Three Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Old Woman with the Knife

2025, Kyu-dong Min (Whispering Corridors 2: Memento Mori) -- download

Also called Pagwa in Korean, which is a reference to bruised, and usually discarded, fruit. That is a theme in the movie, and was the name of the original novel from which the movie is adapted. So, are American English translations of Korean movies now going to be named so plainly? Next up, Guy with a Gun Kills People and its sequel, Guy with Many Guns Storms Tower.

That said, there is a phenomena in Manga / Manhwa (Korean manga) where the titles are ludicrously long and descriptive. Example, translated into English, "My Little Sister Stole My Fiancé: The Strongest Dragon Favors Me and Plans to Take Over the Kingdom?" and its very minorly attributed to translation issues; the actual original title is just as long-ass.

Cough. I watch so many of these "revenge movies" I wonder who my brain desires to take revenge upon?

The world baby, the entire world.

But to be fair, this is more an Aging Assassin movie than it is a revenge flick. Except, like the latest in the Liam Neeson "Aging ____" movies, this character is properly old, likely in her late 60s to mid-70s. Sure, that's only a decade away for me, but in the world of hand to hand combat, I am sure anything over 40 is downright ancient. Of note, the actress playing said Old Woman is 62; take that as you will.

The movie begins in the past, a young woman has escaped.... something. She is beaten and bloodied and struggles to walk bare-footed through the snow when a young couple chance upon her and bring her to their run-down little diner. The young woman begins to work the diner which is frequented by American soldiers, and on one night, a soldier attempts to assault her. She kills him with a hat pin (knitting needle? chop stick shaped cooking implement?). The husband discovers them and the young woman is upset she has ruined her situation, until Ji-wo explains the diner is a cover for an assassination organization that deals with "vermin" -- they only kill horrible people that deserve to be killed. The young woman, whom he named "Nails" is trained and brought into the organization.

Strangely enough she is called Hornclaw by credits and by herself, but her original Korean name in the novel was Jogak, which means a fragment of a whole, like a scrap of cloth left over from a greater finished fabric piece.

Now older, we are given the "example" of a kill -- a crowded subway car, a middle-aged man drunkenly verbally accosts a young woman, and everyone just pretends its not happening, literally shying away from the situation. When the train comes to a halt, Hornclaw (Lee Hye-young, Can You Hear My Heart?) slides out a hairpin and ... a very light poke as the train jostles and the crowd at the door rocks. She leaves, he falls down dead. Vermin disposed of.

As a commuter, I get that little scene as a fantasy -- horrible people should be dealt with. As a pedestrian I visualize terrible drivers getting their come-uppance, as they ignore cross-walks, cut people off and never-endingly lean onto their horns. Maybe I don't desire a agency to get rid of them, but... well, maybe sometimes.

And it turns out he was a case. Someone knew this man's reputation and wanted him gone. Back at the agency, a woman at the door wails and cries begging them to take on her case, which the current leader (not Hornclaw) denies. The wailing woman's case is not lucrative enough and Hornclaw argues it, claiming they have moved away from their original mandate. He just argues that she has become old and soft. That hits home.

Hornclaw rescues an old injured dog, takes him to an all night veterinarian where the tech explains that because he is a stray and old, no one will take him in, so he will be euthanized right now, if Hornclaw doesn't give him a home. She sees a mirror of her own life -- is she no longer useful, is she just going to be put down? She takes the dog home.

Not long after, after a botched job, where she was required to put down one of her own "co-workers", Hornclaw staggers into the vet's place asking for help. He stitches her up and promises to stay quiet, despite the odd situation. That puts her at odds with her agency and their new recruit, an arrogant young man named Bullfight (Kim Sung-cheol, Hellbound) is sent to deal with her, and the vet & his family. Hornclaw does not take kindly to that.

Given my recent penchant to not properly recap, I will just say that the movie climaxes with Hornclaw vs Bullfight, and a few reveals: her agency has been cherry picking jobs to work alongside a local crime organization, which means its own leader has to go, and it turns out that Bullfight was the subject of this "revenge movie", not Hornclaw herself, as she had eliminated his father many years before, BUT that's not what the revenge was for, it was because she left the kid behind, left him to deal with his father's killing and grow to a broken man all on his own. 

There was a lot going on in the movie, which I only realized as I thought back on it for the writing. The plots and sub-plots, the layers of story and character make it more fascinating in hindsight than in viewing. Sure, it is well done, and unlike many of these "assassins with regrets" flicks, the melodrama of the non-killing acts is not grating and/or boring, but in watching, piece by piece, nothing really stands out stylistically. Did it deal effectively with the conflict between aging and usefulness? I am not convinced, as despite relying upon the idea that in Korea, the old are considered worthy of only being cast away (meanwhile, we in North America make them heads of the country or corporations....) Hornclaw was never lacking in capability. Her physical challenges put aside, she was keen and aware, and even made use of the idea that aging Korean women become invisible to society, allowing her to disappear into crowds with ease. Her emerging "softness" was not a weakness, just a memory of what the agency had originally stood for, to protect the little people from evil.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Dead of Winter

2025, Brian Kirk (21 Bridges) -- download

No, not a remake of the 1987 Mary Steenburgen flick, but a curious cold-weather crime thriller set in the snow-bound northern reaches of Minnesota, shot entirely in Finland. It has a limited cast that makes it feel like a Pandemic flick but somehow doesn't feel... small. We watched it because it has Emma Thompson doing her best Frances McDormand "homespun midwest" accent. And because I like cold weather flicks.

As mentioned, in the wilds of Minnesota, probably close to the Canadian border, amid rural dirt roads, lakes and bad cell reception, Barb and her husband ran a bait shop. They lived a small life, their home a cozy mobile-home across the yard from the bait shop proper. Her husband Karl has recently passed and she has promised him that his ashes will be scattered on the lake where they had their first date -- yes, he took her ice fishing on their first date and it seems they never left that life behind. The depiction of that connection is exquisite, emotive and true. 

But Barb hasn't been to Lake Hilda in quite some time, and a news-making snow storm is on its way, so when she chances on a tucked away cabin on a side road, she stops to ask for directions. A startled man is nice enough, tells her she is near it, and explains away the blood on the ground as a nose bleed. Barb thinks nothing of it and heads off, finding Lake Hilda and getting lost in memories. But then she hears a gun shot, a crack as clear as new ice in this empty wilderness. She hides behind her truck and spies the man who just helped her chasing a young woman across the ice. He recaptures her and suddenly Barb has a new goal.

The Man (Marc Menchaca, Companion) is married to an irascible Woman in Purple (Judy Greer, Halloween Kills), who is obviously very ill. They have kidnapped the young woman for reasons unknown, but obvious The Woman is desperate, and The Man is utterly under her thumb. Barb dives into a rescue mission without thinking, promising the young woman (Laurel Marsden, The Pope's Exorcist) through the basement window that she will not leave her, no matter what.

The thriller part of the movie is pedestrian enough, but Emma Thompson is, as usual, compelling as Hell. Barb is not the woman Emma Thompson is, entirely rough around the edges, likely having spent most of her adult life in a stinky one-piece set of overalls. I cannot say if the accent is accurate but it is definitely regional. I could not help but think of her other recent role, as Zoë Boehm in Down Cemetery Road, which I did watch but did not write about (still having issues with writing about TV despite a failed attempt to reignite it), in that the character entirely stands out. I could not say faithfully that Emma Thompson has been a "character actor" throughout her career but maybe she is giving it a go? Maybe next up she will get a Liam Neeson "aging action star" type role?

If I was disappointed by anything with this movie it was the lack of role that Winter played. The movie starts with the hinting of coming Bad Weather but.... we never really see it. Its gawddamn cold, for sure, but there is no blinding blizzard or even never-stopping heavy snow. The movie is just set in a wintry environment. I wanted to feel the weather instead of just observing it having happened.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Ranking the Coen Bros.

2018, d. Joel and Ethan Coen - Netflix
[Reposted from my letterboxd, typos and all, originally written Nov 16, 2018]

Anthologies are always a challenge for me. Movies, books, comics... I'm never left satisfied. There's too many stories, usually of different length, sometimes connected by theme or genre, sometimes only tenuously connected, often not really connected at all. They usually vary in length and tone, often by different creatives, and invariably you have to compare one story against the rest, and even in the best cases there's always a dud, or one that overshadows all the others. It's never a satisfying experience.

I think the only place where the anthology can really work is television. We're talking The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Black Mirror, but also the idea of season-length anthologies like Fargo, True Detective, or American Horror Story. With the former, the episode by episode format of anthology gives separation, but also structure. Not every episode will be equal but the separation between stories (talking about old school weekly viewing, but also the separation provided by opening title and end credits sequences) provides a buffer to immediate juxtaposition. As individual episodes they're standalone, like short films, not treated as a necessary part of a whole package. The season length anthology is just more fulfilling, a mini-series that lives on it's own each year, all the benefits of regular television but with the satisfaction of both an intended story structure and closure.

Which brings us to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology feature from the Coen Brothers (Ethan Coen no stranger to anthology storytelling, having written more than a few collections of short stories). The early rumour was this exploration of the old West was intended as a tv anthology but it's six tales each run at wildly different lengths (from 10 to 40 minutes) which would make tv serialization impossible. [edit: the "series" rumour has been disproven]

The only real way to tackle reviewing an anthology is story by story, but that type of reviewing also exemplifies the fact that an anthology cannot really be viewed as a whole unit, rather only it's pieces.

The film takes its name from the opening story, following Tim Blake Nelson's singing gunslinger through a breif and violently whimsical journey (it makes me want a Shaolin Cowboy movie adaptation from the Wachowskis). I had incorrectly inferred that Buster Scruggs would be the film's Cryptkeeper, the connecting thread between stories, but no such luck. Just the turning of pages transitions us from one to the next.

James Franco robs a bank in the next story, but gets foiled by the teller played by Stephen Root. It's the shortest of the stories but tonally consistent with the previous, if a little less fantastical.

The third story follows a limbless orator as he travels the countryside with Liam Neeson as his caretaker making a meager living entertaining meager (and thrifty) crowds. Is this a friendship? A business partnership? Or an exploitative relationship? Ultimately, it's overlong, cast in such grey, and lacking the wit and charm of the previous entries, destroying the cohesiveness for the rest of the film.

The next story takes full advantage of Bruno Delbonnel's beautiful cinematography as Tom Waits panhandlers for gold. It's luscious color palette is in stark contrast to the four dankness of the previous story. It's just as deliberate a story as the last, really getting the sense of the time to spare on such endeavours people had way back when.

While the first two stories were rather pithy and energetic, these two slow things right down, peeling away the idealism of the old West, leading into the fifth story, a forty minute romantic tragedy on a wagon train to Oregon. Due to it's length it's easy to invest in the characters, and understanding the painstaking hardship of travel seems to be the point. The early romanticism of old West tropes have washed away, here there's bare practicality and excruciating nothingness, coupled with a gut blow of an ending.

The final story finds five heads in a carriage, talking, a spectre of darkness aptly surrounding them, but the Coen's see fit to return levity via the uncomfortable, forced interaction of strangers who would otherwise not associate with one another. It's an engaging dialogue but quite much to take after three tales of a more photographic quality and already nearly 2 hours deep. If anything, it serves as a reminder of how awesome Tyne Daly is, and she should be in more things.

As a whole, it's a Coen Brothers production so it's worth the time spent, but as a Coen Brothers production it's on the bottom end of their spectrum. I also wished the had better Native American representation than just as attacking war parties.

---

I'm being lazy with Buster Scruggs i, not writing a brand new review because, well, I don't have a lot more to say about it, just as I didn't have much to say about it then. I did find it generally tedious to watch and frequently checked the timestamp to see how much was remaining. The Coens love a tight movie so whenever one goes over two hours, you feel it.

The Blank Check Podcast pointed out that the connecting thread of these stories is death, but it's tough for me to really think of it a theme of each of these stories. 

My ranking of the Buster Scruggs stories:

1. The Gal Who Got Rattled
2. All Gold Canyon
3. Near Algodones
4. The Mortal Remains
5. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
6. Meal Ticket

Now that I have rewatched all 18 of the Coens films together, here are my rankings, subject to change.

1. Fargo
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Hail, Caesar!
4. Inside Llewyn Davis
5. A Serious Man
6. No Country For Old Men
7. The Hudsucker Proxy
8. Blood Simple
9. Burn After Reading
10. Miller's Crossing
11. True Grit
12. Barton Fink
13. The Man Who Wasn't There
14. Intolerable Cruelty
15. Raising Arizona
16. O Brother, Where Art Thou
17. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
18. The Ladykillers

It's a difficult list to make because 60% of these films are flat out masterpieces, and most of the rest are troubled but still generally likeable. I mean, True Grit is an incredible, maybe even perfect film, and I have it out of the top 10, which is absurd.

My top 3 was my top 3 going into this rewatch and they remained relatively untested. LLewyn Davis and A Serious Man were both a lock for the top 5 and jockeyed back and forth, with Llewyn taking the edge because I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. The films in the 6-13 slots could probably be re-arranged any which way and I would still be happy with that ranking.

The only real surprise in making the list is that Raising Arizona jumped 3 spots from the bottom...and maybe that Burn After Reading made it into the top 10. It's probably the only non-masterpiece in the top ten, but it is so much fun. It's very possible that I may be finally warming to Raising Arizona but I just don't have the sentimentality towards it like so many others do. But sentimentality is why Fargo and Lebowski are my 1 and 2.

Of all these films, only the bottom three do I feel hesitant to watch again. In fact, I would probably watch The Ladykillers before O Brother or Buster Scruggs but it's pretty unanimous that The Ladykillers is absolutely their weakest film. For the record, if I were to add in Joel and Ethan's solo works, Honey, Don't would slot in between The Man Who Wasn't There and Intolerable Cruelty while Drive Away Dolls would slot in just after Raising Arizona. I don't even know where to put The Tragedie of Macbeth because it's nothing like the rest of their oeuvre. It sits on its own outside of it all...or it's last, I guess even though it's clearly a better film than The Ladykillers at least.

But what an unbelievable delight it is to have all these films in the world, and to revisit them in succession. It was a real effort to watch them week-to-week and not gorge myself on them. But, next time there will be a gorging.

Series Minded: The Nakeds Gun

[Series Minded is an irregular feature here at T&KSD, wherein we tackle the entire run of a film, TV, or videogame series in one fell swoop. This one kind of snuck up on me. I wasn't expecting to re-watch the original Naked Gun trilogy for the new film's debut, but I enjoyed rewatching the first so much I had to watch them all].

The Naked Gun: From the Files of the Police Squad! (1998, d. David Zucker - netflix)
The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991, d. David Zucker - netflix)  
The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994, d. Peter Segal - netflix)
The Naked Gun (2025, d. Akiva Schaffer - in theatre)

Parody films used to be so bankable, both as financial successes at the box office and as tremendous sources of big time laffs, chuckles and guffaws (not to mention titters and chortles). But the parody film has become something rather derided in the past decade or two, in no small part thanks to the prolific output of the "Not Another X Movie" series which treated mere reference as comedy and relied on being gross, crass, or punching down on others as their default mode. But even when parodies were in the hands of parody maestros, like Buck Henry, Mel Brooks and the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker trio, The Naked Gun stood apart.

Leslie Nielsen would go on to star in a slew of parody films following The Naked Gun but to greatly diminished returns. They replied upon Nielsen's comedic persona almost entirely, what they lacked was a central character like Detective Frank Drebin that was a defined suit of comedy armour for Nielsen to wear. Of course, Nielsen had debuted the character in the short lived TV series Police Squad! six years earlier, so the character had already been built and tested. 

I had forgotten how central to The Naked Gun comedy engine Frank Drebin is. He's not a buffoon, yet he can be. He's not oblivious, but he often is. He's awful at his job, but also very successful. He's a mix of the hardboiled detective from film noir and the jaded shoot-first, ask-questions-later cop of the Dirty Harry movies. He's a walking talking cliche that constantly defies the cliche. By the nature of the cliche, Drebin is poker-face serious at all times (except when he needs to react to something, at which point Nielsen's comic mugging is rivalled only by the likes of Jim Carrey) and delivers every line like he's chewed on the words for a millennium even though it's clear he hasn't really thought them through at all. 

Drebin is the primary joke delivery vehicle for The Naked Gun series and why it works so well is because the cliche is so well-worn and time tested and reused ad nauseum, that even a thorough lampooning of the character and story tropes do not diminish the effectiveness of the tropes.  With Austin Powers lampooning the Bond cliches so thoroughly, Bond and spy movies had to evolve from the cliches. Detective and police stories didn't budge an inch after The Naked Gun.

The Naked Gun and its first sequel weren't just keen on parody though. They are joke machines, set-up and punchline followed by wordplay followed by background visual gag followed by slapstick followed by callback followed by character-centric joke followed by topical joke followed by surprise cameo followed by fourth wall break followed by political gag followed by pop culture poke followed by innuendo followed by overt sexual joke followed by non-sequitur, inanity, and silliness... all swirling down the same drain intermixing and popping up again.

The big surprise of the series' first cinematic entry, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, was not only how damn funny it still remains (even outside of nostalgia and intense familiarity) but how little (if at all) it uses punching down in its comedy.  Likewise it was surprising to me, given that David Zucker fell down a right wing rabbit hole in the 2000s, how snarky and satirically scathing they were of the police, Republicans, and jingoism. At one point in the first film, Drebin is asked to hand in his badge and gun and states "Just think, next time I shoot someone, I could be arrested." 

Plot is kind of besides the point in these films, and yet, at their core the first two films still have a meaningful (if irreverent) caper for Drebin to foil in and an emotional arc for him, centered around his love affair with Jane (Prescilla Presley, who the first film convinced a 12-year-old Kent was the most beautiful woman in the world).

The first Naked Gun has O.J. Simpson's (I know!) Nordberg getting shot up during a drug stakeout at the L.A. docks. This coincides with the impending visit from Queen Elizabeth II. In investigating the shooting Police Squad links the events at the docs with prosperous businessman Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalbán) who happens to be the main host and sponsor of the Queen's visit.  Paying a visit to Ludwig's office, Frank and Jane spark an immediate attraction, and Ludwing sends Jane after Frank to find out what he knows. One safe-sex-joke-that-I-totally-didn't-get-when-I-was-12 and a delightfully silly montage later, they're a steadfast couple. But not so fast... of course Frank quickly suspects that she was using him for Ludwig's benefit so they have a romantic complication to overcome as, during the third act, Frank needs to save the Queen from being assassinated at a baseball game. Though perhaps a big detour from the detective/cop genre the film is lampooning, the baseball sequence finds an insane amount of gags from Frank's impersonation of an opera singer for the national anthem (of which he doesn't fully know the words, but then who really does if we're being honest?), to him impersonating an umpire and getting too into the audience adulation for his positive calls for the home team, to him trying to pat down the players throughout the game to check for guns. All that plus getting to watch O.J. as Nordberg get accidentally abused and tortured over and over and over again is its own kind of schadenfreude.

The second (and a half) film finds the comedy less omnipresent than its predecessor, largely because it's a bit more stuck in its time, yet it still has much the same snap as the first. Frank and Police Squad are in Washington D.C. for a Presidential commendation, which finds Frank interacting with George and Barbara Bush, replete with Frank accidentally delivering all manner of assaults and insults upon poor Barbara over and over again. (The George Bush impersonator is caked in thick make-up to a distracting degree, which, really, you couldn't just nab Dana Carvey?). President Bush announces he's deferring his entire energy policy to one man, Dr. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths), who it turns out that Jane now works for. Frank and Jane split up before their wedding and Frank is heartbroken. Jane is now with oil baron Quentin Hapsburg (Robert Goulet), who is secretly running a cabal of energy industry leaders, and they're plotting to fix Bush's energy policy by replacing Meinheimer with a double.  Of course Frank gets in the way, in no small part thanks to Jane's connections to it all. One awkward encounter after another, the pair reunite and they have wild night at the pottery turner (if you don't know the Ghost reference it just becomes a delicious bit of absurdity). After a disastrous incident with a tank, Police Squad is no more, but Frank, Ed, Nordberg and the real Dr. Hapsburg infiltrate the state dinner (as a mariachi band no less) where the fake Hapsburg is to present his fake energy policy and stop a nuclear bomb. Hapsburg nearly manages to escape but is interrupted by a beautifully orchestrated callback. 

The (thirty-three and a) third movie moves itself squarely into the 90's. By this point the spoof movie had taken off with National Lampoon and Mel Brooks back in the game quite heavily, so it seems there was a pivot.  Whether it was studio demands or the absence of Jim Abrahms and Jerry Zucker, this third entry in the series leaned in hard on spoofing then-recent (and not-so-recent) cinema, including opening with a parody of the stairs sequence from The Untouchables, riffing on Thelma and Louise, and, strangely, Staying Alive ( but only in the most rudimentary ways).  Not satisfied with in-story (or in-dreams, or in-tangent) parodies, the film's final act takes place at the Academy Awards (the curious roster of celebrity cameos - like "Wierd" Al and Vanna White is very charming) where they have more opportunity to do out-of-story spoofs like "Geriatric Park". Divesting itself of classic detective and cop tropes and going into 90's crime thrillers and prison dramas along with xenophobic, gay panic, rape jokes and transphobia (in the guise of a Crying Game riff) is the series at its absolute lowest, but sequences that play like hack observational comedy (such as Frank's visit to the grocery store or Frank trying to talk to a cabbie) lay the foundation for this weakest entry in the series.

33 1/3 leaves behind the noirish tendencies, savvy wordplay and even the regular running gags to fit into the "movie riffing on other movies" trend that wouldn't subside for another couple decades. It's really disappointing. On top of that, the story doesn't have any character resonance. It opens with with Jane having become a busy lawyer with her biological clock ticking. Frank has retired and is bored. They want a baby but Jane's too busy and Frank's feeling neglected. The "domesticated man" comedy is dated, but Nielsen sells it pretty good. Ed and Nordberg need his help in a case, and he goes undercover at a sperm bank. After Jane discovers Frank is a cop again, she leaves him, so Frank dives headfirst into more undercover work, going into high security prison to befriend freelance bomber Rocco Dillon (Fred Ward). He helps him escape and Jane reenters the picture just as Rocco's girl Tanya (Anna Nicole Smith, who the film convinced 18-year-old Kent was the most beautiful woman in the world) inexplicably makes fresh with him (it must have been something in Nielsen's contract, as she does it again and again in the film). Rocco's plan is to bomb the Academy Awards, and through various shenanigans (some of them actually amusing) Frank stops them.

It's Frank and Jane's relationship in the first two movies that works so well at its core. The smartest thing the second film did was open with them broken up just so it had an excuse to put Jane with yet another foil for Frank and then bring them together again. Here, the break-up feels contrived and doesn't seem to carry a lot of weight on Frank for the remainder of the film. Jane's return to the fold at the end of the second act is handle well enough to bring her back into the picture, but it's just so she can be the damsel in distress again (though pointedly so, if not quite pointedly enough).  There was an opportunity here to establish a formulae for the series itself, with Frank and Jane starting each film broken up again already, and to continue to abuse Nordberg (which this third entry mostly neglects)... but the series would not continue anyway due to diminishing returns... that is until 2025.

This new iteration of The Naked Gun was resurrected by writer/director Akiva Schaffer (of The Lonely Island), co-writers Dan Gregor & Doug Mand, and producers Seth McFarlane and Erica Huggins, and it falls squarely into the "legasequel" terrain. Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr. while Paul Walter Houser plays the Junior version of George Kennedy's Captain Ed Hocken. Where the Senior Ed was the man in charge of Police Squad in the original series, here both Frank and Ed report into their Chief, played by CCH Pounder.

It's been 30 years since the last Naked Gun film so there's a LOT of cops and detective fiction and non-fiction in the intervening years, and the awareness of police abuses and corruption is much more in the consciousness, so a modern day spoof on the genre has plenty to play with. The film opens with a Christopher Nolan-styled bank robbery sequence that featured prominently in the trailers. Neeson, like Nielsen, is shameless in his comedy guise and had no compunction about doing an action sequences wearing a schoolgirl uniform. Like the original series, this downplays the violence, despite noting how frequently Frank likes to shoot perps (offscreen gun violence is something he shares with his father apparently).

The robbery was a smokescreen for the theft of the P.L.O.T. device, which is handed off to billionaire tech mogul Richard Cane (Danny Huston). His plan is a big modern supervillain grand scheme...to send a signal that will drive the world into a primordial rage, while all the rich shits go live in a secret volcano bunker with "Weird" Al and wait out humanity's self destruction.

As a result of his egregious abuse of his police powers, Frank is booted off the robbery case, and onto investigating an auto wreck. The victim's sister, Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson, which this film reminded me that 14-year-old Kent was convinced she was the most beautiful woman in the world) advises Frank her brother worked for Cane and so the storylines dovetail. Unlike Frank Sr. and Jane, their flirtation is filled with more disdain than attraction, which softens slightly with each subsequent encounter. Beth is much more a woman of action...as a true crime author (based on stories she's made up) she figures she can follow the cliched path of investigating her brother's death and exact her revenge. Only Frank Jr. stands in her way. Unlike its predecessor, and in modern action movie fashion, Frank fails to stop the evil plan, and then has to deal with the fallout. I never could have predicted where it would go, not in a mil...not in a doz... not in, say, seven guesses.

The film is loaded with sight gags, non-sequiturs, wordplay, etc... all the hallmarks of a Naked Gun movie, and its approach to parody is more in line with the first film of the original trilogy, rather than the third. Shaffer opts for stylistic parody rather than direct scene-for-scene or lampooning. He adopts the tone of Tony Scott or a David Fincher when the need serves him, but adopting such sensibilities does bump up against the comedic sensibilities at times. 

There's some of The Lonely Island's trademark pop-culture riffing, with an 80-styled montage of Frank Jr. and Beth, whisking away to a log cabin and having sexy times, but quickly turning weird when they build a snowman, practice witchcraft and bring the snowman to life...and it just gets weirder from there. It's mashing so many references and genres together, it made my brain spin, and yes, I loved it. 

On a joke density level, it's pretty high, especially for a modern comedy released in cinemas (ha... what's that?) but its still not to the level of the original Naked Gun... but I say this with only one viewing. Part of what makes the original so fantastic is familiarity, having watched it dozens of times so as to have seen every joke it has to offer. I have to wonder/hope this version has more in store than upon first watch.

As said, Neeson is game. He's not been shy about dispelling his on-screen image, from A Million Days to Die in the West to The Lego Batman Movie to a cameo in Donald Glover's Atlanta, it's clear the man has a sense of humour and is more than aware of his on-screen persona to subvert it.  After seeing Paul Walter Houser steal his main scene in Fantastic Four: First Steps, I was hoping he would have a bigger spotlight here, but as Ed Jr. he gets about as much screen time as George Kennedy would, but his presence is still enjoyably welcome. Pamela Anderson's comeback career trucks on, after The Last Showgirl showed everyone (who watch it...it's on my list) that she has real-deal acting chops, here she's able to spotlight her comedic sensibilities once again, and all you need is "Sassafras Chicken in D" to tell you she's got the goods. It's hard to think who the modern Ricardo Montalbon or Robert Goulet, because Hollywood doesn't really produce these kind of personalities anymore... and Danny Huston is far too good and capable an actor to be considered in their league, but he does a really good job, culminating in that amazing final showdown with Neeson in the end.

The biggest letdown of this new film is it didn't feature the patented Naked Gun opening title sequence with James Ira Newborn's rollicking, swinging, horn wail of an theme playing over scenes of a police siren wailing while it intones a cop car driving through ludicrous situations (it does play the theme during the end credits and reedits the opening sequences from the original trilogy, which seems a poor concession). That said, the title card of the film does have a good gag, and there are jokes scattered throughout the end credits.

Will The Naked Gun revive comedies on the big screen, or, will it just revive more parody movies (in which case, God help us all)?

One final note, I took my kids (16 and 23) to see the film, and it played well for my eldest who is kind of obsessed with procedurals and detective stories, but my teen hasn't really ever engaged with the genre and found only a few scenes really amusing. This generation of kids who experience most of culture through youtube videos and tiktoks of other people talking about culture makes this kind of spoofing and satirizing difficult, because the kids don't have the cinematic language for it. Or maybe that's just my kid.

 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Absolution

2024, Hans Petter Moland (Cold Pursuit) -- download

I went into this to see another "Liam Neeson as aging ______" (no tag) and, yes, it is that, but it was also something .... more. Not perfectly so, but it at least had the conceit of trying to be more than just its premise, which is, "said aging thug discovers he has ill and will see his memory & functionality drastically fade in less than three years." This is not the first time Neeson has played a version of this character (not literally, but a man of violence with memory issues), but this time, its not as slick, which lent itself to credibility for me. 

Neeson's "Thug" (Liam Neeson, Derry Girls) doesn't even get a name, and he is called just that in the credits, and apparently that was also the original name for the movie. He works for the Conners, one of those low rent gangsters that eke out an existence doing work for other more connected criminal organizations. As we see them, there is just Charlie (Ron Perlman, Poker Face), his son Kyle (Daniel Diemer, Under the Bridge), and Thug, who spends most of his days walking around collecting protection money from business owners who treat him as much as one of the neighbourhood, as anything. He's tough but you can see that he's losing it, forgetting basic things like his boss's name and where he lives. And after seeing specialist, where he learns he has CTE for years of head injuries, he decides to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

Thug is not a good man. He knows he comes from a legacy of angry, abusive men and while he regrets what he let himself become, he also doesn't really try to change it. But his clock is ticking so he takes the gun out of his mouth and does the work to reestablish a relationship with Daisy (Frankie Shaw, SMILF), his daughter, and his grandson. Her life hasn't been much better than his, but everyone seems to be looking for connection no matter how tenuous. This isn't a movie of grand gestures and emotional awareness, but it gets the job done.

Memory loss is all around me these days, as I age, as parents age even more. I see myself going from the guy who could remember the face and name, instantly, of someone he met 20 years ago to doing the "you know, that guy in that movie that came out last year...". Sure, the stress of the past decade has lent itself to that, and its expected to diminish somewhat as you age, but .... it frightens me. I have never been the most lucid guy to begin with, prone to letting my brain go down rabbit holes, staring into space, losing time, but the idea of losing entireties of myself is ... terrifying.

There is now one more "aging hit man" movie to watch, "Knox Goes Away", on Amazon, with Michael Keaton.

KsMIRT: August wind-up [part 2]

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (or mebbe twice each month?!?) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format. 

This (half) Month:
Unsolved Mysteries Volume 4 (2024, 5/5 episodes, Netflix)
Batman: Caped Crusader Season 1 (2024, 10/10 episodes, AmazonPrime)
G.I. Joe: Renegades Season 1 (2010, 16/26 episodes, Tubi) 
Time Bandits Season 1 (2024, 2/10 episodes, Apple TV+)
Derry Girls Series 3 (2022, 7/7 episodes, Netflix)

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Unsolved Mysteries Volume 4

The What 100:  The big pappy of true crime series returns with five new yet-to-be-solved events of a suspicious nature. These include new looks at Jack the Ripper and the mothman (having now migrated from its usual West Virginia stomping grounds to Illinois' Chicago area), as well as a "who did it?" in Calgary, a "whose head is that" in Florida, and a cold case of a murdered college student on campus in the late 1970s.

(1 Great) Having watched many a season of the vintage Robert Stack-led Unsolved Mysteries giving myself many a night terror as a result, I have to say the new, host-less, hour-long, true crime documentary-style format is pretty great. For the most part, I like how this format frequently teases out the mystery for a good while. The storytelling, the editing is exceptionally good, and as a result a lot of these stories have a stickiness to them that make them hard to easily forget or let go of. I puzzled over "The Body in the Basement", a captivating highlight (and gut wrenching tragedy) for days before my brain settled in on there being no answers to the questions it was asking. Did she fall or was she pushed? If those are her own footprints in her blood, why did she stop short of going upstairs? What happened to her phone? Was the door locked or not? Why were there no paw prints in the blood? So many questions that make no sense.

(1 Good) I like that even though it's using this new, host-less, hour-long, true crime documentary-style format, it's not just going with murder/death mysteries, but still exploring the paranormal phenomena the original series did with the same documentary-style lens as the other stories. The Jack the Ripper bit was probably the least intriguing because we're no closer to answers than we were two decades ago, but this was all about dispelling myths. "The Mothman Revisted" episode, though, was neat for how it cited the classic Stack episode on the Mothman, but had something definitely new to talk about. The middle episode, as well, neither a murder/death mystery, nor a paranormal mystery, but instead, a found embalmed head and the people trying to identify it. Curious.

(1 Bad) What's missing from this series that the Stack series had was updates. It directs you online for submitting any tips or info on the subjects at hand and for updates, but the old series used to do updates on repeats or in a subsequent episode, if there were updates to be had. There was something very satisfying about them. In this host-less, hour-long, true crime documentary-style format on Netflix, there's not the same space for updates that there was in a 20+ episode season of a weekly TV series. That said, they could drop Unsolved Mysteries updates on Netflix at any time, as part of a season or just stand alone.  I don't know why they haven't unless nothing material has come of any of the cases yet.

META: I don't really do a lot of true crime... I've dipped into a podcast or two, I watch the occasional documentary film or series, but it's not a regular part of my diet. Still, I actively look forward to each "Volume" of Unsolved Mysteries. Something about having a dose of the unresolved in my diet is very stimulating mentally, even if the subject matter is disturbing.  I can't explain it.

... Wait.... there's a podcast?!? And Volume 5 is coming... October 2nd!

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Batman: Caped Crusader Season 1

The What 100: It's a new Batman animated series from the co-creator of Batman: The Animated Series...Bruce Timm. He's backed by The Batman writer-director Matt Reeves as well as J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company. It's a more mature animated series set in a vaguely 1930's/40's noirish reality, and early in Batman's career as a vigilante. The over-arching stories are about district attorney Harvey Dent's fraught campaign for mayor, and corruption in both politics and the legal system.

(1 Great) As jarring as they may be, I absolutely love the swings this series is taking. Actually being set in the 1930's (ish) rather than the "neo-'30's deco-styled modern Gotham" of The Animated Series allows it to establish a very specific tone, that of the hardboiled, noir stories of the era. On top of that it plays fast and loose with established Batman lore. The Penguin who pops up in the first episode is not at all like any Penguin we've seen before, but I think she's incredible. Same with the divergences for Harley Quinn or Gentleman Ghost or Firebug, among others. 

(1 Good) It's a show aimed less at satisfying the comic book geek and instead scratching the pulp origins itch that clearly Timm always had and never shook.  It's aged up in terms of tone, for a cartoon it's happier with the darker corners of its world and emotions. It's not unapproachable for children, but it's not softened for them either. Batman's kind of a dickhead (every time he coldly calls Alfred "Pennyworth" I die inside just a little...but there's that moment of redemption in the finale that shows there's room for character growth in this series). They're also not afraid of finite ends to their stories or characters, so tread lightly with your expectations.

(1 Bad) As much as I understand the series is not much interested in a world of spandex, and that it's creating its villains as if they were out of 30's and 40's cinema, I still desperately want the mythology to flesh itself out. I want hints that Barbara is going to be Batgirl and Renee will become The Question. They're both agents of upholding the law, but they're both becoming more and more aware of how the system fails, and I wonder how long they can keep at it before they become disillusioned and join Batman in his style of justice?

META: If one is doing a new Batman for TV, it either needs to be a bold reset, or a near-continuation of what has come before. Rarely is it ever a near-continuation of what has come before, and bold resets can lead to disgruntled fanboys (is there any other type?). The word on the street for The Caped Crusader (despite the creatives saying otherwise) was that it was a continuation, or maybe a prequel to The Animated Series. It is not. If anything, though, because TAS was so art deco inspired and had that feel of the 1930s, it's almost like this didn't veer far enough away from that aesthetic to fully distinguish itself. I think that's what many fans who may wind up disliking this are feeling. But I dig it.

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G.I. Joe: Renegades

The What 100:  Scarlett recruits Duke, Roadblock, Tunnel Rat and Ripcord on a secret mission to infiltrate Cobra Industries and expose it for what it is, not a multinational manufacturer of diverse goods and services, but a secret military with designs on taking over the world with experimental, illegal technology. Not only do they have their hands in seemingly everyone's pockets, but they have their own 24 hour news network to spread whatever lies and disinformation they want. And so, our heroes, in trying to uncover this new world-class evil, are instead brandished as terrorists and outlaws and are on the run from their very own military employers.

(1 Great) I clued in during the initial two-parter that it seemed kind of A-Team-ish in its construction, and then the third episode rolled out its new opening credits:
"Accused of a crime they didn't commit, a ragtag band of fugitives fights a covert battle to clear their names and expose the insidious enemy that is... Cobra. Some call them outlaws. Some call them heroes. But these determined men and women think of themselves only as 'Ordinary Joes'. And this is their story."

Yah, it's the A-Team all right. Each episode is mostly just the Renegades roll into town, find the townspeople embroiled in something Cobra Industries related and they try to help out or expose it. It's formulae, and it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's pretty great.  

(1 Good) I was genuinely surprised by the episode "Homecoming Part 1" which jumps into flashbacks of the origin of Duke's rivalry with Flint which is some pretty deep character building for ostensibly a kids' cartoon. There's a lot of nuance introduced into their dynamic which then pays off in "Homecoming Part 2" where the Joes are captured by the military, with straight-laced, by-the-book Flint maybe seeing a crack in his worldview.

(1 Bad) I do get why this didn't resonate with Joe fans. Despite being exceptionally well animated, it's too divergent from the core G.I. Joe idea, that of a highly trained special mission force who are in an open battle against terrorist organization Cobra. The silent war of Renegades is so 2010, of anti-capitalism, and illicit behind-the-scenes dealings, of there being forces in the world so large that nothing will change in the way the world works unless they decide it should change... it's heavy shit, and G.I. Joe isn't really that known for its heavy shit.  Plus, like Batman: The Caped Crusader all of the characters are some type of reinvention of their previous incarnations. Snow Job, Shipwreck, Dr. Mindbender, all of them, with the exception of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow (again with this ninja shit) seem pretty vastly different from how they've been portrayed elsewhere. It's hard to just sit back and enjoy it, and not want it to just get over its "on-the-run" business and become outright Joes vs. Cobra.

META: It's G.I. Joe, but the A-Team! It seems incredible to me - the me of 2024 - that any regular series would so blatantly rip off the formulae of an old TV series (uh, like Poker Face did Columbo?) but a cursory look at 2010 and yeah, the Liam Neeson-led A-Team movie had just hit, and I think this was made in parallel production. I bet that they had banked on the A-Team movie being a massive success (where the first G.I. Joe live action movie truly wasn't) and they would look like geniuses for reformulating G.I. Joe in that manner. But the A-Team failed (not dismally, but not inspiring a whole new generation of A-Team obsessed kids) and so did Renegades. Even the long-running G.I. Joe action figure line produced a wave or two of figures styled after this cartoon (pretty great looking figures) but failed to ignite much fervour (much of it went on clearance, though they've since become pretty collectible). I'm just picking off episodes here and there, but I will definitely complete it (and probably be sad there isn't more when I'm done).

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Time Bandits Season 1

The What 100: A reimagining of the 1981 Terry Gilliam film by Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and Iain Morris. Young, talkative, nerdy Kevin is 10 years old and not very well liked by anyone. He's bullied at school and by his sister, and his parents, obsessed with their phones, don't understand why their unusual, curious, intelligent child isn't into "normal" stuff. When a  troupe of time traveling thieves with a stolen time map use his bedroom as a passageway, he finds himself swept up in their journey, much to the chagrin of the Bandits.

(1 Great) The show, by and large, looks pretty good. There are some interesting sequences, displays of effects (both practical and digital) that are quite eye catching or stimulating.

(1 Good) Jemaine Clement plays a ruler of demons, a sort of devil, one might say, that is very interested in the bandits and their time map. The scenes of Clement in his ample prosthetic make-up and the absurd hellscape sets he's in are pretty imaginative.

(1 Bad) We only made it two episodes in.  Both episodes were written by Clement, Morris and Waititi with Waititi directing. We have ample love for Waititi and Clement, both individually and together Lady Kent and I do, and yet this did not work at all for either of us. There were a few chuckles but no real laughs, there was a twinge of interest, a glimmer of adventure, but most of it fell flat. Kevin is supposed to be annoying and young Kal-El Tuck really gets it, but there's too much of this riding on his nascent shoulders. The leaderless bandits are led by Lisa Kudrow's put-upon Penelope, but it's Kudrow's sense of smart-idiot quirk that doesn't jibe well with the sensibilities of Waititi and Clement as I know them.  Unlike Our Flag Means Death or What We Do In The Shadows, the writers and performers do not give their individual bandits enough unique character or charisma to stand out. They are a unit that all seem to behave much the same way, they're not very fun.  

META: I have only seen Gilliam's Time Bandits once as an adult, and it didn't resonate with me. At this point it's a vague memory. I more recently read the Marvel comics adaptation (like maybe last year even) and I can't remember that at all. Perhaps it's the property that doesn't work for me.  But specifically here, I look at the repartee of Our Flag... or The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin and there's a template there for these types of characters and how to make them funny and subversive and for some reason these very talented creators just couldn't figure it out.  But is it the writing, or the casting? I'm not sure any of the bandits besides Kudrow stands out, and she stands out for the wrong reason. It just doesn't work and I'm feeling completely uninspired to return to it.

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Derry Girls Series 3

The What 100: One final go for the girls from Derry, their families, and Sister George Michael. As The Troubles reach their revolutionary turning point in the mid-1990s, the girls come of age, ready to graduate and it seems all of Ireland is ready to move on to the next moments of their lives.

(1 Great) The best episode of the series is "The Reunion" which finds the moms and aunties and their friends reuniting for their high school reunion. This leads to all the old anxieties, hurt feelings, and pubescent emotions rushing back, with long buried secrets trying to crawl out of their grave and embarrass everyone. It's an episode replete with flashbacks of the women in their younger years of the late-70's with the obvious parallels to the main young cast of Derry Girls providing the most rewarding threads (especially considering that Mary used to behave exactly like Erin does and yet she comes down on her so hard for it). The whole long-buried (literally) secret is a great through line and provides a little mystery to unfold to really suck in the audience. It's a wonderfully crafted, hilarious episode.

(1 Good) After two highly, highly successful seasons, Series 3 seems to break out of its small-scale shell and go much, much bigger with every episode. It's almost like a different show, the scale of production seems that much larger, and the writing that much better at balancing the adventures of the young cast and their parents, grandparents and teachers such that it doesn't just feel like a teen comedy anymore.  In some ways it could be seen as a betrayal of what was established before, but in other ways it feels like it's finally coming into itself, somewhat unfettered by its previous limitations. Most of the episodes this season take place on location, whether it's another town, or on a train, or at a police precinct with Liam Neeson in charge.  My initial impulse is to bristle a things like appearances by Neeson or Fatboy Slim, but they're really just damn good fun.

(1 Bad)  Episode six finds the teens trying to get tickets to a Fatboy Slim concert being held in town. When they come up in the line to buy tickets, Clare has a meet-cute with the ticket girl, except they are the last tickets available. The street toughs behind them aren't pleased and accuse them of jumping the queue and then want to fight James for the tickets. Things take a turn, and later Michelle goes on a sob-story-leads-to-wish-giving TV program and lies about James getting beaten up and their tickets being stolen. This leads to the Girls being VIPs for the concert but Clare the whole time is just fixated on meeting up with the ticket girl. The Girls have another encounter with the street toughs, while Clare makes out with ticket girl, and they get thrown out, yet it's still pretty triumphant overall. A rollicking episode. Except Clare's dad dies and it ends with her big gay triumph undercut by weepy memorial for her Da.  Why? What does this serve, like, at all? Did we ever even meet Clare's dad in the series? Why decimate this triumphant moment for her like this? Even if it's something true from the creator or staff writer's lives, there's no time in this show for this rapid mood swing in the storytelling. It's the most bizarre creative moment of the series and leaves a real bad taste for the penultimate episode.

META: As I mentioned when I last wrote about this show, each series is too short. Even at 7 episodes it's not nearly enough. There's only a total of 19 episode in the entire run. There's something to be said about not milking a premise or quitting whilst one is ahead, but when you have this great of a setup there's so many possibilities for storytelling. I feel like they barely scratched the surface and we barely got to know these characters. Their growth from series to series seemed so spontaneous.  And it's not like you can just do a revival, since these performer are only getting older (Saoirse-Monica Jackson in The Decameron now looks like a grownup, no longer a viable teen), so they needed to do more when they could have. It's a shame.  Like, why not just a Sister George Michael spin-off show then?

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Retribution

2023,  Nimród Antal (Predators) -- download

I honestly expected I would have a few posts of movies with Antal, lumping him into the category of "European directors provided the occasional Hollywood flick because they made a name for themselves", but, really, Predators was the only one I wrote about. But I do recall seeing and really enjoying 2003's Kontroll which means here, in Toronto, so likely Toronto After Dark or TIFF ? Also, he has done more in Hollywood than he ever did when he moved to Hungary to build a film career, actually have been born in California.

Anywayz. Another Liam Neeson as aging ____ movie (never really did the tag) and I still think they are being muddy with his supposed age in these movies. Neeson is 71. In the movie, he has two teenage kids and worked as a financier for his German company for 18 years. That would have made him 53 before he started working there and had the kids. I shouldn't be ageist, as it is possible to start a life in your mid-fifties, but ... likely? Let's just chalk it up for my own age and identity issues.

Anywayz. Matt Turner (Liam Neeson, The Ice Road) is a financier who very quickly is portrayed as a bit shady, a bit manipulative and is used by his CEO Anders Muller (Matthew Modine, Stranger Things) to get clients to do as is needed. And there is tension in his family. On his way driving his kids to school, something he never does, he is contacted via a planted mobile phone and alerted there is a bomb under his seat. If he stops driving, calls the cops or gets out of the car, it will blow up. To confirm the authenticity of his claims, the masked voice on the other end of the phone blows up one of Turner's colleagues in front of him, which also frames Matt as the bomber. The masked voice wants money, because of course he does, from a hidden slush fund that Matt and Muller have hidden away in Dubai.

The movie is typical cat & mouse, misdirection and chase scenes. Neeson is, of course, very capable as the man trying to wrest back control of a terrible situation and very believable as the fearful dad. The rest is just the usual playbook of these movies, which is not inherently bad, for I did enjoy watching it, as I almost always do, but I wouldn't have complained about a bit more meat to the story.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Lou

2022, Anna Foerster (lots of TV including Westworld) -- Netflix

This is how you do a Women with Guns movie about being a mother, exploring both the familial bond and the lack thereof that comes with being a violent sociopath. As opposed to, the other. 

But apparently, the New Hot Place for assassin women to hide is Alaska. Also, retro timelines are FUN! Ok ok, I start off with the snark, but to be honest, I rather enjoyed this one, and maybe it will be a jumping off point for Allison Janney's aging action star career? Can't let Neeson have all the fun. OK, enough snark.

Again, Alaska, the 80s. Lou (Janney, Mom) lives in the woods with her dog Jax. Her next door neighbour, and tenant, Hannah (Jurnee Smollett, Lovecraft Country) is a single mom of daughter Vee (Ridley Asha Bateman, Shattered). Lou is a cranky old lady, constantly harassing struggling Hannah. It doesn't help, as Hannah is still dealing with the abuse from her ex-husband, a man she assumes is now dead. Buuuuut...

Big storm coming, and Lou is making preparations.... well, not for the storm, but her own ending. Obviously she has a past she hasn't quite escaped from, much like Hannah. The storm, or ... someone, cuts the power to Hannah's place, and while she is outside, takes Vee. In desperation, she runs to Lou's place, interrupting a shotgun in the mouth. Instead of explaining, Lou immediately kicks into action, and the two go off into the woods to track the kidnapper, who must be Hannah's ex, despite her being told of his death.

Spoilers?

Surprisingly, as in I was actually surprised by it, things are not as they seem. Lou's past is CIA and that is one thing, but she is also tied to Hannah in ways the young woman could not be aware of. As the two trek through the woods, that Lou is a badass becomes very apparent, but also the details of their connection trickles out. You see, while Lou was in Iran doing Reagan era CIA things (Google it) she became pregnant. To retain her cover, she kept the boy, but motherhood never really... took. So, Phillip grew up... wrong. Lou knows she was responsible so she turned him in, and he instead faked his death. But Lou protected her daughter-in-law and granddaughter secretly, until... well, all this came about.

This is a by-the-numbers thriller but Janney is just steely! That only she, and her character, could have been in a better movie, as despite me enjoying it, I know there was a better... movie there, if only it had the guts to pursue something other than a simple pursuit and revenge movie.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Mother

2023, Niki Caro (Whale Rider) -- Netflix

What does it say about my personality that I make an effort (and even tag it, you doofus) to watch action movies focused on Women With Guns? I really cannot feel that bad considering there is already an established trope along the same lines. But wherein I usually dislike most of its male oriented genre, I do tend to see most in this category, even the ones I know will be less than stellar. Do they make more of an effort with the female helmed properties? Maybe? Not likely? Or maybe I should stop dissecting it, and just enjoy what I enjoy.

Also, why do you have to start pretty much every WWG post with a dissection of the tag? "Do I?" you ask? Well... click through the above tag and you will see, I don't. So, mnneyyyahhh.

So, directed by Niki Caro from a screenplay (and story) by Misha Green, mostly known as showrunner for Lovecraft Country, the movie tells a typical tale of a retired assassin who is drawn out of her isolation, back to her old, more violent life. But it begins before that, in a safe house where she is being harangued by FBI agents tasked with protecting her. She relates her recent past from military sniper to enforcer for arms dealers, a typical story of a killer who cannot come back to "the real world", but she abandons it all when she finds they are smuggling people as well as guns. Unfortunately her partners find her, kill all the FBI agents (but one), so she has to make her own safety in Alaska. Buuut before that, she has her baby, a baby fathered by one of her violent partners, but she doesn't know which one, and that is important because it doesn't matter; the child is hers not theirs. BUT she cannot take the child into hiding, so they fake its death and she tasks the surviving FBI agent with her child's protection. And then she leaves.

Of note, she makes use of that magical portal that transports people in stolen vehicles from one US border to the next, conveniently bypassing Canada altogether.

Years and years later. The FBI agent protecting the assassin's daughter has discovered evidence that the arms dealers are aware of the daughter, so she comes out of hiding to protect her daughter. Act two ends up with her rescuing the girl from her captors and secreting her away back to Alaska, the one place she now knows she can protect the girl. And then the Bad Guys come for them.

Despite my unbalanced paragraphs, things do happen, interesting things where we get to see Lopez being all badass despite her age. Despite her age. I hate how that has to be a thing because its not at all apparent. She's over 50, and while not in the ageless zone of Tom Cruise, there is no denying her athleticism. Men seem to be allowed to begin their action careers after 50 -- Liam Neeson was mid-50s when he did Taken and that was not yet part of his aging men of violence era. But let's hand wave all this consideration away and just say she does come across as convincing, even as the sociopath her character is meant to be. 

But the crux of the film, that she has no character name, just The Mother, is the female aspect of it ("female aspect of it" ?? CRINGE), one that was intentional, and while not the experience of all women, is something that must be unique to women (which is honestly coming from a male who has no desire to child bearing). If Neeson's Bryan Mills was protecting his daughter because he could, and because he had failed her so often before, The Mother is compelled because of motherhood. Or that is the implication. Whether it be biology or ritual or societal convention, that is what is portrayed in her, the mother lioness that will do anything to protect her young, even die. But was it successful in that depiction? Was it different than any other aging assassin protecting a weaker person? Other than a few teary scenes, I am not sure. Maybe I have to subscribe more to the societal convention to see the weight this movie wants to portray? In the end, I think I just ended up with a middling to lower-middling action thriller to add to The Tag.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Sisu

2022, Jalmari Helander (Rare Exports: A Christmas Story) -- cinema

"It's _____ meets _____ ," is how I expect many of the reviews of this movie to go. John Wick will be in there, Quentin Tarantino will be in there. Anyone else? I am not very fond of that trend of breaking something new down into the components that are already familiar in the pop culture eye. This movie is an ultra-violent flick set in WWII, in Finland, about a lone figure who goes up against a platoon of soldiers when they try to fuck with him. And he fucks them up. Into chunks.

OK, let's look at the Rotten Tomatoes posts and see if my previous ascertainment holds. Let's see, I have a "if Sergio Leone had been alive to direct Crank," and a review that calls the main character a "Mad Max maniac," and, "Liam Neeson-esque 'arse-whupping senior' and Inglourious Basterds terrain." And that's just from the Top Critics list. I think my thoughts stand.

The movie begins in the empty beauty of Lapland, vast mostly-flat rolling hills of small scrub and lichen, after a brief history lesson of Finland in WWII: they started the war fighting against the Soviet Union in a horrific "winter war" which ended in an armistice that demanded they drive the Nazis out of Finland. In retribution, the Germans pulled out with a scorched earth method, leaving only the dead behind. Our main character has walked away from all this, but the scars on his body show he was once very very much part of it.

Aatami Korpi is called "The Immortal" by other Finns who have heard of him, a soldier who has constantly survived when the odds were against him. The Germans know his name as well, seeing him as a Wick-ian boogeyman (yeah I had too as well), a name to strike fear in the hearts of evil men (of note, that idiom doesn't seem to have a defined source, where as I had always assumed it as a quote that just kept on constantly getting misquoted). He exemplifies "sisu" an almost indescribable term for Finns implying fortitude, perseverance, grit, an inner strength to continue even when all hope is lost.

First the Germans try to take his gold from him, then they drive him into a minefield, then they chase him down with a tank and many many soldiers, then they hang him, and then... well, you get the point. This retreating (some would say fleeing) company of German soldiers just want to leave the bleak country with something to show for their troubles, but Korpi is not giving up his gold.

It's ridiculous what he survives, almost Looney Tunes blunderbuss-in-the-face-your-bill-pointing-backwards level of unreality. The violence is ultra, the evil is capital E and the hero's grit is something that will never wash out. Not sure if Kent found it as much fun as I did, but it sure was ... an experience.

Director Set: Sam Raimi Fa So La Ti Do

Perhaps my favourite podcast over the past few years is Blank Check with Griffin and David, which finds actor Griffin Newman and critic David Sims covering the entire filmography of a director (one film per episode) specifically those who were given a blank check at some point in their career to make whatever passion project they want.  It's an entertaining, inviting, insightful, thoughtful and incredibly well researched podcast which goes into deep (and sometimes juvenile) conversations about the director and actors and productions of the films they cover, frequently to the point where the podcast episodes are longer than the films.  They just wrapped a deep dive into the work of Sam Raimi. 

I tried to follow along, but as often happens, some works are just not on streaming services, or at least services I haven't subscribed to.  Of Raimi's 14 films, I did not watch The Gift or For Love of The Game due to this factor.  I also did not watch the Spider-Mans 1-3 since I just did an unrecorded rewatch of them after watching Far From Home, nor did I rewatch Oz: The Great and Powerful, which I've already written about (twice) on this blog (and certainly seemed to like more than almost everyone while also recognizing it's a highly flawed film).

So that leaves:
The Evil Dead (1980 - dvd)
Crimewave (1984 - tubi)
The Evil Dead 2 (1986 - dvd)|
Darkman (1990 - rental)
Army of Darkness (The Renegade Cut, 1992 - dvd)
The Quick and the Dead - (1995, CTV)
A Simple Plan (1998, rental)
Drag Me To Hell (2010, dvd)

The first Raimi film I ever watched was A Simple Plan, which I saw in theatres originally and was quite impressed with.  It's the story of Hank (Bill Paxton) an accountant at a feed supply store in a depressed community with a loving, pregnant wife, Sarah, (Bridgette Fonda) and an older brother, Jacob, (Billy Bob Thornton) who is clearly lower on the IQ scale than average (but not explicitly said to have any impairment or disorder).  Jacob has a best friend in the unemployed, heavy-drinking Lou (Brent Briscoe) who Hank disapproves of.  The three men one day have a minor accident while travelling on a winter road and wind up discovering in the woods a downed plane containing a bag full of cash, over 4 million dollars worth.  Hank comes up with a plan to make sure nobody is looking for the cash before dividing it evenly between the three.

It's not long, though, before thinking and overthinking start to become an impediment to success.  Jacob's seeming ineptitude at lying starts a cascade that includes accidental murder, more murder, mobsters and utter corruption of everything Hank believed himself to be.  It's a slow burn suspense film that expertly ratchets up the tension with every scene.  Each subsequent moment a new layer of complexity is revealed, requiring more and more lies to be delivered.  While Hank is our protagonist, it's hard to see him as a good man, given the lengths he goes through, and even Sarah, who seems like a rocksteady moral compass for him, winds up being seduced by the green.  Old Testament style, for his greed, he certainly does suffer in a one-two punch of a finale that feels straight out of film noir.

Raimi has bag of filmmaking tricks he employs in most of his films, but with A Simple Plan he puts them largely aside to let the story and performances dominate the attention...but it's a testament to how adept a storytelling craftsman he is that, without employing said bag of tricks, he produced one of the under-the-radar best movies of the 90's.  It's as riveting 20+ years later as it was at the time.

But back in 1998 I didn't know about Raimi's bag of tricks.  I thought A Simple Plan a wonderful film, but I had no clue, based on that, what made him stand out as a filmmaker.  I would be over two years before I would discover that, thanks to another, non-Raimi production.

2000's High Fidelity was a landmark movie (and book) in my life, a romance story about the collector persona that seemed to be peering into my very soul (in retrospect, though, the film is largely an examination of the fragile male ego though, ironically, seemingly completely unaware of that fact).  It's a film full of amazing dialogue exchanges about being a pop culture nerd, the standout one being where John Cusak, Jack Black and Todd Louiso are having a conversation about the meaning of the word "yet", as in "I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet".  It devolves into a hilarious "who's on first?" misunderstanding of what the conversation is actually about, but it really trumpets the greatness of Evil Dead II as a film.  I hadn't seen Evil Dead II, yet, but I knew I would have to.

Later that year (or perhaps early the following year) Anchor Bay, a company known for releasing cult films on DVD, released a new (or perhaps the first) edition of Evil Dead II on DVD in a fancy tin.  At the time I was big into buying DVDs, especially of cult films I'd only heard about, and even more specifically ones in limited edition packaging, so I snapped it up.  I watched it, but I'm not sure I got it.  Oh, I'm quite sure I didn't get it.  Was it a comedy? Was it a horror? Was I meant to be scared? Was I meant to laugh? Was I meant to be grossed out?  Yes. Yes. Yes yes and yes. But I didn't get it.  It didn't seem to be for me.

When I started dating my now wife, I found she came with all manner of Evil Dead paraphernalia.  DVDs of the trilogy, she had a painting a friend of hers had gifted her of the Army of Darkness poster hanging in her kitchen, and she had action figures of Ash and Deadite Ash on her bookshelf.  She took me through the trilogy, and, I have to say, I still didn't get it.  

It's been over 15 years since and it's only now, having been indoctrinated into the church of Bruce Campbell, that I can appreciate the Evil Dead trilogies  I don't know what it says about the films themselves that I need to tie myself into the cult of personality, and/or steep myself into the behind-the-scenes rigours of making these movies to appreciate them, but having been through a Campbell autobiography or two, having spent a little time studying Raimi and his flavour of filmmaking, and reading many retrospectives on one or all of the films has led to a deep, deep appreciation of them.

That said, watching The Evil Dead is mostly made tolerable, nay enjoyable, knowing the partnership that Campbell and Raimi will develop over decades to come. As we see throughout the series (and in Doctor Strangemom) it never gets tiresome the heaps of abuse and gore that Raimi inflicts upon Campbell in the role of Ash.

The Evil Dead is a rough prototype of a movie, but still a signal flare announcing the director's arrival. The opening shot is what will eventually be affectionately dubbed "Raimi cam" and there are dozens of clever and inventive shots throughout that will major parts of of Raimi's signature bag of tricks throughout his career.

Despite being a horror movie, and more poker faced than Evil Dead II, Raimi can't hide his goofier instincts, so the film has a comedic energy simmering underneath.  Mostly a fun time throughout, the movie feels overlong by at least 15 minutes, despite being only an 85 minute movie.

Evil Dead II meanwhile is every bit the romp Jack Black said it was in High Fidelity.  Decades later its still very much its own distinct thing that doesn't have an equal.  It's a magical mixture of director, star, and effects team coming together to make something that shouldn't exist, yet has for over 35 years.  It's a film that mixes genres with abandon, is unsparingly gross, and manages to make its star both an utter buffoon and yet pretty cool and sexy. 

Due to copyright issues or somesuch over the original film, the first 15 minutes of Evil Dead II act as an accelerated/truncated "Previously On" recap of the prior movie, but the discrepancies in my mind make it its own Ash-led multiverse.  Frankly, I think there's the Ash from The Evil Dead,  another Ash from Evil Dead II, a different Ash for each of the different cuts/endings for Army of Darkness, a different Ash from the Ash vs The Evil Dead TV show, and then multiple Ashes from the various Army of Darkness comics (and I guess now the video game).  And the Book of the Dead crops up in gory, po-faced The Evil Dead remake so it's clearly part of the multiverse as well.   

While The Evil Dead is pretty much pure concept, with little regard for characters, relationships, or story, Evil Dead II corrects this with establishing mythos, bringing a second group into the fold, including an adventuring young woman with some actual knowledge of the history of the book of the dead to act as the brains against Ash's dimwitted brawn. 

Evil Dead II ends with Ash getting sucked into a wormhole, back into a medieval age which is where Army of Darkness picks up.  Raimi pretty much abandons the horror trope in favour of grand scale action and adventure, but most of all, just rampant silliness.  AoD should put Ash at a distinct cultural advantage over the people he's meeting hundreds of years in the past, and yet he's the same jackass dimwit he proved himself to be in Evil Dead II, only he continues to exemplify it.  

AoD seems to be Raimi's purest expression of his ambition.  On a fairly modest budget he delivered an agreeably ridiculous comedy-fantasy-adventure that tries for a Battle of Helm's Deep-style siege on 1/50th the budget, and with a deep reverence for Ray Harryhousen's stop motion animation.  The greatest feat of AoD is the sequence where Ash battles a group of mouse-sized evil versions of himself in an old windmill.  It's a tremendous sequence that builds a ridiculous amount of tension (which should be somewhat unearned, but isn't) through sound design  and then descends quickly into wild slapstick and just delightful camera trickery.  It's clear Campbell is having a blast while also putting his body on the line in a way few other stars (excepting the likes of Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise) do.  

 Army of Darkness has been cut and recut and delivered on DVD in more iterations than almost any other film (perhaps Blade Runner and Highlander II its biggest competition in this regard).  The tone of the films change based on the edit, and the endings starkly different.  The Renegade Cut features the a twist ending where Ash, sent back to the future, is sent too far forward into a seemingly post-apocalyptic Earth, which feels like a clear homage to Planet of the Apes.  I find it preferable to the "official" S-Mart ending where Ash is back at his old department store job and intones the deadites are still after him for some reason (and it fits more in continuity with the 2018 TV show if one cares about such things as continuity).

Raimi delivered a film between each of the Deadite Trilogy.  His first studio picture was Crimwave, which he wrote with the Coen Brothers.  Yes, that's right, there's a Sam Raimi directed film that he co-wrote with the Coen Brothers... and it's something nobody ever talks about because it's borderline unwatchable. 

With Crimewave Raimi set out to make a live action Tex Avery cartoon, only to discover that for all the elaborate prop setups, pratfalls and comedic mugging, none of it really translates to live action.  It just looks awkward.  I made it about 40 minutes into the film before I turned it off, and by that point I still had no sense of what the plot was nor what direction it was taking, and I didn't particularly care to follow through on it.  I don't shut films off very often but somehow Raimi, the Coens, and Campbell in a supporting role just couldn't make it work.  The characters were universally unappealing, and the aesthetic seemed more of what could be in hindsight called a Tim Burton vibe but without the gothic sensibility to the storytelling.

Between Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness however, Raimi made a monster hit out of bringing a Universal Monsters sensibility to the nascent form of superhero movies.  Darkman rode the wave of post-Burton Batman features to success not on name recognition or star power, but on a shrew advertising campaign that asked "Who Is Darkman?" The poster of a figure in a trenchcoat and bandaged face, standing on a rooftop, while not all that heroic-looking, did inspire people to want to know that very answer.

I saw Darkman once in the theatre, and probably once at home.  I was still a teenaged comic book nerd and was pretty pissy about the fact that studios spent money making a "superhero" movie based on an original property rather that using one of thousands of established heroes from decades of comics publishing.  I even watched the first of the two direct-to-video sequels, but I could already see the diminishing returns on a property I didn't even really care about, and certainly didn't appreciate.

Decades later, revisiting Darkman with all new eyes (remembering next to nothing of the picture), I can see clearly what Raimi was going for - the mash of pulp masked crimefighter serial with 30's monsters blended into an original creation that feels out of time even with 1991. It's of a piece with contemporaries Dick Tracy, The Shadow, The Phantom and The Rocketeer, but with more filmmaking ambition, and the same lack of permeability.

It's exciting because of the filmmaking, Raimi hitting especially hard on those notes recalling Frankenstein and other creature features.  The lens goes on a canted angle so often, but it's not for the superhero camp of 60's Batman, but instead to signify the character's madness.  I didn't necessarily love the story being told: the villains are pretty weak and unmemorable, Frances McDormand is a unfortunately written as a lame duck love interest (one never thinks of McDormand as a damsel in distress), and the hero is never truly all that heroic.  It's more of a revenge thing than a hero thing.  I like that Darkman has a power set, and a weakness in mental instability, as well as technology to make false skin and appear as anyone he'd like (excepting the fact that Liam Neeson is a big man) for a limited time...it's rife for more explanation... but Raimi really wanted a pulpy 30's feel and in that limited scope it kinda drag this down.  Yet the visuals, the style, a Danny Elfman (with Shirley Walker) sweeping, of-the-era heroic score elevate it quite a bit higher than some of the other 90's also-ran superhero/pulp hero movies.  (Newman, on the Blank Check podcast suggested that the aborted "Dark Universe" at Universal, intending to create a shared universe of action movies out of it's 30's monsters, would have been far better had Darkman been its lynchpin character, with Neeson serving as the binding elder statesman, and I can't help but think of the missed opportunities in that).

I recall, somehow, quite vividly the TV commercials for The Quick and the Dead from back in 1995.  I was graduating high school but still very much deeply rooted into geeky things, but slowly expanding my horizons.  I still didn't know Raimi from Adam, so my only impression was, well, a silly looking Western.  Westerns were, in my mind back then, for old men.  Like, for my grandpa.  And I had dismissed Sharon Stone based on her post-Basic Instinct roles which all seemed to be retreads of the sex-thriller.  I also had already dismissed Leonardo DiCaprio as a talentless Teen Beat heartthrob (something I think I've only recently gotten past with him as a performer).  And Gene Hackman... a performer so good at playing unlikeable characters that, in my inability to disassociate, I generally disliked Hackman as a performer.  So, no, The Quick and the Dead wasn't something I was going to see.

But man I wish I had.  The film is an absolute delight, with an immediately intriguing premise and a wonderfully stacked cast of both top tier and character actors.  I hesitate to say it, but I think it might be true...my favourite Raimi movie maybe?  It may just be the shine of newness.

The set-up has "The Lady" (Stone) arriving in the town of Redemption just in time for the annual quick-draw tournament.  It's a competition the town's corrupt, strong-arm ruler, Harrod (Hackman) puts on every year, mainly because he knows he's the fastest gun in the west and he can put anyone down.  The Lady is out for revenge against Harrod because of what he did to her as a child, that history getting teased out throughout the movie (and each return to this in flashback gets more an more brutal, although at the end of the second act it sort of stops the movie dead in order to fully play out).

The Lady enters the competition, looking for a valid shot at Harrod.  It's a head-to-head, single elimination bracketed system which allows the film to have a host of eccentric characters filling in the rest of the gaps.  The two other major players are The Kid (who is Harrod's boastful bastard son, played by DiCaprio) and Cort, a preacher who used to run in Harrod's gang but has since found the lord and given up the gun.  He's basically been imprisoned by Harrod and is forced to compete.

Other players include Lance Henrikson as the flashy showman Ace, Keith David as the steely bounty hunter Clay Cantrell, Mark Boone Jr. as the slimy Scars, and Jonathan Gill as the seemingly unkillable Spotted Horse.  If anything is disappointing about this film its that it doesn't give use more larger than life characters for the tournament (out of the 16 players only about half have any real personality to speak of) and we don't spend enough time with the more named characters.  Perhaps it's just that I was enjoying the premise so much I wanted to see every duel and tease out the personlities of the combatants more.  This tournament could easily be remade into a sports mocumentary via an 8-episode TV minis-series.

Raimi gets to have his visual flights of fancy as well as tell a really fun, modern western tale.  It wasn't at all a hit at the time, but it's aged incredibly well, feeling more and more relevant in the age of the reality competition show.  This will be one I come back to over and over.

Skipping ahead nearly 15 years to Drag Me To Hell, a move I had intended to see upon release but just never got around to seeing until this podcast provide a pretense.  This was very much touted as Raimi's return to horror, and on the fan blogs and news websites that popped up in the 2000s, this was a very big deal.

Now having seen it, I'm so torn about how I feel. While I really appreciate the craft within the production and structuring of the film, as well it's Raimi's distict tone nearing its purest form, I also found it kind of tedious at times.  There's a seeming inevitability to the entire production that it doesn't ever escape.  

What I think was missing was the Bruce Campbell factor, a likeable performer whom Raimi heaps all manner of abuse upon, and is completely invested in receiving it. Alison Lohman is... fine, but she didn't seem like the right Raimi punching bag (one of my disappointments about the Evil Dead remake was that it was done as straightforward horror, but I thought Jane Levy would have been the perfect Campbell substitute). I think this role needed someone who could present themselves as sort of insecure and docent but have a real tough farmgirl with a mouth underneath, an while Lohman delivers on the first, I don't really buy her delivery of the latter. I'm also torn about whether her responses to terror are overly-cartoony, or appropriately so, or perhaps even not big enough (Raimi's drive to create live action Looney Tunes by way of horror has been evident from the beginning of his career).

This also has some (at least 3) highly questionable at best, outright offensive at worst cultural representations that the agnostic blonde white girl needs to navigate in order to learn about and survive the horrors that have been set upon her.  Its use of Romani stereotypes the most egregious of these.

In hindsight I like Raimi's navigation of the character, whether Christine deserves what's happening and whether she is a good person. But in the moment it felt like such an uneven performance. I think I will need a rewatch to really see whether the performance holds up to the intent.

---

---Ranking Raimi---

1. The Quick and the Dead - surprising
2. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - blasphemy, I know but I genuinely love it
3. A Simple Plan - probably his best movie
4. Army of Darkness - my favourite of the Deadite trilogy
5. Spider-Man 2 - I have a mixed relationship with Spider-man (both in comics and film) but I can't deny how good this is
6. Evil Dead II - it's earned its rep
7. Spider-Man - sometimes I watch it and it's great, sometimes I watch it and I think it's so clunky
8. Darkman - there's something to this, but I wish there were more of that something
9. Drag Me To Hell - going to need another viewing
10. Oz: The Great and Powerful - don't hat it as much as everyone else
11. The Evil Dead - it's not bad, but it doesn't do much for me
12. Spider-Man 3 - it's pretty bad and actively makes me angry to watch it
13. Crimewave - unwatchable?
    did not see:
    The Gift - will see immediately whenever it comes available on streaming
    For Love of the Game - it's a baseball movie so likely will never see it