raises... except that even with all that power, Adam is still Adam, and his first avenue is hope and optimism and looking for the best in people... but the lesson he needs is that sometimes fighting is necessary to protect the people you care for. Diplomacy is always Adam's first choice (he was always pretty good at human resources) but now he has the power (and, honestly, "the power" basically represents confidence here) to stand up and fight, and to get back up when knocked down.

Knight's path to becoming an accomplished director was not a hard one. His dad is Phil Knight, the billionaire founder of Nike. The animation studio Travis heads was bought for him by his father. But to his credit, Knight worked at his craft, and clearly has both an aptitude and a talent for directing and storytelling. One can look at him as being perfect for telling the story of Adam, of a young man (of privilege) who doesn't necessarily live up to his father's (or anyone's) expectations, and feels lost, only to find his true calling and, while not without its hurdles, excel at it.  It's not fully the story we need, but Knight found a way to make this story personal to him, and it does elevate it slightly.

It keeps coming back to the script, though. It fumbles its exploration of masculinity pretty badly. It takes a shot at it, but it doesn't just miss the target, it doesn't even know where the target is. With all the writers involved, it's like nobody thought to consult an expert, to get it right.  

But what it does get right... and it's so weird to say this... is Skeletor. Jared Leto, buried under a blue-skinned body suit, and a CGI skull with beady-red lazer-pointer eyes, is mercifully unrecognizable, and nails the assignment. Leto as a performer is sometimes insufferable, and allegations made about his off-screen behaviour makes one like him even less, but this... he got this. Skeletor is an evil, cackling villain of no redeeming virtue, and unapologetic about it. He's also freaking funny, as funny as he is intimidating, which serves to simultaneously make him more and less intimidating if that makes any sense. It's a camp performance, but one that works perfectly for both the character and the film. Alison Brie (Freelance), who plays Evil-Lyn, Skeletor's mistress and aide, and shares the most screentime with him, is a gifted comedic actress, but even she has a difficult time keeping up with Leto. It's clear she's attempting to match his tone, but only is able to get there half the time.

There are many characters from the toys and cartoons and lore that pop up in this film, and it's a bevvy of delights. It tickles me to see Fisto, Ram-Man, Mekanek, Spikor, Tri-Clops, Trap-Jaw. Roboto, Battle Cat, and so many more, alongside vehicles like the Sky-Sled, Roton, Talon Fighter and more in this picture, not to mention playsets like Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain. What a damn treat. I was giddy in seeing it all and only wanted more. 

As there were delights, there were also let-downs, but Nicholas Galatzine was not one of them. His squeaky-voiced Adam, with posture seemingly learned from studying Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent, does exactly the job it needs to do, and when he transforms into He-Man, he still effectively conveys being Adam inside a muscle-bound barbarian's body, but also shows the character levelling up emotionally. Really, really solid job.

I could go on about the ups and downs of this movie and the wild roller-coaster of emotions I went on watching it. In the end, it's fine, but sadly, fine isn't what the property needed if it were going to be resuscitated for a new generation.  That was my greatest hope for it, that this would a super strong movie enjoyable by kids and adults alike and so exciting and entertaining and undeniable that there would be millions of children clamouring for action figures instead of phone screens. I guess we'll have to wait for Toy Story 5 to do that.

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Kane Parsons' 9-minute Backrooms (sometimes The Backrooms) short film from 2022 currently sits with an astonishing 83 million views on Youtube. Backrooms is not just a single short, but a series of shorts made in the past few years , but none of the follow-up twenty or so videos come close to hitting that number of views (most of them have between 3 and 18 million views, which is still quite impressive). What's not so astonishing is that a studio was willing to gamble on a modestly-budgeted feature derived from the Backrooms series given the impressive numbers it's pulled...no, the astonishing thing is that the studio, in this case A24, was willing to take a chance on the feature with Parsons at the helm.

The video series itself was not the original invention of Parsons, but a product of message board groupthink in the creepypasta horror subgenre, and the idea of "backrooms" itself became its own sub-subgenre.

I wasn't familiar with any of this until very recently. But, to watch Parsons' original short, which is somewhat recreated in the prologue to the film, it owes as much to first-person shooter video games as it does to whatever developed out of message board forum. It's visceralness comes from being in an unfamiliar, relatively barren indoor space that is just an expanse of seemingly limitless corridors. There are objects in the corridors that could best be described as "random", while the hallways themselves lack any sense of logic, as the attaching corridors might be through a crevice or a hole in the floor, or a tunnel in the wall accessible only by ladder, or a doorway in the ceiling.  And the lighting is spotty, with most corridors being difficult to see fully... you never know what awaits you as you pass through a doorway, or turn a corner, or step into the shadows. (The fantastic TV series Severance was partially inspired by the conceit of "backrooms", and the spinoff sub-subgenre of "liminal spaces" inspired the video game and subsequent film Exit 8 which I reviewed last week.)

The Blair Witch style shaky cam intro to the film is as effective as it is discombobulating.  I never have a good physiological reaction to this kind of footage, so mercifully it was an in-universe video cassette of camcorder footage being watched by someone, and didn't last past the first 10 minutes.

Following this sequence we meet Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Serentity). He is a failed architect who now runs a failing furniture store and is seeing a therapist, Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World) following his separation from his wife. What is clear from their sessions is that Clark is full of entitlement and rage, and isn't very interested in truly exploring the source of his emotional discontent.

Clark has been living in his sparsely-stocked furniture store since the separation and experiencing eerie and strange issues with the electricity in the store. The lights will flicker and blink, turning off or on all on their own, while the television will shut off or randomly show video from inside the backrooms that we saw in the opening sequence.  When checking the breaker panel one night, Clark discovers a soft spot in fabric of reality... he touches the wall and his hand passes through. He steps into the wall and comes out in a dingy yellow carpeted and wallpapered environment that seemingly doesn't end. He later describes to Mary this reality as being like a drawing of a dog, but as if someone who had never seen a dog were told what a dog looks like, and then drew their conceptualization of a dog. Everything is off.

Clark spends days exploring the space, even though there seem to be dangers present. Perhaps because he's a (failed) architect, or perhaps because there are things familiar to him in this space, he is quite obsessed with this topsy turvy alt-reality that defies any logic.  He recruits his young assistant manager (Lukita Maxwell, Shrinking) and her videographer boyfriend (Finn Bennett, True Detective: Night Country) to help him with research, and, naturally things go awry.

Outside of it all, Clark has triggered a video camera within the space, and it's being monitored by Phil (Mark Duplass, Safety Not Guaranteed) who wonders who the hell this guy is. Clark's description of this space triggers memories, traumas and nightmares in Mary of her childhood. Are they connected?

Backrooms is a horror movie, but it's also a science fiction and pscyhological thriller. It's not always scary, but it is tonally pretty intense. What is most effective about the film, and baked into the "backrooms" and "liminal spaces" sub-subgenre, is the surreal perversion of reality. Things that look almost familiar, almost like something we should recognize, but aren't quite accurate. Exploring a space like this is like venturing through a nightmare, there's nothing grounding this experience and it could take you literally anywhere one's mind can conceive.

Eventually the film reaches a point where it starts offering some answers, and the worst thing you can do in horror is demystify the threat, to explain it all away. It's frustrating not having answers, but it's less scary when you do.  Backrooms' answers, well, they aren't truly answers. There's more going one than what we know at first, but as one veil is pulled back, there are only more questions.

The audience is left to find their own answers in the information provided to them, and the information is as much there to confound as it is to illuminate. My take is that this endless reality is subconscious memory made manifest, but not of any individual. The more time you spend within, the more the realm taps into your subconscious memory, particularly the darkness you trap away, your fears, anxieties, regrets and repressed impulses. It's a theory, anyway.

I liked this movie a whole damn lot, and it's part of this year's horror explosion of fresh talent that is redefining the box office and what audiences want, what excites them, what they're looking to escape to. Twisted reflections of reality, apparently. Parsons, a teenager when he created Backrooms, is now 20 and has directed one of the biggest movies of the year, and capably so. He'd been refining this idea for four years, so it's no wonder he was so capable and assured in shooting this, but time will tell if he has the capacity for telling any stories beyond Backrooms.  I'm keen to find out.

KWIF: The Sheep Detectives (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. I originally had a snarky comment closing out last week's review of Mortal Kombat II where I was lamenting having seen the video game adaptation instead of seeing the one about investigative ewes. I deleted the comment because I had already heard that The Sheep Detectives was actually, surprisingly, a pretty decent film, and that neuters the joke a little bit. Plus, I was going to see The Sheep Detectives anyway, so there never really was an either/or decision in the first place.

This Week:
The Sheep Detectives (2026, d. Kyle Balda - in theatre)
Mile End Kicks (2025, d. Chandler Levack - in theatre)
Dark City (1998, d. Alexander Proyas - DVD)

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I must have seen the trailer for The Sheep Detectives about a dozen times, most of them in the form of a preview before the screening of one film or another. Every time the trailer would start, I would balk at the very concept of a live-action movie about cgi sheep attempting to solve the murder of their shepherd. And yet, by the end of the trailer, every time, I was completely sold. Well, I guess not completely since the very same cycle would start anew the next time I would see the trailer.

It is, without a doubt, an absurd concept, but absurdity doesn't innately make for a film bad, and often the very absurd nature of a story's conceit is what makes it stand out, what makes it good, different and exciting.

I've been hearing a lot of comparisons to Paddington bandied about, but The Sheep Detectives really takes a greater nod from Babe, in that it's set in the real world, but when the humans aren't around the animals are speaking to each other. Yes, there are plenty of jokes where we watch the sheep talk in English and then cut to a human POV just to see them bleating at each other...and it's never. not. funny! (Director Balda is kind of restrained in his use of this gag to be honest, maximizing it's efficacy.)

Based on a 2005 German novel, this is "cozy mystery" at its coziest... I mean, we're talking wool coats for days, right? But the real surprise is that the mystery is not the most captivating part of the film. The reason The Sheep Detectives works so well is it establishes characters and it establishes a community (mainly with the sheep, but also with the humans) and it establishes a tangible world for them to inhabit. In this world, sheep are intelligent creatures. They sit and listen to farmer George (Hugh Jackman, X-Men: Origins: Wolverine) read mystery novels in the evening, and Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jack the Bear), George's favourite sheep, always solves the mystery before the end. George has a reputation about town of being a prickly bastard, but he's a kind and gentle loner who adores his sheep above all. He opens our story by narrating the letter he's writing to, it turns out, his daughter whom he gave up for adoption three decades ago (Molly Gordon, The Bear).

The sheep, we quickly learn, have the ability to force themselves to forget, which they do as a collective. Only Mopple (Chris O'Dowd, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children) can remember the past. The sheep believe that they don't die but turn into clouds. Mopple knows the truth, but lets them have their comforts. Otherwise their understanding of death is restricted only to the stories George tells them, so when George turns up dead, the sheep community is rocked.

So too is the human community of the English town of Denbrook. The kind of hapless town constable Officer Derry (Nicholas Braun, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) is completely incapable of handling any sort of death, nevermind a murder. A wayward aspiring reporter (Nicholas Galitzine, Handsome Devil) seems intent on helping him break the case for his own reasons. The suspects are all in George's will, including the town butcher, a rival shepherd, the lovelorn innkeeper, and George's estranged daughter who just happened into town the day of his death.

In a conventional story, there would be much mileage about the sheep working through each of the suspects and eliminating them as the possible murderer. Instead, The Sheep Detectives is far more interested in the sheep community, and expanding their horizons. There is the whole concept in this community of a "winter sheep". Most sheep, they say, are born in the spring, but the occasional sheep is born in the winter, and they are shunned by the herd. And so a tiny, unnamed lamb George loves dearly, but is rejected by all. Part of the story is the herd confronting their prejudices, but in a roundabout way.  Even upon learning that their greatest ram, Sebastian (Bryan Cranston, Kung Fu Panda 3), is a winter sheep, it takes a lot before the herd truly understands the harm of their prejudice.

But that's just one facet of what these sheep need to learn. They have to leave the familiar safety of their farm and venture out into the world, where they are exposed to the realities they've otherwise chosen to forget. It's a potent moment when Lily realizes that Mopple has had to live with everything they've forgotten, but Mopple presents it as something beautiful, not horrible.

I'm not doing the best job of selling The Sheep Detectives but, to be blunt, I absolutely adored it. Funny, charming, sweet, sincere with a, yes, cozy mystery at its core to keep things moving, but just a delightful cast of characters and some of the most rewarding emotional stringpulls in some time... I cried at least three times and it earned every one of those tears. I never resented the film for them.

There is no reason The Sheep Detectives should be as good as it is, but we're so lucky that it is. A large contingent of my early-evening Wednesday screening applauded at the end of the film. I joined in. There was no one there to receive the applause, but it felt like the right way of mutually socially acknowledging that we all had a genuine emotional reaction to this film, and that we appreciated it. I do not recall the last time that happened.

---

Love the pseudo-American Apparel-
style poster for this film. Perfection

Mile End Kicks first shot is inside Toronto's legendary Horseshoe tavern. The band Islands is playing a gig. I am transported back in time.

Despite the caption "2011", I am transported to 2005, to seeing Islands in their earliest incarnation, possibly at the Horseshoe, but maybe at the Rivoli or Lee's Palace or some other joint and perhaps during the North By Northeast festival. Anyway, I'm there. I'm in. It has me. It took the film all of 9 seconds to completely reel me in.

By 2011 I was out of regular "gigging", going to shows around town, and certainly out of the pretense that my photographing and reviewing of such shows (sometimes for online media outlets, most often just for personal blogging) was a career path. Grace (Barbie Ferreira, Euphoria) is 22 years old and already has a foothold in journalism.  She has four hundred articles in the local newspaper she's been writing for, including investigative journalism, interviews, and writing a sex column, as well as music reviews. She ponders the idea of writing a "33 1/3" volume on Alanis Morissette's album "Jagged Little Pill". Her boss at the paper (Jay Baruchel) thinks it's a great idea, and hooks her up with the "33 1/3" publisher who likes her take and gives her a small advance to write the book, but it needs to be done quickly.

The next we see of Grace, she's on a bus to Montreal for the summer, giving the middle finger to T.dot on her way out. Her mom doesn't understand why she has this sudden impulse to move elsewhere, and her dad...well, just seems depressed. Grace has a top 5 list of what she wants her summer in Montreal to be: write her book on Alanis, have real sex, climb Mount Royal, learn French and fall in love, probably not in that order.

She's renting a room in Montreal's Mile End from Madeline (Juliette Gariépy, Red Rooms) a hot DJ whose boyfriend Hugo (Robert Naylor) plays in a rock band called Bone Patrol. Madeline is super friendly and wants to be pals, while Grace is a bit reserved and really wants to focus on her writing. But Madeline insists she come to a loft party where she is DJing and Bone Patrol is playing. At the party, unfamiliar with the Montreal scene, Grace retreats to an outdoor space where she meets Archie (Devon Bostick, Diary of a Wimpy Kid) the bassist for Bone Patrol, and they form an immediate kinship... but when the band finally plays, Grace has a rather visceral reaction to Chevy (Stanley Simons, The Iron Claw), Bone Patrol's frontman. She chats him up and he's the most up-his-own-ass pretentious, faux-ambivalent, self-involved shitheel, but Grace can't see past his stage mystique.

Mile End Kicks is about Grace's epic summer in Montreal, becoming part of it's 2010's hipster scene and getting waaay too invested in a guy who can only ever think about himself (and even then not that deeply). There's an obvious love triangle happening between Grace, Archie and Chevy, but the will-they/won't-they isn't really the thrust of the movie. It's more of a "what the fuck, Grace?" as her logic just cannot find a way to overrule her libido when it comes to Chevy, and Archie pre-emptively takes himself out of the equation.

Mile End Kicks is about Grace building up her life, but also feeling completely helpless as it starts to crash down around her. A lesser film would have spent more time and energy on making more direct connections between Grace's life and the songs of "Jagged Little Pill", but the film doesn't need to link them firmly at all. Grace's fall from grace happens for many, many reasons, (almost all her own) and her only way out of the pit she's fallen into is to find self respect and confidence, to engage the world on her own terms rather than feel like she has to be deferential to the men she finds in the circles she's in.

There's an excellent, fundamental moment early in the movie where some of the men of the paper she's working at are having a debate over a couple of bands. It's clear she's not invited to this conversation and when she interjects her own input, she is dismissed immediately and, to put a finer point on it, laughed at. Late it the film (when she's back on her upswing) she reads an insightful and incisive text at a poetry slam about not just this explicit experience but all the general outside-the-circle-of-men experiences women have everywhere. It's a terrific 1-2-3 execution (especially when Grace returns to the bullpen late in the film).  I have witnessed these types of situations so many time (even well into adulthood) and have probably been a party to them more often than I've been cognizant of or care to admit. It's institutionalized sexism that often we (meaning men) are not even aware of. I mean I was aware of it before this film, but praise it for actually making it a part of the conversation.

The film contains three (or perhaps even four) of the most awkward make-out scenes I think I've ever seen on film. Given that Grace is our POV character, she's mostly not the one being awkward so our cringe isn't a sympathetic one but more of an "oh gods, what the eff" type of cringe. It's almost all Chevy and that boy, wow, is a fucking mess.  Either Levack dated a guy just like this or knew someone who had. The hyper-specificity here is too crazy to be made up.

The film effectively uses its setting as a real "Montreal is a main character" film, and it definitely captures what the Canadian hipster "scene" was like at the time (Toronto, a few years earlier, wasn't that much different, nor likely was Vancouver a few years before that, or Halifax a few years before that...the "it" scene sort of cycles through the major Canadian centers in five-ish-year spans). It effectively seeds in the tension in Montreal's art scene that's so distinct to it (the outsiders that come in and the French-English divide between them, as well as the Toronto resentment)

Mile End Kicks is a film about being in your 20's and fucking up, but also about learning from your mistakes and growing as a person, and understanding that you'll continue to make mistakes (just hopefully new ones, and not repeating them). It's also about empowerment, and while not being so aggressively Alanis about it, it's still a pretty bold awakening.

 ---

I had not watched Dark City for a very, very long time, though I had carried the DVD of it with me to at least a dozen different residences over the years. It would have been one of the first DVDs I bought, but I have no recollection if I ever actually put it in a DVD player and watched the film it contained.

A friend recently brought up the film, noting that clips of it had been popping up in one of his feeds ... somewhere. I recall that I liked the film way back when, and it has maintained a decent if not stellar reputation in the meantime... but would it hold up? Would I still even like it? Does the disc even work or has it succumbed to disc rot?

Turns out, mostly, mostly and yes, the disc still works wonderfully.

The most unfortunate thing about Dark City is that it opens with a narration from Kiefer Sutherland's Dr. Daniel Schreiber. Schreiber exposits about an advanced alien civilization late in its decline looking for some hope of salvation, and that hope is human. Schreiber is helping them in their experiments on humanity, and this film, then, in theory, unpacks just what that experiment is.

The second most unfortunate thing about Dark City is the affectation that Sutherland imbues Schreiber with. He gives the character an out-of-breath speech pattern, speaking in short bursts (not unlike Malcolm's asthmatic friend Stevie on Malcolm in the Middle). It's really a hat-on-a-hat as Schreiber also has a scarred lazy eye and a severe limp as well. Sutherland was making choices.

A few minutes in the proper film starts as Rufus Sewell's John Murdock awakens in the bathtub of a grimy hotel, completely unaware of where or who he is. He receives a phone call from Schreiber warning him some men will be after him, and he needs to leave immediately...it's then that he notices the dead sex worker on the ground with spirals and other sigils carved into her skin.  He moves with haste, just as a quartet of creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers show up and check out his freshly abandoned place.

The streets of Dark City are just that, dark, dimly lit. Every light seems like a spotlight only illuminating in a cone shape exactly what it's pointing at. Also at midnight, the society of creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers use their psionic abilities (called "tuning") to cause the entire city to grind to a halt, and it's denizens to go inert and unconscious. They also reconfigure the entire city, buildings twist up out of the ground forcing other buildings to shrink or retreat without causing any true damage to speak of. Reality bends to their whims...almost.  But these creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers need Dr. Schreiber to concoct new memories for the citizens of this dark city which most citizens have had done a few times over.

But it's John Murdock who has somehow repelled the new personality application and also developed the same tuning powers as the creepy overlords. He poses a genuine threat to the order of things.

As we learn all this, there's also a mystery... is John a murderer. His estranged wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) can't conceive of it, and even John himself has to test whether indeed the impulses are there or if he's truly capable of being a psychopathic killer. The detective on the case, Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt) can't see any other options, because to do so would be to admit that reality is not all that it seems.  While Sewell's efforts as Murdock are genuinely quite good, there's a case to be made that this works better if Bumstead is it's main figure trying to solve a murder and unraveling the case of John Murdock, which then leads to the revelation of where they actually are and who is actually in charge and why.

Dark City is a really decent sci-fi neo-noir that doesn't always tease its mystery in an efficient or effective manner (especially since the opening voice over gives up so much of the surprise), but the exceptional special effects (for the most part) and shadow-laden atmosphere of the picture do so much of the heavy lifting to keep things engaging when the story may falter. Even 28 years later, on one of the oldest DVD pressings in my collection, the film still looks really good, the copious practical effects, sets and miniatures and the well-masked digital effects standing up very very well.

The third most unfortunate thing about Dark City then is the climax is such utter nonsense. Murdock goes tete-a-tete with "tuning" powers against the...leader? (of a hive mind?) I guess of the creepy, pale, bald motherfuckers... and there's nothing more boring that two characters trapped in a mental battle just leering at each other while crazy cgi bullshit swirls all around them.  It's such a let down given some of the film's strengths prior to that point.

The fourth most unfortunate thing is how sleepy Jennifer Connelly is in the role of Emma Murdoch. I can hazard a guess that she's been told to play the character as if she's just had a lifetime of memories slammed into her brain only the night before, so she's effectively a new, but confused person...but for some reason that gets relayed as sedate, with most every line delivered in an unaffected monotone. She's a much better actress than this performance.

But a few unfortunates aside, Dark City holds up as a solid watch. Perhaps it's not the monumental sci-fi story of it's generation (hard to be when The Matrix comes along 13 months later) but it's got very little to be embarassed about, and despite not hiding what could have been some great surprises, still has a surprise or two under its belt.

Enter the Lexxicon: Eating Pattern

aka Lexx: 3.0

1997, d. Rainer Matsutani - tubi 

in trying to defy the Trek-method of sci-fi adventure show by relying upon irreverence, sexuality, and unheroic leads to carry it, the second entry of Lexx missed the mark on actually being engaging entertainment. Thankfully for this the third episode/movie the creators of Lexx seemed to consider that maybe the best way to make a show that's disinterested in sci-fi conventions is to use and abuse them in their own way.

A standard trope of Space Journey stories is receiving the automated cry for help. The last episode started similarly with a cry for help which resolved unceremoniously in less than a minute, and in this one the Lexx crew actually receive the message, but the cowardly captain of the ship, Stanley Tweedle is too paranoid of strangers to dare to venture there. Unfortunately the Lexx, a living technology, is running low on fuel and needs to feed. It makes a decision on its own to venture towards the signal and eat whatever the planet can provide (for this show, this should be a lot more interesting a process than it is, you know something gross and/or terrorizing... instead it's just like mandibles shovelling dirt into its maw).

Meanwhile, Stan and Zev's attempt to awaken Kai from cryosleep are unsuccessful. It seems his protoblood has run out and that he's now dead-dead, no longer un-dead. Zev wants to bury him on the literal garbage planet Lexx is feeding on.  After burying Kai, they spy what looks like an inhabited station and Zev wants to explore for food. Stan is, of course, opposed, but in this case he's right to worry.

What they discover is no less than fourth sci-fi tropes mashed into one. First there's a post-apocalyptic civilization of scavengers, second they are cannibals (of a sort) and third they are all infected with an alien parasite, and fourth the parasites are controlled by a hive queen.

But this civilzation, with their weird songs, and their silly games, aren't simple drones of an alien queen, the victims are still at least somewhat present in their bodies, if very much controlled by the worm things inside them. The worms are addicted to a substance called "pattern", and pattern is made from people (it's basically Soylent Green but liquid). Pattern is made from meat culled from the hosts during their games (where winners get pattern and losers lose limbs. for making pattern..if they're lucky). 

Stan encounters one of the key people in this group. Wisp (Doreen Jacobi) is an attractive, if dirty young woman in a Witchblade-like jumpsuit. At first she seems like a naif, and the worry is that she's a born-sexy-yesterday trope ("Do you like me" she asks in a creepily seductive manner), but nope...once again subverting tropes, she is a host to the queen's babies and she's responsible for infecting any new, clean meat. And so Stan is turned.

He then meets Bog (Rutger Hauer), who is sort of the de-facto leader of all the remaining people. If he leads it's because he's the only one who knows how to make pattern. Hauer delivers a thoroughly delightful and entertaining performance, and seems to informs the rest of the cast how being infected with the worm, and the delirium it causes, should be portrayed. Of course, he's the best and most delirious of the performances.

For this third installment, the creatives seem to have forgotten (or just ignored) that Zev is part cluster lizard that not only would give her enhanced strength and probably a resistance to being knocked out with a simple conk on the head, but also that would be a reasonable explanation as to why the worms wouldn't want to infect her. Instead she's basically just bound up for most of the episode. She's still exceptionally feisty and not docile, but this feels like some Golden Age Wonder Woman bullshit.

Kai, of course, saves the day at first (having been resurrected with some sort of amino acids spewed by the worms attempting to see if he could be a host), but there's not a whole lot he can do when the queen becomes a Titan-sized Wisp who gloms onto the Lexx and tries infecting it. The Lexx needs to learn to defend itself.

What lets it down is the special effects. You can see the intent, but it all seems rushed and short-handed. Like I said, if there were more budget, Lexx's eating of the planet would have for sure been a spectacle rather than the muted close-up it is. almost every digital shot is unrefined, like the budget ran out during the second pass. I don't know if the effects of the previous two instalments were as visually awful because I was watching it in bed, on my phone, through the haze of illness and this one I was watching on the big screen tv. 

Despite the janky sfx, Eating Pattern is an enjoyable Lexx episode in large part because it leans into the genre tropes and cliches, but mashes them thoroughly together and pushes them to, like, grindhouse levels of absurdity with some minor gore and more than a little humour. Also, unlike the last episode, there's more for the crew to interact with than just one or two guest stars. Quite fun, this one.