KWIF: I Love Boosters (+3)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Ol' Kent here celebrated the end of his 50th year with some epic boardgaming, epic toy and collectibles hunting, epic medical diagnostic imaging, and not so much epic movie watching (or reviewing)...just a little.

This Week:
I Love Boosters (2026, d. Boots Riley - in theatre)
Tuner (2025, d. Daniel Roher - in theatre)
Exit 8 (2025, d. Genki Kawamura - rental)
Made of Honor (2008, d. Paul Welland - hollywoodsuite)

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I think this will wind up being my
 favourite movie poster of the year.
I want this as a puzzle.

As the credits were rolling on our sparsely attended early Saturday matinee of I Love Boosters, one white male millennial audience member stood up and stretched, turned around and engaged the other millenial couple behind him. The part my wife overheard him say was "I mean, I liked it, but can you tell me why you thought it was funny?"

Humour is subjective. I get that. But I Love Boosters is undoubtedly a comedy. It's part farce, part Looney Tunes (by way of Stephen Chow), part social satire, part absurdism, and so many other little parts of things that congeal to make a wildly appealing, chaotic, inventive whole.

Kiki Palmer (Nope) - one of the most charismatic performers of her generation - leads this film as Corvette, a wanna-be fashion designer who just can't seem to find her way into the industry. She lives in an abandoned fried chicken restaurant and steals clothes for a living to resell at steep discounts on the black market to the less rich. She's aided in the "Velvet Gang" by her best friend Sade (Naomi Ackie, Mickey 17) who is obsessed with a multi-level marketing scheme, and Mariah (Taylour Paige, Zola) who thinks her boosting is a revolutionary act.

They don't steal from just anywhere, or just anyone, but instead focus on the chain of Metro Designers stores which are owned by fashion mogul and certified genius Christie Smith (Demi Moore, The Substance). Corvette is obsessed with Smith, idolizes her, and in her own way sees her boosting of Smith's clothes as a form of flattery, but Smith, who calls the Velvet Gang "low class, urban bitches" is increasingly perturbed by them.  Corvette learns of a delivery of $100,000 suits and sets her sights on that being the ultimate target (especially after discovering that Smith has stolen a design Corvette submitted to a fashion contest earlier in the year, it becomes about revenge). To make a boost this big, they need to work on the inside.

So they get a job working at Metro Designers under Grayson (Will Poulter, Warfare), who has totally drunk the Christie Smith corporate kool-aid, and meet Violeta (Eiza Gonzalez, Bloodshot) who is trying to organize a union within Metro Designers.  And then they are robbed..the entire store gone in seconds.  

I could go on for paragraphs breaking down the larger strokes of this film. It is very busy, but earns its busyness.  Boots Riley cut his teeth with the incredible satire Sorry To Bother You, and takes the social satire and ambition of that film to a whole other level here. The picture is vibrant, with bold monochromes at each of the Metro Designers sets, while the wardrobe is off the charts with all the leads looking ridiculous or stylish or ridiculously stylish. It'd be the most fashionable movie of the year, if not for The Devil Wears Prada 2. There are extended sequences involving stop motion animation (that recall John Carpenter's They Live) an extended chase sequence done in minature (some shades of Wes Anderson there), a building on a canted angle leaving a set sloped at 20 degrees which all but Christie Smith seem to have difficulty navigating, and a gigantic ball of stress made up of bills and all the other things haunting Corvette, stalking her at random times.

I Love Boosters is unfettered creativity from a director who doesn't see limits on what can be done in storytelling. It's the first mass-released film since Everything Everywhere All At Once that feels like there are no restrictions in how a story can be told. Even if I Love Boosters is only nominally less successful at coherently conveying its central message than that Oscar-winner, it's still an exceptionally entertaining and provocative ride.  [I haven't even mentioned the soul-eating demon/love interest played by Lakieth Stanfield (Atlanta), but he's an intriguing distraction for both the picture and Corvette that pops up at both the most opportune and inopportune times. He's a total aside, but a deliciously amusing one.]

While its employment of magical realism and surrealist fantasy is wickedly enjoyable and compliments its anti-capitalism message in unusual but agreeable ways, I Love Boosters' use of a science fiction technology alongside abstract concepts of "situational acceleration and deconstructionism", as well as teleportation is a tad less concrete. There is a device introduced in the second act which then becomes the inciting agent for the rest of the film, and the employment of these speculative conceits become the hardest part of the film to wrap one's head around, particularly at the accelerated pace the film moves at.  It leads to a lot of fun and clever sequences in the film, and effectively incites the film's ultimate, pro-union, power-in-numbers message, but it does so with an asterisk.

What I Love Boosters ultimate goal is to promote a character who realizes that sometimes there's a greater goal, a greater purpose to one's actions than fulfilling their own desires. That perhaps too many of us are concerned more with individual achievement than collective growth is the realization Corvette needs to have on her journey, even if it isn't the most personally satisfying, it does seem the most rewarding. 

[As an aside, as a person who is basically deaf in one ear, I had a very difficult time with the sound mix on this film. As a musician himself, Riley loves music, and there's always music playing in the background of any scene, whether it's diegetic or the fantastic score from TuneYards, along with layers of ambient noise or sometimes background dialogue and/or TV footage.  In person, I have a hard time in cacophonous situations picking out what people are saying, and turns out it's the same with on screen situations. I can't wait for Blu-Ray, which I will absolutely be getting, so I can watch this with the closed captioning on and pick up on so much of what I missed].

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Speaking of my hearing disorder, it was fascinating for me to watch a film about someone on the other end of the aural spectrum than I am. In Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall, Cherry) has hyperacusis, an affliction in which he is exceptionally hypersensitive to sound to a debilitating degree. For the majority of the picture he is wearing custom ear plugs, and often with noise cancelling headset over that. Even then particularly sharp or loud noises can send him into disarray, even proving so painful as to render him unconscious.

Niki also has perfect pitch and starts the film working as protege piano tuner to family friend Harry Horowicz (Dustin Hoffman, Tootsie), a beloved figure in the music community. Harry is losing his hearing and starting to be a bit forgetful, but he's a delight to be around (I'm normally not a big Hoffman fan, but he is very likeable in the role). Niki is sweetly devoted to Harry and his wife Marla, like family. When Harry falls ill, Niki agrees to help out with the medical bills by buying Harry's truck and taking over his business. While on a job he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu, AfrAId), and over a few encounters their attraction becomes undeniable, but while on a different job, Niki meets Uri (Lior Raz, Gladiator II) and his boys as they attempt to drill into the safe of the house they are both working at. Niki learned his hearing disorder actually was a boon for safecracking and gets into the safe for the boys. Uri, who works in private security for elite individuals, offers Niki a job if he wants to make "real money". To pay Harry's bills, Niki has no choice, and he helps them steal from Uri's client's safes "things they wouldn't notice are missing".  Of course, getting involved with criminals is never going to end well for Niki and it threatens to destroy what comfort he has in life and maybe take everyone else he loves down with him.

Woodall is very unassuming as Niki, at first, with Hoffman dominating each scene they're in together early on. But eventually Woodall is handed control and Niki becomes quite captivating in his quiet temperament, and the reality of his affliction (handled with superb sound design) is clearly conveyed to the audience at all times. Canadian director Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for his documentary on Alexei Navalni in 2022, proves he has an incredibly steady hand for directing a modestly budgeted dramatic thriller like this. In his debut narrative feature, Roher utilizes montages to perfect effect (time will tell if this is a signature move or just something stylistic for this feature, metering up with the film's soft jazzy piano score, and symphonic bits).

Tuner works very well as a character study but its crime element is unfortunately quite predictable, lacking a lot of real surprises. Thankfully Roher is more interested in the character than he is in the jobs Niki is assisting on, and so the segments of safecracking, for the most part, are pretty brisk and don't employ the tension of the risk of getting caught too heavily. There is one particular Chechov-ian item that presents itself early on, and the manner in which it goes off is such a deus ex machina that it borders on unforgivable...but just sits on that border.

Otherwise, this is an agreeable throwback to the kind of thriller we saw plenty of through the 70's, 80's and 90's, but have largely disappeared in the past two decades. We could do with more.

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I knew nothing about Exit 8 except the concept: a man gets lost in a maze of subway hallways searching for Exit 8, finding horrors along the way. I was in. I love subway tiles, and hallways and escape rooms, so this movie was beckoning me like a siren of the sea. 

In the film, our "lost man" is played by Kazunari Ninomiya, a seemingly hapless and perhaps depressed young man who doesn't seem ready for the world. We first meet him on a subway train during rush hour as he witnesses a man in a suit berate a young mother for bringing her crying baby on the train. Everyone's looking at their phones, and, after he puts his earbuds back in, so does he. When he gets off the train he receives a phone call from his ex. She's at the hospital and tells him she's pregnant. She doesn't know whether she wants to keep it or terminate the pregnancy, and is asking for his input. He doesn't know either. Not paying attention, he finds himself in an Z-shaped hallway that seems to repeat without end...the same man walking past him, the same adverts on the wall, the same lockers and photobooth....

And then he spies a sign, telling him that he needs to leave through Exit 8. If he spies an anomaly, turn back, and if there are no anomalies, keep going.

I didn't know Exit 8 was based off an indie video game sensation, but really it didn't take me long to discern such a thing, especially when the "rules" were introduced. What could have just been cheap horror, though, is so much more from director/writer Genki Kawamura (co-written with Kentaro Hirase). It's not just an endless maze of repeating tunnels, but a metaphor for repetitive cycles in life, of fearing change and indecision., alerting us to look for the differences, and that we need to embrace those differences to make it out the other end.

If it were just our "lost man" encountering terrifying anomalies, it would have been a fine movie, but it's not just that. There is a delicious surprise (SPOILER) in act 2, where the film completely pivots away from our "lost man" and instead follows the man he's passed dozens of times at this point, and we learn the "walking man's" story. Both men, however, encounter a young boy who they each think is a facet of this purgatory they're in, but come to learn (if not embrace) that the child is as trapped as they are and, maybe, has better instincts for getting out.

Though slight on story, and maybe light on horrors, I absolutely loved this movie. It was completely my thing.  The repetition encourages audience engagement, looking at the same hallway walls and wondering what's different...if anything, and knowing it could come down to something so easily overlooked as the fine text on one of the posters, or a tile placed askew (although, mercifully it's never that).

The sound design is as crucial as the visual design, and as integral to the repetition. It's obviously largely borrowed from the video game, but it's brought into "reality" so effectively. Ninomiya has such a soulful face that your empathy is immediately with him, and he conveys his emotions so blatantly and effectively. The "walking man" played by Yamato Kochi is intensely terrifying in his early scenes where the lost man turns around the find the walking man immediately in his face with a grin that'll make your skin crawl, but then it only takes Kochi seconds with the second act pivot to bring you over to sympathizing with his plight in the corridors.

The film creates a text that the video game never had, a reason for why our protagonist(s) are in this purgatory, and letting the audience know that they need to have a reason to get out. I feel like we can apply this to life somehow....

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I've made no secret out of enjoying cheesy romance movies and romantic comedies, but that's not universal approval of all of them. In fact, there are scant few romcoms I would consider good or worth watching again, and even fewer I actually want to watch in the first place. To some extent most romcoms I just tend to avoid because, in execution (if not conceptually), they're so cloying as to be repulsive.

In concept, Made of Honor should not be such a film. The story of a tomcat of a man who is best friends with a woman whom he learns after years and years that he's actually in love with her, only for her to turn up engaged before he can say anything...well, that sounds like a serviceable, if predictable romcom format, and not egregiously offensive. But show me that trailer, or even just the poster, and I'm steering clear like it's plague-bearing.

I never needed to see Made of Honor, there was nothing compelling me to watch it, but it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and after I finished watching a film on dvd, it turned up on cable when the player shut off. I spied Patrick Dempsey and his basketball-playing bro-pals (including Kadeem Hardison and Chris Messina) attempting to help the man navigate his emotions over his best friend Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) being away on a work trip and missing her so much he couldn't enjoy his many many dates with hot women in her absence.  It's a particular turning point in pop culture when men were allowed to support other men emotionally but only if it was in a really really butch situation, with like sports and/or alcohol, but points for letting them get there. But it treats these scenes as if they were comedy, not as if there's real emotional stakes at play which gets to what's so wrong with this film.... 

Made of Honor makes the biggest cardinal sin of the romantic comedy genre: it's not funny. It tries to be funny and fails pretty much every time. There's two possible reasons, and it's an and/or situation: casting and/or the director. 

Dempsey is cute, handsome and charming, but he's not innately funny. Ditto for Monaghan. Hardison and Messina both have comedic acting experience, and Monaghan's coterie of bridesmaids includes Busy Philipps and Whitney Cummings, but none of them squeeze out any real guffaws despite trying. 

Monaghan returns from her trip engaged to rugged Scotsman Kevin McKidd, who threatens Dempsey's masculinity in every way. Any attempt to one-up him ends in failure. Just as any attempt for either to be funny falls entirely flat.

There is a scene where Dempsey is going to meet Monaghan for the first time since her return home, only to be surprised by her new beau, and he smashes into a waiter and they topple to the floor, his bouquet of flowers everywhere (which he lies were never his). It's close to being a good pratfall. Later in the scene, after an awkward dinner, Dempsey gets up from his chair at an awkward moment and tumbles into the same waiter again. The whole sequence should be full of humour around the discomfort, complete with the pratfall starter and capper, but it doesn't take, like, at all. And that's direction. Director Welland seems to be too lost in finding an emotional center to really let the humour of the scene play, and its stars aren't gifted enough comedically to innately play up the humour and the emotion. 

But boy do they look good not being funny. Dempsey is real fit, and kinda dashing, while Monaghan is just so effortlessly pretty (with a team of make-up and wardrobe people putting great effort into that effortlessness).

Without the humour, this movie feels tedious, rehashing the same points over and over again. I don't know that Dempsey and Monaghan ever found the "friendship" dynamic this film needed to sell that part of it. They're just too good looking together and they play into the attraction even when it's not fully supposed to be there yet. This needed two decent-to-good looking comedic performers to pull this off. (Like Jason Segel and Mila Kunis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall...a far superior film, and one which I would definitely not sacrifice to put those leads into Made of Honor. What's a pairing that didn't happen... maybe like, Paul Rudd and Isla Fisher?)

There's both a good romance and good comedy waiting to happen in this script. It's been 20 years, maybe a remake is in order with a director and starring pair that can get it right.

31 Days of Halloween: The Substance

2024, Coralie Fargeat (Les Fées Cloches) -- download

What is it Kent says? Squick? Yeah, that. Very much that. But its also a movie with loads of style.

It begins with the creation of the Hollywood Walk of Fame star for Elizabeth Sparkle (but is it Hollywood as we do see snow cover it?) which almost immediately begins to fade, crack and be ignored. Metaphor on the megaphone, much? Yes, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, Songbird) was once the talk of Hollywood but now she's relegated to a morning workout show (ala Jane Fonda) and then... she's fired. "Too old!" her sleazy Purple Suit (Dennis Quaid, Fortitude; no actual purple suits, but ohhh so many colourful ones) yells into the phone. She's gonna be replaced.

And then someone sends her an invite. Its an invite to The Substance, something that promises to make her the younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of herself. Elizabeth Sparkle is barely past 50 but she already feels invisible. After the briefest moment of hesitation, she orders it and picks it up from a pristine clean space hidden in the opposite of a pristine, clean neighborhood. There are instructions, very clear and loud instructions about a seven day on, seven day off, switching cycle. Elizabeth injects the drug, suffers debilitating pain, and then her spine splits open and ... Sue (Margaret Qualley, The Leftovers) emerges.

I have to interrupt myself and comment on the loads of style here. This is another horror movie set in an anachronistic mish mash time, with the bright colours and RGB rayon clothing of the 80s, but the sales pitch to Elizabeth comes in the form of a USB drive. Everything about the movie is from the male gaze, through the eyes of a woman who has to live with it. When Elizabeth is taking the drug, she is nude. She is not horrible but a normal woman, once Hollywood Perfect, but who has aged. Most would say she is still an ideal vision, but when Sue emerges, we see what the ideal really is. And in case you are wondering, the perfect body that Sue is depicted as having is mostly prostheses, make up and camera trickery because nobody not even the lovely Margaret Qualley is that perfect.

Sue gets Elizabeth's old job, which is now not just a morning workout show but a nigh porn show, more 20 Minute Workout than Jane Fonda, i.e. there are probably plenty of (not just adolescent boys and) men masturbating to it. Sue has exactly what sleazy old men want and want to sell, and does it with a wink and a giggle and a leer back into the gaze. But seven days later, she has to give it back to Elizabeth. You would think it could be an easy gig. Live as Elizabeth, do whatever you want for seven days and then let Sue do the paying work for seven days. But fame is not just about the money it garners, but the admiration afforded from it. Elizabeth is even more invisible now. Sue is not just on the billboard outside her penthouse, but everywhere leering down at her.

But its not just Elizabeth suffering neurotic anxiety over the situation, but Sue, as she becomes more powerful, more desired, more popular, she wants more -- more fame, more attention, more... time. But as she takes it from Elizabeth, Elizabeth suffers even worse, her body showing the ravages of time beyond what even a day's stolen time could do. It becomes a battle of wills between the two women who are, as the voice on the phone keeps on reminding them, still only one woman. 

I wondered if they remembered each other's seven days, but no, they don't, they just see the consequences of each other's actions, and Sue really gets the short end of that stick, as Elizabeth sinks into a wallowing hole of cooking, eating, eating and more eating. Neither gain weight but... the filth! 

And as expected, things eventually culminate towards doom. Sue is offered a Role of a Lifetime but needs more time. And boy, does she take it, which ends with her pretty much draining Elizabeth of all lifeforce, youth and beauty. Elizabeth has morphed into a monster while somehow still thinking Sue... deserves this? When the months of stolen time are visualized, Elizabeth is a literal monster, a stooped, ancient crone that is more fairy tale witch than anything. And the results of her reaction to THAT emergence is where the movie kind of falls down, to me. We go from stylish, outrageous farcical commentary on social injustice to ... Cronenburg-ian level, well, squick. Total gross-out, over the top, buckets of blood body horror, monster show.

I almost feel as if they weren't sure how the movie should climax. I mean, we knew it had to come to a final battle of wills and bodies, but, wow, did they let loose. There is no lesson learned, just pure unadulterated consequences.

This was a good movie, a well done movie, a movie that wasn't afraid to embrace the sheer lunacy of the situation and make a bold statement at the same time. It didn't blow my socks off though, as I would have preferred to have been completely, utterly, entirely horrified by an ending, instead of  them embracing the camp.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): They Cloned Tyrone

2023, Juel Taylor (screenplay Creed II) -- Netflix

Welcome back to another episode of "White Men Review Black Movies". 

I kind of cringe when I write "black movie" as a thing because, in all honesty, I am just an observer of someone else's experience, in pretty much all movies. I feel a need to label things to better understand things, to shape them into my experience. Even if my experience of it is entirely based on pop culture (and your demographic, dude). So, let's drop that from now on. I mean, its already been said, but enough is enough.

Kent writes about the movie here.

Dystopian scifi is usually set in the Near Dark Future. But we have been saying, something pithfully, for the last ten years or so, that we might be living in a dystopian future, now. Its the mind playing the same trick that it does for conspiracy theorists, in that things cannot be this horrible without being... fictional... right? Someone is out there manipulating the world, in ways more than it was always manipulated, influencing this greater enshitification (to semi-quote Doctorow) of the world that we cannot seem to claw back from.

This movie envisions a window on one particularly enshitified existence, wherein your life is dominated by run down housing projects, falling apart homes, drug dealers, pimps & hoes, drive-bys, lottery scratchers that never win, and a plentitude of alcohol & drugs. Fontaine (John Boyega, Pacific Rim: Uprising) is a low level drug dealer, morose and sardonic, who personally demands his money from Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx, Project Power), a throwback braggadocio of a pimp. But earlier that evening Fontaine broke the leg of a competitors corner boy, and as he leaves Slick's motel room, he is murdered by the competitor. Thinking-of-retiring ho Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris, The Marvels) witnesses it.

The next morning, Fontaine wakes in his bead to begin his usual routine: talk to mamma through her door, buy a scratcher & lose, buy a 40 of malt liquor, give the bum some, etc etc etc. His routine and life is empty, but not ended. But Slick and Yo-Yo notice; how could they not. Their state of befuddlement allows them to notice the black SUV that snatched up a man and connect it to whatever is going on. Following it, they are led to a typical rundown house which happens to have an elevator in the closet, which leads down to a secret mad scientist laboratory. And thus it really begins.

So, hidden lairs, evil scientists, massive (and I mean MASSIVE) conspiracy, and satirical commentary. At the same time the Shadowy Bad Guys are keeping the cliche thug lifestyles alive they are also breeding a whiter black man, someone who can "pass" (except the hair, the hair is sticky). Yes, this community, and others, are "the control group" because gentrification is the end-goal, a homogenization of all of American, a more united United States. Cringe.

The movie has a lot of fun making its commentary while playing on so many cliches and negative stereotypes. One of the deepest cuts happens as background noise in a hair salon as a teacher complains about having to spend her own money on school supplies, only to have it all fade away as soon as her hair straightener is applied. I cannot comment on how effective the social satire is, but it was all well constructed. 

Wait. "Black-Comedy" ? That tag is its own deep cut.

Where We Live: Concrete Utopia + The Kitchen

2023, Tae-hwa Eon (Vanishing Time: The Boy Who Returned) -- download

2024, Daniel Kaluuya, Kibwe Tavares (feature debut) -- Netflix

I live in Toronto, a city that has been suffering a housing shortage for years. But not a shortage of places built for people to live in, for that far surpasses the number of people needing places to live. No, the shortage is affordability. Its not a new story, for that concept comes and goes regularly, like all societal pendulum swings do. But it seems more extreme at this time, wherein the towers continue to be built, the houses continue to be renovated and put on the market, but they must be running out of the people who can afford such exhorbinant prices. And the renters? The renters, like myself, are still dealing with a post-pandemic crunch where landlords need to make their money to deal with their own increased expenses, but now many of us cannot afford to live where only twenty years ago, we easily could. 

Only twenty years ago. 

But we all need a home. We all deserve a home?

When The Walking Dead made the "its not about the zombies, its about the humans!" a thing, it was a spotlight on a trend where people could claim the story was more about the humans involved than about the genre aspects. But really, weren't all genre flicks claiming that always more about the humans? I prefer equal billing. Concrete Utopia is definitely more about the humans involved in surviving after a world-ending earthquake than anything else. World-ending we assume, because no details are ever filled in, with just the slimmest hints at what caused it, but we are left with a single apartment complex standing amidst the rubble, and we focus on how the survivors living within choose to deal with their advantageous circumstances.

The movie opens with a brief introduction of the apartment / condo state in South Korean cities. It explains that as people moved from the rural areas, and came to the cities, and the cities only offered them apartments. But not just apartments, but communities with all the amenities easily nearby. Tower complexes that were almost their own villages. But there were more people than apartments and lists were drawn up. People sat on those waiting lists awaiting the time a slot would come free, after which they could buy / rent a spot; if they could afford it. A home. A place to call their own. A clear status symbol.

Big Earthquake and I mean, BIG !! When it comes down, the only structure standing for as far as the eye can see is their multi tower complex. Oh there is some damage, but for the most part they come through unscathed.

They go through the usual expected trials. Electricity is gone, and soon running water. But they pull together as a building, pool their resources, elect some leaders and... kick every other person seeking refuge out into the cold. The winter cold. The kind of cold that leaves their dead bodies frozen in the rubble not long after. This building has taken a stand with its status of Last Building Standing. This is their building and everyone else is an outsider. But are things ever so cut & dry?

Of course, in the end, the Bad People suffer at the hands of those they offended, and the Good People who did not do the best they could are left to the pains of their own guilt. There is some decent drama, but all the characters are barely more than cookies from the cutter. And unfortunately, the building, which could have been the greatest character of all (it is the only standing building, after all) is barely even given a note.

Meanwhile in Netflix's new British near-future scifi The Kitchen, the place is as much a character as the people who inhabit it. Inspired by imagery and stories of the Walled City of Kowloon in Hong Kong, a structure or collection of structures that was left to its own devices for far too long. It grew up with no regulation, no policing, no control but for the chaotic crime-ridden forces within, growing up and around and everywhere with wild abandon. But inside, it had its own sense of desperate community, as it was a place for those that had nowhere else to turn. Until it grew too big and too terrible to be ignored, and was then just torn down.

The Kitchen lies at the heart of London, obviously built upon the idea of cyberpunk arcologies meets housing projects. At some point, it was destined for destruction, but the people who called it home wouldn't leave. So now they squat, while at regular intervals, the London police force raid it, and take everywhere who doesn't bar themselves behind armored doors. Obviously, there is still some societal conscience as they are not all just shot down where they stand, but... the place remains a challenge. In turn the residents raid outside for food and other neccessities while others work to make money. 

But the story is really about Izi (Kano, Top Boy) and Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman, debut). Izi lives in The Kitchen but works at a funeral service that tells you they turn you into a tree, which for a while you can come and attend to until the money runs out and they plant you somewhere. Its a scam but in a city where you likely cannot be buried, its a beautiful scam. Benji's mother dies and she is sent there, where Izi recognizes her from his past. Its pretty obvious that he is Benji's dad, but they never really come out and say it. That (not) said, he still takes Benji under his wing, as without his mom paying the rent on their place...

Izi has plans, to save enough money to actually rent a small (think Toronto downtown bachelor condo) place for his very own, outside the Kitchen and all its woes. But he also feels beholden to Benji --- kind of. Benji wants to connect with whom he assumes is his dad, but he also needs to find a place in the society he is brought into. The movie is much about navigating that world, seeing its mundanity, its vibrance, its community but also how challenging it is.

For Kaluuya's first movie he does an admirable job of exploring this place, the community and the social commentary. But I felt he could have pulled the gloves off, said more, did more.

The Korean movie felt like it wanted to explore the relationship Koreans have with their apartment buildings, but it ended up being more just a Lord of the Flies in a building, with some post-apocalypse tossed in for fun. The British movie more navigates the nuances, the life of the people and the place itself, which eventually comes to a head in a climax that had to be expected. I mean, the Kowloon Walled City is no more so....

I think about living spaces a lot. I have lived longer in this one apartment than I have in all previous spaces, including my childhood home. We have not moved. We cannot afford to move (now); I don't know how anyone actually can. Life would change drastically if this place was no longer available. It is home, and yet, it is not. Its not yet a dystopian near-future out there, but in some ways, yeah it already is...

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Barbie

2023, Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) -- download

I need a new tag: Finally Got Around To It. Maybe someday I will even watch Parasite.

This movie is a dear of the film industry, in that it is considered topical, intelligent, and made boat loads of post-digital post-pandemic cinema money. We all know the Barbenheimer legend. But was it a good movie. Thankfully, yes. But was it a great movie? Ehhhhhnnn, somewhat.

Weeks after I wrote the above, the Oscar noms (nom nom nom) come out and its up for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actors (Ryan and America), Adapter Screen Play, etc. Notably missing are Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig. Seems... weird.

The best thing about Barbie is that it is exactly what it should be, but it is also a subversion of everything it is about. On the surface it is full of beautiful, known faces and even has a very very Barbie blonde playing "stereotypical Barbie" and one of today's most popular male faces playing Ken. It is all about the pink, and the plastic, and the so-called Great Lives the Barbies all live. It could have been just about that, as most of Hollywood would have been entirely satisfied to have a Barbie movie about the world they live in, producing a Pixels level movie about a popular toy franchise.

Instead, we get a feminism-lite subversion of what Barbie is -- the unattainable role model based entirely on looks and a life very few can have. This subversion leads to some very loudly heard but not very nuanced monologues on what it is to be a woman in the current age. It was the kind of commentary that pissed the fragile male ego off, made women around the world cheer, but also made others groan at the over simplifications made. 

In a way, it was a very tactical film, in that it played both sides but satisfied the Purple Suits well enough. The funny thing is that I don't think it diminishes what it was trying to attain. Our current age seems very determined to erode whatever progress women have made in my lifetime. At least in The West; the rest of the enlightened world is probably just facepalming hard. This is probably as loud Hollywood can be without being shutdown. This might explain the "Oscar snubs".

Wow, that is a lot said from the point of view of a cis het white male. And without even saying what the movie was about.

The movie is fun. Barbie (Margot Robbie, Birds of Prey) wakes up in her perfect world, until one day, its not so perfect. Something is wrong. Someone in the "real world" is playing with her... wrong. So, Barbie, on the advice of a Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon, The Bubble) goes to the real world to find the little girl playing with her wrong, to set things right. Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling, Bladerunner 2049) sneaks into her pink car and joins her on her Hero's Journey, but only ends up discovering Male Fragility. And horses. The real world is just as plastic as the Barbie world, just more toxic, but Barbie has escape Evil Mattell with the disillusioned little girl (actually a disillusioned mom [America Ferrara, How to Train Your Dragon]; the little girl is quite fine actually) to return to the Barbie world, only to find out Ken has returned earlier and set about an incel revolution. Together they remind the Barbies of Barbie world that they are independent, strong Barbies that run their world. The movie is fun.

I will desist from having any more "enlightened" opinions.

Kent's post.

KWIF: After Yang (+4)

Kent's Week In Film #4: 

After Yang - 2022, d. Kogonada - Crave
Athena - 2022, d. Romain Gavras - Netflix
Marry Me - 2022, d. - Crave
Man Hunt - 1941, d. Fritz Lang - Criterion Channel
Scarlet Street - 1945, d. Fritz Lang - Criterion Channel

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There have been many films (and TV shows and books and comics and video games) in the past 10 (20/30/40+) years that have delved into artificial intelligence, androids and sentient mechanical beings and their various states of existence and influence.  It goes back as far (if not further) than the novel and film Metropolis (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, the novel and film were simultaneous products) where an android is given the visage of woman who leads an uprising of the working class into destroying the city's machines which both keep the city functioning but are also a tool of division.  

One of the common questions about androids is "do they want to be human?"  This question is asked about the android ("Techno", as they are called here) Yang by his adoptive father to the clone girlfriend he didn't know Yang had (or was capable of having).  She laughs in disbelief, "it's such a human thing to ask... we always assume that other beings want to be human. What's so great about being human?"  Instead she comments that Yang struggled with his identity in a different way.  Yang (Justin H. Min) was brought (bought) into Jake (Colin Ferrell) and Kira's (Jodie Turner-Smith) family after they adopted Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) as they wanted to make sure she grew up with knowledge of her Chinese culture.  Yang was created for the purpose of being a sibling (the company making the technos is called "Brothers and Sisters Incorporated") to adopted Chinese children, but Yang questioned whether or not he was actually Chinese, not wondering about his humanity.  It's just one of many resonant elements in this remarkably deep film with a threadbare plot to service them all.

After his years of service with Mika and family, Yang experiences a critical malfunction and cannot be restored.  Mika is understandably distraught, even in knowing Yang is a techno she still knows him as her brother, her friend, her teacher, her caregiver.  He's always there when Mom and Dad are not.  Jake seems dispassionately committed to figuring out how to revive Yang, it's only as we explore the depths of Jake's efforts that we understand his dispassion, his drive is concealing deep grief over the loss of a member of his family.  Yang was not an appliance, he was a son.  Kira seems to busy with work to even think about her grief (or anyone else's) most of the time, but it's also a mask to conceal her sadness.

In the extensive lengths Jake goes to try and repair Yang (which seems to be much further than what most people do with their Technos) he authorizes a dubious technician to crack open Yang's core, and retrieve his memory bank (the technician believes it to be spyware).  In meeting a studier of Technos at the museum, he's given an apparatus to view Yang's memory bank, brief 3-second snippets of time that start to reveal that there was far more about Yang that he didn't know than did.

After Yang sad, beautiful, mesmerising rumination on what constitutes family, what defines identity, coping with loss, and how memories are formed and triggered. It's also about our perception of others, how we see them, but not necessarily know them. It's also examines parenting and relationships, all set in the backdrop of a future society of androids and clones and self-driving cars. It's an aesthetically beautiful film, which seems to be hopeful for a better future (one changed by androids and clones and other unseen advancements, I'm sure), but one that doesn't forget there's a very human aspect that follows our society wherever we wind up, still dealing with paranoia, intolerance, money and death. 

I had become aware of After Yang mid-year in 2022, intentionally steering clear of learning too much.  I'm not sure sometimes what inspires me to keep in the dark about a film, when most of the time I have no problems reading review after review and watching trailers multiple times.  But After Yang seemed like something I should keep a surprise, but there was nothing imploring that I do.  Having now seen the film, it's not like there's any great story surprises or spoilers to be had, it's just a beautiful, deeply felt film that's one of the best films of the year.

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Unlike After Yang, I hadn't even heard of Athena at all in 2022.  It was only upon listening to a best-movies-of-2022 podcast (one of many) that Athena was even mentioned.  The short version was it was about civic unrest in Paris, but featured a stunning introductory single-take sequence.  Although the critic was citing that "single take sequences" have been overhyped and seemed to imply there's been a critical blowback to the artisticness of the long single-take, I've always been a sucker for one, and impressed by them.

Athena, it turns out, is an absolute stunner of a socio-political action-tragedy that grabs ahold of you from moment one and doesn't really ever let go. After video is released of the death of 13-year-old Idir as a result of an apparent police beating, his brother, Abdel, a decorated soldier, pleads for peace and letting the police sort it out. Revolutionary brother Karim has no time for the inevitable lies and cover ups and has coordinated an attack on the police station (armed primarily with fireworks) that retreats to the largely Muslim populated neighbourhood of apartment complexes called Athena, a concrete jungle that serves them well as a fortified stronghold. While there, Abdel implores the young men to stop the violence (falling on deaf ears) while helping the families leave before being arrested himself with others trying to provide safe passage for the retreat. Their other brother, the drug dealer Moktar, is trying to get his supply out of the complex before any federal raids happen, and seems to find the dissension as a result of his brother's death more annoying than anything. Karim is a rather cunning strategist of the violent protest (but not yet deadly), a general navigating and commanding the different arenas of conflict. As the night shakes on and the stakes rise (and the protests spread throughout the country) word starts to leak that Idir's death may have been at the hands of far-right agents looking to light a match on the powderkeg, so Karim's demands for peace involving the immediate arrest of the officers involved may not even be a possible solution.

The film's power comes largely from its orchestration, shot as a series of long single takes (the first, an epic 12-minute sequence spanning multiple locations and a highway chase in a stolen police van is worth the price of admission alone), typically following a single character, that offers constant movement, and building tension as we see the conflict and strategising from multiple sides (so technically accomplished is it that Netflix released a sort of "how'd they do that" companion documentary with the film.)It's not operating with a conventional narrative, and as such there are a lot of gaps in understanding the character dynamics or, in some cases, motivations (at least on first viewing). But it's a relentlessly taut and constantly engaging movie, a literal edge-of-your-seat thriller, one playing with complicated themes that it handles too thinly perhaps, but never deigns to tell you that its protagonists are right or wrong (though revealing Idir's killer as a pre-credits sequence does seem a bit of a *ahem* cop-out).

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Marry Me is not without its charms but, frankly it starts with a pretty stupid conceit and never seems all that interesting in exploring the conceit with any sense of reality.  It's a film not without its charms (I feel like Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson are charming in their sleep) but the charm of them together still doesn't make up for the real lack of exploration of the effect their very different worlds have on each other.  

I mean, megastar Jennifer Lopez (or whatever her analog is called in this film) is marrying some young, hot, South American superstar in a big public concert extravaganzaa, except just before the actual wedding part of the performance, it's leaked that buddy is having an affair with JLo's assistant.  So she calls off the wedding, but the show must go on.  Owen Wilson is an average divorced part-time dad and middle school math teacher who is scoring points by taking his daughter to the concert thanks to his best friend, Sarah Silverman (love SS, but not understanding their friendship at all in this one).  He's holding SS's "Marry Me"sign when JLo, in a very vulnerable state, pulls him on stage and they get married.  Her agents convince OW to stick with the marriage in public for 3 months, but in that time they get to know each other and the usual romance things happen.

Except that JLo's character here is one of the world's biggest stars, and her crazy marriage stunt would put a blinding spotlight on OW that's so huge he'll be seeing spots for a lifetime.  He wouldn't be able to go anywhere or do anything normally...well, ever.  TMZ would be following him where ever he went, just waiting for him to do anything they could dis or dish on. His very average, comfortable way of life that JLo seems so endeared by, would be ruined within 6 months and this film only sort-of acknowledges that.  But, whatever, it's a romantic fantasy right? But then....who is this fantasy for? The audience for these types of movies are typically women, and yet the fantasy is a Super Successful, Super Rich, Super Attractive spontaneously marries a very average guy with perhaps a bit of above average charm?  How many women is this fantasy catering to?  Or is this meant to be bait for women to take their boyfriends/husbands to a romantic movie and engage them with the fantasy?

There's one pretty good song, one or two decent songs, and a couple real stinkers in this, so it's a mixed bag on that front.  The big stage performances are...okay, but you can tell they were filmed during COVID times with the audience camera trickery. And there's just some of the worst camera work I've seen in a mainstream movie in a long time...for as amazing as the wardrobes are in this, it's a really ugly-looking movie.

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Man Hunt was released mid-World War II, and is the first of legendary director Fritz Lang's anti-Nazi films shot in America.  The story finds a notable British big game hunter scoping out Hitler with a long-range rifle only to be assaulted by security before he can shoot.  He's interrogated over and over, where he assures he never intended to actually shoot Hitler, that it was just an exercise in scope-hunting, the thrill to see if he could.  Of course the Nazis want a confession that the British government had tasked him with assassinating the fuhrer to incite war, but Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon, the Jon Hamm of the 1940's) will never sign a lie, no matter how much they torture him.  So instead of beating him to death, they plan to stage an accident, that he fell off a cliff.  They push him off at night, only when they go to retrieve him the next morning they discover the ground below is boggy and that the soft surface allowed him to survive.  The man hunt begins.

The film has a fairly tense opening act (though a little tame by today's intensity standards) as Thorndike struggles to escape Germany, survive the hunt, and evade capture.  Even upon reaching English shores he's not safe. They know enough about him to make his life complicated. But in fleeing his pursuers he happens into the home of Jerry Stokes (Joan Bennett), a lower class British woman who is completely charmed by this invader in her home.  The second act of the film kind of side steps the tension of Thorndike's pursuit for, instead, a soft-touch meet-cute wront-side-of-the-tracks romantic sub-plot that is far too congenial to fit with the remainder of the film.   Bennett's awful cockney accent threatens to ruin every scene she appears in (and often does).  Pidgeon doesn't even attempt an accent, just stiff posture and a few utterances of "old boy" here and there to do the trick.

I did a quick scan through British writer Geoffrey Household's "Rogue Male", a novella serialized in The Atlantic in 1939, which tells the tale rather grippingly from the first person perspective and not a hint of a romantic subplot (the second act is more fraught pursuit across the English countryside). Likely the romance was an injection of the American studio system's requirements on the story, but, if not for the tonal shift, it could have still worked pretty well.  The third act is rushed but makes its point well...Nazis fucking suck, which needed to be reiterated a lot in America in 1941, and, well, still does.

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Lang would work with Joan Bennett again, twice, actually, with 1944's The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street, both also with Edward G. Robinson.  While I have not watched the former, Bennett's performance in Scarlett Street is phenomenal.  As much as she was running around like a lovesick puppy with Walter Pidgeon in Man Hunt she's a different kind of love sick as her Kitty March here basically is just a complete dame for Dan Duryea's callously charming, and slap-happy Johnny.  But Edward G. Robinson's Christopher Cross (not of "Sailing" fame), a lowly bank teller, unhappily married to a widowed policeman's wife, one day comes across Johnny slapping Kitty senseless and he gets a little moon-eyed for the dame.  A little late night drink, and the two make assumptions about one another (he believes her to be an up-and-coming actress, she believes him to be a very successful painter).  

Johnny coaxes Kitty into getting money out of Chris by feigning interest in him, and the turns of events get pretty wild from there. It's not often that old films can surprise me, because usually if they're of any quality they've been aped, redone, or ripped off so thoroughly that there's no surprises left to be had.  But this one kept turning and I loved every minute of it, up to the point where Chris does something that seems way out of character for him.  Where it goes from there deals with the repercussions of it nicely, but I'm not sure it was in his nature in the first place.

The story is good, but the characters here, Kitty, Johnny, and Chris (and even Chris' wife Adele, Kitty's best friend Millie and other supporting cast) are all very well drawn characters, who have a much more complex view of the world than we usually see in classic cinema.  Kitty is the tough talking dame, but she's the epitome of all-talk, no action.  Johnny calls her "lazy legs" because she just can't be bothered to get up (she spits grape seeds on the floor and flicks cigarette butts willy nilly among other uncouth behaviours), she even quit modelling because it was just too strenuous.  Chris, meanwhile, is the consummate sensitive artist, a dabbler in painting but portrayed as cow-toeing to his wife, being emasculated doing dishes and cleaning up, as she harps on about the life he doesn't give her and the kind of man her dead husband was (his picture still hanging over the couch) in comparison.  Even Johnny has more going on that just being an utter shit...he has dreams, but clearly no faculty for achieving them.  He gets lost in his vices, and uses Kitty's obsession with bad boys to treat her poorly when he feels like it, but drop her a lump of sugar also when he feels like it.  He's not a smooth operator, but smooth enough for Kitty.

This one was wild.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

 2021, d. Kari Skogland - Disney+ (6 episodes)

 It's hard for me to see past my wife's uber-fandom for the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Captain America and Winter Soldier, to not see her unbridled enthusiasm for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier as an endorsement of quality.  If she's enjoying it this much clearly there's something here.

Which is all to say I found The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ("TFatWS) hard to watch objectively with someone experiencing such joy beside me.  

The show opens with a big, bold, cinema-worthy action sequence, an incredibly well executed comination of stunt-coordination, green screen, and digital effects simulating aerial combat like we've literally never seen before.  But it's a solo mission for Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and the titular team-up doesn't happen until episode 2 which just seems odd.

Episode 1, following its big set piece, is largely catching up with our two leads, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The last MCU movie before The Pause was Spider-man: Far From Home which made some jokes about the people returning from "the snap" (in Avengers: Endgame) but it didn't really deal with it.  TFatWS was intended to be the first Disney+ MCU show/mini-series, but due to the impact of the coronavirus, it was leapfrogged by Wandavision which only briefly dealt with the return snap.  So after nearly a year an a half, it's TFatWS that picks up the thread, and builds its central conflict around it.

The adversary here is a collective called the Flag Smashers.  It's told that after half the Earth's population disappeared at the end of Avengers:Infinity War the world started coming together, slowly erasing its boundaries and its prejudices, really fulfilling the vision Thanos set our for it.  In returning everyone five years later, there is a lot of disarray.  People had moved on, new lives started, new agreements and treaties and borders made.  Many returning from the snap are basically refugees, the life that they knew gone.  Likewise many of the people who had forged new lives in new lands are displaced by those returning to properties still theirs, complex decisions about re-appropriation made.  The Flag Smashers are watching a world in pain trying to return to the mess it was before the snap, and they want the world to be as one, to erase all borders and to give everyone a home wherever they would like to have it.  It's idealistic, but the film undercuts the idealism with increasingly extreme acts of terrorism.

This subject alone would be a lot for our two protagonists to ponder and chew on for five hours, but this isn't a political drama, it's a comic-book action-adventure show, so this whole plight becomes set-dressing and character motivation while a half dozen other elements drag Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) around the globe.

Sam has a return to his home and family in Louisiana, where he wants to swoop in and play the hero rescuing the family fishing business, but finds the limitations of his celebrity don't extend to banks where the racism is clouded as "risk-aversion".  Despite having been snapped out of existence for 5 years, the show doesn't really show much of the impact on Sam, except a nagging need to fix everything. On top of that Endgame left Sam in the position of taking the mantle of Captain America, with Steve Rogers passing down the shield.  It's a heavy responsibility, both living up to the legacy of an idol, and in being a living representation of a country, a country that has an ugly history in its treatment of its Black citizens.  Sam gives up the shield to the Smithsonian for a Captain America exhibit, not ready to take on the weight of it all.

Bucky, meanwhile, is over 100 years old at this point, having lived much of his life cryogenically frozen, so his memories of existing all have dramatic gaps in time.  Being blinked out of existence for 5 years is par for the course for him.  Outside of his frozen dreams, much of his life was as a brainwashed puppet, a killing machine that caused a lot of damage in that controlled state, all of which he remembers, and it haunts him.  He was trapped inside his own body, with no control.  To top it off, his only connection to the past, the only happy life he's had, Steve Rogers, left him behind (again), leaving him alone in a strange time where he doesn't feel he belongs at all.

Here are two characters who are well built to approach the modern world and the chaos that plagues it, each with very clear and differing perspectives on what it means to them.  As well both are veterans of multiple wars, which, along with being friends with Steve, connects them as people.  But previous films established that they have a very antagonistic relationship.  Bucky perhaps a little resentful of Sam as Captain America's most trusted ally and Sam perhaps a little wary of this killing machine he's faced in action more than once.  There's more than enough here for a whole show to be built around, but again, that would insinuate that this superhero action show was ready to just delve into the drama of its world and people, but it's not.

It also introduces John Walker (Wyatt Russell), a well-decorated soldier, as the new, government sponsored, Captain America... complete with Steve's shield, which the government considers their property (so many want to stake their claim to that thing).  It's Walker's very public debut that brings Sam and Bucky together, if at first just for an airing of grievances.  But the Flag Smashers demand their attention, and they partner up.  Walker and his partner Lemar Hoskins, aka Battlestar (Cle Bennett) are also sent out on the trail of the Flag Smashers, so doubtlessly paths collide.  That Walker is potentially unstable, suffering from severe PTSD and an almost crippling inferiority complex, further complicates matters.  (Walker does something particularly heinous late in the series that he just sort of walks away from which the show really needed to deal with more, but there's just not enough time to do so).

Again, the complexities start to abound, as it becomes clearer that Walker perhaps isn't entirely stable, and that the Flag Smasher are somehow enhanced with the super-soldier serum.  As was warned in Captain America: Civil War one super soldier like Bucky can upset the status quo, a small army of them could take over the world. 

That warning came from Helmut Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) who is kind of shoehorned into the proceedings, as a worryingly enthusiastic ally to Sam and Bucky.  Bruhl kind of takes over the show for two episodes, stealing every scene he's in, which makes for very delightful viewing but pushes its two leads to the side in an already complex story.

In freeing Zemo - if you recall he was responsible for the death of King T'Chaka in Civil War - this brings the Dora Milaje to shadow them, specifically Ayo (Florence Kasumba) who had become close with Bucky when he stayed in Wakanda for de-programming.

Further adding to the mix a returning Sharon Carter (Emily Van Camp) who was last seen helping them and Steve out in Winter Soldier to the detriment of her own carreer, and suddenly there's yet another character vying for attention in an already cramped mini series (plus a very, very distracting "mystery" in "who is the Power Broker?" that proved a quite unsatisfying bit of fan service/comic book easter-egging)

But we're not done.  Sam is introduced by Bucky to the Captain America of the 1950's, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), one of many Black soldiers who was experimented on with another super soldier serum. Bradley had his life stolen from him, and finds no sympathy from him in his regret of giving up the shield.  Bradley's story, a parallel to the real world Tuskegee Experiments, has real weight in the story but still can't help but only be the brightest fish in a very crowded pond.  I was hoping for at least a flash back set piece of Bucky (as Winter Soldier) meeting a younger Bradley in battle (but I suppose the show wanted to wait for Mackie's inevitable reveal as the first time we see a Black man as Captain America).

The divergences all have a flow to them (except maybe the sudden introduction of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a mysterious, Nick Fury-esque contessa who enlists Walker into her service...it's a real show stopper, though not unwelcome) that gives them a reason to exist in the story, but it makes the whole mini-series overly complicated.  In a shared universe of comics, this depth of crossing-over and calling-back is the norm, but because the characters live across titles and years, it's easier to accept them in a larger story arc.  In the limited realm of cinema for over a decade there's only been a limited amount of space to develop some of these characters, which means there's more of a burden on a series like this to spend much of its time on further developing these otherwise limited characters.  

Again, it all works in its own way, but it detracts from ostensibly the leads of the show, the two characters with their names above the title.  They introduce a lot in the first three episodes of the show, and the worry was constantly that it wasn't going to pull together.  They keep introducing more in the latter three episodes, but mercifully things do start tying together, just not as satisfying or as neatly as I had hoped.  It's very possible that the sudden limitations because of COVID-19 meant that aspects of the show and its story's conclusion had to be redrafted to accommodate travel restrictions and protective measures.

Wandavision was pretty laser-focused, with Wanda and Vision as its center.  The world building (and its utilization of supporting MCU cast like Darcy, Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau) likewise proved a bit distracting and didn't have the meaningful impact to the events that maybe they should.  The same thing happens here except to a much greater degree where all this universe build-out just means Sam and Bucky are often lost as the centers of the show.  In comparing to Wandavision, that show also didn't have the same reliance/burden of the past. So much of TFatWS demands that you be brushed up on your MCU Captain America and Avengers history.  These things are just part of the fabric in my household, but I could see more casual viewers being a little lost by this show constantly referencing past events as major story plots.  It's certainly very comic-booky in this fashion, both to its credit and detriment.

But even with the focus often pulled away, Mackie is still the undeniable lead, even above Stan. Though clearly a man of action, Sam has no superpowers and knows his greatest weapon is his empathy.  He doesn't just resort to his fists or his wings or his weapons, they're a last resort when words don't have their desired intent.  Even Steve Rogers, who people always seemed ready and willing to rally behind, wasn't nearly as dynamic in his speechifying as Sam, but it also goes to show what kind of man Sam is, and what differentiates him from other heroes, particularly the Captain(s) America that came before him.  By episode six of the show, Sam's exploration of race, citizenship, legacy and identity earn him the title of Captain America, and he owns it.  Similarly, Mackie builds the confidence along the way from being a right hand man in the MCU to being not just a viable, but necessary lead.  I have no idea what a Mackie-led Captain America movie would be but I'm eager to find out, because the there are so many possibilities.

Where Stan and the Winter Soldier wind up after this, it's hard to say.  It seems like Bucky, in the end, is trying to find a sense of peace, so if we never see him again that seems okay (but now that we've finally come to know him as a character it's a sad thought).  If a second "Captain America and the Winter Soldier" mini-series were to come, I would certainly welcome it.  I just hope it will be a little more focused.

Rutherford Falls Season 1 [updated]

 2021, Showcase (Canada)/Peacock (US)

There was a dead zone of new TV shows for about a month (well, it's kind of still ongoing), the impact of the COVID-19 shutdown coming to bear, and it seemed like the only new program being promoted was Rutherford Falls.  Whenever I'd turn on the TV, my cable provider's on demand service was promoting it.  I would walk the dog and see billboards and sides of buses showing the same image of Ed Helms and an actress I'm not familiar with sitting on a book in front of a statue.  This one:

It's an image that tells you nothing, unless you're really, really paying attention.  But it's such a plain image, who's paying that much attention?  I mean, Ed Helms is a very subtle comedic persona, he doesn't really stand out in any way.  I used to really like him on The Daily Show, and he's always a pleasant supporting player...even sometimes a pleasant lead, but he's never a draw.  So upon seeing these promotional images (but no commercials, since I watch everything recorded or on demand, I skip past commercials) my mind just said, without any maliciousness, "pass".

They bury the lede on this one, which is that one of the show's creators is Michael Shur, the guy who created things like Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99, and The Good Place...in other words, some of the best American situation comedies of not just the past decade, but of all time.  That, to me was the draw, and how did I learn that?  Well, I found myself waiting at a street corner for a light to change, time on my hands, and I actually paid attention to the bus stop poster which kind of subtly announced this.  Upon making the connection, Parks and Recreation specifically was invoked, in that Schur created one of the great goofy small-towns, so perhaps Rutherford Falls would be another such wonderfully goofy, well-populated small towns.  But at the same time, I also realized that Schur, with The Good Place, had bigger thoughts in mind, so who knows where Rutherford Falls might be going... the thought was enticing.

Within the first episode it became clear what the distinguishing factor to this show was, no, not the gentle amount of naturalistic swearing (thanks to being on NBC's streaming service), but the fact that a large amount of the show is centered around the fictional Rutherford Fall's also fictional regional Native American population, the Minishonka Nation.  The show is co-created by Sierra Teller Ornelas (as well as Ed Helms), a Navajo writer known for Brooklyn 99, Happy Endings and Superstore, and for Schur it almost seems a mea culpa to the more off-handed style jokes about (fictional) Pawnee's terrible history with the (fictional) Wamapoke Tribe in Parks and Rec.  It's not that Parks and Rec used Native Americans as the butt of the joke, but its inclusiveness was tenuous.  In Rutherford Falls, the Minishonka are a major part of the cast and the main instigators of the story.

So what is that story?  Well... Ed Helms is Nathan Rutherford, a descendant of the town's founder, and proprietor of the Rutherford Museum, a place dedicated to all things Rutherford.  He's obsessed with his family, their history, and their place in history, as well as the town.  He's undeniably proud of everything Rutherford.  He even sits as an honorary, non-voting board member of the Rutherford Inc., a powerful mutli-billion dollar conglomerate founded by his ancestors and uses the Rutherford name and town's wholesome visage as part of its own image.

There's a statute of Rutherford Falls' founder in the middle of the road downtown, which has been repeatedly crashed into over the years, and city council has proposed moving it as a safety hazard.  The statue was erected on the spot where "Big Larry" Rutherford made a "fair and honest deal" with the Minishonka for the land that would become town -- the "fair and honest" part being of particular pride to Nathan. 

But the issue of moving the statue has stirred up history, a deeper look at the deal that was struck, with Terry Thomas (Michael Greyeyes), owner of the Minishonka Casino, noting that certain terms of that original deal were not upheld, and at the same time Nathan facing the true Rutherford legacy, most of which has been whitewashed out.

Nathan's best friend from childhood, Reagan (Jana Schmeiding), runs the rather vacant, sparsely adorned cultural center in the Casino, and it's evident she is rather estranged from her Minishonka people, in large part due to a "runaway bride" situation.  Reagan winds up having a bit of a conflict of interest when Terry brings a lawsuit against Nathan for violating a hundreds of years old treaty that he values at around three hundred million dollars, and manipulates him into connecting Rutherford Inc.

If I've learned anything from The Good Place, it's that appearances aren't always what they seem, so this isn't just a pleasant small-town-America comedy - although it kind of is that, too.  No, there's a tremendous amount of meat on its sturdy structural bones.  

Nathan is posed in the first episode as our point-of-view character, which usually implies he'd be our protagonist, but that's not the case.  Nathan truly feels like a progressive - his best friend is Native American, his assistant at the museum, Bobby Yang (Jesse Liegh), is a non-binary person of colour, and he winds up (spoiler) in a torrid affair with Diedre Chisenhall (Dana L. Wilson), proudly the first black mayor of Rutherford Falls (also the Chisenhalls are historically the nemeses of the Rutherfords.  Yet, in spite of the people he surrounds himself with, Nathan refuses to acknowledge both his priviledge and his hurtful propegation of ugly, whitewashed history.  He believes the history he's been told, he believes the achievements glories, the traditions proud, his ancestors noble and righteous... be believes in not necessarily lies, but half truths.  So when the other sides of these stories he's been told (and has been repeating for years via the museum) start entering the conversation, he reacts defensively, with stern rebukes.  

The hope from the first episode is that Nathan, seemingly progressive that he is, will see his friend Reagan struggling with her Cultural Center and help her out, not just by listening to her speeches, but offering up space in his own family history museum to present the full story.  But that's never on the table for Nathan, because he's not interested.  He's too invested in the lie, the "great American fable", his family name and everything he thinks it stands for to let go of it.  Throughout his legal turmoil he is confronted with his own hypocrisy and rather than acknowledging it, he doubles-down on his ignorance and his white entitlement. 

By way of comedy, Schur, Ornelas and Helms seem to be painting the portrait the MAGA movement in a microcosm.  They are ostensibly stating that how a LOT of Trumpers have manifested is in rejecting awareness to their own failings, whether personally, or historically as a people.  Far too many people want to reject anything other than the fables of "American Exceptionalism", ignoring all the slavery, forced internment, mass murders, abuses, suppression of individual freedoms and rights that were perpetrated on so many cultures and genders in order to achieve such "greatness".  There are people refusing to acknowledge that horrible events even took place, nevermind any ancestral complicity in it. 

Without explicitly saying it, what Terry Thomas is looking for is reparations for what was taken from his people, and what he wants with it is to give back to his people.  Terry has done well for himself via the casino, but even when his actions are sometimes perhaps misguided, he's looking out for others, and a greater good.

Reagan, meanwhile, just wants her 'best friend" to look beyond himself for a change, something that, at least at this particular time when things have come to a head, Nathan is completely incapable of doing.

Everyone around Nathan - his brother, his friends, his mentor, the entire town, the corporation he's loosely affiliated - are all trying to tell him that there's something amiss buried in their past  (or in the case of the corporation, their present...they use the town to project a squeaky clean image when behind the scenes it's ...no good), and Nathan wants it to stay there.  He can't handle it otherwise, his whole sense of self has been invested into a lie.  The Rutherfords are his blind patriotism, and he's willing to burn every bridge to defend the lies.

---

This all paints a pretty heavy and bleak portrait of the show, it's season finale airing in Canada next week.  While it would be nice if Nathan sees the light, it'd be too easy, and not very interesting.  Plus I don't think that's Schur's style anymore.  There's no resetting back to zero every episode here like the Simpsons, no, there are going to be consequences.  If Nathan ever chooses to see the light, it's going to take work to get out of where he is.  

This wasn't the direction I thought the show was going, trying to understand at least some facet of the MAGA crowd (while in no way acquitting them of their position).  I was thinking the Minishonka Nation would win back the land of Rutherford Falls in court, and subsequent seasons would be the reverberation across America of such a landmark decision.

This isn't the case though, but it's no less intriguing an exploration.

As I said, it seems heavy, but in reality it's all handled with a rather light touch.  It remains a comedy, and never saddles itself with its weight.  It acknowledges it is there and keeps moving forward.

I should also clarify that Nathan is not the only POV character, just the first.  Rutherford Falls cycles between Nathan, Reagan and Terry.  In fact, the fourth episode is all Terry and it's a really fantastic character profile that cements him as one of the great characters in these late stages of the Golden Age of television. 

Reagan is such a deep character that even 8 episodes in we've barely peeled back any of her layers.  All the tidbits we get that flesh out her past, informing her present show a character evolving before our eyes, connecting with herself and the world around her in ways she'd never thought she could.  She's got that delightfully awkward streak in her that will likely never leave, but it also hides the confidence that is firming up inside.  

I found it quite wonderful how the show developed Reagan's romance with Josh Carter - an NPR reporter who comes to Schitt's Creek on a hunch about the lawsuit - played by Schitt's Creek's Dustin Milligan.  Millgan is like a step or two above Hallmark Movie handsome romantic lead, and how the show handles him falling for Reagan is so natural, it just makes sense.  There *could* have been a narrative about disarmingly handsome man gets together with plus-sized woman, but they don't play it that way, and the fact that they don't play it that way (in conjuction with a few other shows where plus-sized women pair up with lean handsome men) literally is remapping my brain.  I'll get into that more in my Shrill Season 3 write up, but the point is when the entertainment culture can normalize women's bodies of all shapes and sizes and not make it the center of their identity, the rest of culture may follow suit.  Attractive is attractive, attraction is attraction.

Rutherford Falls is just kind of doing it.  They're doing the work.  It's a very entertaining show that explores some complex issues through its storytelling but with finesse, not a hammer.  It also constructs a social reality that seems ideal, but then dares to say "it could be better".  And it can, it can always be better.

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[updated June 7]

So my read on the show -- having watched 8 out of 10 episodes -- was, as Toasty ponted out in the comments (with him having the advantage of finishing the season), pretty wrong.

Where I had thought Nathan would be doubling down on is bull-headed commitment to his sense of self, his identity build around his family, instead the realizations that come to him fracture him instead.  They kind of break him and the veil sort of lifts.  

It's a sweeter resolution but far less daring than I was expecting of the show.  Especially after The Good Place took some incredible swings in its storytelling, I was expecting more of that here.  But they're more of a bunt than a big swing, a little surprising but not as spectacular had they truly turned Nathan into an unintentional right-wing blowhard because of his adherence to his fallacious legacy.

As well, the show comes to resolutions on many of its big swings rather swiftly, which I found surprising, and, again, less daring.  The lawsuit especially seems like it took a 180 in terms of giving Terry what he wanted.  I thought the show was going for a STATEMENT, but it settles back into its character story and story of the town.

It's a good watch regardless, with a great cast and wonderful characters, but it's not as bold as I had anticipated.

Saturday Sci-Fi Spectacular, vol 1

War for the Planet of the Apes
Upgrade
High-Rise
Alien:Covenant
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It's a rare occasion when I get an evening to myself, nevermind a full day, where I can just linger and do nothing.  A few Saturdays back I wound up in that very scenario, with the kids off visiting with grandparents, the wife out RPGing for the night... all I really had to do was walk the dogs and feed myself, which left me with many hours to fill in very much the way I would have filled a sleepy Saturday some 25 years ago: movie marathon.

But what to watch?  My ability to watch movies became very limited once children came along, not to mention competing forces of epic television, streaming services and a new revolution in comedy via podcast and standup.  What to watch?  Do I spend precious minutes that turn into dozens of minutes scrolling through feeds, or thinking about my sizeable, if aged, DVD/Blu-ray collection?  What to watch?  And how to program this mini home festival so that it feels like a cohesive whole?  I've missed so many films over the years that I still want to watch, but so many competing for attention I'm always at a loss on where to start.  What to watch?

I settled on watching science fiction movies from the past few years that I've been meaning to get to.  In a couple instances, they were the latest chapters in series that I've enjoyed or was invested in.  In another case it was picking back up a movie I started watching but didn't finish.  Just narrowing down to a genre and also a time frame made it so, so easy to just dive in and start watching.  I knew where I wanted to start, and where I wanted to end, which made the middle relatively self evident.

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War for the Planet of the Apes (2017 - d. Matt Reeves - netflix) was the easiest choice.  I love the Planet of the Apes franchise.  The original pentalogy is always watchable and fascinating (save the last one, Battle for the Planet of the Apes which may well be worse than the Tim Burton/Mark Whalberg misfire), and this modern series reinvented the story brilliantly, from the traumatic animal abuse in Rise of the Planet of the Apes to the emotionally affecting Shakespearean drama Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, these are legitimately great films.  The fact that I didn't see War for the Planet of the Apes in the theatre and basically let it dangle on the vine for years after it's post-theatre release speaks ill of my devotion to the series, but I do love it.

This third installment opens with literal war.  A waning humanity desperately clawing at relevance by murdering apes with their guns, but apes are smart, and tactical and have the advantage of the war being on their turf, in the forest.  But Cesar (the brilliant Andy Serkis) sees the writing on the wall. The more desperate the humans become, the more dangerous, so their home is only protected, only safe for so long.  It's time to leave.  As the community of apes prepares to leave for new land, a strike force infiltrates the ape's forest home at night, in the process killing Cesar's mate and first born son.

The anger and rage towards humanity that Koba felt - and Cesar fought against - in the last installment starts to boil inside him.  He abandons his tribe for revenge, but without his leadership they are taken captive.  Cesar was blinded by his own grief and fury, and his society pays the price.

There's actually very little direct war, in War for the Planet of the Apes, as it's mainly a prison camp/prison break style movie with a lot of dramatic motivation.  Cesar and The Colonel (Woody Harrelson) are the main focus of the film, with Cesar desperate to get his society away from human influence, while the Colonel fights the inevitible (the plague that made apes smart across the globe are making humans mute and depreciating their intelligence) thinking that eradicating the apes will stop anything.  At the same time, he's preparing for war, not just with the apes, but an opposing human faction.

Certainly the messiest of this latest Planet of the Apes series, it's still a very engaging, gripping, entertaining 2 hours and 20 minutes of drama and adventure.  It's a literal technological marvel how seamless the CGI apes fit within their surroundings, how natural they feel to the environment.  You're not seeing a performer or special effects, it feels like you're watching actual apes who are amazing performers.  How can you not just adore Bad Ape (a bald chimpanzee played by Steve Zahn) or Maurice the wise orangutan (played by Karin Konoval)?  I want to hug them so badly.

If anything didn't work in the film, it was the tail end of the climax.  Without spoiling anything, it sets up a new threat for the apes, then immediately dispenses with it.  It's a very strange moment that is meant to be ironic, but not the comedic kind of irony that it pretty much is.

Based on where War for... ends, I don't know where the franchise goes from here.  This truly feels like closure.  Whether it attempts to reinvent the original (which was tried with the Tim Burton venture...a financial success but not a creative one) or if it has a new path it could forge in a futuristic ape society that would in any way appeal to a human audience, I don't know.  This trilogy was full of surprises and deeply resonant characters that show exactly the right way to reboot an older property for modern times... by telling a good story not rehashing an old one.

(I can't believe how terrible most of the posters were for this movie)
---

My second movie for the evening was Upgrade, the 2018 action-thriller from Australian director Liegh Whannell.  I had heard about this movie via The Weekly Planet podcast shortly before it came out.  The hosts of The Weekly Planet were both rather taken with the style of the film, and how technically accomplished it was for its very small budget.

The story is set in a sort of 5-mintues-into-the-future type scenario, in a world where the technology we're just on the cusp of standardizing has become standard.  Fully integrated home systems with voice activation and AI response cues and self-driving cars are a the forefront in this film.  Our lead character, Grey (Logan Marshall-Green) is a luddite in this integrated world.  He likes to be disconnected and repairs vintage muscle cars for a living.  He's wary of technology, but not outright disdainful.

While he and his wife are traveling in her automated car, the vehicle goes haywire, taking the wrong course and putting them into the dangerous surroundings of the city.  There they are accosted by three men who execute them, or so it appears.  Grey survives and battles with full body paralysis, grief and depression... until one of his muscle car clients, a wealthy technology magnate, offers him an experimental trial implant that would cure his paralysis.

When Grey accepts he's surprised at how quickly he's able to move, but even more surprised to find an artificial intelligence speaking directly into his head.  The AI wants to aid him in his quest for justice/revenge and when Grey's physical limitations are met, the AI takes over.

The film's sensibilities are very 1980s without seeming dated (it may be a little cliche, but it's definitely playing into those cliches).  Whannell approaches the storytelling and design in a way that wouldn't be out of place in a vehicle starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, or Kurt Russell in their prime.  If anything it does a better job at modernizing the Robocop story than the 2014 version does.  At the same time, there's a synergy with Alex Garland's Ex Machina, where this feels like the action-oriented younger brother, a little less mature, a little less heady but similarly stylized.  Or maybe it's a next-generation tale in the world of Person of Interest.

Where this film feels innovative though is in the fight sequences.  Whannell and team have crafted a stunning new method for capturing dynamic and kinetic fights.  Whenever the AI takes over Grey's body the camera starts tracking Marshall-Green's movements precisely.  Every twist, tilt or punch has a corresponding camera move that just cranks us the momentum of these well orchestrated sequences.  It's rather ingenious.

I have to say I loved this movie.  It's an instant classic of action and sci-fi in my book.  I can't believe Toast hasn't written about it yet (though I'd be dismayed if he hasn't actually seen it).
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I was super keen to see High-Rise in 2015 as I had just become acquainted with director Ben Wheatley's Kill List and was intrigued by his style and sensibilities.  The poster and the trailer for High-Rise seemed downright Cronenbergian in their tone and aesthetic (I'm most definitely thinking of Shivers as a big inspiration here) and I was in for it.  I intentionally kept myself in the dark about what it was really about, the few glimpses I caught was all I needed to see.

In my head I was also thinking this was some sort of Demon Seed situation, where the technology in a high rise tower goes haywire and starts manipulating its residents.  But it turns out, there's not a damn bit of science in this fiction, unless you consider architecture science.  Though, the tone here is once more 5-minutes-into-the-future, but it's five minutes into the future of 1975

Based off the book by J.G. Ballard (who wrote Crash, which Cronenberg adapted), the titular high-rise of the film is part of an experimental neighbourhood, the first finger in a hand formation.  The concept is of a microcosm of society with different classes of people living on different levels in the building.  Though work happens in town, not in the building, almost everyone's leisure time is spent in the cinder and concrete monstrosity they call home.  They all seem to be very enamored with it at first, but the class structures start to poke through and eventually decay any and all goodwill between men.

The first act introduces this place and a cross-section of the people in it, the second half chronicles the slow degradation of the relationships between them, and the third act is all madness and rioting and orgies abandoning all sense of self.  In the collapse of civilized society, everyone kind of winds up the same.  The inference is that perhaps the complex's designer, as played by Jeremy Irons, did use some forms of satanic symbolism in the overall design, and the concept of a hand reaching up from beneath the earth to pull everyone down.


It really does owe a lot to Shivers, but the same allegory of societal structures is at play here as the most-definitely-sci-fi film Snowpiercer but the two stories do play out quite differently.  Our focal character here is not underclass struggling for justice and truth like Chris Evans in Snowpiercer but rather a middle class/straddling upper class Tom Hiddleston, someone who from the middle can see the struggles on both sides, and doesn't know where he belongs (he doesn't really belong at the bottom nor the top).  It's an interesting film, to a point, but it doesn't really hold together fully as a narrative, and the characters exist to represent their class rather than have any real individualism or personality.  In the end I struggled to maintain interest, as the last act of debauchery is tedious and loses the plot, if there ever really was one.

(unlike War for the Planet of the Apes, the High-Rise posters are pretty great)
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And finally, the last film for the evening, because I wanted it dark, was the latest in Ridley Scott's exploration of the Alien franchise.  2017's  Alien: Covenant is a serves as prequel to his 1979 classic as well as sequel to his much-maligned-but-loved-by-me 2012 outing Prometheus [link to my take...Toast's take on Prometheus is here, we disagree!]


I know that Prometheus as the sum of its parts isn't a great movie, but there are so many of those parts that I just love that I can watch it over and over again without any voice nagging in the back of my head about the quality or plot holes or absurdity.  I just enjoy it.

The critical response to Covenant was even worse than Prometheus but I thought that maybe Scott was on the same track, that he was going to still be operating at a level of insane and awesome individual bits that don't coalesce as a whole.  But even the scant few Prometheus defenders I knew didn't have much good to say about Covenant, which wasn't a good sign.  As such I skipped it in theatre, and then avoided it on VOD, and even still kept passing it by on the streaming services.


I did still hold out hope that everyone was wrong, that I would find a movie in here that I could appreciate, like Prometheus.  But no.  This is trash.  It's a garbage film full of dumb characters doing dumb things, getting in stupid situations that make no sense, and having dumb conversations about which dumb thing they're going to do next.  It's awful. It's a Z-grade horror film with an A-grade budget that wants to provide world building and an origin story but in a most shoehorned fashion.

The opening scene takes us back to David's creation (David from Prometheus as played by Michael Fassbender), his education and his evolution. He's the malevolent force of the picture full of other malevolent forcest.  Following the end of Prometheus David has returned to the Engineers home in their own ship carrying a payload of bioengineered weapons which he's set loose and eradicated their society.  But David has left a homing beacon running, which brings a new crew of colonizers to this planet teeming with bad shit.  There are so many malevolent forces!  Too many.  Way too many.  It's stupid how many malevolent forces there are.  No human should be able to survive a minute on this hellscape planet David has created and yet we keep following the cast around as if there's some hope that any of this will turn out well.

This film is tragically unentertaining.  The characters, with the exception of David and Walter, are boring and thin.  David and Walter, however, are both artificial intelligences that are explored, but not explored very well.  The film should fully revolve around these two characters, but it gets distracted too often with its human cast (and killing them off) to the detriment of really getting into any sort of commentary about the nature of AI (as unnatural as it is).  There is some thinking about the nature of creation and evolution but even that seems rudimentary and not well crafted.

This is science fiction, but the science part of it feels left on the floor and repeatedly stepped on like a doormat.  I hated this movie.  What a waste of time and money (and I'm not even talking about my time or my money).

(Toast's take on Covenant is here, we disagree, in that I hated it so much more than he did)